Something For the Weekend

So usually I don't bother much with cocktails - they're great to drink and I'm a sucker for vodka slush in summer, but generally speaking they always seem like a bit too much effort to make.

However, during a recent flick through of one of my old Sainsbury's magazines I discovered an appealingly simple recipe for a 'Raspberry Sparkle' cocktail which, I decided, must be made. As per usual, I'm unable to just leave a recipe alone, so here's my version...

Ingredients (serves 1):
- 25ml raspberry vodka (or normal)
- 50g fresh raspberries
- juice of 1/4 lime
- ½ tbsp honey
- soda water
- sprig of rosemary, to serve (optional)

The thing with this recipe is that, as well as being easy, it's incredibly adaptable. For example, I love the flavour combination of blackberries and thyme, which would be a great Autumnal alternative. Also: I'm currently in possession of raspberry vodka, but it's so easy to make your own with ANY flavour, and the internet is full of recipes telling you how. So there is absolutely no excuse!

Method:
1. Grab a stick blender a blitz the raspberries, then use the back of the spoon to push it all through a sieve (I love raspberry seeds, but I don't want a drink full of them). If you don't have a stick blender, then with a little extra work just use the sieve and spoon - you'll get the same end result, it'll just take a little longer.
2. Mix your raspberry purée with the vodka, honey and lime juice.
3. Pour the mixture into a glass, add ice cubes (and a couple of frozen raspberries if you happen to have some), then top up with more soda water. Garnish with the rosemary and an extra raspberry or two if you don't have any frozen ones. 
4. Repeat as needed and get gloriously drunk in our new-found sun.
 

Honey and Raspberry Cake: Guest Post by Lucy Allman

Hello there! I’m Lucy Allman, a uni friend of Bryony’s and an avid reader of this blog. This year I am doing an assistantship abroad in Pompei, which not only offers up many new and exciting ingredients to work with, but also means I have to manage without things like vanilla pods and actual cream that comes from cows. As it is, I’ve taken to inventing more recipes rather than hunting them down online and then finding that I’m missing a crucial ingredient that isn’t available here. 

I am really excited to be doing a guest post here, and hope that you find my honey and raspberry cake to be a recipe worth trying out! It’s a variation on a classic Devonshire honey cake, and while you will need to set a few hours aside in order to make it, the end result is fruity, moist and very, very moreish…

Honey and Raspberry Cake

You will need:

- 250g clear honey, plus about 2tbsp extra to make the glaze

- 225g unsalted butter, cut into cubes (luckily for me, all Italian butter is unsalted, but most English supermarkets have it too)

- 100g brown sugar (any kind is fine; I used Demerara, but muscovado works just as well)

- 3 large eggs, beaten

- 300g self-raising flour

- 125g raspberries

- 85g caster sugar

Preheat your oven to 140°C for fan, 160°C for conventional, or gas mark 3. Grease and line a 20cm/8 inch cake tin.

Please ignore my dirty stove!

Place the honey, butter and sugar in a pan and melt them together over a low heat, stirring occasionally. Once it turns into a delicious syrupy liquid, add about 10-12 raspberries and mix them in until they start to break down (it helps if you squish them against the sides of the pan with a spoon). Bring the mixture to the boil for one minute, and it will froth up like marshmallow fluff and then turn a gorgeous deep pink colour (this is my favourite part).

It is very important that you now let the mixture cool for about 15-20 minutes, so the eggs don't cook when you mix them in (top tip: with the weather as cols as it is - yes, even in Italy! - you can go outside with your pan or place it next to an open window to speed up the process.

While the mixture is cooling, sieve the flour into a mixing bowl. Then, feel free to do a dance or eat a sandwich while you're waiting.

Once the mixture is completely cool (or, you know, cool enough that you won't end up with raspberry-flavoured scrambled eggs), add the eggs and beat them in gently. Tip the mixture into the bowl with the flour and stir it all together. You batter will be quite runny; don't worry, that's normal.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for 50 mins-1 hour (top tip: utilise the cooking time to get the washing-up done, and then you won't have to worry about it later) until the cake is well-risen and golden brown. If you're worried that the top is becoming too brown, cover the cake with some tinfoil.

Check to see if it's cooked through with a skewer - poke it in the middle of the cake, and if it comes out clean then your cake is ready. Alternatively, you can poke it with your fingertip and see if it springs back completely, in which case you're good to go. For best results and to be absolutely sure, I like to do both.

Once the cake is cooked, leave it to cool for a little while and make the glaze. Warm the remaining raspberries in a pan with 2tbsp of honey, a little bit of water and the caster sugar. Bring it to the boil, then strain it through a sieve.

Turn the cake out onto a plate and prick it all over with a skewer or a fork, then drizzle the raspberry syrup over the top.

I like that my camera managed to capture the steam - I feel it adds a certain something.

This cake can be served while still warm, with a generous dollop of custard, or you can just cut a big slice and enjoy the sticky goodness.

 

Pudding Explosion

When my sister came to visit me last month, she insisted I made sure I had all the ingredients in for her to make butterscotch sauce. She doesn't really cook usually, but she'd made that at home and was keen to recreate.

