Everything's Rosy

Sundays call for walks in the late afternoon sunshine, birthday waffles and a round of lemon and poppy seed cakes, especially as exam season kicks in. Thanks to two dodgy legs on two different girls, today our run was replaced by a walk and we enjoyed the river views, despite the midges. 

My housemate Amy was overwhelmed by a care package from her lovely parents – Waitrose goods to be shared (read: devoured) by us over the following weeks (read: days). I've used the lemon curd in between the cake layers, swirled in with buttercream; it cuts through the sweetness. I was all for making my own lemon curd and even had a couple of egg yolks ready in the fridge from a post-run egg white and spinach omelette. But since making curd is tricky, and we already had some, I took the easy route. 

This recipe uses ground almonds which makes the sponge a little lighter. I made the cake in thinner layers, cut out circles with a plastic cup (classic under-stocked student kitchen), and stacked them with lemon buttercream, lemon curd, and some beautiful little rose petals. My wonderful mother, perhaps atypically for a university parent, sent me off this term with a pot of petals to wish me on my way. Not practical, perhaps, but bloody well suited to me. 

To my fellow students entering exams, good luck and be well. To everyone else, probably the same.

Easter Feast(er)

The last couple of days of my life have been spent on trains (see Facebook for my live updates). This meant lots of reading, a surprising amount of work getting done, and a heck of a lot of patience. This weekend is my just reward: time with family, roast dinner and a chocolate cake.

This is the mother of Easter cakes. It's taken from Sarah Tuck's From The Kitchen, and she quite rightly describes it as "a big rich ole beast of a cake". I swapped in the hazelnut liqueur for Baileys (a great choice of party gift at a friend's 21st) but the rest is pretty similar. I squidged the leftover chocolate mousse filling into ramekins for pud with raspberries and cream. 

I must admit, this cake was a faff. It involves melting and freezing and whipping and chilling and quite a lot of waiting. But for a winner of a birthday cake on a day when you'd be home anyway, it's the best.

Chorizo and Sun-Dried Tomato Bread

April showers seemed to have arrived a little early: the drizzle at home is continual and gloomy. I'm fairly sure it's pathetic fallacy to complement my dissertation-writing experience. To bring a little sunshine into our life, I baked a Mediterranean combo bread. This is based on a recipe by the lovely Molly, whose optimism is fairly apparent across her blog. The bread doesn't need kneading (nice little homonym there for my language buddies) and is made in a big ol' casserole dish (known as a bizarrely-named 'Dutch oven' in the USA, which sounds like a euphemism). The dough rises overnight (so remember to get started on Saturday for a lazy Sunday morning).

This bread did not solve all my problems, but it alleviated them for a while. Try it toasted with eggs, dipped in soup, or just with some oozy butter. This week is to be filled with writing, nursing Pappa H and looking forward to Porto in just over a week! Let me know of any sites to see!

English Breakfast and Nutmeg Chocolate Chip Cookies

Faced with a wealth of recipes to make today, back at home, I passed aside the fancy ones that needed yeast and pistachios and edgy flours (which will probably turn up later this week) for a simple, very good cookie recipe from Design Love Fest. Don't judge mine for looking less fancy than Eva's; it's not how big your chocolate chips are, it's how you use them.

This week is for sunshine, dissertation-writing, and catching up with my home team. Em's sweater (from Topshop but sold out!) puts summer in the mind but I must admit that it did hail today. Her siblings struggled with the punctuation of 'Beach, Please!'... have to admit I would've commented on it too if she hadn't got there first. Family friends conveniently turned up at the door just at these came out of the oven (well, AGA, now that I'm home!) so they have been disappearing like hotcakes.

Blackberry and Coconut Scones

Our final week in Durham has been blessed by the company of some wonderful ladies and gents, and I've been treated to dinner parties left, right and centre. This has meant not so much cooking for myself (although we're gradually clearing the fridge in preparation for the holidays) and, combined with dissertation work, has meant a bit of a dearth in baking adventures. Or, as Mumma Hart puts it, "Clearly you are working hard as no blogging for 9 days now???" Working hard indeed. 

The recipe comes from Pastry Affair. I followed it almost to the letter except that we didn't have quite enough coconut oil so I swapped in some dairy-free marge, keeping the whole thing vegan-friendly for my still-on-Lent housemate. It was all going swimmingly until I mixed in the blackberries, which led to an unfortunate purple Play Dough situation on my hands reminiscent of last term's attempt at a red wine glaze... The concoction of red wine and flour became turgid and very much inedible, and, despite my desperate pleas to my housemates, was left untouched. Thank goodness this recipe turned out a little better and the scones have gone down rather well. It's been a pretty treat-filled few days thanks to chocolate gifts from friends and the wonderful Mumma Hart sending up 'The Baton Library' from Hotel Chocolat, an alternative very much preferable to the good old Billy Bry!

For those of you with me here in Durham, take note that fruit is a helluva lot cheaper at the old Academy greengrocer's than in Tesco. The blackberries for today's vegan treat were three punnets for a pound!

Brownie Biscuits

It turns out, a sleepy Sunday baker can lead to some pretty burnt brownie biscuits. I'd been wanting to try this recipe for a while and a post-ball me thought it might be time to give it a go. Not a good idea. And then of course it was a Sunday so Tesco was closed, and little Sainsburys had nothing to offer in the way of cocoa powder, and only extortionately priced everything else. So meet batch two of these beauties, prepared on a wide awake Monday. 

I love salt, a fact much scorned by housemates. When I was little, my brother used to pour salt onto everything he ate and, since he was my idea of the coolest person in the whole wide world, I promptly followed suit. Ever since I've been a salty over sweet kinda person and so I thought I'd jump on the salted chocolate bandwagon here. I whipped up some caramel to drizzle on top before sprinkling on the salt flakes.

This was all a little sticky, both literally and in terms of timing. I'd go back to the original recipe rather than using mine, which was all a little rogue.

Blueberry, Lemon and Poppyseed Loaf

Now that I have a loaf tin, it's about time to start using it. 

The loaf is based on this one from The Candid Appetite. I must say it's a little dense and takes ages to cook the inside properly but the blueberries keep it moist and a lovely lemon icing keeps it fresh. Can't say it's my best yet, but it's still very good with cups upon cups of Earl Grey in the afternoon. Speaking of which, new discovery! The Library/Varsity/Sports bar on Saddler St here in Durham sells tea and coffee for 99p with free refills on coffee, free WiFi and a free drink after buying 7! Nice big tables for working if you don't mind the dulcet tones of football cheers in the background, the tempting scent of burger and beer wafting toward you, and the gentle tragedy of England losing to Ireland in the Six Nations.

I'm now two homeworks and three slices down. Here's to Sunday.