BEETROOT SEED CAKE

Where have I been?

I've been here, I've been working and reading and watching TV, I've been around and about on a course through work, I've been reading the new Nigel Slater book and falling in love with him all over again, I've been watching the same lovable Nigel making his simple suppers and Jamie travelling around America, I've been getting sucked into the new series of Gossip Girl, succumbing to finally reading Twilight and enjoying the Millennium trilogy, I've been listening to The XX on repeat and when it isn't The XX it's Phoenix, I've been wondering whether I'm right in thinking that it used to be a lot colder at this time of year when I would have been bundled up in layer upon layer to go to a bonfire.

In short I've been doing a lot of things but there are two things that don't make the list. I haven't been cooking and I haven't been blogging.

There has been a lot of soup and pasta recently, too much. I need to force myself back to it again, remember that I love it, remember that when I write this blog I love that too, I love feeling that I can do this, that I can keep it going.

Most weekends I wake up early. I may sit around and read for most of the morning but I'll probably be awake by 8.30. Last Saturday I slept and I slept and I slept. I thought my eyes were opening but then they would fall close with a thud. That isn't like me. When I finally got moving I did something that I haven't done for much too long. I went to a new cookery book, I wrote a shopping list and I went to the supermarket with a plan, a plan that involved beetroot in vast quantities. I pulled on some disposable gloves to avoid the Lady Macbeth look and I got to work. We had beetroot and lamb mince meatballs for dinner that night and while we ate there was a beetroot seed cake cooling on the worktop waiting to be drizzled with lemon icing and scattered with poppy seeds. There is nothing better for prodding me back to life than a bit of quiet Saturday baking.

It's been all quiet on the cooking front since but it's a start and, with that start in mind I've decided to return to NaBloPoMo for the third year running. Year 1 was a failure of epic proportions, year 2 was a modest success (definitely a few filler posts), and year 3, well, fingers crossed so wish me luck.



BEETROOT SEED CAKE (from Tender: v. 1: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch by Nigel Slater)

Nigel says 'this tastes no more of beetroot than a carrot cake tastes of carrots, yet it has a similarly warm earthiness to it. It is less sugary than most cakes and the scented icing I drizzle over it is purely optional. The first time I made it I used half sunflower and half Fairtrade brazil nut oil, but only because the brazil nut oil was new and I wanted to try it. Very successful it turned out to be, too, not to mention boosting everyone's zinc levels'. I had macadamia nut oil sitting in the cupboard which really needed to be used so use it I did. I have no idea how much if it affected the taste of the cake but it was good. Serves 8-10.

225g self-raising flour
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 scant teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
180ml sunflower oil
225g light muscovado sugar
3 eggs
150g raw beetroot
juice of half a lemon
75g sultanas or raisins
75g mixed seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, linseed)
for the icing:
8 tablespoons icing sugar
lemon juice or orange blossom water
poppy seeds

Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4. Lightly butter a rectangular loaf tin (20cm x 9cm x 7cm deep, measured across the bottom) then line the bottom with baking parchment.

Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and cinnamon. Beat the oil and sugar in a food mixer until well creamed then introduce the beaten egg yolks one by one, reserving the whites for later.

Grate the beetroot coarsely and fold into the mixture, then add the lemon juice, raisins or sultanas and the assorted seeds. Fold the flour and raising agents into the mixture while the machine is turning slowly.

Beat the egg whites till light and almost stiff. Fold gently but thoroughly into the mixture with a large metal spoon (a wooden one will knock the air out). Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 50-55 minutes, covering the top with a piece of foil after 30 minutes. Test with a skewer to see if done. The cake should be moist inside but not sticky. Leave the cake to settle for a good 20 minutes before turning out of its tin on to a wire cooling rack.

To make the icing, sieve the icing sugar and stir in enough lemon juice or orange blossom water to achieve a consistency where the icing will run over the top of the cake and dribble slowly down the sides (about three teaspoonfuls), stirring to remove any lumps. Drizzle over the cake and scatter with poppy seeds. Leave to set before eating.

SAD DAY

Gourmet is closing down. Condé Nast what can you be thinking?

MY POTATO SALAD

So apparently it's September already? I was cold this morning in a jumper and scarf, it's blustery outside and leaves are falling far too fast. I like Autumn but I'm not sure that I'm ready for it just yet.

