Mary Berry's Chocolate Chip and Vanilla Marble Cake

"And now, the end is here, it's time to face the final curtain....I did it my waaaaaaay".  Poor Frank is probably spinning in his grave if he's listening to me wailing My Way as I type.  Here I am, a year on and 366 recipes tried, tested and blogged about.

Boxed up and ready for nursery

I'm on holiday from work this week so I let Miss A choose the final recipe.  Despite starting out with the mindset of changing the way my family eat, I made the rules elastic enough that I could indulge my new-found passion for baking over the past year.  With a rainy day ahead, it seemed the fitting way to end the blog - doing something with Miss A who has also discovered a passion for baking this year.

At the weekend she made a cake under her grandmother's expert eye for my mum's boss.  He still won't believe that she did pretty much everything herself apart from putting it into the oven and taking it out.  And today, she eagerly participated in the marble cake making.

Expert drizzling by my two-year-old

I must admit to being a little impatient at some of the things she's picked up from CBeebies such as the sugar-shuffling, big and small mountains and scooping and sliding with 'John and Millie' the spoons, but I'm so proud that she can work with big numbers, crack eggs, knows what a lemon zester is for and is aware of the perils of the kitchen already.

Now the need to do something new every day has evaporated, we will be practising making all manner of things from my the two childrens cookbooks that I own to try and broaden her horizons and repertoire further.  I only hope this year has been a good experience for her.

As for the cake, the tag line says that "children particularly enjoy the fun of making marble cakes".  That was true this morning.  It didn't do much for my blood pressure though as the kitchen was marbled with chocolate cake mix.  After a good spring clean, we covered the cooled cake in white and dark chocolate drizzle and the kitchen was once again marbled in chocolate.

This was one of Berry's really easy bakes - an all in one mix which you then divide into vanilla and chocolate.  It bakes really well and is probably pretty failsafe.  Although it makes masses of cake.  I managed to divide it into 28 generous pieces.  Miss A wanted to make it to take to nursery for her teachers but there's enough to share around all her friends too if they divide the slices into two for the children.

The recipe is from 100 Cakes and Bakes which I bought to take part in the Weekly Bake Off - something I'll hopefully be doing a bit more now this year is over.

I can't find the recipe online to share, but the book is only about a fiver on Amazon and well worth it.  I will say that I preferred Dan Lepard's Chocolate Crumb Marble Cake with its indulgent top, but for speed, this is definitely a great bake to make.

So that's it.  Well nearly.  There'll be one more post some time this week when I answer questions from The Last Post - feel free to drop by and add a comment if you have any questions you'd like to ask me about this year.  Otherwise, thanks for reading!

Cathryn Dresser's Roasted Vegetable Strudel

I want it to be summer all over again.  Well a proper summer, not the non-event of a summer that we've just had.  But a proper warm, English summer when you know that you have several weeks of good weather guaranteed ahead (the last time this happened was circa 2003) and you can plan an outdoor social event with confidence. Because I want to make and eat this strudel again.  And share it with my nearest and dearest who wouldn't whinge and whine that it's meat free.

Ready to eat

This recipe is from the current series of the Great British Bake Off and to cut a long waffle short, the flavours in this were amazing.  And I didn't even stick to the actual recipe because I don't have the time, space or patience to make my own filo* nor could I find Slipcote Cheese in the local Morrisons and so I made do with regular feta.  I only made enough for one person - okay so it was a greedy one-person portion that could have been eked out to two people with a green salad, a bottle of chilled chablis and a decadent dessert to follow - but I'd love to go the whole strudel (it's meat free, remember?) and serve this at an evening soiree held at the end of a beautiful summer's day.

Although the recipe sounds involved, it's actually not.  Chop up a lot of veg into little pieces and roast them.  Make some couscous.  Wrap it in liberally buttered filo with some cheese and herbs.  Butter again. And again.  This is a very James Martin-esque recipe.  Bake.  And butter again.

Dame Mary admitted during the programme that she finds it perfectly acceptable to buy your own filo so that makes the whole experience easier.  Plus if you read the original recipe, you need to make the pastry on a massive clear space like your huge, country kitchen table** or similar space.  Or just cheat and use shop-bought filo which will save your time and sanity.

Inside - pre-bake

I learnt from this recipe that the art to successful baked Filo wrapped things is to butter in between every layer.  Ordinarily, I just butter the outside to keep the fat down.  But having buttered the pastry to within an inch of its life, the crust was perfect and crispy - just how I like it.  My arteries are slightly more furred than they were this morning, but it was fully worth it.  Definitely on the make again list.

You can find the recipe online here.  Even though the weather is as miserable as sin outside, and everyone only wants to eat huge, fat winter stews, I can highly recommend this little taste of the Mediterranean to blow those autumn blues away.  And I'd like to wish Cat the best of luck with the rest of the GBBO.

*If you didn't see the episode where Cat made this, she was being shown the Filo-whacking technique by one of her fellow bakers and her pastry ended up on the floor, covered in bits of green carpet.  I don't know if this added to or detracted from the bake that was served on the tellybox, but a similar accident in my house would leave it full of dog hair and bits of chewed up crayon - hence why it's easier to use pre-bought pastry.

**Why is it that none of the GBBO contestants have tiny, clutter-filled kitchens like I do?

Thomasina Miers' Churros y Chocolate

This recipe has been on my to-do-list ever since I first got my grubby mitts on a copy of Thomasina Miers' Mexican Cooking Made Easy (my second favourite book after Dan Lepard's Short and Sweet) and I knew that if I didn't make it today, I probably never would.

Just a light breakfast

It's the kind of thing that you a) have to share with other people and b) couldn't cook in my house because the husband would freak out about the thought of all that hot oil catching fire.  So I decided to make it whilst visiting the Mothership as I knew she'd just about trust me to cook it by myself (see last night's brandy episode) and that my stepdad would do the honours and eat every last scrap.

The recipe supposedly makes 16 3-4" churros and I did consider only making half of the batter but figured that four each would be about right.  In the end, I must have had about 24 3-4" ones (and they all went).  It also makes far more chocolate sauce than it's humanly possible to eat at that time of the morning - but of course that will keep for another time or can be chilled and turned into truffles.

Mount Churros

Aside from the faff of deep frying, the recipe is simplicity itself.  The batter is just flour, oil and water;  the sauce a simple ganache of dark and milk chocolate*, double cream and golden syrup; the "sprinkly bit" cinnamon and caster sugar.  There's no need for a deep fat fryer to cook them - I did mine in a wok filled one-third full with oil.  You just need to be a bit dextrous trying to snip the batter from the piping bag when it's hanging over a pan of hot oil.  I had a couple that stuck together as the previous one floated into the path of the new one I was squeezing out but other than that, everything went to plan.

