*sigh*

It’s bloody January again (to quote Flanders and Swann). Apparently there is no news in the whole world apart from the fact that it’s snowing.  And if that, plus the fact that fate decided to dump 4″ of it upon English Towers II wasn’t quite bad enough, it seems that no teacher can possibly drive in slush, so the kids are off as well. It’s enough to make you want to make a big fat sodding great chocolate cake and eat it all yourself.

So I did. Well, I didn’t eat it all myself, but I did make it. This is, technically, a ‘devil’s food cake’, originally from some dog-eared 1980s Good Housekeeping cookery book, but twiddled and tweaked to make it easier and, well, more fattening basically.

I thought I’d treat you to a little ’step by step’ with photos. If you’re on a diet, I suggest you step away from the screen, stick your fingers in your ears and shout ‘la la la’ until someone turns your computer off for you. Just saying.

Devil’s Food Cake

75g good quality dark chocolate
250g brown sugar
200ml milk
75g butter
2 eggs
175g plain flour
1 flat teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Chocolate fudge icing:

225g caster sugar
75g butter
1 tin condensed milk
25g dark chocolate
30g cocoa powder
3 tbsp water

1.  Preheat your oven to gas 4/ 180 degrees and butter and line two shallow round cake tins:

2.  Bung the chocolate and sugar into a saucepan:

Add the milk and butter in as well.  Once it’s all melted, remove from the heat and allow to cool.

3.  Whisk the eggs until light and creamy:

4.  Then fold in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and the cooled chocolate mixture.  Pour into the two prepared tins and bake for about 25-30 minutes until the centres are just firm to the touch.

5.  Meanwhile, make the fudge icing.  Add all the ingredients into a heavy-based saucepan.  Heat it gently until all the sugar has dissolved, then allow to boil and let it keep on bubbling until it’s looking fudgy (put a teaspoonful onto a plate and have a look , you want a spreading consistency – it’ll thicken when it cools).  If you want to be poncy you can measure the temperature with a sugar thermometer – it should get to about 105 degrees C.  Keep stirring, you don’t want it to burn on the bottom.  When it’s ready, turn it off and leave to cool.

6.  Now just spread a load of the icing on one cake, sandwich with the other cake and bung the rest of the icing all over the top.  Stuff into face.  Oh, and if you’re still miserable, you can always take it out on your husband’s car:

What?  That wasn’t me.

So that’s it, then.  The big day is shortly upon us and I’m looking forward to a small family Christmas (just us, English Grandma and maybe Mad Uncle Ali in the afternoon) at our new little house in Hertfordshire.

Wherever you are and whoever you’re with, I wish you all a wonderful, indulgent Christmas.

And as always, remember to chill out, have fun, stick on your glad rags, enjoy your precious loved ones, have a few cocktails, don’t shout at the children (or at least count to ten first), don’t worry about  your waistline, don’t drink and drive (I need you!), do give someone everyone you love a kiss under the mistletoe, say you love it even if you hate it, carry a hankie, say please and thank you, keep your hand on your ha’penny… and have a glass of champers on me.

Now, let me think what you might need:

Firstly, of course, you’ll need a really good festive cocktail recipe.  This little beauty was sent to me by naughty ol’ Maxi Cane.  It’s called ‘A Mouthful of Maxi’:

1 regular spirit measure (35ml) of Peach Schnapps.

1 dash (15ml approx) of orange liqueur (Triple Sec/Cointreau/Grand Marnier)

1 dash of Crème de Cassis liqueur (blackcurrant)

1 dash of Crème de Banane liqueur

200 – 250ml (depending on your taste) of cranberry juice

Shake well over crushed ice and take it easy – these babies are evil!

Now, if you can still stand up, to the dinner:

If you need any help with the turkey, just click here.

Remember, once the turkey’s cooked it’ll sit happily for at least an hour, covered in foil and tucked snugly under a couple of teatowels, while you cook the roasties, etc.

