The 8th pint, a dead freezer, and cherry & almond crumble

I keep thinking that I've reached a point in my life where I no longer think about Blue being ill very much, and then something happens to make it all come rushing back like a steam train. 

I certainly don't think about it every day any more, and it's not the first thing (nay, the only thing) that I'll talk about any more. Chances are, if I met you for the first time in person, these days, it would take a good few conversations before it actually came out that he'd been ill at all. There was a time when it was literally all I could talk about.

Fortunately, even the 'steam train' moments are becoming less and less frequent, and usually triggered by something other than a panic that he's relapsed - which was what usually used to make me think about it when he first came off his chemo. The lovely nurse who cared for Blue on his first terrible night in hospital - when we really thought he was dying before our eyes - lives in the same village as us. I see her often these days - she has 2 adorable girls now herself, and I can actually talk to her in the street without crying. I have come a long way.

I gave blood earlier in the week. This always reminds me of the bad times, but more so than ever this time, when I realised that I'd donated my 8th pint - equivalent to all the blood transfusions that Blue had during his treatment. I came over a bit funny and had to have an extra long lie down, and a bag of crisps as well as a pack of fruit shortcake biscuits and 2 glasses of the rather lurid lemon squash they hand out before I felt strong enough to wander home.

Fortunately, tea was pretty much already organised - one of our freezers gave up the ghost at the weekend, leading to a frantic reassessment of what we could chuck and what we could redistribute amongst the 2 other smaller freezers that we have, already pretty full. Bear in mind that we didn't have the option of cooking and re-freezing anything: if it couldn't be eaten then or in the next couple of days, or rehoused, it would have to go. Out went the swede soup dated 2010 and various small pots of unidentifiable stuff that had been in there so long the hastily scrawled labels had worn off... It's always slightly embarrassing, being presented so starkly with one's hoarding tendencies, but I've decided to rise above it. On the plus side, we've eaten the lamb shanks, some of the more identifiable soup, and lots of rhubarb. Blood donation evening, there was more identifiable soup and a fish pie. When Blue was ill, I had to cook fresh for him every day, regardless of how tired I was. I'd never have been able to feed him fish pie from the freezer.

More importantly than my inability to throw food away, do you remember all those delicious cherries I scrumped, back in the summer? I was so utterly delighted with the possibilities they presented, that while I was deliberating what to make, they pretty much all got eaten just like that from under my nose.

I managed to salvage some after a marathon stoning session (stoning the cherries - what did you think I meant?) and stashed about 800g away in the freezer for another day.

Well, 'another day' arrived - they were in the freezer that packed up, along with the fish pie and the lamb shanks...

I absolutely couldn't bring myself to chuck them out, despite the fact that they were scrumped as opposed to produced as a labour of love by the Husband in the garden - for start, they'd only been squirreled away for a matter of weeks - unlike the swede soup - and the stoning had taken a good couple of hours of my life, and given me black finger nails for a few days. On the other hand, as scrumped produce, they came lower down the priority rehoming list...

No longer luscious purple but rather duller, with much of the juice leached out of the fruit, although saved in the bowl they had defrosted in, they still tasted good. I thought pie, but couldn't face pastry. And anyway, to make a pastry worthy of my cherries, I needed an egg yolk, and as my chickens have completely given up laying, preferring to moult drastically and unattractively all over the garden, and I was feeling too weak after the blood donation to walk up to the butchers and buy some, I had to think again. I could have made jam but I wanted something lovely for pudding. Crumble was the obvious choice. 

Comforting, homely, and in honour of Blue (who adores cherries and crumble) and all he went through in those dark days of leukaemia, and in recognition of the 8th pint, cherry and almond crumble it had to be. 

Cherry & Almond Crumble

800g frozen cherries, defrosted, along with any juice that has leaked out
1.5tbsp cornflour
50g caster sugar
good pinch of cinammon

100g plain flour
80g porridge oats
40g ground almonds
100g demerara sugar
75g unsalted butter

Put the cherries and juice in a pan.

