Layered Lemon Drizzle Cake

I've always loved making cakes at home with Samik but it is only recently that I've dared to really go it alone as far as baking is concerned. I was always worried that my little oven just wouldn't be up to the job, but so long as you have time on your hands, anything is possible with that little monster. I have to bake one layer at a time, but normal people will be able to just do it in one go. It doesn't bother me that much really, since it makes a whole evening out of the baking process and I get quite the sense of achievement as I assemble the whole thing and look at the fruits of my labour!


Lemon Drizzle Cake has always been one of my favourites. Generally, it is just a single layer with a sweet lemon frosting but I decided to thicken it up a bit and do a lemon cake Victoria Sponge-style. It's the simplest thing in the world, just a two layered sponge (with lemon zest) with a little buttercream filling and an easy-peasy frosting. Here's how:

200 grams plain flour
300 grams unsalted butter, soft but not melted (200 grams cubed)
250 grams castor sugar
50 grams muscovado sugar
100 grams icing sugar
3 tsp granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 tbsp crème fraîche
1 tsp baking powder
2 lemons

Start by zesting the two lemons. Once zested, juice them both and leave to the side. In a mixing bowl, put the flour, 150 grams of castor sugar (you need the rest for the frosting) and the baking powder. Add the zest and stir everything together. Add the 200 grams cubed butter and mix everything together with your hands until the mixture is soft and crumbly. Add the three eggs and the crème fraîche and stir in with a metal spoon until you have a smooth cake mixture.

Grease two 7" baking tins with butter and line the bottoms with greaseproof paper. Split the mixture between the two tins and bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 190°C.

Once you have removed the cakes, leave one of them in the tin and prod the top several times all over with a fork.

In a saucepan on the hotplate, bring the remaining 100 grams of castor sugar and the 50 grams of muscovado sugar to a fast boil with the juice of the two lemons. Keep stirring as it boils then turn down the heat for a minute or so before removing from the hotplate. Keep stirring for another minute or two until it is a slightly sticky, syrupy mixture. Drizzle the syrup over the cake still in the tin (with the fork prods!) and smooth it in with a knife, letting it soak into the cake.

Immediately sprinkle the 3 teaspoons of castor sugar over the top of the syrup and leave to cool until the top is set and 'frosted.'

In a small bowl, beat the remaining butter with the icing sugar until you have a smooth buttercream. Once both cake layers are completely cool, spread the buttercream on the flat side of the bottom layer then place the frosted one on top. Serve alone or with a spoonful of crème fraîche as a dessert.

Nothing to do with food, but while I was baking...

One of my several pet hates is crispy feet. I can't stand them. As soon as I feel slightly dry feet rubbing against each other under the covers I have to leap out of bed and moisturise them. This is yet another thing passed down to me by my mother and indeed her mother before her. Samik has always spoken with great affection and concern about feet with a look of real compassion on her face as she announces to me "Yes but Kate, your poor little feet. They carry you around all day for the whole of your life, you stub your toes, you cramp them into shoes, you tramp them around the swimming pool...your poor feet, they're really just trying to help you and we're all so mean to them." And I promise you, she speaks with real conviction. She really loves her feet, and a sweet pair of feet she has too. Always soft, always sparkly clean and lovely little toes that descend in correct size order.

As for my grandmother, well she broke her hip and wrist a few months ago and spent a long time in hospital. Gaga is 90 years old and still does her own garden, lights her own bonfires, cleans the house, sets the fire, cooks for whoever's visiting and so on. She was most upset to be out of order for such a long time. However, she did not let a mere hospital stay get in the way of her general upkeep. Samik took in her favourite moisturising cream and various other potions and Gaga saw to it that she was clean and polished every single minute of every single day during her stay. Her nails were painted, her hair was brushed. The day after her operation in fact, we went to visit her expecting to see her looking pale, washed out and a little dishevelled. No, she was beautiful. So pretty. She even made the baby pink hospital nightie look good. By the time I last went home, she was back in her own house and busying about as much as is possible whilst still a little incapacitated. Because of remaining swelling and soreness in her hip joint, it is hard for her to reach her feet so I offered to do her a pedicure. She slipped off her little slippers and presented me with the softest feet in the world. Feet that have been trotting about for 90 whole years, feet that chased a teacher down a corridor with a whip when the teacher unjustly accused her of talking in class and tried to beat her, which walked 3 miles to school each day and back and padded down the stairs in the dead of night to steal cakes from the pantry, feet which took her aboard a train to London in her late teens and danced the night away in a city she was just discovering then walked away from her first fiancé into the arms of a young serviceman on a train who would be my grandfather, feet that have been hidden from her sight four times by pregnancy and which trod the boards of bedrooms rocking her children and in turn her grandchildren...those feet! So much of her life was in my hands as I soaked them, scrubbed them, moisturised them and painted the dainty nails which are still in such good condition, that had it not been for other company, I could have sat there for hours and asked her to recount again all those stories of hers she told me as a child on her knee.