If you don’t like Christmas pudding, I can heartily recommend my chocolate fondants, and finally, if you need stuffing (ahem), then you can’t do better than my easy peasy apple and red onion stuffing (serves 4-6, double up as necessary):

1 tbsp butter

1 red onion, finely chopped

1 dessert apple, peeled and finely chopped

225g pork sausage meat

100g fresh white breadcrumbs

1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

1 tbsp fresh sage, chopped

Squeeze of lemon juice

1  Preheat the oven to 190ºC/gas mark 5.  Heat the butter in a frying pan, add the onion and fry gently until soft.  Add the apple and cook until softened.  Remove from the heat, transfer to a bowl and allow to cool.

2  Stir the sausage meat and breadcrumbs into the onion mixture along with the herbs and lemon juice.  Stir until well combined.  You can put a little in the neck end of the turkey (I’m not a fan of stuffing the main cavity – I think it stops the hot air circulating), or squish it into a buttered oven-proof dish and bake for 25 minutes.

Off you trot, then.  Big hugs, even bigger wet kisses and lots of love

xxxx

‘And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so?
It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags.
And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before.
What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store?  What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?’

Hi there, I’m Mise from Pretty Far West and I’m here to help. You’ve been reading the lifestyle blogs and you’ve realised that this year you can’t just buy junk from the ‘For Her’ and ‘For Him’ stands of the chain-stores as Christmas gifts, as they won’t show that you’re Vintage, Frugal, Retro and Caring.  So what can you do? Well, while you’re thinking about it you could make a batch of old-fashioned Coconut Ice to give to your aunts in beautifully-wrapped little boxes.  Here’s how.

 

You’ll need:

250g sugar

75 ml milk

a splash of rose water or 1 tsp vanilla essence,

75g desiccated coconut

 a few drops of red food-colouring.

1.  Heat the milk and sugar in a heavy saucepan until the sugar has dissolved, then simmer it gently until it reaches the soft ball stage. That means that if you drop a spoonful into a glass of cold water, it’ll form a soft ball. Don’t worry if you boil it for too long: it may turn into coconut toffee.

2.  Remove from heat, stir in the coconut and rose water or vanilla. Mix well (it’ll start to become firm).

3.  Turn half of the mixture out onto a sheet of greased greaseproof paper (in a square tin or just on a big plate).

4.  Add a few drops of red food-colouring to the rest, mix it in, and press the pink mixture down on top of the white. Tidy the edges a bit if you like by pressing them in with a knife.

5.  In a few minutes it’ll be firm enough to cut into squares (this should make about 16 pieces). Leave it in the fridge for an hour and then remove from the tin or plate.

I was surprised at how well this turned out – it was delicious and much sought after. Add more colouring if you prefer a brighter pink. Play the Bee Gees while you’re working to enter fully into the spirit of the thing. And tell your aunts I said hello.

Off to the kitchen with you then, and I’ll be back soon with more guest posts and fabulous ideas for a cracking Christmas.  Mwah! x

Righty ho, then, so tomorrow is Stir-up Sunday, which gives me carte blanche to get all Christmassy even though it’s still not December.  Bonus. 

Today, your mission, should you wish to accept it, is to make sure you have the following ingredients to make your Christmas puds tomorrow, or whenever.  I won’t be checking or anything. 

As usual with this sort of thing, this recipe is just a guide, it’s not set in stone, so if there’s something you don’t like, substitute something else.  So if you don’t like alcohol, for example, you can use orange juice, or cranberry juice, or more tea.  And I’d rather stick needles in my eyes than eat dried peel, but if you  like it, bung some in.  As long as you don’t mess with the quantities too much you’ll be fine.  Here goes, then:

500g dried fruit (a mixture of raisins, sultanas, de-stoned ready to eat prunes, cranberries – whatever – as long they’re small and wrinkly, chuck ‘em in)

1 tbsp Maraschino cherries, halved (optional, but it’s nice to see a little glistening bit of red when you cut it open)

1 lemon

100ml black tea (I used Earl Grey)

