You'd better come on down

And meet, the nicest kids in town (not that I'm biased at all)

Also, there actually is cake in this post. Quite a lot of cake

I was trying to work out what order these next few posts should go in. Should we go with the most recent camp backwards to the fundraising, or the other way around? Does anyone else really care? In the end my need to be ordered won out and we're starting with the fundraising. This year's cafe was to raise funds for the girls centenary adventures, and whilst we raised less money than previously, the cafe was buzzing, the girls had an amazing time and there was a lot of cake.

See, a lot of cake. And you can't even see the cream teas that we were serving from the kitchen as the scones were being baked freshly.

The Rocky Road that I had trialed previously went down a storm - although it's a family cafe, something based in chocolate is obviously going to be popular! As well as the rocky road, I made a victoria sandwich using Nigella's recipe and cupcakes to the Magnolia Bakery recipe that I've posted about previously. I used blue vanilla buttercream to frost them, and in honour of our centenary sprinkled them with white chocolate stars. Sadly the photograph doesn't do them justice - let's just say this, lots of little hands got them out of their box and put them in the stand.

Victoria Sponge

Since my food processor went to the big, dusty cupboard under the stairs in the sky, I did this old school style - something I haven't done for a while. It takes more elbow grease than I remember! When using the procesor I add extra baking powder.


This is from Nigella's How to Eat, a book that I use more than I think going by the mucky pages strewn throughout. It was actually the first cookbook I read from cover to cover before actually using it as a cookbook.

Ingredients (as always, my notes are in italics)

200g self-raising flour Nigella doesn't sift hers, but I do - old habits and that. I have visions of my formidable Home Economics teacher turning up in my kitchen, peering over my shoulder and demanding that I redo it

25g cornflour
225g caster sugar
225g very soft unsalted butter - so soft that should you want to you would be able to squish your finger in it. Try this with a knife, not your finger though
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
2-4 tablespoons milk - Nigella specifies full fat milk, but as I never have this in the house I use skimmed

Method


Preheat the oven to gas makr 4/ 180
Butter and flour 2 sandwich tins (I only have one - I'm sure at some point I had two, but alas, no longer)
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Add the eggs, beating in one at a time, alternating with a spoonful of the sifted flour
Add the vanilla extract
Fold in the rest of the flour gently (add the baking powder and cornflour to the rest of the flour when I'm weighing out my ingredients)
Stir in the milk

Divide between your cake tins and bake in the middle of the oven for about 25 minutes. Mine take slightly less time as we have a fan oven, but test with a skewer to be sure. Cool on a wire rack and sandwich together with jam. I used an apricot and amaretto jam that I had bought from Kavey of Kavey Eats when she had a stall at Covent Garden, it was amazing and I did think I could have added some almond extract or (if I had the processor) some marzipan to take that amaretto-ey flavour further through the cake. I would have used that in place of the vanilla extract.
Dusted with icing sugar, taken to the Guide hut and sold for 75p a slice I think.


No pictures of my cake I'm afraid as by this time the camera had been donated to an older Guide and I was to be found in a corner inhaling a cream tea and a coffee (a contradiction there I'm sure, but hopefully you know what I mean?)

Marshmallow treats


Rice Krispie cakes

And finally... a small story for you as an aside. One of my Brownies came to help her sister who is one of my Guides out at the cafe. It's always great to have an extra pair of hands on board and Georgie has sales skills that Alan Sugar would envy. Faced with customers she would point to the cake below and explain that "this is my Nonna's cake. It's Italian. You're lucky to be allowed to eat it. That's one pound please" (it was supposed to be 50p a slice, but who am I to complain) Genius. I think everyone bought pieces of Nonna's cake. I am also holding out for the recipe, it was that good. Also note the chocolate cupcake that had managed to become unpeeled during her sales pitches... clever girl that Georgie!

Part One: Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Or so the song goes anyway. This weekend I’ve been trying to bake my cares away. With a certain amount of success it has to be said. There is an amount of satisfaction to be derived from the creation of things for others to eat, especially when one’s appetite is absent without leave as mine is at present. That said, I’ve done an admiral job of polishing off two slices of cake this morning – only cause my antibiotics must be taken with food you understand.

My Victoria Sandwich cake is a Nigella recipe, and as a rule I fill it with Tiptree strawberry jam. I fell in love with this brand (well they stole my wholehearted affection from Bonne Maman) on discovery of their Victoria Plum conserve which is amazing. Sadly because Tiptree will only make their conserves with what is in season, until such time as we have a relatively dry summer (seriously powers that be, I’m asking here!) I’m out of luck. Until that time strawberry fills the hole, raspberry is not so good on account of the pips, but bramble jelly works especially well with cream scones. Please excuse the tangent. Jam is important to me, and I think something I’m going to conquer, having mastered the art of pastry *cough* well, most of the time anyway.

So the cake, well my Guides loved it – we have a tradition of Promise cakes that I blatantly stole from my Brown Owl, so promise ceremonies are much hoped for. Last term heralded no less than 8 promises, and we are waiting on another new member, with much whispering in the back of “cake! Cake!” And that’s just the leaders.

Anyway, so Nigella’s recipe for a Victoria Sandwhich is as she promises, easy. It can be made in the food processor, or as I choose with a hand blender (less washing up that way). And far from my memories of endless creaming of butter and sugar that come from having a sadist of a Home Economics teacher it’s a case of chuck it all in and bake. Wham, Bam thank you Ma’am. Or something along those lines.

