Creative Insomnia Part 2 / La Grande Eloise

As I've already mentioned, I had a few sleep issues last week which seem to be creeping in to this week too. However, as I also mentioned, I've learned to milk the most from those witching hours. In the dead of night, I feel like I've beaten something. Beaten myself? I'm not sure. But that pedicure I'd planned to do the following evening, the pile of delicate clothes that needed hand washing and was scheduled in for that Saturday morning right before sewing the hem back up on my trousers and washing the floor? Well it's all done now. So I've gained that evening spot and that Saturday morning. I can do whatever the hell I want with them. I could go to the early morning showing of a film, I could get to the swimming pool before the hoards of screaming children arrive and start dive-bombing the water. I live alone, which means that I can pretty much do what I want when I want anyway, but I do have a habit of imposing schedules on myself (okay, so I'll be home by about 5:45 which means that I will have showered by 6, I'll clean the bathroom and that'll take me to about 6:20, then I can paint my nails, 6:45, clean the windows, 7:00, read for an hour before the news which will finish in time for me to make a cup of tea before whatever's coming on at 8:45 that evening.) And somewhere in that dictator-esque schedule, there'll be some sort of food of course. Do I sound like a freak? Well I should do, because I am. My name is Kate and I'm a freak. Nice to meet you.

Anyway, all of that to say that the hours I'm awake in the middle of the night are free from schedules. It's gained time in which I can either get ahead in order to gain a chosen morning/afternoon/evening, or I can use it freely to do whatever I want without interruption by myself or anyone else. Sometimes, I just watch television until it's time to get up. Sometimes I mess around on Facebook. Sometimes I stare at the ceiling and think. Occasionally, I call a friend (those who will definitely still be awake for entirely more cool reasons, i.e. they just got home from a night out in the latest fun place to be.)

Sometimes..........I. Make. Cake.

This is called La Grande Eloise because it basically takes its shape from the Eloise cupcake recipe I did for Lauren's daughter a few weeks ago. This is the big girl's version though. This one's for you a bit later on Eloise, but in the mean time, your Mama can enjoy it on your behalf.

For the cake:

200 grams plain flour
150 grams caster sugar
200 grams unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
90 grams dark chocolate
2 tbsp crème fraîche
*I've highlighted where the recipe differs from the cupcakes with italics

Preheat your oven to 190°C and grease two 7" cake tins, then line the bottoms with baking parchment circles.

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 slightly soft and starting to blend together a little.

Melt the chocolate.

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 stir in.

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

Split the mixture equally between the two cake tins.

Place in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes, or until you get the clean-knife go ahead!

For the filling:

Follow the instructions as for the topping on the Eloise.

Make sure the cake layers have cooled before adding the filling and topping.

For the topping:

100 grams milk chocolate
2 tbsp crème fraîche
50 grams white chocolate, shaved

Melt the chocolate and stir in the crème fraîche. Leave to cool slightly before spreading it over the top of the cake and letting it run down the sides.

Sprinkle the white chocolate shavings over the top and it's ready for eating!

Creative Insomnia Part 1 / Rochers Coco

Last week, from Monday right up until Friday, I woke up at 3am every single night without fail and every single night without fail I couldn't get back to sleep again. I go through phases like this and learned many years ago to embrace them rather than fight them. The middle of the night is, in fact, a wonderful time to be wide awake. Everything is quiet and time feels sort of...suspended. It's the perfect time for reading, sewing (I'm currently making a fabric rug but won't bore you with the ins and outs until I have a finished product to show off) writing (except for this blog which I totally neglected last week) cleaning and also, of course, cooking. I think it was Wednesday night at 3am when I woke up with my first thought being 'desiccated coconut.' Yes I did. I really can't say why, but that's the first thing I thought of. So, upon realising that this night was going to go the same way as the previous two, I jumped out of bed and headed to the cupboard to dig out the coconut. What should I do with it? Make a coconut cake? No, all my butter was in the fridge and I'd have to wait a good hour for it to soften before being able to start. At this point, I turned the packet over and whaddyaknow? There's a recipe for 'rochers coco' on the back! Okay so it's cheating because it's not really a recipe of my own, but they were so good and so very quick and easy to make that I wanted to share it. I modified it a little because I was a little scared of how sweet they'd be so here's my version:

40 grams Acacia honey
125 grams caster sugar
150 grams desiccated coconut
30 grams plain flour
2 egg whites
1/2 sachet vanilla sugar

Preheat your oven to 150 °c.

In a small pan over a low heat, melt the sugars and the honey together until they form a smooth paste then take off the heat.

Add the flour and coconut to the sugar and honey and stir until you have a thick mixture. Mix in the two egg whites.

Take a teaspoon and place evenly sized blobs of the mixture on a greased baking sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes until golden.

Serve warm (but not straight from the oven, all that sugar and honey can and will take the roof of your mouth off...I found out the hard way by helping myself to a little stray blob) or cold.

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.

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?!