The Last Hurrah

The August Bank Holiday signifies three things to me. Firstly it's a weekend when London is overrun with tourists, all blowing on whistles and admiring the bright and beautiful costumes of the parades of the Notting Hill Carnival. Secondly comes the knowledge that the next Bank Holiday we will have is Christmas Day and that the year is fast coming to an end. Thirdly it officially and boldly signals the end of Summer.

I always approach this weekend with a jumble of mixed feelings and a certain amount of anticipation. After having lived in the hub of the Notting Hill Carnival for several years and having experienced both the good and the bad sides of this crazy street party, Paul and I no longer have any desire to go anywhere near it. We therefore usually see this as an opportunity to escape the city and go find ourselves some greener pastures. Knowing that time has again made a fool of us and that all too soon we will be feeling the brisk bite of the Autumnal winds, we try to squeeze a little bit more pleasure from the last days of Summer. But it also means that I will again have access to the abundance of hedgerow fruits and late Summer English plums with which to bulk up my preserves stocks to my heart's content.

This year, to get away from the crowds we headed to the tranquil and soft green surroundings of the beautiful New Forest for our last Summer hurrah. Walking through the winding forest trails, feeding the free running horses and admiring the lush green foliage, we stumbled upon a natural treasure! Overgrown hedges bursting with deep purple blackberries, ripe and ready for the picking. Quickly finding some empty containers from our lunch, we foraged our way through the prickly bushes. Even with a lot of berries making it into our mouths rather than the containers, we still managed to pick enough for me to make a couple of jars of jam.


Once we arrived back from our trip, relaxed and happy I took out the little fruits and grabbed the basket of colourful plums I had bought on the way home, ready to start my little one woman production line. I have plenty of books and notes on the subject of preserving, but the two gurus I turn to again and again for advice and guidance are the WI and Pam Corbin of the River Cottage Handbook. With the help of these lovely ladies, I soon had the kernels of the plums cracked and blanched, the plums stewing away in a fragrant syrup and the blackberries washed, checked for creepy-crawlies and ready to add to the pan.

Pouring the last purple spoonful of jam into the hot, sterilised jar I was sad to say goodbye to the splendour of Summer. But with my cupboards filled with preserves, chutneys and jams I also looked forward to starting a new season and enjoying all of the culinary opportunities it will bring.

A Daring Challenge

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful
of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos
Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite
Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.
If you spend as much time as I do searching the Internet for ideas and recipes for lovely things to bake, you have no doubt come across some mention of the Daring Bakers. At first these posts and mentions only slightly tickled my curiosity, but I never thought to look into it any further. Then a few months back my sister introduced me to the amazing blogs of Tartlette and Canelle et Vanille. These two awe-inspiring bloggers both posted monthly about their Daring Bakers challenges and this got me even more intrigued, pushed me to look into it a bit more. However, the final push for me was when my sister told me that she had signed up to be a Daring Baker, and I knew that I had to do the same. There's nothing quite like a bit of healthy competition, right?

So, after filling in the required form and waiting (im)patiently for the website to update with the months challenge, I was finally a daring Baker too:) These bakers definitely mean it when they refer to themselves as daring, this challenge was not for the faint hearted. It was to be a six layered Dobos Torte, complete with an egg based butter cream and a caramel top. I have to admit that I was slightly disheartened at first when I saw that I will have to use melted chocolate for this creation (as mentioned before, I try and avoid this when not at work), but then decided to embrace all of the new things that I will try my hand at when making this cake.

Luckily for me it was my brother-in-law's 30th birthday this month and my husband's entire family were visiting us for a few weeks. This meant that I had the perfect occasion to bake this wow-factor cake for and that none of my hard work will go to waste. Knowing that this was not going to be a quick and easy job, I set aside the entire day for this project and got to work early in the morning. I started by making the six sponge cake layers, each one carefully spread into the circle drawn onto baking parchment and given a quick blast in the hot oven. While these golden discs were cooling all over the kitchen, I got started on the butter cream. I have never liked the idea of using whole eggs in icings, as I don't consider the eggs to be cooked enough for my taste. However, this was after all about trying new things and pushing my boundaries and in the end I was very pleased that I did not stray from the recipe, as I was rewarded with a luxuriously rich and velvety smooth butter cream.