Of course, we had a fun but hectic time, and the sauce never got made. It seemed a shame to have all the ingredients in and let them go to waste though...

 And so a star was born.

For this, you'll need vanilla ice cream, some frozen raspberries, a pan of butterscotch sauce and a few pieces of honeycomb. That last one's where the literal bit of the explosion part comes in, 'cos you've got to break the pieces up quite small and you will end up with stray honeycomb on the floor.

The rest of the explosion is in the taste. This pudding is all about texture and contrast - the ice cream cool and smooth, the raspberries sharp, the honeycomb sweet and crunchy and the butterscotch silky and warm, while the citrus note in it from the lemon brings the whole dessert together. You really have to try it.

Plus? The quantity of butterscotch sauce the website gives makes enough for a few servings. So you can either get people over to share it with you or put it in the fridge for next time. I cannot see a downside.

Try it. Your tastebuds will never be the same again.

"WHAT have you done to my kitchen?!"

Is invariably the response I get from Mum when, once a year, I embark on the quest that is Jenny's Birthday Cake. I've been making people birthday cakes for years but until a while ago I'd never attempted anything really fancy - but then it was Jenny's 18th (and she's really awesome), so effort was made. This was the result:

There's a story behind the cow.

It went down brilliantly and was really yummy, and I happily considered it my best baking achievement. But then this year I had to try and beat it. ERK. So, I altered my recipe for chocolate and raspberry cupcakes that everyone always loves, and this is what happened.

The cupcake recipe:

- 4oz/100g softened butter or margerine

- 4oz/100g caster sugar

- 2 eggs

- 5oz/125g self raising flour (can be gluten-free if you need it)

- 1/2 tsp baking powder

- 1oz/25g cocoa powder

- 1tsp vanilla extract

- 4oz/100g fresh or frozen raspberries

- 2oz/50g chopped up chocolate

I altered this a bit to get the amount I wanted - I had two 9" springform tins and actually fiddled the recipe to a 3 egg/125g version, but then for some reason I doubled that... so then when the cake was put together it turned out MASSIVE. Miscalculation of amounts there... BUT it was still awesome. And I can guarantee that having more of it was no bad thing!
To successfully make a normal size cake, use 125g of butter + sugar; 3 eggs; 150g flour; 1/2 tsp baking powder; 30g cocoa powder; 1 tsp vanilla; 125g raspberries; 75g chocolate.

1. Begin by pre-heating the oven to 180°C, and greasing your cake tins. Something I've discovered recently is that if you also dust the tins with flour it helps with the non-sticking, which is particularly useful with things like bread.

2. Beat together the butter and sugar A LOT until you think it looks done, then keep going for another couple of minutes. The more air you get into this the better the cake will be - my Grandma swore by it.

3. Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract until you have a silky smooth batter.

4. Add the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder and fold in with a metal spoon. I'm not sure why you have to use a metal spoon but everyone always says so... if I find out I'll blog it.

5. Add the chocolate and the raspberries and mix carefully - you don't want to destroy the raspberries too much.

6. Spoon the mixture into the tins, using a spatula to get it all out the bowl, and bake for about 30 minutes (20-25 if you're doing the cupcakes). Once a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean, remove them from the tins and put them on a wire rack to cool.

Additional things you will now need:
- MORE raspberries. Approximately a small punnet. Judge from the picture below.
- raspberry jam
- chocolate butter icing (whisk together some butter and icing sugar until it looks like butter icing, then add some cocoa powder to make it chocolatey)
- royal icing
- some form of decoration: I used sugarpaste and writing icing

7. Spread a layer of raspberry jam onto one of the sponges - whichever you want to be the bottom one. I use whichever is slightly flatter for the top, as it makes icing etc easier.
8. Add a layer of raspberries. Feel indulgent and also healthy because it's fruit.
9. Cover with buttercream. Feel even more indulgent.

10. PUT THE OTHER SPONGE ON TOP. I find this very excitng. My sister says I need to get out more.

11. Warm up about a tablespoon more of raspberry jam (but don't put the metal spoon in the microwave, obv), and brush the entire cake with it. There doesn't need to be loads, but this helps the royal icing to stick, and tastes nice to boot.
12. Using some icing sugar to prevent sticking, roll out your royal icing. Use the rolling pin to lift it, and place over the cake. Smooth out as best you can, then cut around the bottom with a sharp knife. THEN make a ball out of some of the left-over icing and use that to make the icing on the cake super smooth.
13. Decorate. I used black sugar paste and bought a little craft knife, and made the first bit of the music score for 'happy birthday', because Jenny is a big music person and I thought it was cool. Stick down using vodka (!), or edible glue if you think you'll use it enough for it to be worth the money. I then did a big '19' because I realised there was no way I could do the whole song.

You haven't lived until you've made a 3.5cm treble clef out of sugar paste.

14. When you're happy with the decoration, use a pin to attach a ribbon around the bottom. This isn't strictly necessary, but as well as looking pretty it hides any icing mistakes, so win-win.
15. Present to impressed friend and enjoy getting to eat it. VOILA.

And for the record, the kitchen wasn't that bad. Not really. I tidied up...

Sorry Mum.