In a small bowl/cup/ramekin, mix the cornflour with some of the cherry juice, then tip pack in to the pan, along with the sugar and cinammon. Heat gently, stirring, till the juice all thickens up, simmer for a little, then scrape the cherries into your crumble dish and leave to cool.

Pre-heat the oven to 180C.

Make the topping by rubbing together all the ingredients into a rough, crumbley scrummy mess. Try not to eat it as it is - hard as it is to imagine, it WILL taste better baked.

Spread the topping evenly over the cherries then pop in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or so till the fruit is hot and bubbling and the crumble is golden brown.

Cherries and crumble both qualify, I'm sending this to this month's Alphabakes challenge hosted by Ros at More than the Occasional Baker and Caroline at Caroline Makes

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Almost Autumn? Blackberry & Apple Cake

Much as I love the summer (well, a decent summer, one where the sun shines, and it only rains about once a week) my favourite season is Autumn. All that mists and mellow fruitfulness, the tang in the early morning air that hits the back of your nose, days still warm, but nights getting cooler. When I was working in London, I used to love the warmer days of early Autumn, escaping from the office for lunch in St James' Park, where the softer sun made the buildings of Birdcage Walk and Horseguards glow.

Pumpkin soup in the making...

Now that we're ensconsed in reasonably rural Hampshire, it's not just the glow of buildings that heralds the change of the seasons. Blackberries and sloes in the hedgerows, the pumpkins, frankly, enormous in the veg patch, massive spiders patrolling the corridors of the house (we're talking spiders so big, you can hear the plop when they hit the pavement after you chuck them out of the windows), spiders' webs festooning the apple trees - and wonderful apples.  We're lucky to have cookers and eaters in the garden, and this year has been a good year.






This weekend has been the first for a long time that we've been at home on a Sunday. Although we had a beautiful autumnal morning, the rain showed no mercy and by lunchtime, was firmly set in, good for nothing but a wet dog walk and homework. Fortunately, roast pork was on the menu for dinner - with apple sauce made with the cookers, and for pudding, Blackberry & Apple cake, inspired by a recipe I've read many times in Good Food, but have never got round to making, crumble always prevailing. This is a little more effort than a crumble, but well worth it. 

Apples & spiders' webs. Autumn is on the way

juice of half a lemon

2 large, sharp eating apples

150g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for the tin 

130g soft light brown sugar 

3 large eggs, beaten 

50g ground almonds 

100g self-raising flour 

100g blackberries 

1 large pinch cinnamon  

2 tbsp demerara sugar

 icing sugar, for dusting 

Butter a 23cm springform cake tin and line with greaseproof paper.

Pre-heat the oven to 180C

Put the lemon juice in a bowl, then peel and core the apples, slice each apple into 12 and put the slices into the lemon juice. This will stop the slices discolouring while you make the rest of the cake.

Beat together 125g of the butter with the sugar till pale and fluffy, then slowly beat in the eggs, adding a little flour if the mixture starts to curdle.

Once all the egg has been incorporated, beat in the rest of the flour and the ground almonds.

Stir in 2/3 of the apple (16 slices), and the blackberries, then scrape into the prepared tin. Arrange the remaining slices of apple over the top, then mix together the demerara sugar and cinammon. Sprinkle this over the top of the cake, followed by the remaining 25g of butter, cut into thin flakes. Bake the cake for 45-50 minutes till a skewer (or whatever you use to test a cake) comes out clean.

Leave to cool till warm. Dust with icing sugar and serve.

The cake is moist and tasty enough to eat just as it is - but it would go just as well with cream, creme fraiche - or custard as the weather gets colder. Just make sure you get plenty of blackberries in the freezer!

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Easy apple & almond cake - or what to do with a rogue can of apple compote

The scoutwives hate to waste food.

At the end of every camp we go through the left overs that have come back and divvy it up - what can be saved for the following year (or for other scout activities through the year) and perishable stuff that needs to get used up.

