Mary’s Red Velvet ‘Dolly Parton’ Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I have never liked chocolate cake much which, as a woman, is like saying that I’m not keen on kittens, Brad Pitt or Cheryl Cole (for the record I think kittens are delightful but I’m totally indifferent to Brad and Cheryl). I either find chocolate cake too plain or too rich and I have yet to find a middle ground. Usually, when confronted with this information people want to force-feed me their own version in the hope of changing my mind but trust me it will not. From Sacher Torte to Cadbury’s Flake Cake my universal reaction has always been ‘meh’.

People who like chocolate (I refuse to apply the word ‘chocoholic’ unless you have actually mugged an old lady in order to buy a half-chewed Yorkie) sometimes make moaning noises when they see, say, Chocolate Fudge Cake on a menu. As someone who isn’t sexually attracted to chocolate I can’t tell you how annoying this is. I understand that our tongues taste things differently but there is something of a herd element when it comes to the modern, usually female preoccupation with chocolate. Chocolate has been around for a long time but the claims of addiction and preference over sex/your children/all other food is a new thing. I wonder if there are any other women out there who are willing to put their hands up and admit that whilst chocolate is nice it isn’t worth getting hysterical over.

My friends are all spies.

It was my friend’s birthday party at the weekend and I was in charge of cake-making. When you have a food blog you can’t really avoid these responsibilities. I settled on a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting despite being advised to make ‘something chocolaty’. I refused to do so. If Dolly Parton was made of cake I like to think she would look like this.

I made the cake late at night so my decision to make four tiers was not an entirely sober one. I chose a recipe from the Epicurious website but used smaller cake tins to make the four tiers instead of two. I used just blueberries between the layers of cake and raspberries on top as I thought it was more visually striking. I also dusted the frosted cake with desiccated coconut in order to cover up my not entirely smooth frosting.

The cake was yummy but I would say the sponge was a bit too dry. I think next time I’ll try more butter and buttermilk. Dry sponge aside this cake was good and it survived the car ride from Clapham to Belsize Park I think purely because of the sheer weight and solidity of it. As they say at Epicurious, definitely a keeper.

A Christmas Chutney

 

Around this time of year my Mother often asks herself where she went wrong to produce three children who are so completely and utterly in thrall to the wonder that is Christmas. Her despair implies a concern that our obsession with the festive season is but a thin veneer hiding some dark, dark chasm of emotional instability. Is cynicism so entrenched in our culture that even my mother has come to view enthusiasm for Christmas as tantamount to being mentally retarded?

 

Pollyanna is usually used as a derisive moniker these days even though she was adorable and lovely (I’m thinking Hayley Mills here). I am not very Pollyanna-like most of the year, more of a weeping Cassandra, but I reserve the right to become incredibly happy and filled with JOY from November to December without being thought of as a complete loser.

 

Please don’t get me started on commercialisation either. The herds who bleat on about the commercialisation of Christmas are just miserable gits who have been gifted the modern ‘curse’ of commerce as a reason to excuse their perpetual irritability and lack of independent thought. I think their entire philosophical outlook must be moulded by reruns of Grumpy Old Men and Jeremy Clarkson columns (for he is their God).

 

 

If you are one of these individuals who suddenly finds themselves coming over a bit communist around late November then why not just start making your own cards, give all your loved ones a (collectively farmed) satsuma and don’t watch any TV so as to avoid any of the dreaded commercialisation. You should probably spend the rest of the year in a remote yurt so as to avoid reaping the rewards of our commerce-driven society. Nobody likes a hypocrite.

 

I can’t imagine many people who enjoy food and drink could really hate Christmas. They might profess to but would they actually turn down the mega roast on the 25th December on principle, or the endless mince pies throughout the festive period or the chance to live as a socially accepted alcoholic until January?

 

 

Christmas, or rather the contemplation of it and preparation for it, is my absolute favourite time of the year. I love the smell of red cabbage and cloves, the fairy lights and angel hair, Mariah Carey on repeat, the Father Ted Christmas special, children about to wet themselves with excitement, a good ham, Baileys and Dubonnet, children actually wetting themselves with excitement, arguments and tears, teenagers with ASBOs singing God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen aggresively, going to Mass a bit drunk and confessing an annus of sin, brandy butter, chipolatas, and oh so many condiments.

