Birthday cake trifle

Technology is well and truly conspiring against me at the moment. Nothing in my life works properly. We've bought a newfangled tablet thing, which doesn't seem to do anything useful. My macbook is so old that it's about to claim its bus pass, my phone hasn't been updated for so long that it's simply refusing to do anything, and the DVD player has now decided it doesn't like DVDs. And nothing rivals Ben's laptop, which has half a screen and no keyboard. Everything media based seems to involve connecting one crappy piece of hardware to another, to share around the elements of it which aren't crappy.

The tip of the iceberg is that the oven seems to have gone on the blink. Now I'm not entirely sure if this is just my paranoia, it's not clapped out completely or anything, but something has definitely changed since we moved house. Things only seem to cook if they're on the top shelf, and then they cook a little too much. If you put anything on the bottom shelf then you might as well just stand there and breath heavily on it for two hours

*Insert something about bad workman, blame and tools*

All this resulted in me well and truly shitting-up Ben's birthday cake a few weeks ago. A simple victoria sponge and I couldn't get it right. It overflowed like some sort of eggy magma, covering the entire bottom of the oven. And I've only just plucked up the enthusiasm to clean it, because oven cleaning just isn't something I think anyone should ever have to do ever.

I couldn't face trying to make it look presentable as a cake, but nor could I bear to throw it in the bin. If I were clever I would have marketed it to the crowd as 'Deconstructed Birthday Cake', but really it's a fucking trifle. And it doesn't really warrant a blog post, as the recipe is just throwing a bunch of stuff together, but it's a handy thing to have in your head, should you similarly shit-up a cake...

Birthday cake trifle

One layer of sponge cake (2 eggs, 4oz stork, 4oz caster sugar, 4oz self-raising flour, 1tsp vanilla extract - all mixed together and cooked in a greased tin for about 30 mins, gas mark 3)
1 bag of frozen fruit, defrosted - mine was optimistically labelled 'summer fruits'
2 shots of creme de cassis (optional)
300ml double cream
2tbsp icing sugar
1 pot of fancy shop bought custard
Handful of toasted almonds

Now, my trifle doesn't have jelly in, because jelly is rank, but you can add some in if you're a bit twisted.

Line the bottom of a deep bowl with the sponge cake. Mix the fruit with the creme de cassis and then spoon over the sponge.  Next the custard.  Whip the double cream with the icing sugar, and use to top. Scatter over the chopped almonds and chill for a couple of hours.

April Outline article: Tomato and basil soup

Below is my April column for Outline Magazine; on lurgy, tomato soup, and impure thoughts about Jon Snow (no, not the news presenter).

I’m generally all for a bit of cold weather. Summer is far too much like hard work – I spend most of it with a sweaty fringe and an overriding preoccupation with how to cover my upper arms. Winter is much more dignified. It has big coats and scarves; log fires, mulled wine, CHRISTMAS (remember Christmas?). As it approaches I can pretend that I’m living in an episode of Game of Thrones, and any minute now I’ll bump into the handsome, young Jon Snow. Jon and I will take his pet direwolf for a walk, feast on roast boar, and then he’ll lay a load of bear skins down in a snowy cave and hang his cloak up and we’ll...

BACK IN THE ROOM, MORGAN.

But Jon never showed up, and now it’s April and I’m still sat here wearing three jumpers and a balaclava in my living room to keep warm. My 200 denier tights have lost their elastic through overuse, the cat hasn’t a clue what stage of malting it’s meant to be at, and with every turn of the gas meter I can hear the pounds dropping into British Gas’s pockets and a fat cat grin spreading across the CEO’s face. It’s fair to say the novelty of a bit of a chill in the air has well and truly worn off.

Right now we should be skipping through meadows with lambs and baby bunnies, gathering daffodils as we pass. We should be getting overexcited about hanging our washing outside, or leaving the house without a coat, or planting a load of flowers and vegetables which will inevitably all die at the first sign of a heat wave. Really at least one of your friends should have organised an optimistic BBQ by now.