This year, when we got back from camp, we decided
 we had to do something with some tins

of apple compote that had come back from the Netherlands with us in 2011 from a jamboree we took the scouts to. The tins are very much still in date (good till 2016 no less), but somehow we've never got round to feeding the contents to the scouts. Having taken the tins on 2 camps since Holland, on our return from Derbyshire, we decided enough was enough, and each of us took possession of a tin.

Nigella has a recipe in Feast for a damp apple & almond cake, one of her fantastically easy, whizz it all up cakes, which has no butter, and no flour in it, so possibly a good one for those with gluten issues. The amount of ground almonds, eggs and sugar probably negates any benefit the lack of butter might otherwise have had for any one, so don't try and kid yourself otherwise.

It does have fruit in, though, so not all bad -  the puree of 3 tart eating apples. Bingo. I consulted Google and Lo! there is a website which gives an equivalent apples to puree quantity. But of course there is. 

It was American, so in cups, but I have cup measures, and all was well.

Of course, it didn't use up the whole tin of apple compote, but made a good inroad into it, and I gave the rest of it to the kids. They loved it.

The cake came with us as our contribution to a dinner party last night. I sifted some icing sugar over it and served it with some double cream which I whipped up with a couple of teaspoons of cointreau in it.

Apple & Almond Cake

11/3 (one and a third) cups apple puree/compote
1 tbsp lemon juice
375g ground almonds
250g caster sugar
8 large eggs
50g flaked almonds

Grease a 23cm springform cake tin with vegetable oil and line the base.

Whizz up all the ingredients apart from the flaked almonds, in a food processor.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake. Nigella says 45 mins but check after 35. Mine needed about 50 mins.

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Pets, Vets & Unexpected cherries

So I know I shouldn't let him, but the dog really loves running through the wheat. And he seems to merely pass through it rather than crashing it all down. The only evidence he is there is a ripple passing over the top as he choffles through at speed, nose down hot on the scent - any scent. The problem with stopping him will be forgoing the look of utter joy that is a springer spaniel 'wheat sharking'. But there we go. I know I shouldn't be letting him do it.

My internal tussle came to a head yesterday after I spent time I didn't have and £50 (ditto) at the vets having a rather viscious spike of grass removed from the dog's ear, so this morning, we avoided the wheat and headed up to a gorgeous little plantation of trees that sits up on the Downs to the north of the village.

Well, it's beautiful up there, shady, cool, green. I go up there in all seasons and it's wonderful at any time, but seemed particularly lush this morning, not least because I stumbled upon cherries. Now, I know that there are cherry trees up there - crab apples too - but usually I see them in the early stages of fruiting, and then they are all gone - the birds have them. I reckon the birds must have sunstroke this year, because there were hundreds - ripe and luscious. Far too good to pass up.

I might not have had a conventional picking receptacle, but being the good, responsible dog owner that I am, I had dog poo bags (unused), and while the dog took advantage of the shade, I picked. I only stopped because I thought I'd better save one bag, you know, just in case...


So 1.5 kilos later, and I am a happy Recipe Junkie. My head is reeling with the thrill of the forage, and the prospect of what I might make with my pickings - and of course, I will need to go back and try and get some more later on.

I'm thinking jam, clafoutis, cherry bakewells, cherry vodka - so much choice...

What should I make?

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Not another Banana Loaf recipe??

Does the world really need another banana loaf recipe?

Well, my blog, my rules, and I says you do.

In preparation for making my Random Recipe entry the other week, I needed soft bananas. Unusual to actually plan to have overripe bananas - normally, banana cake in one form or another is the result of an unscheduled glut, rather than the reverse, but I didn't read the miscalculated how many bananas I would need for the Harry Eastwood recipe, so didn't upset the culinary world order too much, and ended up making another banana loaf using the left over overripe bananas. 

I have been drinking rather a lot of lapsang souchong tea recently. Black. No sugar, no lemon. Get me, with my poncy tea habits. It all came about as the result of trying to find an acceptable calorie free beverage for my 5:2 diet days (consigned to the cupboard under the stairs for the time being), and I'm quite addicted. I usually have a mug of it at breakfast, which often features banana (the breakfast). While contemplating additional banana loaves, a strange thought came over me, or rather a chain of strange thoughts which resulted in me wondering how I could incorporate the flavour of the lapsang into a banana loaf.