The last and possibly most intimidating step was making the caramel layer. I have not worked with sugar that much before and the few times I did venture into this area I have always ended up with a bit of a disaster. Determined not to fail on what was undoubtedly the crowning glory of this cake, I googled my way through to a couple of informative websites on the matter. My worries and doubts were soon forgotten as the sweet, lemony scent wafted up from the liquid amber in the saucepan and I managed to pull of an almost perfect caramel on my first try. I strayed slightly from the recipe here and cut this layer into seven pieces instead of the recommended twelve, as I thought the latter was slightly too skimpy on size.

After a full day of baking, mixing and creating, I finally assembled the cake, sprinkled on the slivers of almonds and carefully placed the caramel pieces on-top. This truly is a spectacular cake and after a rather precarious car journey across London with the it balanced on my lap, it definitely was the star of the birthday dinner.

I probably won't be baking this cake again in a hurry as it is both costly and time consuming, but it was worth the effort as I can now truly say that I too am a Daring Baker :)

A nutty choice

Once in a while, my husband Paul will find one of my recently perused Foodie magazines lying around the house, and will take it upon himself to find the most unusual recipe in it and then set me the task of creating the dish. This month was no different, and when I saw him walking towards me with the new WFI in his hands, I steeled myself for what was coming. For a few seconds I thought that I would have it easy this time round as he pointed out an ice-cream recipe, but he did not disappoint when I realised that this is no ordinary ice-cream flavour. In fact even the author of the recipe admitted that when she serves this to her guests, she does not immediately reveal the main ingredient to the unsuspecting diners. Instead she lets them have a guess at what it might be while they enjoy the ice-cream without any prejudice. So what is this mystery ingredient, I hear you ask? Well, believe it or not, Paul's choice was, a Nutty Brown Bread ice-cream.

Amazingly, this is not a new idea, and dates as far back as the Victorian period. Obviously back then it was no more than frozen cream with stale bread crumbs stirred through. For us in the 21st century, things are a bit more complicated and thankfully a lot more appetising. Using malted brown bread, hazelnuts and light muscovado sugar to create a golden, crunchy, almost caramelised mixture to stir through the rich, vanilla flecked custard base, you will not turn your nose up at a couple of scoops of this ice-cream.

Having had a busy few weeks with my parents-in-law visiting and some big developments happening at work, I jumped at the chance to spend some quality time in my kitchen and eagerly set about making the ice-cream. Quickly the delicious smell of toasting bread and nuts were wafting through the flat and the eggy custard was thickening on the stove. As the finished mixture was left to cool before churning, I used the left over egg whites to whip up a batch of rose-water meringues to slowly dry-out in the cool oven and washed and sliced a couple of ripe peaches to lightly caramelise once the ice-cream was frozen and ready ro serve.

When Paul came home from work after another gloriously hot and sunny day, he happily tucked into a big bowl of the dessert, feeling rather pleased with himself for picking out such a wonderful recipe, sure to become a family favourite :)


If you want to try this amazing ice-cream for yourself, you can find the recipe here

Lemon-Melon Sunshine

It's not often that we are blessed with hot, sunny Summer's days here in London. So when they do roll round for a few weeks a year, we try and squeeze as much enjoyment from them as we possibly can. For the past couple weeks this was exactly the case, and to celebrate this glorious weather I decided to borrow the ice-cream machine from work and fill my freezer with tubs of frozen delights!

At work I make a lot of ice-cream, but all of them are custard based and very high in fat. At home I wanted to revisit the beautiful days I spent in the sunny, fountain filled squares of Roma, eating tub after tub of heavenly Gelati. So, for my and my family's own consumption, I decided to make delicately sweet and fruity sorbets that would really make the most of the Summer's abundance.