For a two layer cake (2 x 21cm, 5cm cake tins)

220g self raising flour (I do bend to tradition and sift the flours and baking powder)
25g cornflour
2 tsps baking powder
225g butter
2 – 4 tblsps milk (Nigella says to use full fat, but with all that butter I’ve never noticed a problem with the milk being skimmed)
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract (if you plan ahead and have vanilla caster sugar – which I’ve just used up – to hand, leave this out)
225g caster sugar (I picked up the wrong packet and used light brown soft sugar yesterday, it affected the colour of the cake but nothing else) plus extra to dust over the top.

I beat the softened butter and sugar together until pale and creamy then add the eggs and flours, and finally the milk until I get a soft batter. I whisk using a hand blender on low and remember to scrape my bowl down on a regular basis.

The cake gets baked for half an hour at 220° in two tins, or if like me you’ve lost one of your sandwich pans (where? I don’t know, I swear our cupboard eats bakeware) then in two batches, ad cool completely on a wire tray.

When cool sandwich together with jam, or for more discerning audiences that Guides, jam and whipped cream, or whipped sweetened mascarpone. Simple, the first thing I ‘learnt’ to make at school, and I am still doing so 21 years later when my Twilight DVD skips for no reason and I'm home alone on a Saturday night.

Oh and by the way has anyone else tried Nigella's Basic bread recipe from How to Eat? Pages 31 - 32. It needs at least double the amount of yeast she suggests and less kneading? Am I right? All contributions and suggestions gratefully received.

Rhubarb, rhubarb: Crumble, crumble

I believed my drama teacher (snaps to Mr Davis) for years when he taught us to mouth "rhubarb rhubarb" to make it look as though we were talking when not the focus of a scene in the school play. And this was someone who took our school plays extremely seriously; I was in Brecht's "Caucasian Chalk Circle" at 13! Never were we subjected to *shudders* "Children's theatre" and his tolerance for my love of musicals was less convincing (although he came to see me in every single one I did) than my turn as about 7 characters in a 6 hander adaptation of "Under Milk Wood." Seven layers of under-dressing, and the payoff? I got to meet Max Bygraves! Oh yes... I had made it! Still, Mr Davis clearly gave me a good grounding in appropriate onstage behaviour, how to 'become' your character, and of course, projection which I make use of daily in my work as a Learning & Development officer. Yup. Score there on the career front Penelope!

But back to the question in hand. Rhubarb. I finally moved house a fortnight ago and am loving the new flat. I'm back in North London (my spiritual home) back Guiding on a regular basis, and am even nearly unpacked. My new flatmate, showed me around the garden (yes, we have a garden! Squee!) and pointed out a rhubarb plant that 'needed' using up before it spoiled. Well in my role as new flatmate, I clearly felt it my duty, to be thrifty, and to demonstrate my skills in the kitchen. So, out of boxes came the Nigella cookware - and I'm sorry but if you don't swoon at the duck egg blue china then you must be either unwell or insane. And that's not an opinion. It's fact. Well, in my world anyway - so it was time for crumble.

As with cookware, I fall the same way with baking recipes, so went back to basics with Nigella and How to Eat. Nigella loves rhubarb (and although I have yet to go as far as her rhubarb vodka) and her recipes, whilst simple really do work with both the flavour and the texture of the fruit. In Domestic Goddess and Feast, she alters her crumble recipe, but I wanted plain and simple so that I could vary it slightly with flavours that I know marry well.

I don't know about you, but crumble was the first thing I learnt to make in Home Economics (same school as the heavenly, influential Mr Davis; teacher from the other end of the spectrum entirely). I remember vividly the excitement of taking in our ingredients (tinned apple? No, I have no idea why either, flour, margarine, sugar) and bringing home our crumbles. Mum was duly impressed, and I was thrilled. I was already able to make flapjacks, and New Zealand biscuits, as well as help Mum with regular dinners, but in my eyes, this was 'proper' cooking. Not just watching and copying, but being TAUGHT technique. It was overrated. Rubbing in is just that, although I find it oddly soothing these days.

Like so much when baking; rubbing in takes me out of that world of office politics, of activity planning, of my disastrous love life and important decisions about whether or not to bid on an Orla Kiely handbag on Ebay (decision yes, some git outbid me at the last second. I'm still bitter). This week has been a struggle for me healthwise, but I managed to sit at the table and rub the butter into the flour. Somewhere along the line in the moves I have lost my vanilla sugar so soft brown sugar was added to this, along with about half a cup of oats. I don't always add oats to crumble, but it adds a lovely texture to the topping. I spread this over the chopped up rhubarb that I had tossed in some sugar and fresh grated ginger. I know I should probably use the stem ginger in syrup but the thought of it makes me feel nauseous. I have no reason for this apart from the gloopiness (it's a word).

Speaking of the rhubarb, I actually picked it! This was exciting. The recipe had called for 750g of trimmed rhubarb and I have to confess that I had no idea how much I would need to pick. No idea at all; some days that Felicity Kendall fantasy just steps further away I just know that she would have known instinctively. *Sigh* Still, it only took three trips to the bottom of the garden to get about the right amount. I chopped the leaves off - I'm still convinced that they're poisonous despite people telling me the opposite. Anyway once I had gathered enough, I chopped the stems up into about 5cm pieces (I say about, because truthfully I have no idea without holding a ruler in my hand how long 5cm is. And I may be retentive, but even I don't chop rhubarb whilst holding a ruler!)

So this is a very long winded way of telling you that the crumble was bloody gorgeous. Of course, only I could make crumble on the hottest week of the year without the foresight to buy icecream to go with, but natural yoghurt made a refreshingly tart addition to the tasty fruit and crumble combo. My proudest moment, at a Guiding meeting the next day, receiving a text from the new flatmate "That crumble is bloody gorgeous" Ladies and Gentlemen, the pantry has reopened, and I am back!