Vienna - cake for breakfast

We have just had the briefest of sojourns in Vienna - three nights, two and a half days, and it wasn't nearly long enough. Usually after a holiday, I am ready to come home but this time...I would quite happily have stayed, even if just for another day or so. What a city! The architecture in the first district is, I think, the most beautiful and spectacular that I have seen anywhere in the world with a new delight around every single corner. 

Of course, being us, greedy as sin, our top priorities nearly all involved consumption of some sort or another. And yes, we did indeed have cake for breakfast. Twice.

The first - at Cafe Demel. This is one of two places that claims to have invented the famous Sachertorte and there is a permanent queue outside for both the cafe and the shop. It's just like you imagine a Viennese coffee shop to be though; ornate and twee at the same time. We breakfasted like kings (or emperors) on the aforementioned Sachertorte, apple strudel and a speciality of the house: Kaiserschmarrn. This last dish was our favourite - fluffy pancakes, torn up into scraps and dusted with sugar, served with apples, raisins and a side of stewed plums. So delicious! I'm going to try and make this at home (there are recipes online although I've not seen one yet that tucks spiced apple in amongst the pancake pieces).

The Sachertorte was...ok. The flavour combination of chocolate and apricot jam is lovely. The rich, chocolate icing was...well, rich and chocolatey although not as shiny as we were expecting (D clearly has absorbed some Bake Off lingo as he wondered out loud where the "mirror glaze" was to be found). And the cake was ever so slightly on the dry side - perhaps deliberately so, as it is served with cream and the moisture was provided by this, the jam and the coating. But, still, onwards.

The Hotel Sacher was just as gloriously Disney-esque inside as Demel, with be-suited waiters and a sweep of red carpeted stairs up to the dining room. Here we breakfasted slightly more sensibly - in that we had actual Viennese breakfast food rather than just cake. But, even so, along with a delicious bread, cheese and meat platter, the Viennese breakfast comes with a Sacher cube (Sachertorte in miniature form). D rather confused the waiter by asking for a slice of torte as well. He didn't feel that the cube would offer true like for like comparison.

Do you know - again it was only ok, and for the exact same reasons. In fact, there seemed to be practically no difference between the two although obviously impossible to fully tell without a side by side taste test. 

Regard that glorious meat and cheese plate, though! The truffled ham, in particular, was fantastic. 

So - Sachertorte ticked off the list - underwhelming, but only slightly so. Kaiserschmarrn introduced to the repertoire - happy days. Ridiculous practice of eating cake for breakfast - not to be encouraged in the normal run of things. 

Recipe corner: maritozzi (Roman cream buns)

It's been a good few weeks since we got back from Rome and we still find ourselves talking frequently about the trip, which is probably a sign that a) it was a good holiday and b) we need to get ourselves back there as soon as ever we can. Which, unless someone wins the lottery, is unlikely to be this year. So, in the meantime, we console ourselves with glorious Italian food.

This weekend, I made maritozzi, which are light, sweet buns split and filled with whipped cream. One restaurant we went to also served a savoury version wherein the buns were split and filled with whipped anchovy butter. As rich as it sounds. For mine, I made two versions - one where the sweetened cream was rippled through with raspberry puree and another where it was combined with the sweet pistachio paste that I brought home from Rome. But, really, the world is absolutely your oyster here. 

The buns themselves are a lovely texture managing to be both light and robust, and while they are sweet they are not overly so; I split one and had it toasted with butter and jam and that was also delicious. I suppose they are tending towards the brioche, but slightly less rich.

Chef's note one: I baked a test batch for 20 minutes and they were beginning to dry out, 18 was perfect. But, it's always worth starting to test slightly early. For an enriched dough like this one, you want the internal temperature to be between about 90 and 93 degrees to ensure they're cooked.

Chef's note two: I never have whole milk in, we are skimmed all the way in this house. So, after a bit of research online, I discovered that I could combine 290ml of skimmed milk with 2 tsp of double cream which should achieve around the same fat content as whole milk.

Chef's note three: you could make these the night before and leave to prove in the fridge. Ensure that they come to room temperature before baking. Having said that, they seem to last extremely well in a sealed container.

Ingredients

300ml whole milk (see note above)

530g strong white bread flour

1 tbsp fast action dried yeast

1/2 tsp salt

1 medium egg yolk

70g runny honey

60ml olive oil (plus extra for greasing)

Makes 10 buns

Pour the milk into a small saucepan. Whisk together the honey and the olive oil. Place the dry ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook and break in the egg yolk.