100ml Morgan’s Spiced Rum (or whatever booze you like), plus extra for the cook

1 cinnamon stick, snapped in half

100g self raising flour (or rice flour for gluten free – thank you to my lovely Twittermate Pippa D for this)

100g fresh white breadcrumbs (or ground almonds if you need to keep the recipe gluten free)

150g veggie suet

150g dark muscovado sugar

25g almonds or pistachio nuts, chopped

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground mixed spice

3 eggs, beaten

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp black treacle

1 Bramley apple, grated

First, then, weigh out the fruit, then have a good look through it and remove any stray stems.  If you’re using prunes, make sure they’re de-stoned and snipped into little pieces.  Finely grate the lemon zest (as usual, don’t push too hard – you want to avoid the bitter pith), then juice it as well.  Add the zest and juice to the fruit then brew up the tea (one tea bag is fine for that amount of water) and pour it over the fruit, along with the rum and the cherries.  Add the cinnamon stick and stir it all up.  Leave the whole shooting match to steep (make sure it’s not a metal bowl) overnight, stirring occasionally if you remember.

The next day, then, (stay with me here) weigh out all the dry ingredients and combine them in a huge bowl.  The muscovado sugar can be a bit lumpy so you might need to sieve it to break up any lumps.

Take the steeped fruit and remove the cinnamon stick pieces.  Add the eggs, honey, treacle and grated apple.  Stir well, then you can add all that into the dry ingredients.  Give it a really good stir (get everyone to take a turn to stir and make a wish).  Now butter one of those big, lidded plastic basins (3 pint/1.7  litre) and bung in your mixture.  Put on the lid, then cover it in foil.  If your basin doesn’t have a lid you’ll need to use buttered greaseproof paper, then foil, then tie it tightly with string (or you can tie it in a muslin, or use one of those special circular moulds).

To steam it, you can use a steamer if you’re posh, but I haven’t got one so I just used a huge saucepan and balanced the basin inside it on a circular metal pastry cutter so it wasn’t sitting on the bottom of the pan.  Add boiling water about halfway up the basin and put the lid on the saucepan.  Steam for 5 hours, making sure you go back every so often to top up the boiling water.

And that’s it, you’re done.  Let it cool then stash it away (don’t unwrap it!) for Christmas day when it’ll need to steam for about another 2.5 to 3 hours (don’t worry if it gets a bit longer, it won’t ruin it).

BTW: If you want to make mini puddings instead, remember to put a teeny piece of buttered greaseproof paper in the bottom of your ramekin, otherwise you’ll never get the buggers out.  Then you can just cover them with foil, put them on a deep baking tray, add boiling water to half way up the sides of the ramekins, and bake in the oven for 30 minutes on 180/gas 4.

BTW 2: Nigella advocates vodka rather than brandy to flame a pudding – apparently the flame is better and lasts longer.  Just mind your eyebrows

Off you trot then.  Give everybody a stir, let them make a wish, and then make them do the washing up.  You deserve a break.

Ah, Northern Ireland.  How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.  I have several equally random reasons; one: we’re only about an hour away and it’s rather nice to be able to pop to the shops in a different country.  Two: the shopping’s much cheaper than here – and it’s an extra thrill to shop in my native sterling too (and until Southern Irish shops stop ripping off their customers I’ll feel no shame in doing so).  Three, there’s the fact that whenever we go up there, the people are really nice, ooh, and four: the shopping is fab, oh and five: our lovely friend Tom happens to hark from that neck of the woods, and six: their accent is just lovely to listen to…  I could ramble on, but another fantastically good reason is that their Bramley apples are just amazing.  And here’s a completely useless fact: did you know that annually, Northern Ireland produces over 35000 tonnes of the big, fat, gorgeous beauties?  Most of these go to make cider (why doesn’t that surprise you?) but a few of them make it back to English Towers, where their lovely, fluffy tartness make for rather nice pies.  First you need to make some ridiculously fattening, buttery pastry:

200g plain flour

pinch of salt

150g cold butter

2 tbsp caster sugar

So add the pinch of salt into the flour, then cut the cold butter into little squares and gently rub them in until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.  Stir in the sugar and then add about 2 tbsp cold water.  Just enough to make the pastry come together.  It will seem dry, but crumbly dough will make for lighter pastry.  Trust your Aunty EM here.  Wrap up your pastry and leave it to rest somewhere cool while you tackle your Bramleys.

