Apple Cider Cakes

Surrounded by falling leaves, crisp air, blue skies, and blustery winds, I caught sight of these adorable mini apple cider bundt cakes in the Sunday Suppers cookbook, and immediately knew what I would be baking that weekend.

These pretty bundtlettes are entirely vegan, made using apple sauce and apple cider instead of any milk or eggs, and your preferred oil instead of butter. Far from tasting like a healthy vegan-take on cake, these mini treats are almost unbelievably light, insanely fluffy, and are as comforting as your favorite, super soft winter scarf. Coated in cinnamon sugar (a fall essential), and eaten alongside a cup of spiced chai tea, you will have created the most wonderful Sunday afternoon.

You can find the recipe for the apple cider cakes here.

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Caravan

I've eaten at Caravan many times before. Their brunch is a firm favourite.

In need of an early evening, bank holiday monday, pre-gig meal, somewhere between mum's train platform and the Barbican, we headed for Caravan at Kings Cross. B and I were early and so started with fresh mint tea. We're that cool. The cups here were served on top of the pots: Pimlico Fresh in reverse, but a less perfect fit. 

Maman arrived and we moved on to bellinis for the girls and a beer for B. Bye bye fresh mint tea. The bellinis were described as seasonal. They were peach. As the waiter told us, they must be in season somewhere. Nice try, but not an excuse. If it hadn't said seasonal, we wouldn't have batted an eyelid. 

Not wanting a huge plate of food each, we shared a few of the smaller dishes. The best way of getting to try as much as possible, which, with this fusion-y menu, filled with enticing ingredients and mixtures, is exactly what you want to do.

Because of my miso-based work, we started with seaweed bread and miso butter which was as gloriously umami-filled as you would expect. A far superior alternative to marmite. Mine and maman's favourite spicy cornbread with lime and butter was spicy and sweet. If you have one dish when you go, make it this one. Just cornbread and a drink and I'd have been quite happy.

What followed was a mixture of fabulous and flawed. Roasted cauliflower with harissa; carrots with beetroot and goats curd (which we decorated with the herbs maman had bought from the garden for B and me); lamb ribs in miso and ale on the fabulous side. Heirloom tomatoes (read: one average tomato), chickpeas (big but soggy) and greens (and an unwelcome addition of raw red onion), on the flawed. 

A finale of black coffee for maman and cookies and cream for B made up for the previous mistakes. Together, the bitter coffee and glass of chocolatey, creamy heaven would have made a great breakfast. If you've got as sweet a tooth as me. 

We'll certainly be back, the buzzing atmosphere, wonderfully designed industrial space, and fresh coffee, are too good to give up for the odd faulty dish.

Highlight: Cornbread

Lowlight: Tomatoes

Caravan, Granary Building, 1 Granary Square, London, N1C 4AA

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Pimlico Fresh

As I mentioned, a couple of weekends ago I went to see my friend lovely C over in her neck of the woods, Pimlico. I was so excited by this place and we had so much to catch up on, that I completely forgot to take photos. So this weekend we returned, and I dragged B along too.

Fresh juices sit in the fridge, waiting for you to grab a straw and slurp away: mixes of mangoes, spirulina, matcha, berries are simultaneously tasty and healthy. The dream. Believe me the green liquid you see in the photo which looks like it tastes of mud, actually tastes of tropical, sunny beaches. 

I went with every intention of trying something different this time, but when C ordered the sweet French toast again, there was no point trying to convince myself I wanted anything different. The food envy would have been too much. Two enormous slices of brioche, fluffy and pillowy, fried to give the whole thing a little crust, covered with caramelised bananas, doused in maple syrup, sprinkled with cinnamon, and with a generous dollop of mascarpone on the side.

B ordered poorly and grumpily looked around at what everyone else was eating. Everything else looked fabulous, and his just looked fine. The eggs were yellow and cooked perfectly, but the toast was useless, and the sausages plonked pathetically next to the eggs. An afterthought.

A few hours of art and culture later (the Tate Britain mobile guide app comes highly recommended from us!) and we found ourselves back again for tea. And cake. Oops. Hot ginger, lemon and honey bought us back to life. I also have teapot envy - how adorable are these little pots and cups combinations?! An enormous slice of lemon cake with buttercream icing shared between us gave us the energy to face the rain and venture outside again, back to the other side of town.