The only other tip is to either keep the pre-cooked ones warm whilst cooking the others or to serve them to people shortly after draining.  I made all mine first and so the last few were a bit icky when cold but the chocolate sauce definitely made up for it.

I would definitely make these again if I ever had a crowd to feed.  Which will be never.  But definitely worth the effort if you fancy a treat.  If you don't own a copy of Mexican Food Made Easy (then go buy one!) you can find the recipe here.

*It did feel slightly wrong cooking with 250g Finest Peruvian chocolate at 8am.  But only slightly!

Abigail's Strawberry Shortcakes

When I was a child, I remember Hanna Barbera's "Wait til your Father gets home" being on the telly.  I'm sure it was entertaining but literally, all I can remember is the title.  The meaning was slightly lost on me at the time as I never had the fear (or joy) of my father coming home.  But now it resonates as I've become that parent coming home to face the needs of Miss A.

I can pretty much guarantee now that whenever she's been subjected to Daddy DayCare, at some point, he will have used the 'Wait until Mummy gets home and then you can...' line on her.  Having a child generally makes crap days at work (like the one I had today) worthwhile.  But boy, I could've done without coming home to 'but Daddy said we could make Strawberry Crown' when I finally got in after a twelve hour day.

The fragrant Katie of 'I Can Cook' fame is to blame for this one.  We're going through a princess phase at the moment.  Yesterday this was a bonus as I managed to get Miss A's hair brushed twice without tears because I've been telling her for months that princesses have their hair brushed 100 times.  She finally succumbed to this yesterday, but I paid the price tonight because princesses must eat Strawberry Crown for pudding when they've been good all day.

Not being in the mood for soothing another tantrum (that's all I've done all day today - and I've had a few of my own too!) I gave in way too easily and soon we were in a happy, sticky, floury mess of a kitchen.

Cooked by my favourite chef!

In essence, it's a shortbread biscuit, topped with jam and strawberries and baked in the oven.  I never realised you could bake strawberries and they'd still come out pretty whole.  So I've learned something today.  It also got Miss A to eat something green because the jam is sprinkled with basil.  Okay so it was a tiny bit of green stuff but it was a new taste sensation for her.  And if I can convince her that lettuce is a kind of basil tomorrow then I'm getting somewhere.

Because I couldn't be bothered to dig out the original recipe, I just made my own base up and used almonds to give the shortbread a better texture.  Of course, they don't do that on the telly because of nut allergies.  I think it works well, but you can always substitute them with extra flour.  And to top it off, it's sprinkled with Demerara sugar.  I can't believe that Miss A was able to work out that soft brown sugar was not Demerara sugar when we were getting the ingredients out of the cupboard.  She's two.  This is slightly scary. If I'd not used up all my glitter stars making Dan Lepard's sparkly plum jam the other day I think we'd have used those instead as the 'gold' melted on cooking so we had to sprinkle more for decoration before serving.

Even the husband liked this one.  It's a great one for kids to make pretty much by themselves with a little bit of guidance.  If my two year old can do it, anyone can.

Serves 4 (adapted from I Can Cook)

100g plain flour
50g unsalted butter, cubed
50g ground almonds
25g caster sugar
8 strawberries - hulled and halved
4 generous teaspoons of good quality strawberry jam (we used Bonne Maman)
6 basil leaves, torn
Demerara sugar or edible glitter

Preheat the oven to 220c/200c fan
Put the butter and flour into a bowl and rub together until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.  Stir in the almonds and sugar and bring together to form a soft dough.  You may need a little extra flour if the mixture is a little soft.
Divide the mixture into four.  Shape into balls and then flatten to about 1.5cm thick.  Place on a baking tray.
Make a dip in the middle using your knuckles and spread a teaspoon of jam into the centre of each biscuit.
Sprinkle the basil over the jam then top with the strawberries.
Bake for 12-15 minutes until the biscuit is starting to go golden brown.
Leave to cool then sprinkle with Demerara sugar or edible glitter and serve with creme fraiche, yogurt or ice cream.

Dan Lepard's Fresh Ginger and Coffee Cake

This is looking like a cake just for the connoisseur rather than a crowd.  Initially attracting a lot of admiring glances, my trusty cake box hadn't had its lid removed once by the time I lifted the lid today.  I'm assuming that perhaps people were put off by the flavour rather than that they were just snubbing me and my cake.  But it's their loss because with just three more days at work before I bring this challenge to its conclusion, it's the very last time they'll be getting cake.

Coffee cake is admittedly a bit of a marmite choice.  You either love it or hate it.  In a room of a hundred people, you'll probably have around half of them eschewing coffee in favour of tea or soft drinks.  Working in IT as I do and being one of the many who mainlines caffeine on a regular basis, I figured that this slight boundary push was a risk worth taking.  And so far, it's spectacularly failed.

Much as they eat a lot of cake, they don't have a passion for Dan Lepard cakes as I do.  Or at least they really like them, but couldn't care less whose recipe it is that I'm using.  The recipe is one from the Guardian website and I chose it purely because I was interested in the flavour combination.

Having baked the sponge late yesterday, I was up at 5am icing it.  For once, I cut a piece out of the whole cake for photographic purposes and I decided to try a bit as I was curious.  The flavour combination works.  My brain struggled a little to compute all the flavours as they were going in but it works so well together, the cake is a taste sensation for anyone who doesn't think that Mr Kipling is the be-all and end-all of cake making*.


Filled with chopped pistachios and both fresh and stem ginger; and speckled with real, rather than instant coffee, the flavours are subtle enough to compliment each other and the lemon-cream cheese icing on the top adds another subtle dimension.

Coffee cake is one of my all time favourites and if I'm honest, I'd probably make a bog standard coffee sponge with coffee buttercream for nine out of ten coffee cakes but this is definitely something I'd share at cake club in the future.

The cake was slightly drier than I would've expected but this may be to do with me baking it in a rectangular rather than the recommended square tin.  I had to extend the cooking time a little to ensure it cooked through and of course, it's the corner pieces that always pay the price for an extended baking time.  Lesson learned - but the square tin had my disasterous marshmallows in it.

If you fancy testing your cake connoisseur credentials, you can find the recipe here.

*My father in law does

Homemade Marshmallows

Marshmallows are a currency in our house.  Far be it from me to fib about bribing my child with sugar-filled products in order to get her to co-operate.  She knows the tariff for various activities like not messing around at the tea table (grapes and blueberries for pudding), tidying up (two bedtime stories instead of one) and probably the worst bribe of all, a marshmallow if she has her hair brushed.