 

This post might seem somewhat premature but it isn’t if you are making chutney which needs a good month to mature. I have recently made Christmas Chutney using a Delia recipe which can be found here. I last made it a couple of years ago and it smelt as good as I remembered. Apparently you can use a food processor to dice the dried fruit but I like to cut it myself even though it does take about an hour. I think I may have been a luddite in a previous life. It’s a delicious fruity chutney which is amazing with ham and damn good in a cheese sandwich.

 

Craft work

 

There is a niggling pain that darts up my fingers and between the knuckles of my right hand. It is the sort of unidentifiable pain which would send a hypochondriac straight to Google for a symptom check and self-diagnosis. Perhaps it is the early stages of arthritis or some yet-to-be-discovered skeletal abnormality which will afflict my generation. I’m convinced that the pain is a result of the huge amount of typing, texting and mouse-clicking my right-hand is expected to undertake every working day. My left-hand helps out when it can but responsibilities are largely managed by my dominant right. The repetitive twinge is a symptom of my working life and I often find myself looking despairingly at my pale, desk-bound hand. 

 

Under normal circumstances this would be a good picture for me but, considering I had just had a two hour lesson and there was a professional photographer on call to help me, it ain't great.

 

Outside the office I frequently attempt activities that are a 9-5 antidote. Like most Guardian-reading Londoners in the 20-40 age bracket  I have recently taken up knitting, made my own Christmas cards and even foraged.* I’m searching for an elusive feeling of satisfaction and completeness that my job can’t provide. Why else do people make their own soap? I don’t knit or stencil for the same practical reasons that my Grandmother did but because I have a convoluted idea that there is something wholesome and good intrinsic to these activities and pursuing them will eradicate my ennui. My Grandmother probably looked down at the knitting needles with the same emotions that I feel when I look at my hand clasping onto the mouse. 

 

 

Last Monday I embarked on a busy afternoon in which I was to attend a food photography course (organised by Helen of a forkful of spaghetti and held at the Scandinavian Kitchen) and a lino-cutting and fabric printing class hosted by Becky and Fiona of Finishing School.  

 

At the Scandinavian Kitchen our teacher Chris Windsor started with the absolute basics like ‘don’t forget to charge your batteries’. Just as I started to wonder if I’d signed up for a remedial photography class my camera went dead. There was a good two minutes where I considered keeping quiet. I wondered if I could manage to get through my photography class with a camera that wouldn’t switch on so as to avoid making a fuss. I decided against it and instead ran across the road and bought some new batteries.

 

 

The course was very helpful. I now know how to operate my camera and make full use of all the functions. It is quite amazing how many things modern cameras can do, even basic models like my Canon Powershot which I purchased on the basis that it was on special offer at £49.99. If any more of these classes are planned I would recommend it to food bloggers and other people who enjoy photographing food in a recreational capacity. It’s only two hours and you are not going to be transformed into Man Ray in that time but you will have all the information you need to go away and practice.

 

 

The challenge to take a mouth-watering shot of a Scandi hotdog was testing indeed. As you can see my photos are very realistic; this is exactly what the hot dog looked like. It’s a huge phallic sausage covered in goo. Tastes amazing but looks like something made of meat derivitive and gherkin mulch. I’ll definitely go back to the Scandinavian Kitchen to try one of these again but without the pressure of photography.

 

This is the corner of my new tote bag. I also made a tea towel with the same border. If you like what you see I am now accepting commissions.

 

From the Scandinavian Kitchen I headed north to Islington and Finishing School. Becky and Fiona are lovely hosts. They wear vintage, listen to Vampire Weekend and have set up their own craft club. Prepare to feel a little jealous of how incredibly on message they are. Lino-cutting is just like wood cutting but less time-consuming and difficult, apparently. I wouldn’t know as within seconds of making my first incision I sliced through two of my fingers. There was a lot of blood which was all very undignified and put a bit of a dampener on things for me. I even got blood on my lino square. 3 plasters later I commenced work on a space invader design having realised that a bunch of grapes was too demanding with only one operational hand. The results, well you can see the results. This does look a lot like the product of a young child’s first day at school.  

