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 !
Categories: cake · pudding · tea
Tagged: gary rhodes, ginger cake, lemon icing, nigel slater, nigella lawson, sticky toffee pudding
Yesterday morning as I approached junction 10 traffic slowed to a crawl. “Oh no, not again” I felt as if I had my own personal carbon footprint genie directing me to start using the train again. But within 20 minutes it was back to its usual speed and my pangs of green guilt were sacrificed to pocket concerns once again.
Until, that is, 6.45pm, when I was again on the M40 but heading north this time. I approached junction 9…I continued to “approach” junction 9 for a further 2 hours 40 minutes meaning that I missed Nigella’s Christmas thing on BBC2, or so I thought, but fortunately Husband is a thinking kinda guy and not only had dinner ready for me but a dvd he’d prepared earlier…
Anyway, on the subject of Nigella, the lemon icing I mentioned previously in connection with the Gingercake is incredibley easy
Ingredients
175 icing sugar
1 tbs lemon juice
1 tbs warm water.
Sieve the icing sugar. Mix in the lemon juice. Then add the hot water a little at a time. Keep stirring until you have a thick paste. You may not need all the water, you may need a little bit more. Icing needs to be quite thick so that it gives a thick snow like covering to the cake.
Categories: Life
Tagged: lemon icing, M40, nigella lawson
So called because this is the first Christmas cake I am making this year, for the works Christmas Cake competition – the idea is that anyone who wants to enter makes a cake and then people who want to try cake pay a £1 for charity (probably Water Aid) and then vote on the winner.
Anyway, my entry is not a traditional cake but is something that I associate with Christmas, gingerbread or rather ginger cake…my kitchen is currently full of the lovely smells of ginger and cinnamon and caramel and…cake ! The version I eventually went for is from The Kitchen Diaries:Nigel Slater and is one I am particularly fond of because it has a hidden surprise of real stem ginger hidden deep in side. The recipe for it was published some years ago in The Observer also [here] and its kinda appropriate as when Nigel made it for his article in the observer “the rain is crashing down on the kitchen roof”, and that’s just what it’s been doing here all day.
The intention tomorrow is to ice it with the lemon icing for Ginger Cake in Nigella’s How to be a Domestic Goddess because as she points out, its hard to sell something which is so unrelentingly brown…
Other than the cake today has been quite quiet, Husband went down to pick the Student up from Cardiff and Spider and I cleaned the living room, including moving the sofa which is where I found the Toffee Brownie recipe – I have now amended the quantities in the recipe I posted several days ago.
Next weekend I will be making this years actual christmas cake – again not traditional because last year we were still eating it at the end of January…
Double Ginger Cake with lemon icing...
Categories: cake
Tagged: christmas cake, Domestic Goddess, double ginger, ginger, ginger cake, kitchen diaries, lemon icing, nigel slater, nigella lawson, water aid