Depending on her mood, hair brushing is somewhere on the scale between tedious and an all out nervous breakdown from the perspective of her parents.  Some days, we can get away with telling her she'll look beautiful like Lizzie (her favourite nursery nurse) and her hair is done without too much fuss.  Other days, one of her toys or one of the dogs will do her hair - she believes absolutely that inanimate objects and beings without opposable thumbs are capable of wielding a hairbrush, clips and bobbles - and the unlucky parent just about manages to get through the ordeal without reaching for something alcoholic.

So near, but yet so far...

On rare occasions, however, we do have to resort to all out bribery.  This usually happens when we've got somewhere to go and not much slippage in the itinerary for getting out of the door.  Bargaining starts before breakfast with the usual promises of 'beautiful Lizzie hair' or a list of animals or wooden jigsaw dinosaurs that she might like to have do her hair, but it's like she has a sixth sense that time is tight and she has a melt down at the mere thought of having her hair done.

I let her brush my hair and put conditioner in it.  This still doesn't persuade her to have her own done.  She sits rigidly with her head against the back of a chair and refuses to move, tears and snot coursing down her face.  A pile of unsuitable animals build up on the floor.  She doesn't want to look like any of her nursery teachers or her best friend Charlotte.  I threaten to have her hair cut off so she looks like a boy (which is what my mum did to me when I was small because I used to do this - and my hair is a hundred times worse to tame than Miss A's).  Even this doesn't work.  And her hair is so cute when it's done that I can't bring myself to follow through on the cutting threat.

And so I offer up a 'Marshie'.  And not just any marshie, but a pink marshie.  The snot covered child crawls onto my lap, smearing my top with snot (I've learned not to get myself ready to go out until the hair battle is over) and she reluctantly lets me tame her Cheerio and milk encrusted hair into bunches or a pony tail.  Eyes dry, we head into the kitchen to find the marshie pot.

So today's recipe of choice came about when I read about one of my fellow blogger's joy at being able to make her own marshmallows.  The recipe comes from the Eat Like a Girl blog and I knew that I just had to give it a go.  With a huge pile of 'marshie' you can even make your own shapes as Nelly of Nelly's Cupcakes did - melting a snowman into her hot chocolate.  What a fab, wintry idea.

Niamh gives you some of the science behind the actual marshmallow recipe.  Basically, marshmallows contain Italian meringue with some gelatine and flavouring thrown in.  The only downside to the recipe is that it's more descriptive than exact science and this meant that I had a bit of a disaster.  When whipping the meringue with the gelatine, the instruction is to "...continue to whisk until the marshmallow mixture holds its shape. Don’t over whisk or your marshmallow will lose fluffiness".  I was a bit worried about over whisking and consequently stopped whipping too early.  All looked well in the tray and it set well but sadly, the gelatine separated out.

The top bit tasted lovely although it was a little too wobbly - because it lacked the full amount of gelatine.  I then re-read Nelly's post and remembered she'd pointed out the length of time you need to whip it for.  Ah well.  Whilst Miss A announced that the top bit was "'licious" she decided the bottom "cheese bit is stinky winky" so it went in the bin.  But I'll try again another time when I have the house to myself and can put the mixer on for more than five seconds.

You can find the original recipe here.

Wensleydale and Ginger Scones

What is up with the weather?  One minute, everyone is raving on about how autumnal it is; my fellow foodies are twittering about soups, stews and casseroles; and I'm desperately trying to find my gloves*. The next, it's roasting hot and I'm feeling like Pinchy probably did when he met his end a little while back.

When the weather turned earlier this week, I figured I'd make some soup this weekend and that it should be complimented by a plate of hot, buttered cheese scones.  My mind then wandered off at a tangent as I bought some Wensleydale to go with Bath Olivers - recommended to me by Lizzie (aka @Mrs_Gaffer).  Whilst perusing Ocado online, I came across Wensleydale with Ginger and thus, Wensleydale and Ginger scones were born.

Slightly singed scones with even more cheese

Wensleydale was one of my favourite cheeses long before Wallace and Gromit appeared on the scene.  For the uninitiated, it has a very delicate flavour and is very crumbly too.  It works well with sweet things such as proper apple pie (with a top and a bottom) or ginger cakes.  I have yet to try it with Bath Olivers as I used it all in my scones and will therefore have to buy more next week.


Because I already had a jar of stem ginger in the fridge, I decided to just buy regular Wensleydale and to combine the two into a scone.  That way, I could make some plain Wensleydale scones to see what they were like on their own - and to feed to my fussy toddler, just in case - and I could do some with ginger in as well.

So I made two sets of mixture, one with cheese, a touch of cayenne and a smidgen of mustard; the others with cheese and finely diced ginger.  I placed them in the oven to bake and couldn't work out why, after 12 minutes, the plain scones had barely risen, let alone browned.  Then I noticed I'd stupidly switched my oven on to grill mode in my sleep-befuddled haze (this was 7.30am**) and so consequently, the ginger ones were cooked and nearly singed on top***, whilst I had to rebake the plain Wensleydale ones again.

The resulting scones were both enjoyable, although the Wensleydale flavour is so subtle in the scones that you'd either need a lot more of that and barely any ginger to get both flavours; or as I would recommend, you should just make the ginger scones, omit the cheese from the recipe and eat it on the side in a big fat lump.

Just getting back to the weather - after barbecuing myself in the sunshine all day (and eating a dodgy looking ice lolly), I returned home to find I was shivering cold and so ended up also making this tomato soup from BBC Good Food.  This is the quickest soup ever and is great when a tin of rather foul Heinz tomato soup is the only thing in your store cupboard.

So here's the recipe for both sets of scones.

• 225g self raising flour
• 50g cold butter, cubed
• 145ml buttermilk (or 140ml milk and 5ml lemon juice), warmed
• pinch table salt

-then either-

• 150g Wensleydale, grated
• pinch cayenne pepper
• pinch English mustard powder

-or-

• 1 ball stem ginger, finely chopped
• 150g Wensleydale (optional if you want to try the Wensleydale and Ginger version)

1. Preheat the oven to 220C/200C fan/425f.  Place a baking tray in the oven to get hot.
2. In a large mixing bowl, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Add your other chosen ingredients and give a quick mix to spread through the bowl evenly.  
4. Pour in the buttermilk and work to form a soft, dough using a round ended knife.  Don't over work the dough.
5. Tip out onto a floured work surface, pat to be about 2.5cm/1 inch thick and then cut using a pastry cutter.  I used an 7cm cutter for my ginger ones and got four from the mix (and one for the dog) and a 5cm cutter for the plain cheese ones and got eight (and one for the dog).
6. Remove the baking tray from the oven, place the scones on to the tray and bake for 10-12 minutes.  If you're baking larger scones, leave them for 14 minutes.
7. Remove from the oven and leave to cool slightly before serving with lashings of butter.