2 large Bramley apples

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 egg (or just some milk)

1 tsp cinnamon/extra sugar

Preheat the oven to 180/gas 4 before you forget, then take a couple of large apples, peel, core and dice them and pop them into a saucepan.  Add a couple of tbsp of caster sugar (depending on how tart you like your filling) and a whoosh of water from the tap.  Gently cook the apples until they’re just tender, but not complete mush, and set aside to cool slightly.

Now, retrieve the pastry, roll it out and cut out 12 large circles and 12 smaller ones with a pastry cutter.   Don’t worry if you’re as cack handed as I am with pastry – they’re supposed to look home-made.  Gently pop the larger circles into the holes of a 12-hole muffin tin.  Next, bung a tbsp of your lovely apple purée into each case:

…and top with a smaller circle.  Beat the egg with a fork and brush a little onto each pie (or just use a dab of milk), then sprinkle with a little extra sugar and perhaps some cinnamon (to add a pleasing smell to your kitchen, if nothing else). 

Now it would do you well to remember here that pie filling fresh from the oven  is possibly the hottest substance known to man so try to prevent your offspring getting third degree mouth burns until the molten apple lava has calmed down a bit, then serve immediately with a big blob of mascarpone, or some lovely vanilla ice cream.  Yum yum pig’s bum, as Auntie L would say.

So I had a lovely birthday, thank you so much for all your good wishes.  I got lots of donations to my KitchenAid fund, which is now looking quite healthy, plus lots of lovely bits and pieces for my garden (including a fantastic Eucalyptus tree from the boys), and 6 new sparkly Denby mugs from Hubby to add to my collection:

Sensible Uncle I and Lovely L bought me Ching He Huang’s new Chinese cookbook, and Mad Uncle A gave me a nice wodge of cash (although I’m pretty sure the empty card was provided by me Ma as he didn’t seem to know a lot about that bit).  Jen sent me the wondrous flowers you saw yesterday and the Disreputable One stumped up an eye-wateringly generous cash donation, which arrived via an enormous white courier van (well you can never be too careful) and so did my Ma.  And yes, I probably accept that at my age I shouldn’t still be getting cash in the birthday cards from my parents.

As you know, the tradition here at English Towers is that the birthday person gets free reign to choose whichever birthday cake they like.  Unfortunately, being Chief Domestic Goddess, that means I get to make my own.  Still, I had me Ma here.  And plenty of sodding about and giggling later, we came up with this:

First for the easy peasy pastry:

115g butter, melted

100g caster sugar

200g plain flour

Pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 180/gas 4.  Pour the melted butter into the sugar and stir.  Then add the flour and salt and mix it around until it becomes a thick paste.  Press the mixture into a loose bottomed (steady) flan dish or baking tin  (about 24cm should do it), then bake it blind (scrunch up a bit of greaseproof paper, then smooth it over the pastry and pour in the baking beans) for about 15 minutes.  Then take it out of the oven, remove the baking beans and put it back in to cook the base for about another 5 minutes, then take it out and leave to cool.  Turn the oven down to gas 2/150 degrees.

Meanwhile, make the raspberry curd.  We couldn’t find fresh raspberries, so we used a decent tinned brand and just squished the contents through a sieve, but you can use the bought stuff or just purée some fresh ones:

100g butter

4 tbsp raspberry purée

1 lime, zested then juiced

150g caster sugar

2 eggs plus 1 extra yolk (keep the white for the meringue)

Take a saucepan and bung in the butter, raspberry purée, lime juice and zest and caster sugar.  Melt it all together slowly until the sugar is all dissolved.  In a bowl, whisk the eggs and yolk until well combined.  Now, take your beautiful pink mixture and gently pour a little bit into the egg, whisking all the time, then a bit more, then a bit more, until you’ve combined about half of it with the eggs.  Now pour that lot back into the saucepan and keep whisking and simmering until the mixture thickens – remember it’s going to be baked in the pie, so don’t worry about making it really spready consistency at this stage.  Turn off the heat and leave to cool.  Remember to just stir it occasionally to keep it from getting a skin on.  When it’s about room temperature, pour it into the pastry case.