If you've been having the same thoughts, you are not alone, and I'm here to satisfy your thirst for knowledge. Don't say I never do anything for you. I have to say that this didn't really give me as strong a flavour of the tea as I wanted, but there's a certain satisfactory smokiness to this loaf that I really like. It also helpfully uses up any tinned caramel you might have hanging around. Not as much as the Banana Caramel Loaf, but, you know, enough.

Another Banana Loaf

130g raisins
100ml hot strong lapsang souchong tea
175g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder 1/2 trsp bicarb
1/2 tsp salt
125g butter
100g tinned caramel
2 large eggs
approx 300g overripe bananas (peeled weight)
1tsp vanilla extract

Soak the raisins in the tea for an hour or so - longer if you have time. Line a 2lb loaf tin with greaseproof paper.

Pre-heat the oven to 180C and gently melt the butter and caramel together. Set aside to cool while you sort out the rest of the ingredients.

Sift together the dry ingredients. Drain the raisins.

In a large bowl, beat together the melted butter and caramel with a wooden spoon, then beat in the banana. Yes, it's sloppy, but go with it.  

Beat in the eggs.

Stir in the raisins and vanilla extract, then lastly, fold in the dry ingredients, a third at a time.

Scrape the micture into your lined loaf tin and bake for between 1hr - 1hr15 mins till a skewer/cake tester comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin. 

Gratifyingly, this has gone down particularly well with the kids. Take note.

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Healthy & Happy Banana Cinammon Loaf (with secret courgette) - a Random Recipe

The lovely Dom has been indisposed in rather an unpleasant way recently, so to make up for it, his Random Recipes challenge this month is to cook something 'Healthy & Happy'.

I must confess that my recipe is not quite so random as some of my previous entries, as I have very clear views as to what 'healthy & happy' means, basically that cake has to be involved. 

A salad may be healthy and tasty , and piece of grilled meat could be healthy and juicy, but 'healthy and happy'? Well, cake it has to be.


As a result, there was only one book on my shelf I could reach for, Harry Eastwood's "Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache" which I have delved into a couple of times recently. Basically a load of cake with veg - hidden or not.

For added randomness, I allowed Pink the privilege of choosing the recipe, and for her to have chosen this one is pretty random because it includes bananas which, in her own words "Well, I do like them Mummy, I just don't like the idea of them so I have to forget that it's a banana and then I like it." Nothing like a 7 year old's random views, is there? It also includes courgette which she avowedly detests. This is a big problem in our house, where courgette is on the menu pretty much from June (we've had courgette in the veg box for the last couple of weeks, and our own plants are growing nicely, thank you). May be she felt that if it was in a cake, it would be OK.


Well, she was right, if she did think that. You really can't tell there's any courgette in it. It's light and tasty and there's absolutely no hint of hidden veg. It's actually less banana-y than other banana loaves too, so perfect for those less enamoured with them. I made a Nigella based banana loaf at the same time which includes about 3 times the amount of banana, and consequently is much more so. 

There is no fat in the cake, in the form of butter or oil. Instead, you whisk up sugar and eggs, whisk in the banana then the courgette, then the dry ingredients (rice flour - gluten free) and finally some chopped nuts. 45 minutes in the oven and Bob, as they say, is your happy and healthy banana loaf.

2 delicious banana loaves - can you tell which is hiding courgette?

I made no changes to the recipe other than to use all brazil nuts instead of pecans and brazils, so I don't feel I can reproduce it here, but if you get a chance, do have a look at this book. This is the Banana Cinammon Loaf.

And now, I must fly - off for more 'healthy' at a pilates class. That's 'healthy and painful' by the way...

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Stripy Meringues - my BakingMad favourite summer dessert

What’s your favourite summer dessert?

That's the question BakingMad asked me recently, and invited me to write a post about it. 