After a few hours of Internet research, I realised that nothing could be simpler than making the base syrup for your sorbet and that the flavour possibilities were indeed endless. With my head full of ideas, I headed down to my local green-grocers and could hardly choose from all of the amazing fruits on offer. Although I could happily eat my way through several punnets of red, blue and black berries and I'm certain that all of them would make delicious sorbets, I wanted to try out more exotic flavours for my sorbets. For this reason, I picked up an amazingly fragrant, bright orange Cantaloupe melon and could not resist the baskets full of sunshine yellow lemons, coincidently my two favourite flavours from the Gelateria we frequent.


Back in my sunny kitchen, I got the churner freezing and started making the base syrup for the sorbets, mixing equal parts caster sugar and water in a saucepan. As the sugar was slowly dissolving over a medium heat, I scooped out the little seeds from the soft, juicy melon and cut it into haphazard cubes. Next up was finely zesting one of the lemons and squeezing every last drop of zingy juice from the fat little fruits. With the sugar syrup ready and slightly cooled, half went into the blender to pulverize the melon cubes and the other half was mixed in with the lemon juice and zest. Both mixes were popped into the freezer for a few minutes to quickly cool down and then I churned each mix to that soft, smooth, icy consistency that makes the perfect sorbet.

As my husband and I sat watching the sun setting on another glorious day and licking our ice-cream glasses clean, I was already contemplating the next batch of flavours to try out and will now be off to the green-grocers again :)

The Joy of Baking

For the past seven weeks I have been busier than a bee, baking thousand upon thousands of cookies, brownies and chocolate slices and churning home-made ice-cream by the litres full in the professional kitchen for my new employer. There is no doubt in my mind that this is by far the best job that I have ever had, no matter the long days, the hard work or the tired and sore bones and muscles! This is the start of something amazing :)

There is one problem with this job though; When I'm not working and sitting at home and the inspiration to bake something delicious and wonderful takes me, I find myself slightly unenthusiastic to the idea of baking on my days off. Worrying that after a couple months I would have forgotten how to bake anything other than a chocolate cookie, I decided to get out of my lethargic state and get cracking, some eggs that is :) Grabbing my folder of favourite recipes from the shelf, I already knew what I wanted to make. After checking the fridge to make sure I had all of the ingredients, I switched on the oven and got out my much loved spring form cake tin. Today there would be no chocolate in sight of my baking, only fresh, clean flavours and something smooth and luxurious to savour on a long summer's evening. Today I'm baking my husband's all-time favourite cheese cake.

I found this recipe a few years ago in a foodie magazine, crammed into the bottom corner of the page, almost hidden from sight. I have mentioned this cake before and have made it countless times, but it's always a winner and have converted even the most adamant of cheese cake haters I have served it to. It has the customary crushed digestive biscuit and butter base, which is lightly baked in a mild oven to crisp up. Then comes the creamy, dreamy filling: Low-fat cream cheese is slowly whisked with thick double cream which has been slightly soured by the juice of a fresh lemon. Added to this are a couple whole organic eggs and one extra yellow yolk for an added richness. Next a generous sprinkling of caster sugar, a big splash of real vanilla extract and a blast of finely grated lemon zest. When pouring this mixture into the tin, I was hit by the fresh lemony smell and it immediately got my mouth watering. Unfortunately I had to wait for the cake to slowly bake for almost an hour first, and then of course give it several hours to rest in the fridge to firm up.

The wait was definitely worth it, and as you can see from the picture we've already managed to devour half of the cake. But for me the best part of it all was that even though I spend hours each week baking already, I can still find joy and pleasure in baking something special at home!

An Egg-cellent Easter

After weeks of anticipation and preparation, Easter Weekend finally arrived. I have always loved this time of year, but since moving to England and marrying a Catholic Pole, Easter has become an even more momentous occasion in my annual calender.