Then for the meringue:

4 egg whites

225g caster sugar

Whisk the eggs in a very clean bowl until they form stiff peaks, then keep whisking while you add the sugar, spoon by spoon, until it’s all incorporated and the meringue is thick and glossy.  If it’s your birthday and you’re rather prone to things pink and gorgeous, you can add a couple of drops of raspberry juice or cochineal here to give a delicate pinkness to your billowy meringue.  It’s best not to do this after several glasses of wine because it all gets a bit silly and giggly.  What?  Oh, no, of course I don’t mean me.  Pile it all on top of the raspberry curd and fluff it up a bit.  Bake in the very low oven (gas 2/150 degrees) for about 40 to 50 minutes, depending on how squelchy you like your meringue. 

Garnish with pink edible glitter (okay so you don’t really have to do that bit) and serve with a nice bottle of chilled rosé Prosecco and the company of your wonderful family.  Cheers! 

And no, I have no idea what the jar of Hellmann’s is doing in the background completely spoiling my shot.  I blame the alcohol.

Sunday lunch, then, and even though I say so myself, this one was rather a cracker.  Given a unanimous 10/10 (unheard of in our house) and with the added bonus of being one of the easiest too.  First up then is the main course:

Roast lamb with creamy layered potatoes

½ leg lamb (about 1kg)

1 kg potatoes

50g butter

300ml milk or cream

So for the lamb, just preheat the oven at about 180/gas 4, rub all over with a generous slug of olive oil ( a clove or two of smooshed garlic wouldn’t go amiss here either – or a handful of rosemary if you have it) and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.  Now just bung it in the oven and forget about it for about an hour and a half .  For a whole leg, or a joint any larger than a kg, allow 1 hour per kg, plus ½ hour for well done meat (I know, I know, but I just can’t prefer not to eat my lamb pink – sorry and all that).

Remove from the oven and reserve somewhere warm, covered in foil.  Place the roasting tin on the hob, add a dessertspoon of plain flour and whisk all the juices in with the flour.  Now, add 500ml stock, transfer to a saucepan and let it bubble away gently until you’re ready to eat.  Oh, and season to taste.

For the potatoes (I hesitate to call them Dauphinoise – I think they’re probably more cheesey), peel and weigh them, then slice thinly (aim for about 5mm slices, but don’t amputate your fingers trying):

Butter an ovenproof dish, then arrange the slices into a thick layer on the bottom of the dish.  Dot with butter and season generously with salt and pepper:

… then continue with the next layer, again dotting with butter and seasoning well.  Continue until you’ve used up all the potatoes.  Pour over the milk or cream (or combination of both, or even chicken stock if you’re off diary), dot with the remaining butter, season well and cover.  Stick into the oven next to the lamb.  It should be ready at about the same time (an hour and a half).  If it’s not quite there, remove the lid and continue to bake while the lamb is resting.

Now for English Mum’s Mum’s creamy rice pudding (hmm, might have to work on that title):

100g pudding rice

800 ml milk

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

To cook on the hob (I had no room left in my oven):  mix all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil.  Turn the heat down low and let the rice pudding simmer very gently for about an hour.  Don’t cover it, and do watch it.  Mine boiled over all over my hob and caused an almighty mess.  I really must get myself a diffuser.  We have bottled gas that comes rocketing out like nobody’s business and it’s difficult to get a really low heat.

Me Ma’s original recipe calls for all the ingredients to be placed in a buttered ovenproof dish and cooked in a low oven for a couple of hours.  It’s honestly much nicer this way, although you have to stir the skin in occasionally (sorry there, skin haters).