So what did I learn at the end of this rather long day? Firstly, don’t book two classes on one day as it’s too much. Secondly, always carry batteries and plasters. Thirdly, I should probably just stick to cooking and admin.

 

 

* I don’t actually read the Guardian but I am so obviously a Guardian reader in every capacity besides actually purchasing it. Maybe this is why they’re having problems; people like me who are spirtually Guardian but still take The Times out of habit.

Sloe gin

 

 

Last weekend my sister and I visited my Grandparents in Bournemouth. Food and drink being the leitmotif to my family life I found myself sitting opposite my sister as we determinedly rated meat in order of personal preference. Felicity was easily able to list her holy trinity of beef, pork and lamb in that order. I however struggled because I really like lamb when it’s in season, but pork offers so many options and who doesn’t love a steak? I even quoted Ogden Nash at one stage, The Pig being the only poem I have ever managed to memorise.* Nash didn’t clarify matters because the pigs’ undoubtedly diverse contribution to the world of meat shouldn’t be a factor in the meat top three. Chicken wasn’t in the running at all although I did have a few good words to say about thighs.

 

 

As I dithered too long we moved onto vegetables. My top three has been long established as aubergine, fennel and carrot with honourable mentions to celeriac and chicory. Felicity could name her number 1 (courgette) but then the conversation drifted to vegetables we don’t like. I was surprised to discover a lot of ill-feeling towards the leek in my family. Later on in the day, alone on a very slow train from Bournemouth to London, I formulated more top threes in my head including one for spirits.

 

 

Whisky I ruled out immediately, it’s like swallowing a match. Tequila invokes memories of 1,000 bad decisions and a strong gag reflex. Coming in at the rear in third place was brandy because you can’t flambé all manner of wonderful things without it. Vodka took second place because it’s indispensable in certain cocktails I like. Furthermore it is an essential form of heating for the denizens of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Number one, and the winner by a country mile, was beautiful juniper-infused, botanical-rich gin. I love gin and I’m pretty sure gin loves me.

 

 

After a successful sloe berry picking excursion with Sylvie I spent a few evenings last week bottling some of Asda’s cheapest gin with random mixtures of sloes and sugar. I didn’t use a recipe to make my sloe gin; I plan to taste it around Christmas to see if it needs more sugar and then leave it for another year. To make sloe gin you can wait for the first frost before picking the sloes or else you can do as we did and freeze the berries at home. The benefit I have found in doing this is that they split on defrosting and so it isn’t necessary to individually pierce every sloe.

 

Once the sloes have been pierced or have burst on defrosting place them in some sort of glass bottle or container then add sugar and gin. Shake, label with the date then turn the bottle every other day for a couple of months. Mature for as long as possible, a three month minimum for alcoholics or 2 years for the temperate.

 

 

* The Pig by Ogden Nash

The pig, if I am not mistaken, supplies us sausage ham and bacon,

Let others say his heart is big, I think it stupid of the pig.

The Icecreamists – Agents of Cool

 

I really wanted to love the Icecreamists, the self-proclaimed agents of cool bringing ice cream, rock and gratuitous nudity to the masses from Selfridges until the 1st  November. On two occasions I lured friends there with the promise of ice cream-themed excitement. Unfortunately on both occasions the experience was a bit of a let down.

 

For the record the ice cream itself is very good and so surely anything more is just an added extra; the literal cherry on top of the knickerbockerglory. The Icecreamists certainly have added many cherries by marketing the venue as not just an ice cream parlour but also a pop-up, a music venue, plus there are allusions to fashion pretensions on the website. There is a fun punk theme and on the first night I was there a lady stood awkwardly next to an ice cream van clad in nothing but leather underwear and an American style police hat looking as if she had just stepped off the set of a George Michael video. I know some people love a token nude female, a few of the back-packed tourists who had somehow wandered down to this den of iniquity looked thrilled, I however find it really boring and about as modern as a Miss World contest.