Summer has passed quickly while we've been busy doing nice things - celebrating 30th birthdays, eating out, going to some amazing gigs - but the upshot of all this doing of nice things is that eating at home has fallen by the wayside and when we do eat at home it is the usual rota of chicken with couscous, pork burgers, chickpea curry, pasta, and, the one I want to tell you about, my favourite new thing this summer, potato salad.

It started in June during our one single solitary week of proper summer heat. We wanted new potatoes and we wanted salad but we didn't want a claggy mayonnaise coated potato salad. I cooked some small new potatoes and let them drain and cool a little while I chopped spring onions, capers, and flat leaf parsley, mixed dijon mustard, sherry vinegar, olive oil, and salt and pepper to make a vinaigrette, and tossed the lot over the still warm potatoes. It was one of my finer moments and one that has been repeated many many times since. I'll probably try to squeeze it in again before thoughts start turning to baking and roasting.

BLACKBERRY BUNDT

If you're thinking about developing an American cookery book and magazine habit then I will give you a small piece of advice.

Don't.

I know you've probably already got the measuring cups but believe me that is just the tip of a very large iceberg.

First you'll find yourself trying to translate a recipe into measurements that make sense. You'll attempt to work out exactly how much butter is in one tablespoon and will end up with a frankensteinian recipe utilising measuring cups, spoons, scales, and a good amount of crossing fingers behind your back for good measure.

You'll wish you had access to cake flour and butterscotch chips and cry, yet again, about how prohibitively expensive cherries are in this country.

Finally, and this is the most dangerous of all, you will develop a lengthy shopping list of essential kitchenware that you cannot live without as living without would mean resigning yourself to ignoring big hunks of baking books forever more.

And, so it was, that my must buy holiday shopping list included all of the current issues of all of my favourite US food magazines, a few cookery books, and, most important of all, a bundt tin. You can just imagine the fun I had lugging my case up five flights of stairs when we got home.

Bundts are not a regular feature in Britain so, sadly, there is not a big market for the heavyweight intricately moulded tins. I could have ordered one online but I wanted to see them in front of me and pick the shape I liked best. I was pretty surprised that Chris was on board with this purchase but I think the sculptural curves of the tin won him over and instead of wondering, aloud, where exactly this large tin was supposed to live in our already overflowing kitchen cupboards he stood beside me in Sur La Table and helped me to choose the shape for all our future bundts.

Friday came and an early finish from work meant I could sit on the balcony with my book for a couple of hours before knuckling down to some baking of the bundt variety. The cake of choice was a blackberry version of the blueberry raspberry pound cake from Molly Wizenberg's book which, in turn, is a recipe from the July 1986 issue of Bon Appétit. I swapped the blueberries and raspberries for blackberries and the kirsch for crème de mures. The resulting cake has a sweet crust, a firm purple stained crumb, and an easy manner that means it could be wheeled out for tea, pudding, or brunch. I suggest trying it for all three.




BLACKBERRY BUNDT (adapted from the recipe for Blueberry-Raspberry Pound Cake in A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg)

2 cups plus 8 tablespoons plain flour (use cake flour if you have access to it)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 large eggs
1 2/3 cups sugar
2 1/2 sticks (10 ounces) unsalted butter, diced, at room temperature
2 tablespoons crème de mures
2 cups blackberries
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Place a rack in the centre of your oven and preheat the oven to 150°C (300°F). Butter a standard-sized 9-cup Bundt pan and dust it with flour, shaking out any excess.

In a medium bowl, whisk together 2 cups plus 6 tablespoons flour, the baking powder, and salt.

In the bowl of a food processor, blend the eggs and sugar until thick and pale yellow, about 1 minute. Add the butter and crème de mures, and blend until the mixture is fluffy, about 1 minute, stopping once to scrape down the sides of the bowl. If the mixture looks curdled, don't worry. Add the dry ingredients and process to just combine. Do not overmix. The batter should be very thick and very smooth.

In a large bowl, toss the berries with the remaining 2 tablespoons of flour. Pour the batter over the berries and, using a rubber spatula, gently fold to combine, taking care that all of the flour is absorbed. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, spreading it evenly across the top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the cake's center comes out clean, 1 hour to 1 1/4 hours.

Transfer the cake to a rack, and cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Carefully turn the cake out of the pan and onto a rack, and cool for at least 20 minutes before slicing. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

Note. Sealed well and stored at room temeperature, this cake will keep nicely for 2 or 3 days. It should also freeze well.

THE REST

I'm not always as good as I should be at taking photos of delicious meals so I'll have to give you a quick don't miss hit list of the places we loved and you'll just have to trust me...