Set the saucepan of milk over a low heat and bring it up to a low heat (the best way to test this is with a clean finger. It should not feel too hot to the touch). When the milk is warm, whisk in the honey and oil mix. Turn the stand mixer on to a low speed, and, when the egg is incorporated, start to pour in the liquid.

Once everything is added, and the dough is coming together, whack the speed up a couple of notches and knead for 7 mins (note: if you're doing this by hand it may well take longer. Be aware that this is quite a soft, sticky dough and a mixer is preferable if at all possible).

Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave to prove for 60 - 90 minutes, or overnight in the fridge.

When making the buns, divide the dough into 10 equal pieces, shape into balls and place on two lined baking trays. Prove for a further 30 minutes, switching the oven on to 180 around 10 minutes before you are ready to bake to ensure it is up to temperature. Bake these for around 18 - 20 minutes, turning the trays round halfway through if the temperature distribution in your oven is uneven.

Once cooled, these can be split and served with any sweetened, flavoured cream filling of your choice. 

Fresh from the oven

Scruffily filled with raspberry cream

Happy New Lockdown

We watched that all time classic film Groundhog Day on NYE; it seemed peculiarly appropriate as we prepared to say farewell to 2021. And, turns out, peculiarly prescient too, as last night England was plunged back into the lockdown that everyone (apart, perhaps, from the actual government) knew was coming. And even though it won't make an awful lot of difference to my life in the immediate future (we had more or less decided to hunker down for the next few months anyway - and are blessed enough that we can do so) still, I lay awake for hours last night feeling sad and anxious.

I am worried for the health of my friends and family. I am worried for the sanity of those of them who have to go back to trying to home school their children alongside everything else. I am worried for all those businesses, particularly those in the hospitality trade, who must be limping along in hope of a miracle: what will survive when we finally make it out? I also realised, extremely selfishly, that I am worried about the food shortages that happened last time (who could forget that dreadful few days where I COULDN'T BUY EGGS*) and then started worrying about the fact that it is somewhat morally dubious to have such concerns in the face of all the others. 

*(And we get eggs delivered every week now, by our friendly local milkman, so we are usually overrun with them).

Let's talk of happier things, shall we? Did everyone manage to have some sort of Christmas? We were lucky enough to see my parents briefly on Christmas Day - I don't know how lucky they felt given that I wept all over them - which was gorgeous. I baked Gougeres for the first time in ages which almost made me feel like a hostess again. Christmas Dinner was our standard fare - confit duck leg, duck and black pudding bonbon, mash, red cabbage, creamy mustard sprouts - which, as ever, was sublime. And, for the first time ever I made a Yule log! I'd share a picture but, dear Teapot, my food photography skills, lacking at the best of times, have not been kind to the poor beast and I wouldn't want to put anyone in mind of...well, you know. Suffice to say, the sponge was light, the filling flavoured with cherries and Kirsch was airy and boozy and the chocolate ganache was dark and slightly bitter to balance everything out. I declare it a positive triumph.

Amazingly, our waist lines escaped the whole festive period relatively unscathed. We'd already been making efforts in that direction before Christmas (of which maybe more in a future post) and I think we naturally managed to balance the more indulgent days with lighter ones. My last hurrah meal before work re-started yesterday? A poached egg on toast. And very nice it was too.

A couple of recipes to share with you (I'll add the links to the relevant page). I used several different recipes for the Yule log, but the basic chocolate Swiss roll was from the GBBO site and I was extremely pleased with the way in which it turned out. Some recipes call for beating the eggs and sugar up over a pan of warm water, but warming the eggs slightly first is so much easier! My sponge was perfect after 8 minutes of cooking, but my oven is a beast so the 10 minutes specified in the recipe is probably fine for most. 

And this carrot and sesame seed bread by Dan Lepard (I'm getting slightly obsessed with the man) was divine - although I found that my mixture needed a splash more liquid than specified to completely come together. Marvellous flavour and texture in the finished loaf though - and a crisp crust that particularly suits it for toasting.

2021 may not have got off to the greatest of starts, but I hope everyone out there is bearing up. (Sort of ) happy new year all!