 

Rose ice cream

 

I first visited on the opening night. I had requested tickets on facebook and, through a combination of the fevered message of congratulations I had received on ‘winning’ and my own excitement, I really thought we were in for a treat. Instead we stood in a queue for a while with a bunch of people who seemed as confused as we were. I won’t go into the ins and outs of where it went wrong but basically our names were never taken and a boy of about 15, skinny jeans worn so tight I feared for his fertility, led us nonchalantly to a large communal table. The boy seemed to have as little idea of what was going on as we did and at one point asked us where some other customers had gone. He thought they had left without paying but I explained to him that he had never actually taken their order and after about 15 minutes waiting they had left.

 

On this evening the alcoholic ice cream cocktails were off the menu as they were still in development so we settled for a rose flavoured ice cream which was an eye watering £5 a scoop. The £5 gets you a generous scoop in a plastic cup. No cream, no biscuit, no plate, not even real cutlery like you get at the Wimpy. With prices as high as they are you need never forget you are in the basement of Selfridges. The music was good but loud which is weird outside of a club.

 

Absinthe in a drip - if they had actualy injected it into my vein that would have been fun.

 

 The following day I saw that the organisers had apologised on facebook for some of the teething issues and so I decided to email them about it. As a result I was offered another opportunity to visit and try two ice cream cocktails on the house. So last week, with a spring in my step and a new-found faith in the power of complaining, I descended into the depths of my third favourite department store. This time the place was dead. There was no band and the staff outnumbered customers. Clearly Tuesday is not the night when the cool kids go for ice cream.

 

The staff were very helpful and pleasant. We were treated to the Sex Pistol cocktail and something which I think was called the Molatoffee cocktail, £19.99 and £16.99 respectively. I know, my hands are sweating too. These are probably the most expensive cocktails I have ever ordered, and I can only thank the very generous organisers for offering us these. If I were to spend £20 on a cocktail in real life there would be some pretty hefty stipulations including, but not limited to, a crystal glass; inclusion of all the major spirits; some sort of gold leaf flotsam; a side order of nibbles; a very comfy chair and a breath-taking view. So naturally the ice cream cocktails were a little disappointing.

 

The sex pistol cocktail was two scoops of delicious ‘viagra’ ice cream in a martini glass with a shard of James Martin–style melted sugar on top. The waitress dragged along a medical drip with two bags filled with absinthe attached. She then decanted a shots worth of absinthe from the drip to a glass. This we were instructed to pour over the ice cream. Likewise the Molotoffee ice cream was served in a martini glass with a shot of brandy on the side. The Sex Pistol cocktail was nice enough although we couldn’t help but feel we’d just ruined a £20 portion of ice cream by covering it in medicinal booze. As to the claims that this cocktail was a natural Viagra, let’s just say no insatiable lust was apparent at any stage of the evening. The Molotoffee ice cream was a combination of incredibly sweet and incredibly alcoholic. I’m sorry to say it just didn’t work for me. Neither of these were right as a cocktail but I expect with prices like these they are rarely ordered.

 

The Sex Pistol cocktail.

 

I think there is a great idea here that, with lower prices, could be brilliantly marketed at teenagers who want to socialise somewhere that isn’t a cinema or a shopping centre. It can be tiring trying to look over 18 and a trendy ice cream parlour with live music could be a great solution. While the high prices and the basement location didn’t do it for me I think maybe I’m not the target audience, there are a lot of teenagers in Selfridges who wouldn’t blink an eye at a £5 scoop of ice cream.

Plum tart

 

Celebrity chefs might be the frequent subject of ridicule and debate amongst food fanatics but there is no escaping the fact that they are our rock stars. The woman sitting opposite me on the train might be day dreaming about a dazzling turn at a karaoke competition leading in quick succession to a pop career to rival Tina Turners, I however am imagining myself clad in a Vivienne Westwood gown seductively licking whipped cream off my fingers for the edification of BBC viewers. Sadly I couldn’t do this in reality on account of the fact that I have an involuntary facial twitch when photographed.

 

 

It may seem as if the idolisation of our culinary Gods is a recent development yet I was pleased to discover a superb piece of hyperbole on the back of Raymond Blanc’s Cooking for Friends, a cookery book published in 1991. Someone from The Times declares Blanc to be no less than ‘the Leonardo da Vinci of cooking’. Now Raymond seems to be a lovely chap beaming affably from the pages of this excellent book but da Vinci, for serious? Being compared to the original Renaissance man should surely imply mastery of more than one skill: say cookery, formula one racing and mime. Raymond Blanc might be an incredibly accomplished chef but let’s just wait for 500 years and see if Dan Brown writes a book about him before we rush in with the comparisons.