But alas, no, apparently we all fell through the back of a wardrobe when we weren’t paying attention and are stuck in fucking Narnia.

The biggest bore of the prolonged winter is the never-ending bouts of lurgy going around. Every trip on public transport is a stealth mission in phlegm avoidance; evenings are spent downing hot toddies rather than flaming zambucas, and we all have the complexion of Bella Swan with a hangover. Almost every person I know is suffering from some sort of affliction right now, be it cough, sniffle or pox.

The only advantage of this lack of health is a culinary gold ticket to eat whatever the hell you like. Of course, you can take the approach of snorting lines of Berocca and injecting orange juice into your eyeballs, but I view this as closing the stable door after the horse has legged it, somewhat. Instead I choose to eat what makes me feel good. I dose up on comfort rather than vitamins. Ice cream for sore throats, macaroni cheese post-noro, seven bars of Green and Blacks for anything vaguely resembling a menstrual cramp.

Tomato soup, I believe, is the epitome of ill food, and this is my version. Don’t get me wrong, at times of poorliness I’m all for the stuff in the can, but on one particular bout of near-death I was forced to create my own. It was either that, or leave the house to go and buy a tin, and the prospect of washing my hair and replacing my pyjamas with a snow suit was just too much to comprehend...

Tomato and basil soup

Serves 4

1 onion, roughly chopped

4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

3 tins chopped tomatoes

1 ½  pints vegetable stock

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp dried chilli flakes (optional)

Large handful of basil, stalks and all

Glug of oil

200ml single cream

Salt and pepper

Fry the onion in the oil until softened, then add the garlic and fry for another minute. Throw in the tomatoes, stock, sugar, vinegar and chilli and bubble away for about 30 mins or so. Add basil and cream and blend. Taste, and add more seasoning etc if needs be. Serve and top with a swirl of cream or a handful of cheddar.  Another excellent accompaniment is the bread recipe from last month’s column...

Feta, tomato and basil muffins

Happy Easter, y'all. In some gross failure of grocery shopping (and boyfriend selection) I'm sat here without any chocolate eggs. Its tough being me. Hope the bunny bothered to stop at your house.

To really torture myself I've decided to reminisce about a load of baked sugary goods which were in my possession just two weekends ago, all in the name of the Make and Do pop-up shop: a selection of artists, and a couple of bakers, come together to sell their wares.

This was my first foray into baking professionally for a good few years, and an excellent reminder as to why I don't do it anymore. I had forgotten just how OCD I get about washing my hands. I had forgotten how the cashier in Sainsburys looks at you when you buy 3kg of icing sugar and 10 packs of butter. I had forgotten how your brain feels after a whole day of eating nothing but raw cake mix, for 'testing' purposes. And I've forgotten where I've put my favourite icing nozzle (of course I found it straight after I needed it). That said, it was good to get back on the diabetic horse.

It was a fantastic day, with a wonderful bunch of people. Rose (of Mountain Bakery) and I sold a load of baked goods, and then went and spent all of the money we made on other people's stuff. That seemed to be how it worked for everyone involved, like some sort of arty food chain, but that's testament to how wonderful everything was.

On the day I made the obligatory cupcakes (cookies 'n' cream and vanilla), banana and white chocolate blondies, and savoury muffins. I also made some meringues, but the less said about how they turned out the better, the traitors.









Because you've all probably had far too much sugar already this weekend, I thought I'd give you the savoury muffin recipe. But if you need more of a fix, the cookies 'n' cream recipe (and a breakdown of my love/ hate relationship with the cupcake) is here and the blondies are here.

Feta, tomato and basil muffins

Makes about 8
100g feta, crumbled
Large handful of basil, torn to small pieces
150g cherry tomatoes, quartered and deseeded (sun dried would also work well)
250g self-raising flour
80g butter, melted and cooled
200ml whole milk
2tsp baking powder
1/2tsp bicarbonate soda
2 eggs
1tsp salt
Black pepper to taste

Heat the oven to gas mark 6.  Mix together the dry ingredients in one bowl (flour, baking powder, bicarb, seasoning) and the wet in another (eggs, melted butter, milk) then gradually add the wet to the dry. Once fully combined, add the tomatoes, basil and feta and stir.