Recipe corner: pineapple upside-down cake

I make no apologies for publishing something so unashamedly retro because it is, without a shadow of a doubt, exceedingly good cake.

I've been baking quite a lot over the last few weeks.  For one thing, barely going out means that I need to keep a supply of potential snack food on hand.  For another, it is a very soothing activity and makes me feel very content in a sort of 1950s hausfrau sort of a way.  Also (and this is particularly pertinent to this post) we have been getting all sorts of random fruit and veg in our weekly box which we wouldn't normally buy and baking is a good way to make sure everything gets utilised.  

I read through quite a few recipes before settling on this one, which originates from the BBC Good Food site.  The method, of smearing the butter and sugar mixture all over the bottom of the cake tin rather than melting it down into a caramel, seemed to me to be pleasingly faff free and it worked a treat.  When you look at the ingredients list, the scant amount of sponge mix might seem like an error but I think it produces an excellent ratio of fruit and caramel to cake.  

Treat this recipe as a blueprint to pull out whenever you have some random soft fruit that you need to use (perhaps in your weekly box, or a tin lurking at the back of the store cupboard).  I had great success with making an upside-down plum cake the other week (in fact, D preferred the plum version to it's pineapple cousin).  Inspired by that, and again in the quest for the perfect distribution and ratio, I would encourage you to imagine a plum cut into eighths when slicing your fruit.  When I made the version in the picture, my pineapple chunks were a bit...chunky.

Incidentally (and I'll stop whiffling and get to the recipe in a second) I make this in my silicon cake tin and it works like a charm.  I am slightly obsessed, I won't deny it, even if it does fly in the face of tradition somewhat and means that I run the risk of losing my 1950s hausfrau badge.

Ingredients

50g light, soft brown sugar

50g softened butter

Tsp ground cinnamon

250g pineapple, cut into smallish chunks (see note above)

100g softened butter

100g caster sugar (golden if you happen to have it)

100g self raising flour

Tsp baking powder

Tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 180 (160 fan).

Combine the 50g butter with the 50g sugar and the cinnamon until it reaches the texture of very damp sand.  Spread this across the bottom of a 20cm cake tin and about a quarter of the way up the sides (you don't have to be too precise here).  By far the easiest way to do this is with your hands.  Pretend you're making sandcastles.

Arrange the fruit across the caramel mixture.  Aim for as even a distribution as possible.

Now for the cake.  Cream together the rest of the butter and the sugar until pale and fluffy.  Then add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each one, and stir through the vanilla extract.  Finally, sift in the flour and the baking powder and gently fold through so that you have a soft, smooth batter.

You now need to spread the cake mix on top of the fruit.  It may look like there isn't enough, so spend a bit of time, preferably using a silicon spatula, to make sure the mixture is evenly spread.  

Bake in the oven for 25-35 mins (my oven is a beast so I start checking after 20).  The cake is ready when a skewer (or a small piece of dried spaghetti, my weapon of choice) comes out clean.

Leave the cake to cool for 5 minutes and then you need to turn it out onto a plate.  This is less scary than it sounds.  Place your hand flat under the cake tin (use an oven glove if it is still too hot to handle at this stage) and cover the exposed cake layer with a large plate then turn over in one swift, smooth movement.  Believe me, I am the clumsiest person in the world and I have managed several times without incident.

This cake is lovely warmed, with cream or ice cream for a school dinners-tastic pudding, but cold with a cup of tea is good too.  Whatever floats your boat.

Made in Oldstead

We can't eat out at the moment but fortunately some restaurants are making it possible to eat out at home.  That sentence makes NO SENSE.  But you know what I mean - some restaurants have moved into the takeaway business.  Or perhaps, more accurately, the posh ready meal business.  I, for one, am glad and wish that I was rich enough to buy from all of them all of the time.  I want these places to survive and be around when we emerge, blinking, into the sunshine of non-lockdown.  Although knowing Britain, the end of lockdown will coincide with a period of monsoons.  Our weather systems tend to have a finely tuned sense of irony.

Anyway, back to the point.  This weekend we donated £70 of your English pounds to the "Save the Local Restaurant" fund that is The Black Swan at Oldstead's food box scheme.  Another cracker of a sentence there. 