*cold hands = warm heart
**at this point, I'd abandoned the soup plan in favour of a day out at the local-ish farm park with Miss A so the scones had been promoted to picnic fodder
***thankfully I didn't wake the husband with the smoke alarm for once

Dodgy ice lolly

Dan Lepard's Spiced Baklava

With just two weeks to go, I had to get my act together and try making baklava.  It's something I've wanted to do for years and it was on my list for the Olympic Food Challenge but because it could have been a recipe from about three of my countries on the list, I kept putting it off until I had no suitable countries left.  I'd gotten as far as buying the filo, but that was it.

So today, having promised my work colleagues at the other office that I'd bring them cake, I figured it was time to get my pastry thang on and put another tick on the list.  And who better to guide me through the minefield of recipes than Dan Lepard?

Partially syruped baklava

The recipe is simplicity in itself.  The only problem I had was with the power of my food processor with it taking nearly ten minutes to process the nuts to a dust.  And a bit of stupidity on my part where I didn't quite pay attention to the instructions for the dark sugar syrup and put all the water into the pan at the start - thus having to try and ladle it all out again without removing the sugar.

Using shop-bought filo is one of those acceptable kitchen shortcuts that even the most capable of bakers will do.  I'd love to see them have a filo-from-scratch challenge on the Great British Bake Off - it would probably make great entertainment.  Most people shy away from making their own filo but the lovely Lauren from the Eighty Bakes blog made her own in an epic version of baklava.  I am in awe of her patience.

The recipe calls for 500ml of syrup which seems massively excessive.  I was in two minds about whether or not to use it all, but knowing Dan's recipes always work pretty well (see the chocolate cake disaster) I ended up using it all.  Having just popped out to check on it as it cools, it seems pretty soggy so I'm hoping it will set once its cold.  This will be one of those posts where I'll have to update with feedback tomorrow.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

You can find the recipe here

Updated 12th September @ 12:10

I should have gone with my gut instinct.  500ml of syrup was way too much.  It wasn't so much a soggy bottom as a drowned bottom.  The whole lot ended up in the bin at about 5am this morning.  Saddened is an understatement - especially as the nuts and filo were so expensive.

I'd recommend anyone trying this recipe to add the syrup in stages and review after each addition has had time to soak in.

Rhubarb and Custard Tarts

Today was a lesson in how to not transport cakes.  After lovingly baking a batch of tarts, I stupidly put the tin into a carrier bag and forgot to check that the tin was flat when I picked the bag up.  Consequently, when I realised my mistake, the tin was already full of sloppy rhubarb curd.

Let me take you back a few steps.  One of my colleagues is a massive fan of my rhubarb and custard cupcakes.  I came up with the recipe long before the Hummingbird Bakery published the recipe in 'Cake Days'.  I'm sure it features in many other books as it's such a classic combination.  I fill mine with a spiced rhubarb centre and then top with custard buttercream.  P is intrigued as to how I achieve the hidden middle.  He's quite intelligent but he really can't work out how I do it.  At first I thought he was joking when he asked, but he's asked so many times now that I know he's truly curious.

P is also a huge fan of custard tarts.  Whenever he brings in cakes to work, he'll always ensure that 50% of the batch are custard tarts.  I had never eaten one until recently as I really didn't think I would like the cold custard thing but I was pleasently surprised.

So when I happened across this recipe, I knew I had to make them for him.  I made the curd last week when another friend gave me a batch of rhubarb.  If I'm honest, I was a little disappointed as the curd took away a lot of the sharp tang of the rhubarb which I love.  It was also a bit 'eggier' than some of the citrus curds I've made in the past - this may have been my mistake in cooking it.  If (or when) I do this again, I'd probably make a rhubarb jam instead.


The rest of the pie is based on a Dan Lepard recipe.  I used up the rest of the beautiful pastry I made for the Botswanan Chicken Pie I made for the Olympic Food Challenge and the custard is also a Dan recipe.  I loved the idea of putting a cupcake case into the pastry cases to hold the beans for blind baking.  And I was happy that the pastry came out of the tin far easier than when I made Thomasina Miers' mince pies at Christmas.  I have to experiment now as I'm not sure if it was the blind baking that made them come out more easily or if the pastry I made at Christmas was a bit rubbish.

Oops!

Anyhow, when it came to baking the custard part, the blogger (Ms North) recommended filling them half full with custard to leave room for the topping.  I found that on baking the custard had decreased in volume somewhat - whether it was because it settled or dried out a little I'm not sure.  I'd definitely recommend going for two-thirds custard to one third rhubarb.  Plus it means you won't have so much spare custard to force yourself to eat!

The overall flavour was good with the orange complimenting the rhubarb nicely, but as I said it was just a tad too sweet for me with the custard and the curd.  But that's just personal preference.  The pastry was lovely and crisp on the one that I'd saved to test and photograph - it was also the worst looking pie before the disaster.

I would also recommend making them and serving them straight away.  After being in a tin all day, the pastry had gone soggy - I'm guessing from the dampness from the curd.

You can find the original recipe here.

Dan Lepard's Dark Chocolate Berry Cake

There are a few things that I've tried several different recipes for over the course of this year in the hope of finding the perfect recipe.  I've found my favoured recipes for naan bread, vanilla cupcakes, lemon cake and meatballs (this is a cheat because we settled on Waitrose ones).

Poor lighting - taken at 4.57am!

But good chocolate cake has eluded me.  Pre-blog, I had made Angela Nielsen's Ultimate Chocolate Cake and after a disaster with a vanilla cake, it gave me a back up base cake for this challenge.  I then tried Nigella's chocolate cake  which I really wasn't a fan of.  I had a disaster with Dan Lepard's Brown Sugar Chocolate Cake and a similar crisis with a chocolate and clementine loaf cake that Miss A and I tried to make the other day that I was too embarrassed to blog about.

So today, having made a bargain with Miss A that if she'd make a lemon cake for my Grandad's birthday on Saturday (he hates chocolate cake, she believes that all birthday cakes should be chocolate), we set about trying Dan Lepard's Dark Chocolate Berry Cake for me to take in to work tomorrow for my lovely colleagues on my Business Process Excellence course.

Having made a deal with the trainer that if we finished by 4pm today, I'd bring in cake tomorrow, I was a little nervous that I'd have a further disaster (I'm touching my laminate floor in the hope I don't now jinx myself and drop the darn thing on the way into work in the morning!).  But so far, so good.

I nearly forgot the butter - which is the very first ingredient - but managed to redeem myself at the last minute.  Then I didn't realise that if you start the timer on my mobile phone and then plug it in to charge, it stops the timer.  Thankfully I'd double checked the time on the cooker clock when I put the cake in so I was able to work out how much longer it needed and now it's nicely risen and cooling in the tin.