I look after my feet. I couldn't look myself in the eye if I didn't, silly though that may sound. Each time I see them looking a little worn and tired I think of my mother's little foot speech, of her perfect toes and my grandmother's dainty nails. I have no excuse not to take care of them.

So very early this morning, while these were baking away in the oven, I made the most of the pre-dawn quiet to sit down and perform my weekly pedicure. You don't have to spend loads in a salon to have decent feet, you just need to invest in a few essential products and set aside half an hour. Once you're done with the feet, you can follow exactly the same procedure for the hands and then voilà! your extremities are at least half near worthy of an admiring glance from a 90 year old lady.


Recipe for luscious feet

Wash your feet and make sure that they are thoroughly dry before using a Ped Egg or other such instrument to remove old skin.

Fill a washing up bowl with warm water and add a few drops of Weleda Rose Oil or Bio Oil. Soak both feet for 5-10 minutes, massaging the oily water in as you soak.

Take an exfoliating foot scrub of your choice (I use Scholl Foot Smooth Shower Scrub) and rub it well into both feet, working around the toes, the heels and the ball of the feet. Rinse in the oily water then shower them off with cold water.

Dry thoroughly.

Rub in something like Balm Balm Rose Geranium all over, again concentrating especially on the balls of the feet, the heels and around the outside of the big and little toes.

Treat your nails as you see fit, by pushing cuticles back with a cotton bud on a cuticles stick and then rubbing in nail hydrating cream, my favourite is by Flexitol (excellent results.) Leave your feet and nails to absorb the cream for at least an hour then paint a pretty colour!

The muffins were delicious.

There's only one kind of bun in my oven...

Contrary to what my current dress size would have you believe, I am not pregnant. However, a number of my friends have recently given birth (all to girls, funnily enough) and as far as I'm concerned birth=celebration=CAKE, right?

So, I decided to make a few little baby sized cakes, otherwise known as cupcakes, to celebrate the safe arrival of these new little people. One of my dearest friends, Lauren, gave birth to Eloise Claire on July 18th and if she's anything like her Mummy, she's going to looooove chocolate. Eloise, I therefore give you 3-chocolate cupcakes. Internet, I give you:

THE ELOISE

The cupcakes:

200 grams plain flour
150 grams caster sugar
200 grams unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
90 grams milk chocolate
2 tsp crème fraîche

Preheat your oven to 190°C and lay out some cake cases in a muffin tray.

Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl and add the sugar and baking powder. Cut the butter up into cubes and add to the dry mix. Mix together with your hands until the mixture is soft and starting to blend together a little.

Melt the chocolate (August heatwave, microwave or bain marie, whatever works for you)

Add the chocolate to the mixing bowl and stir in with a METAL spoon (a wooden one will mess everything up.)

Add the eggs and bust out the hand blender to whip it all up nicely. (Do not use a whisk!) If you've got a Kitchen Aid or other such excellent contraption, you could use this. If you'd ever seen my kitchen, you'd know why I don't have one.

Add in the crème fraîche and stir everything again with a metal spoon.

Drop about 2 dessert spoons of mixture into each cake case (the case should not be full to the top) and place in the oven for 25-30 minutes.

The topping:

100 grams unsalted butter (softish but not melted)
300 grams icing sugar
2 tsp dark chocolate powder (100% cocoa if you can find it)
50 grams white chocolate, shaved into flakes
50 grams dark chocolate, shaved into flakes
50 grams milk chocolate, shaved into flakes

Put the butter in a bowl and add 1/3 of the icing sugar. Beat together with a fork, adding the rest of the icing sugar as you go until you get a fluffy buttercream texture. Add in the cocoa powder and beat together some more.

Spread a layer of the buttercream on top of each cupcake and then sprinkle on the various chocolate flakes for decoration...et voilà!

* I neglected to mention that, unfortunately, Eloise lives in England. I live in France. Unfortunately again, this means that I am obliged to eat these cakes for you sweet baby, but I promise that the first birthday you have where you'll be able to eat chocolate stuff without making a ridiculous mess of your face or my floor, I'll make you these. Deal? In the mean time, you gobble up your milk, Mama will gobble up your cheeks, and I'll gobble up these little babies of my own...