We love The Black Swan.  Well, I say that.  We've been twice.  We loved it on the second occasion and liked it very much on the first.  The food that they are making for the food boxes is not the equivalent of the food that you would get in the restaurant.  Of course it's not.  It needs to be packed and transported and reheated.  It needs to be plated up at home.  This all calls for dishes that are robust and simple with minimal garnishes.  Not necessarily adjectives that you associate with Michelin starred chefs. 

Having said that, if your expectations are set at the correct level, this is a very enjoyable experience indeed, and it was nice to have a weekend "off" from cooking.  I've been cooking a lot during this period; the kitchen has become even more a place of solace and escape than usual, but it is still nice to be cooked for.  And when it is Tommy Banks and team who are doing the cooking, it is especially nice.

As I said, the cost of the box was £70 but for that you get two lots of two three-course meals.  We decided to have the starters for lunch and then the main event and puddings in the evening which meant we effectively got four meals out of it.  That is pretty decent value to my way of thinking.

On Saturday, there was a tartiflette made with Ogleshield - a fabulous British cheese that rose to the occasion admirably.  There was bacon and caramelised onions and creaminess.  The dish required a smidge more time in the oven than specified in the instructions (the potatoes were sliced quite thickly and weren't quite as yielding after 20 minutes as we might have wished).  And we roasted the accompanying asparagus rather than boiling and dressing in butter as were directed to do.  Yeah, rebels.

This was followed by a beetroot treacle tart served with a schnapps-laced marscapone.  The tart looked beautiful (I am quite the fan of pink food) although the beetroot didn't seem to add much to the flavour profile that I could discern.  The marscapone was excellent.

As for Sunday's meal: I would say it was pretty much the definition of British comfort food.  There was ox cheek pie with the most gorgeous beef dripping crust.  On the side, a portion of pickled manglewurzel which is apparently, is a type of beet commonly eaten by livestock.  Lucky livestock, say I - this was lovely.  Reminiscent of sauerkraut.  We may, may have snuck some mashed potato onto the plate as well because I am from the East End of London and it is practically treason to not serve pie with mash. Also, we are greedy.  But I've upped the exposure on the picture so that you can barely see it.

The theme of comfort food continued with the dessert of elderflower cake with duck egg custard.  Cake and custard is pure school dinners as far as I am concerned.  Actually, (and here is a sad tale) I never had school dinners when I was at primary school.  My cruel mother insisted on making me a packed lunch every day.  So while I know of the concept of school dinner cake-and-custard I have never experienced it firsthand.  I suspect TBS's version was considerably superior to St Mary's RC Primary School.

An indulgent weekend then but worth it.  For anyone reading who lives in the Oldstead, York, Harrogate or North Leeds area and wants a treat then I would recommend this most highly.  For everyone else, I hope that the restaurants round you are similarly rising to the challenges faced by the industry.  I don't think it is possible to quantify how much joy these pubs and restaurants bring to our lives and we will miss them if they go. 

Recipe corner: Sticky Toffee Parkin

A disadvantage of being born in the period between Christmas and the New Year is that a lot of nice restaurants are shut. I mean, it’s not a disadvantage for the people who work in them who are, I’m sure, very pleased to be able to spend time with their loved ones. But if you’re the kind of person who likes to push down the misery of growing older with copious quantities of delicious food and wine, then it can be a problem. So often, I ask poor old D to cook for me. Next year (which ends in a 9 which means it is not a big birthday but it is very nearly a big birthday and thus I am likely to be quite depressed) I’m just going to get takeaway pizza and a Colin the Caterpillar cake, I promise. But this year he delivered quite the triumph with his “Chicken Caesar Salad 2018”, pan fried seabass with lobster butter and, best of all, sticky toffee parkin.

This latter dessert is a reminder of all that is good and true in the world, even in these days of Brexit and Trump. It has all the spice of the traditional Yorkshire Parkin (my recipe for that is here) but slightly lighter of texture and, of course, DRENCHED in golden toffee sauce. You could have a bit of cream or ice cream alongside but, to be honest, you don’t need to do so. It is perfect as it is.

It should be noted that my husband cooks very big puddings indeed. The quantities that he provides as serving 3 could easily be stretched to 6 (in my humble opinion) if being made for people with normal appetites who are coming to the end of a substantial meal. Obviously, because it was my birthday I just engaged my Pudding Stomach and ate an entire one as described. But on your birthday it is OK to be greedy.