Hutch plays mother

Of course, by the time it's completely cooled I will have to be in bed, meaning that I need to ice it first thing in the morning.

My only comment (so far) is that the instructions are a little scant for the novice.  For example, with the icing, it doesn't tell you to melt the chocolate in a bain marie.  I'm partly tempted to do it straight in the pan but I could do without a burnt chocolate crisis at 5am.  Nor does it tell you how to cool the cake - in the tin or on a rack?  I'm going for the in the tin method.

Keep your fingers x'd for me and I'll update the post tomorrow with a picture of the finished article and some feedback.

You can find the recipe here.

Updated 5th September 2012 @ 19:58

Having gotten up at 4.30am to ice the cake this morning, I'm afraid it's not particularly photogenic and the picture is poorly lit.  However, I'm loving the chocolate icing with the subtle hint of berry coming through from the jam.  I used cherry jam with mine and I absolutely recommend buying the Mirabel jam that you can get in Lidl which I used for my cherry Viennese whirls.  It has a really strong, sharp cherry flavour and cuts well through the chocolate.  I find English cherry jams far to sweet and I think they'd be lost in the richness of the frosting.

One miniscule criticism is again surrounding the food photography.  This time, it's the Guardian's website.  The stylist seems to have used a buttercream type frosting rather than the chocolate/jam/icing sugar version that Lepard suggests.  The icing in the official picture is very smooth and thick, showing no hint of cherries lurking in it - which is a shame.  Or maybe they just used a sieved cherry jam?  Nobody's ever going to taste that picture so they probably only cared that it looks aesthetically pleasing.  And in this instance, there's no picture in Short and Sweet to compare it to as the recipe isn't in the book.

Anyway on to the reviews.  My chief cake tester is on his holidays at the moment.  The second in command (on the cake testing front) gave it the seal of approval, as did the rest of the course delegates and the assorted managers who came to review our final presentations.  In fact, I've now been invited to attend twenty training sessions taking place between now and Christmas by one manager who was told that I always take cake when I got to a training session.  He'll be lucky!

My personal opinion from the tiny sliver I had was that it was a good, flavoursome, solid cake that would stand up to a wide variety of fillings and could probably slice well into a three layer cake.  It was a little drier than I would've liked which is purely my own fault.  Partly because of the timer issue (see above) and partly because I was trying to juggle Miss A into bed around the time it was due out of the oven so it got a few minutes more than it should have had.

Nevertheless, I will definitely be making this one time and again.  Chocolate cake recipe?  Sorted.

And finally, thanks to Hutch who got press-ganged into having his pic taken for the blog - just to prove I don't eat all the cake myself!

Olympic Food Challenge: Non Bread - Tajikistan

Today, my Olympic Food Challenge journey has entered Tajikistan.  Formerly part of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan is a landlocked country in Asia, bordered by Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, China and Kyrgyzstan.  The cuisine is largely influenced by the food of these neighbouring countries with the national dish being pilaf.  

My non bread - but it is real, honest!

Meals are usually served with non, a flatbread found throughout Central Asia. If a Tajik has food but not non, he will say he is out of food. If non is dropped on the ground, people will put it up on a high ledge for beggars or birds. Legend holds that one is not supposed to put non upside down because this will bring bad luck. The same holds true if anything is put on top of the non, unless it is another piece of non (source - Wikipedia)

I loved the above bits of trivia and the beautiful designs shown in pictures that I found when I was looking for a recipe so I knew this was the dish for me.  Plus, it gave me some bread to go with the cauliflower soup that I made yesterday - and now I'm stuffed to the gills for the rest of the day.

Traditional non bread

The recipe was pretty easy to do, if a little time consuming.  My sponge went a bit bonkers and so I managed to short-cut a little of the time.  The resulting bread was nice and soft although do pay attention to the bit that says to have the toppings to hand for when you take the hot trays out of the oven.  I didn't and ended up flinging salt at them so had to brush quite a bit off when it came to the eating.  

I just wish I had a fancy bread stamp and had thought to find out what the traditional ones are glazed with to give them their lovely golden hue.  You can find the recipe that I used here.

As for their Olympic and Paralympic entries, they won a single bronze medal in the weight lifting at the Olympics and have one competitor in the Power Lifting at the Paralympics although their Paralympians have yet to win a medal.

Dolly Bakes' "Best of British Apple" Bundt Cake

My overriding childhood food memory (aside from the faddy eating of peanut butter and celery and Bernard Matthew's roasts) is of hanging out in the kitchen on a Sunday morning as my beloved Grandma peeled and cored Bramley after Bramley for apple pie.  She didn't just make apple pie, but that was my favourite - it tasted even better cold the next day.  I had a real thing for the sharp taste of Bramleys and they were even better dipped in sugar to give them a sweet/sour contrast.  My next favourite thing was raw carrots and so she called me her little donkey.

Maple glazed and cooling down

I long to have a warm kitchen filled with smells of roasting beef and the warm, earthy smell of a cinnamon scented apple pie but sadly, family life isn't like that these days.  At least not in my household.  I've requested that I inherit her pie plate that's inscribed with a recipe for blackberry and apple pie but I know it's unlikely ever to see the light of day because I'd be paranoid about it being broken and besides, the husband "doesn't do pie".

Part of this year has been about me educating Miss A in how to eat properly (I've mostly failed here) and I want to recreate some of that warm glow of home cooking for her.  My pastry skills are still rubbish so I knew I had to make a cake.  My cookbooks are very lacking in apple cake recipes so I turned to Google for help. When I hit on Rachel's (aka Dolly Bakes) Best of British Apple Bundt, I just knew I had to make it.

Rachel is a massive fan of bundts and with this being my third, I'm falling in love them too.  They are proper sharing cakes.  None of your namby pamby selfish cupcake-ness.  This cake will feed the masses - and leave them wanting more.  I got my bundt tin on Amazon for about £12 - I didn't spend more because I wasn't sure I'd use it but now, having seen Rachel's beautiful star-shaped tin, I wish I'd bought something a little more extravagant.

I've yet to try a piece of the cake because it's being taken to work tomorrow for my very lucky work colleagues.  However the batter tasted amazing, the smells coming from the oven were to die for.  Although it's a 'British' cake, it's exactly how I'd imagine an American Mom's kitchen would smell.  And as for the maple butter glaze that you brush on to it....  This cake is going to be special!  If there had been any way to sneak a bit of it today, I would have done.  I was tempted to cut a slice out so I could take a decent picture but knew that if I did, I'd have to eat it.  And a bit more.  So it's still intact.  Just!

I'll update the post tomorrow with the verdict from work but I know it will be nothing but rave reviews.  Thanks so much for sharing this one Rachel.

