Beer Cake: The Yorkshireman

Beer Cake: The Yorkshireman

The Yorkshireman's birthday approaches. I am invited to a lavish champagne (okay prosecco) drinks reception followed by a meal at Brown's. So what to give him….. When I have time (unfortunately this is not the case for all of my friend's birthdays so I apologise - if any of my friends are reading this I promise you, your time will come soon - ) I like to make a cake and/or chocolates. The Yorkshireman is another one of my keen organist friends but since I have already made the organ cake, I turned to the Yorkshireman's other love, Beer. I made a sheet plain sponge, first time using the brand new bright red kitchen aid!

4 Large Eggs
225g sugar

225g butter
1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract
225g self raising flour

pinch of Salt 

milk to loosen

Beat the butter and sugar till fluffy, add vanilla and eggs. Add flour and salt (TOP TIP: beat on a slow setting first unless you want flour all over your work surface). Add milk until the mixture is still thick but is pale and light. Bake at 180oC for 30mins or until golden on top and cooked through (use a skewer, if it comes out clean.

before carving the sides to resemble a beer glass.  Then I made some salted caramel icing

200g sugar

2tbsp water

60ml cream

250g butter

300g icing sugar

Vanilla extract

2tsp sea salt (proper flakes)

Let sugar and water dissolve over a medium heat and  DO NOT STIR. Leave till it turns to a dark amber and is beginning to smoke, you can swirl it but DO NOT STIR. Take off the heat, leave for 30secs then add the cream and stir. Leave to cool till roughly room temp. Meanwhile cream the butter, vanilla and salt. Add the icing sugar (see flour tip) then half the cooled salted caramel, if too thick add water, refrigerate till needed. 

Then I smothered the cake with the remaining salted caramel before covering the whole thing in the icing. Finally I made some marshmallow frosting

1 egg white

100g sugar or 150g icing sugar

Beat the egg white till stiff peaks form. Slowly add the sugar and continue beating till stiff peaks form again and the mixture is thick enough to pipe, put in a piping bag.

Then I piped the icing on top to make the head. The final decoration was melted milk chocolate put in a piping bag which I piped on to try and emphasise the point…. Next time I promise it will be guiness made with Guinness chocolate cake

This Inmate's Last Meal

This Inmate's Last Meal

Three years of pretentious, over-priced but very special 3 course meals and it all came down to a St Paddy's day feast for my last formal ever at Kings. We've had hits, THAT venison steak, and spectacular misses, coffee in the starter…. but Kings has at least kept a consistency of too many things on the plate and geometric shapes, a level of pretentiousness far above any other in a Cambridge. However it is certainly an event every week, nowhere else is black tie virtually the norm for a weekly student dinner, nowhere else is there such a paradox within the generally perceived message of the organisation (nb communist flag in the bar), nowhere else would weekly dinners stop 8 weeks before they should. Lets not lie, I wouldn't have it any other way, it's more exclusive. I even splashed the boat out on wine - seriously rewarded, smooth balanced taste that was light but robust.
I wasn't necessarily thrilled that our last ever formal was St Patrick's day themed but I was pleasantly surprised in some areas, quite disappointed in others.

The menu read as follows
Haddock, cauliflower, squid chowder, smoked bread foam, dehydrated Irish moss and soda bread

Guinness braised beef flank stew, with caramelised shallots, thyme, champ, kale, baby turnip and blackened leeks

Irish chocolate coffee cake, vanilla and white chocolate malt, Baileys ice cream and raspberry glass

The first course had my favourite and least favourite parts. It was generally decided that the moss was possibly the most disgusting thing many of us had ever tasted, sort of like swallowing a mouth of sea water, a dehydrated mouth of sea water. We also believe that that is the reason the soda bread had an after taste of earwax (too harsh?). However the black guinness looking soup with potato foaming topping was delicious. The squid added a savoury element that lifted an other wise delicious but basic haddock and potato chowder to an morish soup that I could've kept eating for the whole meal (in some cases maybe I should've).

The second course was slightly deceivingly small on the plate - it had body, a huge body of supposedly  melt in the mouth meat, it was alright but it was quite stringy all in all although the caramelised shallots complimented it as did the buttery mash. Plus I love blackened leeks, but once again Kings decided sauce wasn't necessary, they were wrong.

I didn't realise how full I was going to be by this point and couldn't finish the rich chocolate ganache they had called a cake.. It did go well with the delicious Baileys Ice cream and the raspberry glass was for once a welcome novelty, but ration of ice cream to ganache probably should've been the other way around….