In Poland, Passover and Easter Sunday are celebrated to the same extent as Christmas and food plays a major role in this celebration. This year I wanted to incorporate some of the Polish traditions into our weekend, and prepare some of the traditional dishes. Boiled eggs, symbolising the Resurrection, are a main ingredient in many of these dishes and feature predominantly on the menu. Although I am not a great fan of boiled eggs, I have to say that they just taste different on Easter and that even I can eat my fair share of them. One of my favourite Polish dishes is a vegetable salad, which is usually served on special occasions. This is made by simply dicing equal amounts of boiled potatoes, carrots, parsnips and eggs, mixing this with a peeled and diced apple, a can of sweetcorn kernels, a cup of green peas and a few sliced pickled cucumbers and generously covering everything in a mayonnaise and mustard dressing. It's quite a bit of work to prepare, but is well worth the effort and it can be served during breakfast, lunch and dinner (and believe me, you can eat that much of it).

Easter Sunday is the main event, and we got the day started with a traditional breakfast of sliced cured meats, boiled eggs, horse radish and apple salad, slices of cheese and the vegetable salad. When we returned from Mass, I immediately went back to the kitchen to get the pot-roasted pork joint in the oven to slowly braise for a couple of hours. While I had some time on my hands waiting for the meat to cook, I got a bit carried away with decorating the table with brightly coloured, cheery flowers, both real and origami, all to brighten up the grey London day. When the meat was wonderfully tender and juicy, I got my boiled potato wedges into hot oil in the oven to roast, sliced and peeled the butternut squash to bake in lightly caramelised butter, spooned my home-made pickled beetroot into a bowl and put the crackling onto the top shelf to crisp up. To finish off this wonderful feast I had brought along a selection of the chocolate truffles and macaroons from my new job.

As with all good things in life, the weekend came to an end and the last of the leftovers were turned into sandwiches for lunch. But we all had a happy Easter and I hope you all had a good one too!

Pink, Yellow, Purple, Blue, Icing I'm in Love with You

There have been some exciting new developments in the life of this Rambling Chef lately. Today I will be entering a completely different level in my cooking and baking obsession, as I start my new job working for a lovely little company that makes chocolates, cookies, brownies and ice creams. I am going to be in the heat of their kitchen, helping to create some of their amazing chocolate treats! Words cannot even begin to describe all of the emotions that have been coursing through me for the past few days, and I'm finding it difficult to contain my excitement as I ready myself for my first day.

I had to curb my enthusiasm slightly though, as I had another task at hand over the weekend. Following the success of my Red Nose Day cupcakes, my old office asked me last week to bake them another batch of goodies for their Easter Bake Sale to raise some money for their chosen charity, the NSPCC. Jumping at the opportunity to bake Easter treats on a large scale, I immediately agreed to their requests of Banana Breads, Bunny Cakes and pretty Royal Iced Sugar Cookies.

Never having worked with Royal Icing before, I turned to the experts on Cake Decorating on the Internet, and watched some amazing instructional videos on this amazing art using this wonderful icing. After a couple of hours of watching in awe, I felt inspired and confident enough to have a go myself. So, on Sunday I turned my kitchen into a one-woman production line once more, and worked my much loved mixer and less loved oven to their limits. Searching through my extensive cookie cutter collection (which takes up an entire drawer in my kitchen and covers all important holidays and events that occur throughout the year), I found all of my cutest Easter cutters for the task at hand. After several hours of rolling out and cutting the dough and baking sheet after sheet of golden-brown cookies, I started mixing up the fluffy, brilliantly white icing. Dividing the icing into little airtight containers, I mixed them each one respectively into pastel-toned pink, yellow, purple, green and blue and filled my pastry bags to start the fun.

Letting my imagination run wild, I spent many happy hours decorating bunnies, chicks, ducks, eggs, butterflies, flowers, leaves and umbrellas in all of their colourful glory, growing ever more in love with working with this amazing icing. After I packed up each cookie in its own cellophane wrapper and looked at the basket full of Easter splendour, I could not wait for my next decorating project.