Updated 28th August 2012 @ 20:38 

Well the verdict is in.  I didn't realise I worked with such cake connoisseurs.  After a lot of fussing about who was going to be the one to cut the 'giant doughnut' (nobody wanted to be accused of being the greedy one) and further faffing about the dividing lines on the cake (see the picture) and whether it was rude to cut a large segment in half (and even ruder to take both a narrow and a wide wedge), I got some feedback from my colleagues.

I was going to assign them all aliases but as I was collating feedback and re-read what I'd noted for one of the aliases, I realised there was the chance for unintentional innuendo (it started an afternoon of inappropriate smirking) so we're reduced to persons a through to e.

Person A said it was the second best cake I've ever baked.  He couldn't actually remember which his favourite was but I have a feeling it was Dan Lepard's Dark Banana and Ginger Cake.

Person B diligently listed pretty much everything that went into the cake - he would be amazing on the Masterchef palate test getting the apple, ginger, cinnamon, vanilla and additional butter in the glaze.  The only thing that foxed him was the maple syrup which was apparently his first taste of it.  He was one of the double-wedgers and enjoyed every last crumb.

Person C thought it looked like ginger cake or parkin.  It did indeed have a slightly darker crumb than some apple cakes.  When mixing the batter it looks like a fabulous coffee cake.  Another seal of approval.

Person D came back for seconds and thirds, claiming it was for some of our consultants who are working in the 'dungeon'.  Personally I think he just really liked it.

And finally on to Person E.  The person who ably wields the yardstick for all my cakes.  He's a tough man to please, not liking brownies or my favourite viennese whirls (this didn't stop him from eating the bacon brownies, the black and white brownie cheesecake or the cherry viennese whirls).  Plus apple cake is the only ever cake he's made so I knew he'd have the most positive (or damning opinion of all).  With his express permission, here is his verbatim verdict on the cake:

"Good texture, just enough ‘crunch’ on the outside juxtaposed by a nice interior – a balance of lightness & stickiness. Excellent apple flavours coming through with no cloying aftertaste.  9.5/10 :o)"

Rachel - I think we have a winner!

Paul Hollywood's Eight Strand Plaited Loaf

This wasn't so much about trying out a new recipe as trying out a new technique.  I've had a plaited loaf on my mental 'to-do-list' for the past year but just never gotten round to doing so.  I'd intended to make Challah which is a similarly complex plait but with a slightly sweeter bread.  But I gave up on the 'Bread of the Week' idea in about week two and have just never gotten round to it.

I picked the recipe for a number of reasons.  One because it was the technical challenge on the Great British Bake Off this week, two because I've just been given a pile of plums and apples which I intend to turn into Dan Lepard's Plum Glitter Jam tomorrow (and the bread will be great to test the jam on) and three because....dammit, I'm sure there was a third reason and my mind has gone totally blank save for random Three Letter Acronyms from the Prince2 course I've just completed.

Anyhoo, I was reading an article by The Silver Fox this week where he confirmed my previous assertions that there are just six basic baking recipes and everything else is a variation on a theme.  If you look at sponge sandwiches, they all use the same sugar/butter/flour/egg ratio, the only variation is the tweaks in flavouring and the quantities depending on the size of your baking pan.  Likewise with bread.  It is flour, yeast, salt and water.  Yes you can add loads of stuff to it; shape it differently; cook it differently; but at the end of the day, you still start out with the same basic ingredients and are ruled by the science of baking as to whether or not you get the perfect product.


And so it was that I attempted the eight strand loaf this morning.  It's a basic white bread dough but with double the yeast.  This meant that within 45 minutes, my lovely pillowy dough was making a break from the confines of its bowl for the work surface.  I knocked it back, tried to roll out my 'sausages' but it was just so stretchy and full of air that it kept shrinking back on itself.  In fact, it would've made for an amazing pizza base.

I had been surprised at the advice to use flour for kneading.  Hollywood normally recommends oil as he says extra flour on the board or your hands can change the consistency of a loaf.  In order to work with this very 'wet' dough though the flour was definitely needed.  I eventually ended up with eight springy and rather uneven dough sausages and it was time to commence with the plaiting.

Actually, it wasn't that hard to do.  Yes, the instructions could've been better laid out.  But if you can count to eight, it really isn't that hard.  Sadly my uneven sausages made for an uneven plait.  I've never been any good at rolling sausage shapes.  Even back in the days of doing it with playdough as a child, mine were always mishapen and not perfectly smooth and wrinkle free like my peers were making.

I also think my very soft dough conspired against me with the loaf ending up quite flat in shape after its second rise.  I do have problems with my free-form loaves seemingly expanding more sideways than upwards.  I could do with a tip or two from Sir Paul of Hollywood as to why this happens but I guess I'll probably have to end up asking Google.

So I've done it.  It baked okay and made an average loaf.  Nothing to write home about.  At the end of the day, it's a bog-standard white bread and I think my Giraffe/Tiger bread is more impressive than this.  But next time I'm making a bog-standard white loaf, I may just give it another go if I can find out if it was because my dough was too soft.

You can find the recipe/instructions here.

Looking ropey

Banana, Maple Syrup and Pistachio Bread

With my mind on the idea of having a picnic, I totally disregarded the local weather forecast's doomsaying that it was going to be at best cloudy in Wiltshire today.  I have mentioned my love of picnics before.  It's another one of those family-oriented activities that the husband can't stand.  He gets twitchy the moment I mention the idea and I'm sure he prays for the weather to turn before we make it out the door.

Completely unfazed by all the potential pitfalls, I chose to have a go at Jamie's Banana Bread.  I should've stopped when I read the name 'Jamie Oliver'.  I have had zero success with his recipes this year (aside from Mulled Cider, which doesn't really count).  I should also have re-read my Mulled Cider post about how pictures of his recipes on the web look nothing like they do in reality - even factoring in the fact that I don't cook for a living.

Tin-bound

I came across the recipe when researching breakfast recipes for this week.  I'm on a pretty intensive course and have been warned by my boss that it's going to be a tough week and if I don't do well and have spent the week responding to work email, tweeting and blogging then I won't be very popular on my return to work.  So I have decided to go with breakfast recipes to get things over and done early in the day, short posts like I did on holiday and blind panic that I'm going to fail and it will all go horribly wrong.

Anyhow, this recipe looked like the perfect picnic food.  Soft banana bread, studded with nuts and glazed with honey.  Not being a honey fan, I replaced it with maple syrup and used pistachios instead of almonds for the lovely green colour.