BakingMad.com have loads of ideas for summer recipes, from cupcakes to take on a picnic, to luxurious cheesecake. Check out the website for more inspiration.

I tend to ignore dessert in the summer – not that we don’t have 'pudding', but there’s so much fantastic fruit around that it’s easy to just bring out a plate of strawberries & raspberries without further embellishment.

If pushed, well, Summer Pudding has to rank as one of the best puddings ever, and is certainly the Husband's all out fave, but it's not quite the right time for that yet. The currants in the garden are still green.

On the other hand, there are Hampshire strawberries around. Strawberries apparently go with black pepper, with balsamic vinegar, with a whole host of things. Call me traditional, though, but I like them with cream. And meringues.

I know a lot of people get the fear from meringue. 

I don't want to sound smug, but making meringue doesn't phase me. My mum always had a tin of meringues in the cupboard, and it's never given me much of a problem. On the other hand, chewy and delicious as I like it, my meringue never looks particularly beautiful. If it's for a pavlova, well, cracks are part of the charm, and anyway it'll all be covered in cream and fruit anyway. Individual meringues, well, again, if they are a complete disaster, you can break them up for an Eton mess kind of thing. More cream and fruit. Believe me, no one's going to complain.

So to make this a little more of a challenge, I decided to embrace something that does give me the fear - piping. For too long, I have looked at photos of beautifully piped cupcakes, cakes, petit fours on OPB (Other People's Blogs), and known with certainty that in my hands, a piping bag could only lead to one thing:  complete and utter disaster. You only have to look at the mess I made of my hot cross buns, cutting the corner off a freezer bag...

BakingMad sent me a variety of cake decorating paraphenalia, including some Silver Spoon food colouring, and a booklet which included a picture of beautifully striped meringues, and something clicked in my head.  "I'm going to have a go at that" I thought. "I'm going to get me some striped meringue" (in my best Southern drawl).

Cue a trip to Hobbycraft and confusion in the cake icing aisle, while Pink roamed the store unchecked, looking for things to spend money on. We exited with some disposable piping bags, 2 nozzles and a 'coupler'. Plus some face paints and a bag of fizzy sweets.

Anyway, back to the meringues. This is my basic recipe, which you can increase or reduce as you like. As I use my trusty Kenwood to make the meringue mix, I'd never make less than 2 egg whites' worth.

4 egg whites

pinch of salt

225g caster sugar

1 tsp cornflower (to make chewy meringue)

Whisk the egg white with the salt till stiff but still wet.  Add a couple of tablespoons of the sugar, whisk in, then sprinkle on the cornflour and carry on whisking, slowly pouring in the rest of the sugar, till the meringue is looking shiny, and you get stiff peaks.

At this point, you can then make a large meringue for pavlova, or spoon dollops on to baking paper lined baking sheets, and bake the meringues for 1-2 hrs till dry and lift from the paper. Alternatively, just turn off the oven and leave while the oven cools down (just don't forget to take then out before you turn the oven on again).

So if you're not going to dollop with a spoon, you could use a piping bag and pipe out the meringue. And you could colour the mix, to make coloured meringue, or simply (Ha!) paint a line of food colour up your piping bag and Bob (or striped meringue) would be your Uncle. 

Well, call it a fluke, but it really worked. I made up my meringue, and took it slowly. I used gel colour for the stripey meringues, and used the Silver Spoon food colourings to make the pink and green meringues. For the stripes, you literally use a brush or a cocktail stick and paint a line of colour up the inside of the piping bag, then spoon in your mixture for piping, and pipe away.

The actual piping itself left something to be desired, certainly I didn't get it right every time, Pink had a go with a few of them, and there's no way I could offer you my 'top tips' for piping meringue, because there's a whole host of talented meringue-pipers out there in internet-land, and I am not about to try and compete - but I managed to get enough of them looking pretty good.

So there you have it. Our favourite summer dessert. Strawberries (& raspberries) with stripy meringue. And cream.