Right. Per the man himself:

Ingredients

75g self raising flour
40g oatflakes
5g ground ginger
1g ground nutmeg
1g mixed spice
3g baking powder
85g soft dark brown sugar


1 medium egg
28g butter

5g bicarbonate of soda
85g chopped dates
143g boiling water

Serves 3-6 depending on levels of greed

Oven at 180C.

Butter 3 metal rings - diameter 7cm and height 6cm, wrap tin foil round bottom quite tightly, the mixture is quite wet and will seep out otherwise. Butter the bottom of this too.

Put all the dry ingredients in your Kitchen Aid, using a K-whisk attachment, whisk ingredients until incorporated.

Add egg, and whisk until incorporated.

Add butter, in centimetre cubes and whisk until incorporated.

Add the boiling water to the dates. Add the bicarb. Mash the date mixture.

Add to the other ingredients and whisk until incorporated.

Pour into the rings, until about 1cm below the top.

Put in oven for about 25 minutes. Don't worry if the tops catch slightly as you will be cutting the tops off so they are flat.

Once they are done i.e. you can skewer them cleanly, leave to cool.

Make the sauce.

Ingredients

60g salted butter.
60g soft dark brown sugar.
50g double cream.

Put ingredients in a pan and bring to a boil. Turn off heat. Stir. Done.

Remove tops off the puddings (the puddings will rise about a centimetre or more above the height of the rings, which will make it easy to cut the tops off.)

Remove them from rings, using a knife round the sides.

NB: You could, at this point, divide each cylinder into two portions by cutting horizontally through the middle.

Put in a bowl.

Pour over the caramel sauce.

Eat.

Rusty Shears, Whitby (my new happy place)

We took ourselves off to Whitby for a couple of days this last weekend. We booked it months ago to mark the date on which we first met (fourteen!!! years ago) but we never need very much excuse to travel across. It's the perfect place to relax, take deep breaths of chip-scented sea air and be a wee bit indulgent.

And if it is indulgence that you are after, alongside a side of whimsy and a good, stiff gin then look no further than Rusty Shears - a tea shop come House of Gin. Was there ever a more appealing combination?

It doesn't open in the evening, but the sign reassures customers that gin is served from 11am, and there is nothing guaranteed to make one feel more hedonistic than ordering gin and tonic with lunch (we waited till one o clock because spirits before noon does feel wrong). There is an absolutely massive selection - we managed to try five different ones across the course of two visits and still had barely scratched the menu's surface. Amongst them - a local gin brewed in someone's garage just up the road and a Scottish gin with a mere two botanicals (juniper and rosehip should you be interested). It was total ginvana.

But obviously sustenance is needed alongside and the menu of sandwiches, light bites and the most delicious homemade cake hit the spot perfectly. I jumped at the chance to order a Reuben on rye, a great personal favourite, and D opted for wild mushrooms on toast. Then we committed the grave error of treating ourselves to a piece of cake apiece. I say error; the cake was fantastic, sublime. My Guinness cake with a thick layer of lighter-than-air-and-sweeter-than-a-kitten's-purr frosting was perfect. D's maple pecan cheesecake was a delight. But all that sugar occasioned, unsurprisingly, quite the slump and we ended up staggering back to our room for a much needed post-cake nap. Still, that's what holidays are for, no?

There was nothing that I did not like about this place from the eccentrically nostalgic decor (Miss Marple after she'd hit the gin selection) to the enthusiastic and charming staff. Oh, actually. I'm sad about the fact that it isn't open in the evenings - we could absolutely have whiled away an entire evening and an awful lot of money there - and that it is in Whitby rather than Leeds. But perhaps, given how much I both gin and cake, it is all for the best.

Recipe corner: Parkin

Parkin is a glorious bake which appears to be particular to the North of the country, where it is a Bonfire Night staple. I first encountered it nearly thirteen years ago, at The Star Inn at Harome. The chef there, Andrew Pern, is a tremendous champion of all things Yorkshire and he served slabs of warm parkin as a dessert, with spicy poached rhubarb and rhubarb ripple ice cream. A very beautiful thing.

But, as I said, for many Northerners, parkin is chiefly associated with Bonfire Night and I suppose the inherently comforting sticky, dense spiciness is ideally suited for wintry nights. The addition of oats give it a slightly rougher, more interesting texture than gingerbread, the dark treacle lends a liquorice depth to the sweetness. It's well worth making it a couple of weeks before you intend to eat it as, like Christmas cake, it will sit quietly, wrapped in foil, and do nothing but improve.