If you look at the picture on the website, the bread actually looks like one of those soft mini bread rolls that you might buy from M&S or Waitrose.  The husband likes really soft bread and I was slightly ignorant of the fact that basic bread doesn't bake into a finished product like that.  To do soft rolls properly, you need to use something like Dan Lepard's Soft White Baps

My finished bread was slightly grey inside (understandable with the banana content, but not at all visible in Jamie's picture) and soft, but not all spongy like the picture seems to indicate.  I also have issue with the size of the bread in the picture.  Jamie says to use his basic white bread recipe and divide it into ten balls.  I used half of the bread recipe and managed eight gigantic rolls.  With his cheeky chappie 'bish, bash, bosh' approach to writing, he also neglects to mention what size and shape tin to put them into.  I put my eight into my 9" springform tin and they filled it nicely.

The taste was okay even if the texture was a little disappointing based on the picture on the website.  But it was chewy, they are nice warm, Miss A loved them and I think they'd work well in the winter with a big mug of hot chocolate.

I like the concept and will try adapting the recipe further in the future - but from now on, I'll stick to Dan's baking recipes.  As pretty much everyone I know who has tried a recipe from Short and Sweet or his Guardian recipes will tell you - quite simply they do what they say on the (baking) tin.  Stick to real food Jamie and leave the baking recipes to the experts.

Lil Ms Squirrel's Cheat's Blinis

There have been accusations in the past that I am rubbish of letting go of things.  Whilst I like to protest that this is untrue, the last couple of days has made me realise that it's time to face up to my denial and admit that I am unable to let go of the Olympic Food Challenge.

It was just nineteen short days in length and yet, here I am two days after, still mourning its passing.  I must adopt a 'Feel the Fear...' approach to this and do some kind of ritual with candles and consign the OFC to a happy chapter in my past.  But for now, there's still a smidgen of caviar in my fridge and it would be a shame to let it go to waste, which is why I found myself troughing on blinis this past lunchtime.

A blini to the uninitiated is a Russian drop scone, made using buckwheat flour and yeast and served with caviar.  You also see it commonly served with prawns and smoked salmon too.  As I had the leftovers from Sunday's Danish open sandwiches to play with, it seemed like the obvious choice for a fast, tasty and posh working-from-home lunch.

Having run out of yeast at the weekend though, I faced the dilemma of whether or not the recipe would work without the extra lift.  Then I remembered an oft-used trick for pancake recipes that require a little extra bubble in them.  Fizzy water.  Or as Miss A calls it 'Funny Water'.  With some baking powder and whipped egg white, this worked a treat giving me soft, light pancakes which were perfect topped with some Philly and the aforementioned caviar and prawns.

And because they originate from Russia, I will plaster a Russian flag on the post because I can.  It's all part of the letting go.  Now I just need to come up with a non-country-specific recipe tomorrow to break the flag-waving habit.  And if I'm struggling to let go of the OFC, how on earth am I going to let go of my own blog in just 43 days time???

This is how I made them.

Makes six blinis (based on a Mary Berry recipe)

• 35g plain flour
• 35g wholemeal flour (use buckwheat if you can get it for the nutty flavour)
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 medium egg, separated
• 55ml skimmed milk, warmed
• 25ml fizzy water
• pinch of table salt



Flag addict alert! Russia

• spray oil

• caviar, prawns, lemon wedges (I forgot this in the pic!) and cream cheese or sour cream to serve

1. Whisk the egg yolk, water and milk together then combine with the flours, salt and baking powder to a smooth batter.
2. Whip the egg white until it forms stiff peaks.  Fold into the batter carefully.  Decant into a measuring jug.
3. Spray a frying pan with the spray oil and heat over a medium heat.  Pour the batter into 2-3 inch diameter circles, spaced 1-2 inches apart.  Cook for two minutes until the bottom is set and and bubbles start to form on the surface.  Carefully flip over and cook for a further minute.  Slide onto a warmed plate and continue cooking until all the batter is used.
4. Serve with the accompaniments.

Dan Lepard's Saffron Peach Cake

There's a rumour going around that I'm writing a cake blog.  This is not true.  I'm writing a blog where I try and cook something new every day for 366 days.  The original idea was to attempt to broaden my family's food horizons.  I thought I was doing pretty well, having clocked up 322 different recipes on consecutive days.  In fact, sometimes I've made more than one new recipe each day, but they haven't always made it to the blog.  I've survived two weeks on holiday, Christmas with my fussy family, various bugs and so on and every day made something new and written about it.  And yet, everyone still thinks I'm writing a cake blog.

Summer in a cake

Admittedly, these opinions have come from two sources.  My best friend who has discovered the delights of baking and whom I have gone from talking geek-speak to, to discussing the merits of Willie's 100% Cacao and the joys of owning a bundt tin.  The other source of the rumour is from my work colleagues who have been the (lucky) recipients of the majority of the cakes I've made over the past (nearly) year.

This is probably because it's where my 'knack' (I hesitate to call it talent) and passion lie.  In baking.  I enjoy cooking from scratch but when you live with someone who has to eat a dish that tastes exactly the same every time you make it, the joy can be taken out of cooking when you fear the reaction if you happen to have run out of xyz and replaced it with abc just this once.  With cake, most people are polite/complimentary about it.  I can't remember ever giving anyone (apart from the husband) a bit of cake and them not at least saying thank you, but more likely they provide very positive feedback.

The one thing I've gotten from this year of cooking and blogging is the confidence to be a little more creative and experimental in the baking department although I still have much to learn.  The fabulous Great British Bake Off is back on our screens tomorrow night.  It was watching that this time last year that inspired me to do this rather strange challenge to myself.  The only way to progress in something is to practice and evolve.  I have learnt so much this year about cooking and baking and flavours and little twists that I feel I'm in a better place than I was a year ago.  I will be watching avidly this year to see what other gaps in my knowledge I should consider plugging once I get underway with my new blog.

Top of the learning list is that when you use something up, remember to put it straight into the Ocado shopping app so when you have the urge to bake, you don't wind up having to adapt and cut corners on certain recipes.  Or if you happen to be going to the shops for one ingredient, double check the cupboards before you go to make sure you've got everything you need.  Which is why I ended up making an almost almondless almond cake.

I still can't let go of the Olympic Food Challenge

I always always always have two or three bags of ground almonds in my cupboard plus a big jar that I pour all the ends of packets into.  Usually because I forget I've got some and then buy another bag when I'm baking something so build up a stock.  So when I picked this cake, it was with some confidence that all I needed to buy was saffron.  Not so I discovered when I turned all the cupboards out to find every permutation of nut (Brazils, macadamias, walnuts, pine nuts, pecans, pistachios...) but nary a bag of ground almonds to be found.  I'd put them all in my mum's chocolate and coconut birthday cake the other day and not replaced them.  Oops.

So I ended up flavouring the sponge purely with almond essence and replacing the almonds weight-for-weight with more flour.  It seemed to work okay although the little slice I tried was quite crumbly.  I'm sure the almonds would've made the sponge much moister.