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No mobile phone? Don't worry, there's always Blackcurrant Slice

Do you carry your mobile phone around with you always?

I'm certainly guilty of treating mine like a 5th limb sometimes, carrying it with me everywhere, yet I can also get very irritated with other people doing the same. I remember one summer before the kids came along, when the Husband was due to go on operations, but we had been allowed to continue with a holiday to the north of Scotland provided he had his phone with him and remained in contact. It drove me mad - not least because the best mobile phone signal was out in the middle of the local loch (unsurprisingly given the prevalence of fishermen in the local community), so we had to make sure that we took the dinghy out onto the water everyday regardless of the weather while he stood there in the boat trying to get a signal and make sure he wasn't required back on darkest Salisbury Plain, while I tried to keep her steady. Not a situation guaranteed to enhance marital bliss, I can tell you.

But this isn't about him - it's about me. The problem is that sometimes, I don't have my phone with me and because I almost always DO have it with me, this can cause problems - or not, as it turns out.

The Husband is panicking a little because our currant bushes appear to be on course for a bumper harvest.

He'd found some blackcurrants in the freezer from last year, and texted me while I was walking Pink to Brownies the other night to ask me to get some preserving sugar so that he could make jam, but I didn't have my phone with me.

He was a little annoyed - not just because he'd been thwarted in his preserving ambitions, and because blackcurrant jam is a particular favourite. "You ALWAYS have your phone with you!" he said. "We need to make space in the freezer".

Well, it was a good job I didn't have the phone, because if I'd bought the sugar and he'd made the jam, I wouldn't have had any blackcurrants left to add to a cake.

This cake is a bit of an oddity, and you may look at the recipe, raise your eyebrows, and say  "Really?" but I'm here to tell you, it's a winner. We all loved it. The Husband thought it was quite tart, but then that's blackcurrants for you. And it didn't stop him having a second piece.

Using up some of the courgettes from the veg box also gives this cake more brownie points. I mean, it's too early in the summer to have too many courgettes, and I got 3 in last week's box. Getting some good recipes up my sleeve now thought will stand me in good stead for later on, no doubt. This cake started off as Harry Eastwood's Coconut Lime & Blueberry Slice from Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache, a book I'm turning to more and more at the moment for sweet treats, but as you'll see, I didn't have limes or blueberries, and not enough coconut...

Blackcurrant Slice


80g caster sugar
30g unsalted butter
 pinch of salt

100g dessicated coconut
50g oats

2 medium eggs
150g caster sugar
150g courgette, peeled & grated
zest & juice of half a lemon
120g rice flour
2tsp baking powder
1/4tsp salt
200g blackcurrants (frozen is fine)

icing sugar

20cm square loose bottomed tin, lined with greaseproof, then lightly brush the greaseproof with sunflower oil. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/160C fan.

First, heat the sugar and butter together to make a paste then mix in the salt, coconut and oats and press into the bottom of the prepared tin. Bake for 10-15 minutes till golden, but keep an eye on it.

Make the sponge by beating together the eggs and sugar till light and pale, then add in the courgette & lemon zest, beat again, then finally add int he flour, baking powder, salt and lemon juice. Pour this quite liquid mixture onto the base, scatter the blackcurrants on top, then return to the oven and bake for about 30 minutes.

Cool for a few minutes before seiving some icing sugar over the top, and serving up. We had it warm with some leftover sour cream and it was delicious.

 

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Arabian nights - cardamon coffee & dates, and a distinct lack of inspiration

May be it's the fact that for the last week, I haven't actually had to cook anything apart from some bacon sarnies, but I am completely and utterly all out of enthusiasm for my kitchen. A weekend at mum's (from which I have returned with yet another rhubarb cake recipe - possibly the best yet - watch this space) followed by camping with the kids, and I'm back in my house, in my own kitchen and can I think of anything at all that I want to cook? Nope.

So while I'm waiting for inspiration to strike (and it better strike soon or the troops will be mutiny-ing) I'll share a little delight that the Husband treated me to this evening (no not THAT kind of treat - this is a family friendly blog).

