Request for cake…

Yay ! I just got my first email asking me to recommend a cake to go after a particular meal.

I would as a knee jerk reaction to any meal recommend Sticky Toffee Pudding (Gary Rhodes). Yes I know its now a restaurant cliche like the 70’s Black Forest Gateau but it is just heavenly if done well.

Anyway there were some restrictions to the cake. It needed to be made in advance, not require warming up and be suitable for handing round with a cup of tea just before guests leave. For which I recommend ginger cake. Either the Nigel Slater one I recommended earlier or the Nigella Lawson version of the same thing [here] (without the preserved ginger) either way I think the lemon icing is a must !

Egg-spert in the kitchen

I know, that is an appallingly bad pun but its “difficult to get excited about a hard boiled egg” (digression – when I was 18 I travelled round europe. In Amsterdam I met some americans, and for want of anything else to talk about I asked them what they thought about their new president (George Bush sr) to which one of them replied “he’s a hard boiled egg” and then explained “its hard to get excited about a boiled egg”).

Anyway, for want of any other plan for the year I decided I may was well cook my way through Delia, especially as we appeared to have all the ingredients for her Egg and Lentil Curry with coconut and pickled lime (except the pickled lime and half the spices are with FG) and the Chorizo Hash with peppers (chorizo is one of my kitchen stand bys).

I was all set to do the Chorizio this evening (Husband doesn’t really do curry) and asked Husband to pick up some potatoes to which he replied by volunteering to do baked potatoes with an idea he’d had involving pate (which needs using).

Anyway, since the potatoes would take 1.5-2 hours (how to cook volume 1 page 174) in the oven I volunteered to do a rice pudding also (page 212)…the potatoes I have done as per the recipe and the rice pudding I have amended a little. With the rice pudding I have upped the temperature a bit (and lowered the potatoes) and shortened the time. I didn’t have any evaporated milk so I watered down some condensed milk…I also halved the quantities as there would only be 2 of us eating it.

Anyway, that’s all doing its stuff with no interference from me and I have just stated hard boiling some eggs (page 17)…only with a slight difference. I can get excited about hard boiled eggs, a good egg sandwich for me is a little bit of heaven. Spider can’t stand them ( a texture thing possibly) but lunch club starts again this week and I need something to perk up his lunch box…so when they have boiled I will be sticking them in ice cream biscuit moulds and plunging them in cold water – for moulded hard boiled eggs please check out Lunch in a Box.

Picture when they are done…at the moment I’m waiting for the eggs to warm up…Delia doesn’t approve of keeping eggs in the fridge…well tough, I may be following your recipes but I refuse to toe the line !