 

 

The following plum tart doesn’t look like something Nigella or Jamie would make. I suppose if I were being generous I would say it’s more something Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall or maybe on of the Two Fat Ladies might produce. It’s an amazing tart, my favourite of all the tarts, but on the day I made it I used some plums that were very much on the turn. Consequently the plums, despite still being delicious, did pulverise slightly in the baking. Please don’t let this put you off. This tart is one my Aunt has been cooking frequently in recent months; she adores it. It’s a 1978 recipe from an old French magazine apparently. I like it because you get to smother the plums in icing sugar and it looks like a mini snow storm. The recipe below is my Aunt’s version with icing sugar substituted for granulated, a big improvement so she says.

 

This is one Christine made, it looks better than mine!

 

The recipe follows.

Fresh start omelette

 

Sometimes life can get in the way of food. This is something I try to avoid; even at the most traumatic points in my life I have been able to ravage a curry and ask for seconds. I am, perhaps regrettably, not one of those people who sheds pounds in times of crisis. I won’t even let a razor sore throat prevent the consumption of solids.

 

Recently I have been stressed, away from home a lot and forced to enter my 28th year on this planet. I have found myself eating a litany of soulless yo shushis and ping pongs rather than cooking something delicious myself. The result is a few extra pounds around my middle and a palpable feeling that something isn’t quite right.  I need a fresh start.

 

I know it looks like a mess, this dish is beautiful on the inside.

 

So this evening I rifled through the fridge and removed the mould from anything that could be saved. Two eggs were judged to be edible despite the box advising a use by date of the 8th September. If I’m dead in the morning please point the coroner in that direction. I also had some red chillies, an onion, garlic, yoghurt and frozen broad beans.

 

My egg phobia has been mentioned in a previous post and this fear does extend to omelettes which I have never loved. Does anyone really love omelettes? I associate them with leftovers and muscle men. The omelette I conjured up though was made divine by the garlic yoghurt and egg combination which is Skye Gyngell’s invention. The broad beans, red chillies and sloppy presentation however are mine, all mine.

 

 

Having had thirty minutes to digest and with the garlic aroma still lingering on my tongue I am filled with a sense of satisfaction and calm that yo sushi can never deliver. For the first time I understand the point of omelettes and I think that makes me an adult…or a muscle man, I’ll let you know.

 

 

Continue reading for the recipe

Chilli Eggs

 

On Sunday afternoon I went to see Julie & Julia at the Picturehouse cinema in Clapham. It was just me, a large glass of red wine and a room full of fellow moviegoers. When I took my seat and the adverts began I felt one of those sudden bursts of utter contentment which threatened to erupt from me in an uncontrolled yelp of joy. Does anyone else experience sudden waves of excitement when going to the cinema alone? Throw in a packet of Maltesers and my ecstasy hits levels I can only imagine is comparable to that of drug users.

 

 

The joy I take in my unaccompanied cinematic experiences does give me a rather rosy view of many films since my overall bliss at being alone tends to bathe the feature in a reflected glow. Of course the odd horror of a flick can penetrate my cinematic ardour (The Proposal anyone?) but this is a rare occurrence. Sadly this means that I could never be a film critic despite feeling so at home in a movie theatre. As is so often the case with food I am unable to look at a film objectively and my experience of it is intrinsically tied to my mood.

 

Julie & Julia I am happy to say was excellent. I could be wrong of course, it might be an absolute stinker but I was feeling so happy how could it not be great? There wasn’t nearly as much food porn as I expected but perhaps I am used to things a bit more hardcore, so to speak. It was very funny, or at least the Julia Child sections were. Honestly I’d have happily done away with the sections based on Julie Powell but hey, I’m no film critic.

 

All of this leads me to eggs, sort of. The Julie of the film was a food blogger who had never eaten an egg before commencing her mission to cook her way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in just one year. This might sound like a travesty to any food-lover but, whilst I have eaten many an egg, I understand Julie’s reluctance.