Now. I've baked Andrew Pern's recipe several times but, until this year had not made it in my current oven. My current oven is a BEAST. And I foolishly ignored my instincts and adhered to the cooking time thus ending up with a sadly over baked parkin which tasted familiar but had a texture somewhere between flapjack, cake and Hobnob. I have suggested an hour in my recipe below, but just keep an eye on it. It is ready when it is lightly springy to the touch and the top is gaining a tawny, caramelised look.

Edited August 2018 to add: if you are following the Weight Watchers Flex programme, this parkin works out at 8 Smart Points per 16th portion. Steep, but worth it.

Ingredients

175g golden syrup
50g black treacle
100g butter
100g soft brown sugar

100g self raising flour
Pinch salt
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp mixed spice
75g rolled oats

Egg
Splash of milk

Grease and line a 20cm square tin and preheat your oven to 140.

Place the syrup, treacle, butter and sugar in a saucepan and set over a very low heat. The aim is to melt these together into one golden liquid. Keep the heat low to prevent it from boiling and avoid stirring - pick up the pan and give it a good swirl every so often to ensure it melts evenly.

Meanwhile, sieve together the flour, salt and spices into a large bowl, then stir through the oats.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and combine. Stir through the egg and a little milk - just enough to ensure that the batter has a semi-pouring consistency.

Put the mixture in the prepared tin and bake - mine took 45 minutes and Andrew Perm says 90. If you have a relatively normal oven, I'd start checking after an hour.

Eat North

Street food is definitely one modern trend that I can get on board with.  I'm an old fashioned girl in many ways - I don't have any tattoos and like my music to have an ACTUAL TUNE but yep, love the love for street food.  Of course, I don't actually like eating on the street.  We were always taught at school that it is common to eat while you're walking along, and that is one lesson that stuck fast so much so that I am almost physically incapable of eating and walking at the same time.  However, as long as there is a handy bench or, preferably, a table somewhere in the vicinity of the street food van then I am there.

There are already many reasons to love Leeds's North Bar, but this summer they've given us another, extra specially big one by running, in conjunction with Leeds Indie Food, weekly events at their tap room like mini festivals - of food! We've been meaning to go for a while and finally got around to it last weekend.

Different vendors attend every time - we happened to be presented by a choice of Indian food courtesy of Manjit's Kitchen, giant arancini by the girls of Golden Balls (like your style, ladies), and kebabs from The Middle Feast.  Both of us opted for kebabs - which seemed to be the most popular choice at 2pm on Saturday - D's with chicken, mine, blackened aubergine and halloumi.  Very tasty stuff and an absolute world away from the kind of kebabs that always seem like a good idea in the early hours of the morning after one two many cocktails.

We also decided that it would be rude not to take a couple of the Porterhouse Cake Company's wares home to try.  I am pleased to be able to confirm that tahini does work extremely well swirled through a brownie.  Who knew?

It was a really fun event and they've obviously been going down well with the good people of Leeds since a further six have just been announced.  I certainly hope to get to another one before the summer is out.  Further details can be found at the website here or the Leeds Indie Food twitter feed.

And no, this is not a sponsored post, although if North Bar would like to send me a T-shirt and a box of brownies they would be gratefully accepted.  I'm not proud.

To all the Mums

It is Mothers' Day this Sunday. Yes a gimmick, yes a cynical attempt from the card companies and florists to extract money, yes cheesy. But it's nice to stop and think about mothers and what they do from time to time. I know I'm guilty of not doing it enough.

I went for afternoon tea with my Mum on Thursday, at Harvey Nichols:


Which was lovely (albeit FILLING). What was even more lovely was the chance to spend some time together, just the two of us. We gossiped, pored over the Charlotte Tilbury counter in the HN beauty hall and generally idled away a couple of hours in very girlish and pleasing style.

Our relationship has not always been easy over the years - we're very alike which makes us very close but, equally, capable of hurting each other very much when things get fraught. She's a worrier and I know she constantly frets about not just me but all the family, which drains her and makes her tense. If I could wish her one thing this Mothers' Day it would be the chance to put all her worries into a big balloon and let them go for a little while.

Picture from pusheen.com

I would also remind her of how the next years are going to be AMAZING. She and my Dad are having adventures all over the world, she has two beautiful grandchildren whom we are all excited to watch grow (not to mention a beautiful if highly strung grand-cat) and her children are happy and healthy and secure so her job is done and done well.

