Simple and tasty food.
For this Valentine’s Day, I decided to make a chocolate cake, albeit with a few unusual ingredients. Chocolate with cardamom is one of my favourite combinations. Cardamom brings a wonderful aromatic quality to dark chocolate. For me, it makes chocolate taste lighter, almost citrusy with a hint of spice.
When I shipped off all my clothes and paraphernalia last week, I have to say I felt very liberated. I did a massive purge of stuff that was past it’s sell by date and bits that I rarely use. I was feeling very Zen and minimalist. This week, however, I began to feel a tad lost and bereft of my things.
Madeira cake is one of my favourites. It seems wholesome and homely, even if it is full of butter and sugar! My grandad used to love a hunk of Madeira with a piping hot tea, sweetened with half a bowl of sugar. I made these little cakes for the OH, as he too likes a plain and simple cake. I came home that evening and found him spreading butter onto …
It all started with a brown piece of LEGO®. To me it looked like a shiny cube of delicious milk chocolate. Wouldn’t it be great if it actually was chocolate? The cream coloured pieces could be sweet white chocolate and the glossy black pieces a rich dark chocolate. If only that were possible, I thought. Well, with the help of some magic blue stuff, I made my chocolate LEGO® dream …
Update: On July 14th, two days after posting I received an email from Ernő Rubik himself saying that he liked my cake. I guess the world is really a very small place. ‘ Thanks for the nice birthday surprise which sweetens the bitterness of passing time.’ Hungarian Ernő Rubik invented the Rubik’s cube in 1974. He was born on the 13th of July, 1944. Myself and my other half set about making …
My dear departed granddad used to love cherry cake with lashings of real butter and a cup of hot sweet tea. For years my gran used to make these delicious cherry cakes and it’s something that always brings me back to my childhood at home on a Sunday. Lately I have been feeling very nostalgic so I decided to give this cake a go for myself. To be honest I was really proud of my efforts …