* Oh, and Eloise? I SHAVED chocolate for you. Do you have any idea what that did to my knuckles, or more importantly, MY MANICURE?!

Potato Skin Man...

...with a tulip petal face and hat.

To your good health!

Lentils are one of my favourite foods. I think it's another one of those things that my mother passed on to me during my own baking period in her womb. When we're having a day together, just her and me, you can be pretty sure that lentils will feature somewhere in that day and it's highly likely that figs will make an appearance too.

Lentils are exceedingly good for you, providing a good dose of protein and iron, among other things. Figs, as well as being delicious, are a source of magnesium, potassium and calcium. Ginger on the other hand, is well known for its healing properties, helping to alleviate migraines, arthritis, nausea and gastrointestinal difficulties. Need I say more? This dish is good health in a bowl. Serve it warm with a chicken breast or piece of fish, or have it on its own served cold for lunch.

Ginger and Fig Lentils

250 grams Puy lentils (or other green lentils if you can't get your hands on the Puy)
3 tsp fresh ginger root
6 medium sized shallots
6 fresh, ripe figs, chopped into quarters
1 yellow courgette, chopped into thick pieces
1 green courgette, chopped into thick pieces
6 chestnut mushrooms, chopped
a handful of fresh rosemary
a handful of fresh thyme
1 tsp ginger powder
1 large clove garlic, crushed
2 bay leaves
1 small glass of white wine
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil

First the lentils:

First rinse your lentils in cold water. Place them in a large pan with at least three times their volume of water and add the ginger powder, half the rosemary, half the thyme, a pinch of salt, a twist of ground pepper, the two bay leaves and three peeled, whole shallots (don't chop them.) Bring to the boil and simmer until cooked. This should take around 20-30 minutes depending on the lentils but refer to the individual packaging for instructions.

Once the lentils are ready, strain them and place in a bowl to the side. Remove the bay leaves.

Then the vegetables:

Chop up the remaining shallots and in a large pan, drizzle a little olive oil. Once heated, add the chopped shallots and soften for a minute or so. Add the remaining thyme and rosemary as well as the fresh ginger and the crushed garlic. Stir well being careful not to burn the shallots or garlic. If necessary, add another drizzle of oil.

Add the chopped courgettes and continue to toss the contents of the pan whilst cooking. Keep stirring over a relatively high heat for a 4-5 minutes before adding the chestnut mushrooms.

Once the courgettes and mushrooms are cooked through (but not limp), add the figs. Lower the heat to medium and carry on tossing the vegetables as the figs soften and cook.

Add the rested lentils into the pan and toss everything together, making sure not to crush the figs though they should be fairly soft and shapeless at this point.

Finally, add the glass of white wine, turn the heat right down, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. During the last few minutes, remove the cover. You should keep the lentils over the heat until the wine has evaporated and there is no liquid in the pan.

Serve hot or cold as you prefer.

The Kitchen

Welcome to my kitchen! Having grown up in a home of which the kitchen was most definitely the heart, I was bound to follow in the footsteps of the culinary queens who taught me everything I know: my mother and my grandmother.

One of the first stories I remember being told by my grandmother was one in which she would creep downstairs into the pantry to help herself to the piles of cakes which would always adorn the multi-tiered cakestand hidden therein. My grandmother's mother died when she was only nine years old so the woman of the household was a rather austere housekeeper who liked to keep Gaga (my grandmother) in dietary check. When caught with her fingers in the various pies and other treats she came across, the said fingers would meet with a crack from a giant wooden ruler or a wet-handed smack, but this was never enough to stop her. You see, from a very young age, Gaga had what she would later pass on to my mother (hereby known as Samik) who in turn would pass it on to me: an appetite. And a healthy one at that.

Much of my time as a child was spent at my mother's side as I watched her cook, bake and concoct. I was as an integral part of the kitchen as the wooden spoons that stirred the golden brown syrupy butter I so loved to lick up as I mixed it with oats to make Flapjacks. I was encouraged to get my hands dirty, to experiment, to mess up as many times as I needed to in order to achieve what I had set out to do and I do believe that the endless patience with and remarkable enthusiasm for my kitchen exploits shown by my parents is what led me to really FEEL cooking as a pleasure and an expression of self, in much the same way as I do music or literature and so on and so forth.

I very rarely follow recipes and I almost never measure. I like to use fresh ingredients whenever I can and cook from scratch. I have what could probably enter the running for Smallest Kitchen In The World and in keeping with that, I also have what can't be far from the smallest oven in the world. By way of this blog, I mean to share what I truly believe about food: that no matter how small your facilities, how limited your time, how short your patience, a really good meal is right there at your fingertips.