So happy Mothers' Day Mum, I think about you and worry about you more than you know and am always, always wishing you lhos.

And to all Mums out there, doing a difficult and sometimes unrecognised job - have a good weekend and remember that raising the next generation is probably the most important work in the world. The future is literally in your hands. Kudos and - keep going. But remember to demand breakfast in bed on Sunday.

Recipe corner: Hazelnut meringue cake with whipped cream and berries

I can't pretend that this post contains a recipe that is remotely WW or other diet friendly.  It is, however, cake and very good cake at that.  And it has fruit in it.  And no flour which makes it suitable for thems what can't eat flour.  So, as my brother said, practically a health food.

Last Monday, you see, was my mother's birthday and birthdays must always bring cake.  My brother D and family were visiting from London and very lovely it was to see them too.  My sister in law V is currently doing a sterling job growing a new little addition to the family and being mother to little D who at nearly two and a half is my favourite example of the toddler genre.  D and V took charge of the very important job of making Mum a birthday cake; I think I offered to help but I am far less efficient than the two of them, not to mention far more lazy, so ended up watching Shrek 3 with little D instead.  Which made me cry a bit when Shrek had a midlife crisis and decided he didn't want to be a husband and father anymore - I am predictably maudlin when it comes to marital unrest portrayed in the media.  Little D seemed to enjoy it though.

Anyway, cake.  I didn't get round to asking why they picked this particular one but I am glad that they did because it was very nice and perfect for the sunny weather we had last weekend - it felt almost more like a dessert than a cake.  We didn't put candles in it.  We did, however, drink champagne and sing happy birthday so I don't think Mum minded.

The only change that I have made here to the original Rachel Allen recipe is to reduce the amount of cream by 100mls.  I don't think that will make a great deal of difference (there was a lot of cream in lovely Rachel's version) and it does bring the point / calorie / fat count down a bit. 

Ingredients

10g butter
225 g hazelnuts, whole, skin on
6 medium eggs
200g caster sugar

To serve:
250ml double cream
10g icing sugar
Mixed berries
Fresh mint leaves

Serves 10, 11 pro points per slice

Firstly you need to toast the hazelnuts in a hot oven - there is an excellent how to here.

Now, using the butter, grease a loose bottomed (heh heh) 23cm tin and preheat the oven to 170 (fan 150).

Blitz the toasted hazelnuts in a processor (or, alternatively, you could work off some pent up aggression by pounding them with a rolling pin).  Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until pale and fluffy and gently fold in the hazelnuts.

In a separate, clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks - or, until you can hold the bowl upside down over your head without getting an egg rinse.  Gently fold these into the other mixture until completely incorporated. Be sure to fold and not stir - stirring will destroy all those little air bubbles that you have just created into the whites and lead to a heavier cake.

Put the batter in the buttered tin and bake for around 45 mins until an inserted skewer comes out clean.  Rachel says don't worry if it sinks slightly in the middle - I take this to mean that it will inevitable sink in the middle.

Allow to cool in the tin for 10 mins before sliding out onto a pretty serving plate.  Allow to cool completely before the final stage.

Prior to serving, whip up the cream until stiff and then smear or pipe it on before decorating with fruit, a dusting of icing sugar and torn mint.

Wedding Cupcakes

I couldn't resist sharing these with you - just when you thought all the wedding stuff was over and done with!

These are our wedding cupcakes - and aren't they pretty?  The cerise gerbera daisies on top match the bridal flowers exactly, and, although you might not be able to see exactly from these photographs, the frosting was sprinkled with edible glitter.  Very kitsch, very adorable.

We made up our mind a long time ago that we preferred individual cakes to one big one.  Aside from anything else, both of us have something of a morbid fear of posed photos and we knew that if we had a full on wedding cake someone would try and get a picture of us cutting it.  These fitted the bill exactly - and we invested in some clear individual cake boxes so that people could take them away and marvel at their beauty in the comfort of their own home. 

And what is especially, especially nice was that our lovely friend and former colleague E made them for us entirely free of charge, even though she wasn't actually at the wedding.  Weddings are expensive things, and as the planning progresses you become inordinately grateful for any little savings it is possible to make; this was a major saving and not a whit of compromise was required for which I am incredibly grateful.