Pearl Oyster Bar
I haven't been able to get beyond the lobster roll (buttery grilled hot dog bun piled high with lobster meat and mayonnaise with a side of crunchy straw fries) but if for some inexplicable reason this doesn't appeal then the tiny taste of Adam's halibut was great and I would have ordered it happily if it weren't for that pesky roll.

Momofuku Milk Bar
Sarah and Rob told us that we absolutely could not miss going here and ordering the pork and egg bun. They didn't go into too much detail so we dutifully ordered two buns and two blueberry beers not really knowing what would come. What we got was a bun folded over belly pork, hoisin sauce, cucumber, spring onions, and a soft fried egg. We ate while trying to avoid splattering ourselves in porky eggy hoisin wonderfulness and debated coming back later that day for round two. We bought cookies to take up to Central Park instead.

Phoenix Garden
Two years ago we were staying on East 34th St. and Adam and Renee (we have a habit of meeting up in New York, a habit to be nurtured I think) were staying a little further uptown. After deciding that we all fancied Chinese food to eat in our hotel room that evening we stumbled across Phoenix Garden on Zagat. Two years later we could remember that it was very good and we could remember that it was cheap but it took a little more digging around online to remember the name. We were visiting Adam and Renee's hotel a few short blocks away so it was an easy decision to call for a delivery. The food arrived and it was even better than we had remembered and, an extra bonus, even cheaper than we had remembered. A few nights later back at our hotel on our last night in the city Chris and I were tired and wanted food that was only available 24 blocks north and 7 east. We tried to convince ourselves that something else would work but all we could do in the end was succumb to our craving, hop in a cab, cross town, order food, go for a short walk, wait for the food while drinking a free jasmine tea, back into a cab, back across town, to sit down and look at out view and eat. We have a menu stuck to our fridge door now. Torture.

Cafe Habana
This was on my list of places to visit two years ago but somehow we didn't make it. Don't make the same mistake. Next time I'll go to the little take away place and grab an order of corn to eat while sitting on Elizabeth St. It's grilled and sprinkled with cheese, chilli powder and lime juice. I read a review describing it as crack corn and I would say that sounds just about right.

So, that's all from our trip. Now, there's a blackberry bundt cake in the oven and recipes to try. Goodbye Boston. Goodbye Providence. Goodbye Toronto. Goodbye New York.

BROOKLYN

We had always planned to spend a day in Brooklyn with Claire.

We hadn't always planned for it to start raining and then continue raining all day without a break.

We had always planned to go to Egg for brunch.

We hadn't always planned to be sitting outside under an awning watching soggy people wait under umbrellas while we ate.

My pancakes were the size of the plate and try as I might I couldn't quite finish them.



Claire's breakfast gave me my first taste of a biscuit. I always thought they were just like scones but they are lighter, fluffier, different.



Chris's breakfast of eggs rothko was a slice of toast with a hole cut in the middle and an egg cooked in the hole before cheese is melted on top. It was served with spiced homemade sausage which he loved but which would be a bit too punchy for my tastebuds in the morning (not a criticism just a comment, I have a fairly pathetic spice tolerance level).



The cafetiere of coffee was huge, the brown paper tablecloths perfectly designed for spilling, and the juice fresh.

After walking off brunch we dodged in and out of shops to avoid the rain as much as possible which lead to two new pairs of shoes for me and a big bag of records for Chris. Eventually we gave up on the weather and headed east to Alligator Lounge, a bar where every drink comes with a free pizza from the pizza oven at the back.

We headed back out into the rain to complete the Brooklyn experience with an evening at the Brooklyn Brewery. When the brewing work is finished for the week they set up a bar and welcome the hordes (mostly in wellies on this particular night) to drink beers and order from the takeaway menus scattered around. A fitting end to a good (if soggy) day.

SHAKE SHACK

Every so often, usually on a Sunday and usually after a late night, Chris and I will start talking food and will only come up with one option - Shake Shack. We go online and look at the photos of burgers, a form of torture that we should stop subjecting ourselves to, check out the Shack Cam and cry, yet again, about how we really should be able to live in New York. So, having already demolished a double shack burger, fries and the new Shackmeister beer as our first New York meal, it was a novel experience to wake up with a slightly fuzzy head and be in the location to eat the food that we really wanted. The hour long queue on a Saturday lunchtime is never going to be much fun but that double shack burger and those fries make it all worth it.