Think Pink: Breast Cancer Awareness Month

In the spirit of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I have been baking pink treats.

Little pink and white squares of food colouring-free coconut ice have me jumping on to the 'pink for a good cause' bandwagon. 

My all too white Kitchen Aid helped me whip up this coconut ice. Sadly, I don't own one of these pink beauties, but if you're planning on splurging on a Kitchen Aid (aka your kitchen superhero) in the near future, you should probably buy this one. It's the prettiest of Kitchen Aids, and has been made specially for the fabulous charity breast cancer support charity, The Haven, as £50 of each purchase will be donated to them. As if you need an excuse not to press 'Buy' on that link now. 

So, if you do buy a pink one, wait for it to arrive and you'll be able to knock up a batch of pastel coloured sugar-heaven as easily as I did. If not, well, all it takes is a bowl and a spoon, a cake tin and a fridge, to make many, many pink nuggets of sugary-heaven. Here's the recipe, and here's your Kitchen Aid. Get shopping and then get mixing - your ice needs to chill over night in the fridge so you should probably hurry... You need this pink, sugary explosion in your life sooner than you think.

You can read more about The Haven here. If you want to support them and also need even more pink in your life, you could buy this toaster, or maybe this blender, or this hand cream... Every purchase will lead to a donation which will be happily, and greatly appreciated.

X

Continue Reading...

Studio In House & Apple Flan Ménagère

Stuffed full of tea & cake last Saturday afternoon, minutes later C & I found ourselves munching our way through various unusual varieties of apples.

Studio In House is a (fairly) new concept store on Redchurch street. Every so often, the shop will change its contents, according to the owner's fancy, and will adopt a new guise. For October, it is filled with apples. If you were looking intently at your feet while walking by, you'd stop because of the smell. Stepping inside is as if you're stepping into an orchard: the sweet, fresh, powerful scent surrounds you and fills the space, escaping out the open front door. A longing sigh and exclaimation of, I can't believe I'm in London follows. Shut your eyes and you're transported into a picturesque old-English scene, and you don't want to return to reality.

Paper bags filled with apples line the benches and tables; wicker baskets with nobbled and imperfectly round apples lie on the floor; freshly pressed apple juice stands in a bookshelf in one corner; hydrangeas fill the apple-free spaces. The different varieties of apples available are written on a blackboard at the front of the shop, where pieces to try will be given to you, so you can admire the fresh, powerful taste and crunch. 

A bag of Bramley apples were purchased, and carried preciously all the way home. Most of that way I had my nose in the bag, trying to capture the precious scent.

Not wanting to do to much with the beautiful apples, I made a batch of rich shortcrust pastry, lined a tart tin, blind baked it, and then filled it with finely sliced apple, positioned as delicately as I could in circling patterns.

Apparently this creation is called an apple flan ménagère. Brushed with an apricot glaze when fresh out the oven and served with a dollop of thick double cream, this was a quintessential English autumn served on a plate.

Continue Reading...

5 Things

5 happy moments from this wet and windy week: 

1. Gnocchi

2. Nancy

3. Tea

4. New mug

5. Modiano winning the Nobel Prize

Happy weekend tout le monde!

X

Continue Reading...

Franze & Evans

As popular in the arty world as she is, C needed to go to a fabulous newly-opened design shop on Redchurch street over the weekend. The perfect excuse for her to come to my neck of the woods, for us to spend too much money on unnecessary notebooks and mugs, and to have a long catch up over tea and cake. 

I used to walk past Franze & Evans every day on my commute; whether I was on the way there or on the way home, it always had the most welcoming atmosphere. People would be filling the pavement chairs come rain or shine, happily calming music would float out onto the street, and the smells from the kitchen, and the clinks of wine glasses, would tempt me far too near, far too often.

Meeting C on our first properly autumnal afternoon here in London, meant it was time for  cake. Lots of cake. I had to let C decide - the collection is like looking at my idea heaven, and it becomes torturous trying to choose. Towers of pretty cupcakes, loaf cakes elegantly hovering near by, sponges layered high, cookies bigger than my face lying in long rows. She returned with a selection of two, intending that we choose one and share it. It didn't take much convincing her to get both and share both. Good job I know what I'm doing when it comes to putting in a cake order.

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and walnuts. Perfect layers, just the right amount (i.e. a very English amount) of icing, and crumbled crunchy walnuts. That went down a treat. Washed down with a pot of Earl Grey.

And then we moved on to slice number two. The winner. Mainly because of salted caramel. Banana loaf with salted caramel mascarpone cream and banana chips. Because everything banana-y is better with banana chips. We fought over the icing and then had to leave before we ordered another cake to try. The best way to spend an autumn afternoon. Many more afternoons will be spent here with many more cakes and many more cups of tea.

Continue Reading...