It was a lovely night with my friends but I feel they should've let me redesign the dessert, oh and actually the main and why not the starter as well for good measure…

Playing House

Playing House
There is a reason I cook less in Cambridge. Mostly because my kitchen this year consists of two 'warming plates' and a microwave and my fridge (as I've said before) resembles the toy fridge that came with the 'my first kitchen' I got at the age of three. I have minimal access to an oven and any attempt to use it involves running four floors down my staircase and two floors up on another one, which is always fun when you're carrying a hot tray…. Plus I have limited (three armchairs) seating and only a desk to eat off. All this makes it less than ideal to throw a dinner party, but I took up the challenge when my friend the Girtonion persuaded me to throw one with her.

We optimistically set a date in a month and a half's time, although being me, I planned the menu about a week later. Limitations included budget ( if we had a fish starter, we went with a veggie main), gluten intolerance and logistics, oven space (I went with no-cook starter and dessert). 

On the day itself, about an hour and a half before the start of the party, we had an offer of a better venue, with a proper table and enough chairs and and oven in the next door room. While fantastic, this proved an entertaining challenge as we carried 3 large lasagnes through college and across the road, I was surprised we managed to pull this off but with 3 minutes to go we were semi-organised. 

While enjoying a fine selection of wines (my friends have good taste) we sat down.

Gin and Juniper cured Salmon, pickled cucumber and creme fraiche 

( see christmas blog for the recipe)

This was possibly the easiest course to do within our limitations and relatively cheap with Sainsburys basics salmon fillets, who knew. Although I panicked and left the cure on too long so they were a little too salty but luckily managed to balance out with the mellowing flavours of the creme fraiche and cucumber.

Goats Cheese and Butternut Squash no pasta lasagne, with sage and garlic chips and broccoli.

Why I decided to cook a lasagne for a gluten-free meal I am not entirely sure, but I love the Nigella goats cheese and pumpkin lasagne 

http://www.cookstr.com/recipes/pumpkin-and-goats-cheese-lasagne

So in order to tweak it to suit my limitations, we used squash instead of pumpkin, cut down on expensive goats cheese and upped the mozzarella, increased the garlic (always makes things better), replaced the pine nuts with walnuts and replaced the pasta with slices of courgette and aubergine. my original idea as an interesting side was fried garlic polenta, but alas a lack of interesting ingredients in the supermarkets of Cambridge scuppered this plan. Instead we went with chips. We parboiled the potatoes with salt, sage and garlic, tossed the drained contents in oil and roasted for about an hour - they appeared to go down well, my neighbours at the table started grazing on extra chips of the tray before we had even served all the food. 

Lemon Posset, popping candy and gluten free shortbread.

Lemon posset is a delightfully easy dessert, in this case quirkily served in plastic cups (Ok maybe that is all I had…) Simply bring 600ml cream and 150g sugar and the zest of 3 lemons to the boil, boil for 3 mins before whisking in the juice of 3 lemons, pour into glasses and leave to set. Note to self, next time don't put the popping candy on till the last minute otherwise you simply create a sort of strawberry flavour creme brûlée topping to your posset…. 

For the shortbread I got to use my new bright red Kitchen aid for the first time. Again devilishly simple. Cream 150g butter, 75g sugar, 1tsp salt, add 250g gluten free self raising flour, roll into flattened balls and bake at 180oC for 12-15mins till golden brown.

There were moments I thought a three course meal for nine would be impossible in college, it wasn't, but boy it made me appreciate my kitchen at home. 

Steak take 2 - Cau

Steak take 2 - Cau

This is a little belated given this jumps all the way back to the parents visit, but what can I say, I've been busy. Cau has got to be one of my best recent eating out experiences. Not only is the food really good (especially the traditional argentinian dishes, we tried the flatbreads which were nice but didn't blow pizza express away), but the argentinian wine is worth remembering. The only issue here is that I forgot to take pictures, we were a little too busy enjoying the food.

We started with Empanandas, like little cornish pasties with slightly more exciting flavours. We ended up trying all three, through a slight communicative error with our waitress but it was good to try all three. The first, spicy ground beef and onion, was actually my least favourite, ironically probably the most similar to a cornish pasty but it lacked interesting flavour, better for the less adventurous. The next, spanish chorizo and cream cheese was my favourite, spicy and creamy at the same time, good flavour/texture balance. Finally the spinach, ricotta and date which was also really good, the date adding a sweet edge to an otherwise classic combination. We found half of each of these and a chicken skewer was perfect for a starter. We went for the chicken with guacamole (you may be noticing an avocado trend in this blog) which had some of the best guacamole I've had in a while, so creamy and delicious - even my dad (who is generally spice phobic) enjoyed the balanced flavours in the guacamole, and very well cooked chicken,  not over or under done.