Serve with fruit compote (I used frozen berries warmed up with a tbsp sugar and a big slug of blackcurrant liqueur) or a big dollop of raspberry jam. 

This is really nice made with coconut milk as well (thank you, Bill Granger!).  Just as a matter of interest – this amount serves 4, but we could easily have eaten double.  If you’re greedy sods like us then I suggest you double up.

There you have it.  Now retire to your sofa with a fat greyhound and the Sunday papers, while your willing, full-up peasants do the washing up.  Bliss.

So you know how you can cook something with your eyes shut, and then the moment you invite someone round and do it, it all goes horribly wrong?  The very thing happened when the Disreputable One visited once – I made the cheesecake I make successfully ALL the time, I presented it at the table with a flourish, tried to slice it and realised in horror that it was completely runny.  Seriously dearest reader, you could have sucked the bloody thing through a straw.  Gutted, was I.

Yesterday, then, the Lovelies came to Sunday lunch.  And I decided to stick to stuff I can make well in advance, so as not to succumb to runny cheesecake syndrome.  We got a fabilis chunk of Aberdeen Angus up at Enniskillen and roasted it along with some nice crispy roast potatoes (duck fat, baby), some buttery curly kale and just plain ol’ peas and carrots.  I was going to do Yorkshire Puddings too, but I got a bit stuck into the Jacob’s Creek and kind of forgot.  Still, it was all good.

For pudding, then, I went for apple crumble and cream, plus a chocolate fondant for the kiddlies (let’s face it, it’s MEANT to be gooey in the middle – how could you bugger it up?):

For 4 people (double it up to feed more)

115g butter

115g dark chocolate

3 eggs

35g plain flour

150g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees/gas 6.  Butter your preferred dish (or 4 of those medium ramekin things) generously, then sprinkle with a little bit of flour.

Now in a bain-marie (heatproof bowl over saucepan of simmering water, blah blah), melt the chocolate and the butter.  Meanwhile, mix together the eggs, flour and sugar.  Make sure the chocolate is just melted (and no hotter than finger temp), and stir them both together.  Pour into your prepared dish and put to one side.  Easy.  As.  Pie.

Now, just when you’re clearing up the main meal, bung the dish in for about 20 mins (less for the individual ramekins – more like 15) until it’s just past the wobbly stage and looks set on the top.  Don’t leave it much longer as you won’t get the delicious gooey chocolate centre.

Serve with a flourish, and a bucket of cold, cold cream.  And hopefully you won’t need a straw.

 I’m still struggling with this photography lark, y’know.  It’s not easy trying to take classy pictures when you’re up to your elbows in egg whites.  I’m going to wreck my camera at this rate.  Still, here we go with another step by step: this time a classic lemon meringue pie.

For the pastry, you’ll need:

115g butter, melted

100g caster sugar

175g plain flour

Pinch of salt

Firstly, preheat the oven to 180/gas 4.  Pour the melted butter into the sugar and stir.  Then add the flour and teeny pinch of salt and mix it around until it becomes a thick paste.  Press the mixture into your flan dish or baking tin  (about 24cm should do it), then bake it blind (scrunch up a bit of greaseproof paper, then smooth it over the pastry and pour in the baking beans) for about 15 minutes.  Then take it out of the oven, remove the baking beans and put it back in to cook the bottom (ooer) for about another 5 minutes, then take it out and leave to cool.  Turn the oven down to gas 2/150 degrees.

Meanwhile, make the lemon curd:

100g butter

2 lemons, zested then juiced

150g caster sugar

2 eggs plus 1 extra yolk (keep the white for the meringue)

Take a saucepan and bung in the butter, lemon juice and zest and caster sugar.  Melt it all together slowly until the sugar is all dissolved.  In a bowl, whisk the eggs and yolk until well combined.  Now, take your warm, lemony, butter mixture and gently pour a little bit into the egg, whisking all the time, then a bit more, then a bit more, until you’ve combined about half of it with the eggs.  Now bung that lot back into the saucepan and keep whisking and simmering until the mixture thickens.  Turn off the heat and leave to cool.  Remember to just stir it occasionally to keep it from getting a skin on.  When it’s about room temperature, pour it into the pastry case.