But this is a fabulously cheery cake with it's sunny saffron hue and topped with sliced peaches.  The perfect antithesis for a miserable August day.  You can find the recipe in Short and Sweet or on the Guardian website.

Olympic Food Challenge - Smörgåsbord Open Sandwiches on Black Bread with Pickled Cucumber - Denmark

It's all over.  This is my final Olympic Food Challenge Post.  The last medal has been contested and the UK won a silver.  I never thought I'd be sad to see the end of the Olympics, but it's been an amazing nineteen days that has bought most of the country together and encouraged me to learn more about the world and have fun whilst doing it.

Nom! is all I have to say about this

Denmark have had an okay games.  With 113 athletes competing in 17 disciplines, they will be heading home tomorrow with two golds, four silvers and three bronzes for their troubles.  And they even managed to swipe a gold medal in the track cycling which is pretty impressive given how well Team GB dominated that domain.

As for the foodie side of things, Denmark is the only place on my list of countries that I've actually been to.  I was about ten and my mother took me to Legoland.  My overriding food memory was of this really posh woman with an awful, horsey voice who used to spend all her time whinnying on about how 'Daddy has a private jet' and 'Daddy has a 40ft yacht' and how 'Tarquin and Ophelia are privately educated, don't you know'.  And yet every day, whilst everyone else stumped up the two Danish Kroner for a packed lunch, she used to save herself a few bob by taking enough food from the Smörgåsbord breakfast table and slipping it into a carrier bag to be consumed later in the day.  She even emptied bowls of rice krispies into bags.  I guess this is why I'm not rich.

Other than that, I remember eating a lovely, red spicy dish with frankfurters in it, potato salad and drinking Apfelsaft which bemused me because it was orange juice and not apple.  We may or may not have had Danish pastries.  We might have had bacon.  But there is nothing that I could put my finger on that I ate that I wanted to make again (25 years does a lot to dull the memory).

Not quite black, but close enough

So, having already tried making Danish pastries on this blog several times (cherry Danish, quick apricot Danish, disaster Danish and Dan Lepard's Amazing Danish), I wanted to try something else.  Before I picked Apple Cake for my Romanian offering, I really wanted to make Aebleskiver which are little apple dough balls from Denmark.  Trouble is, you need the proper pan or you don't get to make them as they come out in little spheres.  A bit of Googling told me there's not much else you can make in the special pan other than Aebleskiver and having already bought a bamboo steamer, I decided to try and keep on the husband's good side and not buy yet more things to clutter up the cupboard with.



Further Googling led me back to Smörgåsbord and a picture of Danish Open sandwiches.  Bingo.  I could get through today by trying a new recipe to satisfy my own blog criteria (however loose they are and how ever much I bend the rules to get through the 366 recipes!) and by making something remotely Danish looking, I'd tick the box on the OFC too.

I chose Dan Lepard's Black Bread recipe as I'd already done his Black Pepper Rye.  I know Scandinavians eat lots of rye bread.  Whether or not Dan's recipe is anywhere near what you'd find in Denmark, I have no idea, but I knew it would work and I'd most likely enjoy it.  And it did.  But I didn't go much on it sliced and buttered as I'd do with normal bread.  However, topped with cream cheese, pickled cucumber, prawns and caviar, the bread really came into its own and the liquorice flavour from the fennel seeds really complimented all the other flavours.

Labelled Elsinore but made in Sweden

I am seriously not a fan of licorice and only went with fennel seeds because I couldn't find my cumin seeds (hubby has been 'tidying' again).  If I make it again, I'll definitely go with the cumin seeds and replace the treacle with honey (as suggested by Dan).

And my new addiction is pickled cucumber.  This was a last minute addition as I suddenly got a bit panicked about what to put on the sandwich.  I already had the caviar and prawns but wondered if I could do two different types.  T'interweb suggested pickled cucumber and pickled herrings.  I found a recipe and made my own cucumber - simple, addictive, making more once this blog is posted.  Sadly(!), Sainzlebobs were all out of pickled herrings.  I was devastated.

So we go out on a high with me having tried some more new stuff, and enjoyed it.  I would like to thank Ewan Mitchell for hosting this challenge and encouraging us to experiment (although I draw the line at SoupTuesday's Deep Fried Duck Tongues).  Do go and read all the other amazing posts too.  You can find links on the Olympic Food Challenge blog.

Bread recipe can be found here (and also in Short and Sweet) and the one for the cucumber is here.

Olympic Food Challenge - Romanian Apple Cake - Romania

I think Romania is the first of my countries that I've blogged about that has actually won some medals at the time of me posting.  Of course, they've had just over a week to get going and have managed to amass two golds (gymnastics and shooting), four silvers (judo x2, weightlifting and fencing) and two bronze (gymnastics and weightlifting) so far.  In short, don't mess with the Romanians - they're a strong and agile bunch.

Not a Cheeky Girl in sight

Romania itself is probably best known for being home to Dracula's castle in Transylvania - a historical region in the centre of the country.  Depending on whether you love or hate horror stories, that could be seen as one of a few of the bad things that Romania is known for.  Other slightly unpalatable things that spring to mind are communist dictator Nicolai Ceaucescu, who was overthrown in the bloody revolution in 1989 (I vividly remember delivering newspapers splashed with images from this in my formative years) and, perhaps worst of all horrors, for giving the world The Cheeky Girls.

On the plus side Romanian has given the world a host of eminent scientists, artists and sportsmen and women - you can read about them here.

The cuisine - as one website states - isn't necessarily the first thing you would consider when visiting Romania.  Not being an expert on this subject, I would agree however that it does seem to have many similarities to food from other countries that formed part of the Ottoman empire.  On the one hand, it's diverse.  On the other hand, when you have Bulgaria, Cyprus and Macedonia in your Olympic Food Challenge list, you don't want to be too samey.

I eventually settled on a Romanian apple cake because I had to do at least one bake during these two weeks (I've also baked several new recipes that I've not blogged about thanks to OFC including a rather nice triple layer chocolate and coconut cake and a neopolitan bundt cake).  Baking is probably my own best discipline when it comes to food and if I was going to go for gold in any category, this would be the one.

Sadly, I think I let myself down with this recipe.  Or at least the apples I chose let me down.  The recipe calls for five apples, but doesn't specify which type.  I went for the Pink Lady variety because they normally have a great, fizzy flavour and have previously worked well when a recipe has called for eating rather than cooking apples.  Unfortunately, this particular batch lacked that little bit of pizazz to contrast with the very sweet-spicy sponge that the recipe produces.  Ten out of ten to the recipe for simplicity and a great bake result.  One out of ten to the overpriced apples from Sainzlebobs, giving this an overall result of a silver.

You can find the recipe here.

Romanian flag