Line a muffin tin - with muffin cases, or squares of baking paper - and fill about two thirds of the way up.  Bake for approx 20 mins, until the tops are firm and golden.

Outine article - March

Should you be interested, you can read my March article for Outline magazine here (p.34). The recipe won't be anything new to regular readers, BUT you can read my month's musings and blasphemous links between Jesus and artisan baking...

Pop-up shop

Attention Norfolkers - this Saturday, I will be selling baked goods at the above. How about you come say Hi and consume some mega calories?

Banana and Nutella cake

Excuse the absence. Bloody houses, bloody decorating, etc. Anyway, moving on....

There is a trend in the blogging word, it seems, to be constantly announcing exciting news on the horizon. The writers of many of the blogs I read - mostly the ones I follow specifically to make myself cross - are forever shouting about new projects and collaborations, soon to be revealed. But often you never hear any more about it, or it turns out to be something unnecessarily dull, like a new sponsor, or a competition to win a pair of mittens made out of cat hair.

So recently, when I got my own little bit of exciting news, I kept it to myself; hidden away in some secret place (a bit like the eyeshadow I stole when I was 13 and then hid under my bed for the next five years, in fear that a wondering policeman would spy my sparkly eyelids and just KNOW). I was reluctant to shout it from the rooftops, in case it never come to anything, or I'd sound like one of those knobends who constantly retweet praise on twitter.

But now that it's actually happened, I feel that I can make a bit of a fuss about it. Perks and compliments are few and far between in blogsville, so I don't feel too guilty about the ego trip. And it seems fitting, with Sod Nigella recently celebrating its first birthday *weak party blower sound*.

So my news is this: I am now the monthly food columnist for Outline magazine - a news/reviews/what's on type publication for the yoof of Norwich. Most famously it features a spread of photos of people on nights out, which as teenagers you would check furiously to see if you'd been snapped on the raz at Po Na Nas. Being the same age as me, the editor, Emma, has recently decided to start adding a few more features for the prematurely middle aged, which is where yours truly comes in.

Of course, I don't get paid vast sums of money or anything professional in THAT sense, but I do get to yell things like "Can you think of an example of X, it's for a thing?" and "Don't bother me, I'm on a deadline!" at Ben. The beach hut in Barbados is a while off yet, but I can say that my name is in print and being circulated to the masses of Norwich.

Wanna see? Well you can do so here (p.28). You can expect much of the same as what you get here - a lot of swearing and amateur cooking techniques, but within a word limit and on a less sporadic basis.

For my first article in Feb, I was tasked with writing about pinterest (a subject which I feel predictably cynical about, at the same time as finding it quite useful) and recreating a recipe from my own pinnings. This was the outcome: a banana and Nutella cake.

Turns out Ben doesn't like banana cake. Shame.

Bananutella Cake

4 eggs

8oz caster sugar

8oz stork/butter, softened

10oz plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1tsp vanilla extract

3 ripe bananas, mashed

2tsp cinnamon

Icing

300g icing sugar

200g cream cheese

2 heaped tbsp Nutella

Mix together all of the cake ingredients, except the banana. I’m a great fan of bunging it all in together, but you can cream your butter and sugar and so forth, if you’re that way inclined. When smooth, stir in your bananas.

Decant into two round, greased cake tins and bake for about 45 mins at gas mark 3/160C. Check after half an hour by inserting a skewer into the middle – if it comes out clean your cake is done, if it’s got some mix on, shove it back in for another ten mins at a time until done.

Once cooked, allow your cake to cool and make the icing by mixing the icing sugar (you do have to sieve that I’m afraid), cream cheese and Nutella.  Make sure to mix it well, so you have a smooth consistency. Then splodge it on to your cake in whatever manner takes your fancy, and scoff.

Mountain Bakery's easy peasy Dutch oven bread

Hands up who sees the words 'Dutch Oven' and immediately thinks of the tactical, under-duvet fart technique? You too? Jolly good, glad we've got that out of the way.