Finally, for the meringue:

4 egg whites

225g caster sugar

Whisk the eggs in a very clean bowl until they form stiff peaks, then keep whisking while you add the sugar, spoon by spoon, until it’s all incorporated and the meringue is thick and glossy.  At this point, it’s best to keep passing children from all trying to nab fingerfulls of the meringue mixture.  I find something pointy helps here.  Pile it all on top of the lemon curd and fluff it up a bit.  Bake in the very low oven (gas 2/150 degrees) for about 40 to 50 minutes, depending on how squelchy you like your meringue.  Guard the pie with your pointy implement until it’s at room temperature, then quickly take it into the bathroom, lock the door, and stuff into face.

So this week, Mr Lovely (D next door’s brother in law – it’s all so incestuous round these parts) turned 40.  Mrs L has been, somewhat reluctantly it has to be said, planning a big party and we had a little brainstorming evening to sort out the finer details.  Seeing as Mr L is a fireman, it made sense for someone to bake a fire engine cake.  Mrs Lovely didn’t volunteer.  Neither did I.  It turned into a bit of a staring contest and then we decided that we’d pursue other avenues – both of us being severely cack-handed in the cake decorating department.  We were chatting about cupcake towers and the like and looking on the internerd when it dawned: cupcakes…loads and loads of little cupcakes each decorated with a teeny fire engine.  Mrs Lovely vowed to have a crack at a fire engine cake too.  The nutter.

Saturday morning dawned, then, and I started on the cupcakes. While I baked batches of 24, passing children were enlisted to help melt chocolate and whisk ganache and stick on the little rice paper/icing cake-toppers that Mrs L ordered and had delivered to her sister in the UK, along with a big list of other baking stuff that’s hard to find here (she got stopped coming through customs with a big block of royal icing – ‘no officer, it’s not semtex – honest’).  We decided to stick to vanilla cupcakes with white chocolate ganache, and chocolate cupcakes with dark chocolate.  But honestly, after a while, it all kind of got a bit confused and anyone that happened to have made a bowl of ganache dolloped it on the nearest available cakes.

So for the vanilla cupcakes, then, you need

125g butter

125g caster sugar (vanilla sugar if you have it)

1 tsp vanilla extract (leave out for the chocolate ones)

2 large eggs

125g self raising flour (replace a heaped tbsp with cocoa for chocolate ones)

Couple of tbsp milk

Firstly, try to make sure everything is at room temperature.  Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add the vanilla extract and then the eggs, beating well after each addition.   Don’t worry if it curdles – that’s such an old wives tale – just add some of the flour and carry on.  Then gently fold in the flour (if you beat the hell out of it you won’t get a lovely light sponge) and lastly the milk – just enough to make the batter plop softly off a tablespoon into the cupcake paper.  Bake at 180/gas 4 for about 18 minutes until golden – they should spring back when lightly pressed.  Cool on a wire rack.  This amount will make about 12 cupcakes.  Remember you don’t want them too high, or the ganache won’t completely cover them.

For the ganache:

200g bar white chocolate

2 tbsp icing sugar

About 100ml double cream

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water (don’t let it spit everywhere as you risk getting water in the chocolate, in fact, once it’s boiled just turn it off – the chocolate will still melt).  When just melted, take it off the heat and sieve in the icing sugar.  Gently start to whisk that in, then while you’re whisking, pour in the cream until you have a thick, glossy bowlful – about the same consistency as melted chocolate.  Pour a generous tablespoon of it over each cupcake – ideally so that it just about reaches the top of the paper case.  Then just leave them naked or decorate with whatever you like: mad, printed cake toppers…grated chocolate… a big swirl of whipped cream… jelly beans… whatever.

Multiply that recipe by about 8, blow up your food mixer, scoff any disasters, make a few more and there you have it.  A 100 cupcake birthday extravaganza.  Happy birthday, Mr Lovely!  Oh, and she never did make that fire engine cake, y’know.  Great party though.