The Husband has been off in the desert doing things I do not particularly choose to understand, and which, even if I did, I couldn't tell you about. When not involved in those things, he has been meeting camels, taking photos of lizards, and enjoying the hospitality that is customary in that part of the world. While it appears that much of the food available to him and his colleagues was met at best with unease ('chicken enema' being the least popular dish on the 3 day rotating menu. I say no more), he did enjoy some Bedouin hospitality in the form of cardamon coffee and dates, while lounging about in a carpeted tent. You get the picture. The following day, one of his hosts appeared with bags of Arabic coffee, a bag of cardamon pods and packs of dates and some vague instructions for preparation.

This evening, the Husband cooked pasta carbonara with asparagus from the garden. It was delicious - I meant to take a photo to sing his praises further, but it was too tasty and it all disappeared far too quickly). He then offered to make me Arabic coffee, and Blue, who adores dates, persuaded him to let us crack open the dates.

Dates are a very prized commodity in the part of the world where the Husband was staying, and these are completely delicious. Honestly, you may scoff, but they are almost chocolatey in their texture and ability to satisfy. And this from a confirmed chocoholic. I have no idea, but I'd guess these were up at the top of the date charts.

The coffee - well, the instructions were to make up the coffee, and add 1 part ground cardamom pods to 2 parts coffee used after the water has been added to the coffee.

Apart from the fact that it gave us the chance to use my Granny's coffee jug and cups which I love with a passion, I was really intrigued as to what it would taste like.

Coffee-wise, it's not nearly as strong as you might imagine. I'm no coffee connoisseur, although I definitely prefer ground to instant, and I was expecting some kind of Turkish-so-strong-your-spoon-stands-up-in-it brew, but no, this was much more delicate. The cardamom was the dominant taste, but in a good way, although we erred on the side of overdoing it and added the shells as well as the seeds to the brew. Combined with the dates, it was a really delicious end to a meal - and much grander than the occasion itself.

I'd like to try it with a stronger coffee, and may be leave out the shells, and just go with the ground cardamom seeds. I can also feel the stirrings of a cardamom coffee date cake...

While we were enjoying these delicacies, the Husband shared with us the story that his host had passed on, that all boys in that part of the world are taught how to make this coffeee as one of the first things they do. Blue digested this fact, and then recounted how, in Ancient Egypt, baboons were trained to collect dates. he paused and then went on, with 9yr old glee "And did you know, it was supposed to be really good luck to have dates that the baboons had poo'd on.". 

Thanks darling. Back to chicken enema in one swift conversational move. I really need to get some inspiration quick.

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An Ode to Rhubarb - and a cake, of course

Rhubarb.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

In crumble, in jam, in cake.

With ginger. With orange, With redcurrants. With almonds. 

Roasted, stewed.

Unlike courgettes, a glut of rhubarb fills me with nothing but joy. 

It's been late this year, but it's here now, in all its glory.

And here's a cake worthy of this most glorious of ingredients, based on one I read on the wonderful Caked Crusader's blog, with a dash of Nigella's rhubarb cornmeal cake thrown in. 

Rhubarb, orange, almonds. Go on. You know you want to.

400g rhubarb
280g caster sugar
225g unsalted butter
zest and juice of an orange
125g self raising flour
100g fine polenta
1 tsp baking powder 
100g ground almonds
3 large eggs

Line a 23cm springform tin.

First slice up the rhubarb into 1 cm pieces and put in a bowl with 50g of the sugar.

Mix together the flour, polenta, baking powder and ground almonds in a separate bowl.

Beat together the butter and the rest of the sugar along with the orange zest and juice. It may take some time but eventually you get a thick lovely batter, into which add the eggs one at a time, followed each time with a spoonful of the dry ingredients. When the eggs are all combined, beat in whatever remains of the dry ingredients, then fold in the rhubarb and any juices that have seeped out as its been sitting in the sugar.

Scrape the batter into the prepared tin and bake in the oven at 180C for about an hour - until a skewer comes out clean.

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