Moving on from toilet humour, I've got a bit of a confession to make....I've never made bread before. I know by now you've all come to see me as some perfect and peerless baking guru (ahem), but this is the truth of it. The problem is that I'm lazy; I like instant gratification. I can't be doing with sitting around waiting for the yeast do its magic and then go seven rounds in the kneading ring every few hours. I don't find it therapeautic, it makes my weedy arms hurt. 

But, whilst I am lazy, I am also a total lemming. I'm a fan of followng the crowd, and right now the crowd is making its own bread and social networking it in my face. I see the photos on instagram and I think to myself, 'I want a piece of what they've got'. So, I had to get my act together and make some goddamn bread.

CHEERS FOR THAT, YOU SMUG BASTARDS.

I browsed a few recipes and was about to relent and use one by that smarmy goblin, Paul Hollywood, but then Lo! Behold! Like some beacon from heaven, this recipe sprung up in my blog feed, which requires absolutely no kneading, and very little effort of any sort. It is so easy that is has actually changed my whole approach to bread buying, in that I've completely given up buying any from the supermarket. Throwing this together is as easy as walking to the shop (unless you need to walk to the shop to get the ingredients - in which case, may I recommend Ocado?) and a darn sight cheaper. All you need is a little forward planning, to allow for the dough to rise. Oh, and it's a bit of a bugger to wash up after, there's no way around that.



The recipe comes from the lovely Rose, of Mountain Bakery; a micro bakery, based in Noriwch. Rose runs Mountain Bakery in her spare time, as a distraction from the day job, and can be found at various fairs and stalls of a weekend. She also runs a genius bread club, whereby for £12 a month you get a weekly bread delivery (still warm from the oven) and occassional little extras which Rose thinks will compliment the bread. 



We had our first delivery on Friday; not to our door, but to the pub which we happened to be in when the bread came out of the oven. A gorgeous little spelt, rye, and fennel loaf, with a pot of rhubarb and vanilla jam. Having a warm, scented loaf in my handbag for the evening was somewhat torturous, and I have to admit to, after a few wines, passing the jam round the table and us all ungracefully sticking our fingers in for a try. We're pure class.



The jam is divine, and the bread is fucking excellent, so I recommend all of you Norwich bods get signed up to Bread Club (first rule of which is that you MUST talk about bread club and make this girl deservedly rich).

Whilst I am usually inclined to dick about with a recipe, on this one occassion I refrained, so I am simply going to quote Rose's method. You also get a lovely little instructional video, made by Spindle Productions.

No-Knead Dutch Oven Bread Recipe

No-knead Dutch Oven Bread from SpindleProductions on Vimeo.

¼ teaspoon of dried yeast

350ml tepid warm water (so that when you dip your finger in, you can’t really feel any change in temperature)

400g strong white flour

1 ½ teaspoons of salt

The night before you want to bake, start off by combining the yeast with the warm water. You should start to see little bubbles appear at the edges and the water should turn milky, this means that the yeast is waking up nicely.

In another bowl, mix the salt and flour together well and then add to the water and yeast mixture. Turn it with a spatula until everything is mixed, it will look wet and shaggy, but that’s fine, cover with cling film and leave at room temperature overnight. The dough will enlarge to at least twice it’s size as it proves – so make sure it is in a large bowl and has room to grow.

In the morning take some flour and generously coat your work surface. Scrape your dough out of the bowl – be careful with it, as you don’t want to manhandle it too much at this point, as you may knock out some of the air that’s developed inside it during proving, which will give you a nice holey texture when baked. Put your casserole pot in the oven, and preheat to 250 degrees centigrade, fold the dough over on itself once and cover with a tea towel whilst you’re waiting.

Once your oven is up to temperature, carefully take out your casserole pot, scoop up your dough and put it in. With a lid on, return the dish to the oven for about 40 minutes. You may (as I usually do) want to take the lid off the pot about 10 minutes prior to taking the loaf out, so that the crust is all crispy on top.

Et voila! Yummy homemade bread for breakfast or brunch, with hardly any effort at all!