 

 

There is something about eggs (I’m talking poached, boiled and fried here) that makes me nervous. It’s not to do with eating embryo; I have not a shred of a principle when it comes to eating animal babies born or otherwise. It’s something about egg white, a substance with the potential to be quite revolting in an uncooked state. How can this gloop be married to the delicious and beautiful yolk? The white of the egg is the challenge and the yolk the reward. Don’t let meringues blind you.

 

The exception to this is my father’s chilli eggs. I like a runny yolk as much as the next person but I am ashamed to say I frequently sacrifice this to the greater good of a solid egg white. In this dish though I am always able to produce a runny yolk and cooked egg white.

 

Chilli eggs is a delicious mid-week meal. You can throw in any old vegetables you have knocking around the fridge. Speaking as an eggphobe I can vouch that this dish wins me over every time. Bon appetit!

 

Pear and Malteser Crumble

 

Everybody likes crumble. Well, maybe there are a handful of murderers, paedophiles and terrorists who aren’t keen on it but as a rule of thumb all right-thinking people love crumble.

 

Crumble reigns supreme over other puddings because it is so impossible to make a mess of. No matter how depressed, stressed or tired you are feeling. No matter if you are a child, elderly or infirm. Nigel Slater has written very movingly about his mother’s crumble in his memoir Toast and since reading this book the very act of preparing crumble always gives me a fleeting lump in my throat. Crumble was already a sentimental and bucolic pudding and Nigel Slater has now connected it inextricably with Mums.

 

 

I don’t spend a great deal of time thinking about possible crumble recipes, I tend to throw in some ginger, cinnamon or chocolate with whatever fruit is available. Maltesers however came to me in a flash of inspiration and I bought the ingredients with this recipe in mind. The result is a pear and chocolate crumble but with a gooey, slightly chewy malty taste which is delicious.

Why I hate cupcakes

 

14^th – 19^th of September is National Cupcake Week. While cherries only warrant one day (19^th July) cupcakes get a whole week. This places the Yank impostor on a culinary par with sandwiches (10^th – 16^th May). Sandwiches! Which loony organisation or shadowy governmental body charged with the task of allocating food birthdays decided that cupcakes should be elevated to the sovereign-like status of a week-long celebration?

 

If you are anything like me you will have found the slow and steady rise of the cupcake to the summit of Baked Goods Mountain incredibly irritating. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with cupcakes but for the love of God why are they so popular? Sadly I can’t imagine there will ever be a similar surge in the popularity of, say, ribs. So that’s no three-tiered wedding cake made of ribs, no knitted ribs and no giant rib served up to bemused tourists in Covent Garden. That’s a shame.

 

The cupcake is essentially just a fairy cake on steroids. Someone clever at the Telegraph compared the arrival of the cupcake in this country to that of the grey squirrel but I feel this does not sufficiently convey the extent to which fairy cakes have been sidelined. It’s cake genocide. Cupcakes make the grey squirrel look like a charmingly apologetic interloper.

 

We seem to have lost sight of the fact that both cupcakes and fairy cakes are primarily meant for children. There is nothing wrong with indulging in a nostalgic treat every now and then. I know people who still like the odd party ring or bowl of angel delight and there ain’t nothing wrong with that. What frustrates me is the way cupcakes have been so completely embraced by otherwise sensible adult women. Glitter, heart shaped sprinkles, pink frosting: this is the most infantilised baked good imaginable.

 

Sex and the City has a lot to answer for the cupcakes current status as a fashion accessory. Eating a cupcake will not make you more like Carrie. Move to New York, start dressing like Zandra Rhodes, become utterly self-absorbed: all this will help but eating cupcakes isn’t going to do it. Realistically how many of these Sex and the City-style cupcakes are actually digested by their fashionable consumers?

 

Cupcakes are too big, there is far too much icing on them and they have usurped the already perfectly fine fairy cake. Come the 14^th September I plan to make something that is the antithesis of a cupcake. Something simple and economical like a rock cake, a cake so ugly there is no mention of it on the British Baker Magazine website. This John Merrick of cakes deserves more recognition. I don’t expect the cupcake industry to fall over night but perhaps a National Rock Cake day in 2010 is an achievable goal.