For mains we all went for steak (why not?) My dad and sister (the mother was off doing her job back in Oxford) both had the thinly sliced tapa de cuadril which was apparently very good and suited both of them perfectly, they aren't generally so keen on the bloody steak. My sisters salsa style chimchurri sauce was ok but my dad's garlic and herb aioli fought off stiff competition of any aioli I've had before. Likewise dad's chunky chips were good but my thinly sliced ones were better, and definitely much better than McDonalds while retaining that addictive tendency. I enjoyed the red juices oozing from my perfectly cooked medallions and they were complimented by the creamy and salty mustard sauce which I am ashamed to say I wiped off my plate with the chips, it was that good.

After such a feast we were all quite stuffed, no matter how valiantly I tried to fit dessert in. Luckily my dad had the answer, sharing the Dulce de leche pancakes. I am so glad he forced this on both his daughters as I haven't had such amazing caramel sauce, really ever. I may just go back for these pancakes they were that good.

I think the picture below speaks for itself, that is a satisfied table - while Cau will never be cheap cheap, it is better value for money given the quality of the produce and wine then most places. Ive never tasted Argentinian food before but I will definitely be trying it again (maybe just at Cau).

If you go down to the woods today...

If you go down to the woods today…

So as you may have realised from this blog I am generally not very good at spontaneity. Of course this is a benefit when it comes to cooking elaborate 5 course dinners…. but generally as a student I am learning to juggle everything with a tight schedule and a bit of spontaneity every now and then is a welcome stress release. Of course spontaneity can vary from taking a long cycle ride, heading to the museum or in my case soaking gummy bears in gin….
It was one of those weird afternoons following brunch when I wanted a snack because I can't cope with only having two meals a day, so stopped off for a healthy cereal bar. Of course I met my friend who suggested tangfastics were a more juvenile approach and I should probably start acting like the kid I feel like inside rather than the mature soon to be graduate I actually am. Upon spotting the gummy bears I mused that I had always wanted to try gummy bears in vodka having read they grow to about 4 times in size, he suggested we actually try it. Of course I only had gin (being more a g and t girl than a vodka coke) so we used that instead. A few days later and all I can say is that half a packet of gummy bears engorged to the size of a key with gin, makes for rather good pre-drinking.

Same friend, different experiment. Following on from the successful gin gummy bears, we decided to try the much talked about skittle vodka. Deciding that skittles wouldn't make our final vodka enough like sours, we used skittle sours. Trying not to eat too many we skilfully divided all the skittles into colours, this was the fun part, brought out the ocd in us, I think all Cambridge students have it a little. We then downed 5 bottles of fizzy water and filled up with vodka, I'll keep you updated on the results


In another note, same friend and I headed to chophouse again (I am not normally this decadent) and had the exciting sharing plate. I have been wanting to try this for a while but this plate is rather difficult to share between four…much better between two.

 Venison Pate with sweetcorn relish and brown sourdough, possibly my favourite part of the dish , meaty and chunky, balanced by the tangy relish. Then there was the pork crackling, crunchy and salty - not quite up their with the maypole's but then the maypole is specifically tailored for drunken munchies. The cheese, I was assured, was very good cheddar, as detailed many times, I am not a cheese fan. Likewise personally I wasn't such a fan of the gammon although that is more personal taste as it was smokey and I'm sure hit the spots for more of a gammon lover. I am always a big fan of cured salmon, especially beetroot cured and this was good, although I think it was sliced a little thinly, I think cured salmon tastes better a little thicker so you can taste how much meatier it is than smoked salmon and not so salty but they still did well, plus good value for money, we were stuffed.

Juicy Times

Juicy Times

In some sort of crazy plan to try and actually stay healthy this year, I have decided to start juicing for breakfast. Well that and also wanting to constantly use my shiny new blender which works so fast the bigger stress about making this juice is washing up and it works out a lot cheaper than the pret a manger   version. Having tried and failed a almost totally veg juice ( U7 as my faithful taste tester informed me it was a little lacking in flavour…)
The great thing about this juice is that it is tasty but also makes you glow.

Makes about 6 servings
1 avocado
1 banana
400g blueberries
250g spinach
400ml orange juice (according to taste)
water

Blitz all the ingredients in a blender, adjust orange juice and water to taste and texture, pour into bottles and chill. Hey presto healthy breakfast on the run for a week

 

Kitchen work

Kitchen work

for anyone who's ever asked me what it's like to work in a kitchen this guy hits the nail on the head!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/emofly/cooks-photos-of-restaurant-life