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5 Things

5 happy moments from this very busy week:

1. A big decision

2. Fresh mint tea

3. B's green juice

4. Oval Space Cinema

5. Satan's Whiskers cocktails

X

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David Lebovitz's Pain D'Épices

I'm really not joking when I say I'm counting down the days to release of Lebovitz's new book. And here's proof. The second recipe of his that I have made in one week, retrieved from other bloggers, from those lucky few who received a sneak preview and who I am so grateful to for sharing a glimpse of what lies inside with us common-folk. 

So it was that on a lonely night home alone, far too late in the day, I set about baking David's Pain d'Épices that the wonderful Lottie and Doof had published weeks before. My little flat was soon filled with the comforting smells of sugar and spice and all things nice. The golden honey mixture was too beautiful and smooth not to dip my finger into (a few times). 

The beautiful rise on the little loaf put a sleepy smile on my face.

Apparently it will last for a while, but I'm afraid we can't attest to that. This honey-spice bread is all too easy to eat for breakfast, with coffee, with tea, after dinner. We did all of them. It didn't last long.

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Rose Bakery Lemon Loaf

What do you do when it's a spring Satuday afternoon, you have people coming for tea, and no cake has been planned, no ingredients bought? Make lemon cake. Obvs.

Not one of Rose Carrarini's healthiest numbers. But definitely one of her best. The recipe can be found in her chic book, 'Breakfast, Lunch, Tea'. Simple, spongey, bright, and perfectly citrusy. With a sugary sweet lemon icing, which does wonders for the photos...

I actually ended up using one goose egg instead of the four eggs asked for. A new one for me. It seemed to be a fairly accurate substitution. The yolk of the egg being so large, the cake was definitely richer, and more perfectly Easter yellow than it would have otherwise been. Even if I did have problems cracking into the thing. 

Serve on a blustery but warm spring day, with many cups of tea.

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Kaiserschmarren

After some rather delicious kaiserschmarren at Boopshi's the other week, B continued on his bugging of me to make these kaiserchmarren he had spotted in the FT many weekends ago. And for some reason he had decided they were to be breakfast. I didn't tell him about the splash of rum; it was a Sunday after all, so no harm done.

Fluffly, meringue-y egg whites folded in to the rich, bright mix, then bubbling gently in a deep pan, tossed, lightly golden, torn into almost perfect shreds, dolloped with some freshly made blueberry compote, dusted with icing sugar. Super delicious, super easy to work your way through platefuls of them. And then kid yourself that they're not too bad as the only sugar is whatever you scatter on top. Typical of the always rather health conscious Rose Carrarini.

Perfect breakfast, perfect brunch, perfect pudding. Any excuse. 

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February to-do list

1. Start a new job (on Monday... eek!)

2. Bake a layer cake

3. Boopshi's

4. Start and finish another book (I'm doing well this year in my role as book worm)

5. Put more cooking on this blog. You must all think I'm the size of a rhino with all this baking.

6. Enjoy more pots of tea

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Cranberry Crumb Bars

I'd been a totally useless baking girlfriend since Christmas. And it was only when I pointed it out that B admitted that his coffee at work had been a little sad during the last few weeks, without something to nibble on at the same time. Lucky for him, our favourite Bethnal fruit and veg shop had just replenished their stock of big boxes of fresh cranberries, so I could finally make the Cranberry Crumb bars Lottie and Doof posted on his blog many moons ago.

They were worth waiting for, and B made up for his lack of snacks by eating several of these a day. And I sneaked a mouthful whenever he wasn't looking (a little hypocritical, I know). If you happen to pass by any fresh cranberries in the next couple of weeks, knocking up a batch of these little treats wouldn't be a bad idea. Especially while the warming mulling spices still feel like the right thing to be eating.

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5 Things

The weekly list of moments that made me be grateful for being me cette semaine:

1. The beautiful fog which covered London on Wednesday
2. Mulled wine, chocolates, carol singers and baubles at Columbia Road late opening
3. Mugs of yogi cinnamon tea making me feel warm and festive every morning
4. Hot water bottles in bed (because we still do all we can not to turn the heating on)
5. Michael Bublé's 'All I want for Christmas' on repeat at work

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