A Chance Encounter

This week I met a stranger.
Bermudian Stranger.
In our day and age this is nothing out of the ordinary, except that my stranger and I are linked for a short period of time on account of the fact that they (no gender clues) have taken a book out of the library on my account. A rather trusting move I suppose, given the fines our University bestows on lackadaisical borrowers, but where would we be without trust and charitable goodwill…we are British and it is the festive season after all. Plus, Bermudian Stranger was polite, apologetic, grateful and friendly, which was all I really needed. She (or he) then waited patiently for me to take out a silly number of Shakespeare texts and we walked back to Selly Oak at around 11pm exchanging all manner of niceties about Literature and Politics.

Unsurprisingly I managed to drop Redbrick into conversation and soon discovered that he (or she) doesn’t bake. Pasta, apparently, Bermudian Stranger is great at making, cakes however, aren’t in the repertoire. Which made me think about the recipes I have posted so far this term and those I have yet to try out. They haven’t really been that simple have they? They’ve not exactly been complicated, but each has required an unusual ingredient or an excessive amount of decoration, and none of them would be suitable for a first time baker.

Bermudian Stranger and I parted ways at The Goose with smiles and best wishes and a parting shot of ‘I’ll pick up the paper some time and skip to Food’…so I wandered back to my house considering the kinds of recipes a first-time, student-baker might attempt. Naturally my mind drifted and if I can get hold of some marzipan in the next fortnight I have a cracking plan for a Christmas creation…but eventually I came to rest on cheesecake. They’re not my favourite, and a simple cheesecake requires no baking so I’m cheating myself out of my own therapy, but they are notoriously easy. Owl Housemate received a baked chocolate orange cheesecake for his 21^st birthday and The Little One is rather fond of a no-bake lemon cheesecake. Also, should my stranger fancy an Italian evening in, pasta followed by cheesecake is not a bad combination! (The Greeks may have invented the cheesecake slightly before the Romans but I just met a friendly stranger and for their sake I don’t mind smudging history by a couple of decades BC).

Such a terrible/brilliant joke!

Personally, when I’m not gorging on raspberries, I’m a ginger-fiend and it just so happens that I have crystallised ginger left over from my bonfire night recipe.  Therefore….in dedication to my Bermudian Stranger and in the hope they return Writing Society before I start being charged for it, this weeks recipe is for a Ginger Cheesecake with (or without) a Roast Pear Topping.

Confession: The photograph at the bottom of the page is clearly not mine…. This is because I didn’t take a photograph of mine (made in my heart shaped springform tin – it did look pretty) before it had several slices taken out. My house loved it, which is always encouraging, but the photo below is from the BBC’s Good Food website.

Ingredients
– 200g Ginger Nuts
– 400g Cream Cheese
– 100g Butter
– 50g Crystallised Ginger
– 100g Greek Yoghurt
– 50g Icing Sugar
– the juice of half a lemon

Topping
– 2 Pears
– 3tsp Caster Sugar
– the juice of half a lemon 

Method
– Crush the Ginger Nuts, in a sandwich bag, with a rolling pin, until you are left with fine crumbs
– Melt the butter gently and then add the biscuit crumbs, stirring until they are fully coated. Press this mixture into your 20cm, spring form tin and place into the fridge while you prepare the rest of the cake.
– Place the rest of ingredients into a bowl and mix thoroughly.
– Spoon this on top of the biscuit base and leave in the fridge for a couple of hours, or overnight.

For the Topping (recommended)
– Cut the pears into quarters and then slice into roughly equal pieces
– Place them on a baking tray and sprinkle with lemon juice and sugar
– Roast for around half an hour on 200C or Gas Mark 7, stirring them occasionally to avoid any burnt pieces
– Leave to cool on a plate and drain off any excess liquid before spreading on top of your cheesecake
(I added a spoonful of ginger jam to my pears in the cooling process but then I am a little addicted….)

The Birthday Aftermath

Well, my dear readers, it was a success.
A marvel of magic and Millie-ness.
Real words can’t actually describe how my 21st birthday went so I shall make some up…
Incredularissimo
Wonkridabla
Fabtasticilli
These will do.
The first describes cocktails at the Ritz. The second sums up the colour and spectacular creativity of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory on stage and the third and final epitomises the fun Ninja Housemate and I had on Saturday night at our party.

As predicted, my magical mum made our traditional, epic, chocolate cake (no recipe sharing I’m afraid, this ones a family only job) and my sisters decorated it to resemble a pirates-bay of treasures. Gym-Monkey Friend invented a superb cake, Victoria sponge, raspberry jam, fresh raspberries, marscapone and…well, hundreds more raspberries which is still being sliced up and shared due to it’s enormous size!

 

Desert and Director Housemates went all out with an incredible selection of cupcakes. Victoria Sponge, Red Velvet, Peanut Butter Frosting, Vanilla Frosting….and decorations that quite literally blew our minds. Mini records that had artists names swirled onto them, tiny books with titles etched into them, and hearts and flowers galore. We were thoroughly spoilt and have spent every waking moment since, eating cake.

As a result of all these fabulous creations, I haven’t baked this week. I have played with the new silicon mould I received for my birthday and the unit tops are filling up with little chocolate lollipop hearts. There are cakes in the pipeline however, and a brand new birthday apron to use so it wont be long before the whisks are out but for now I shall write about my carrot cake. The carrot cake was a new-fangled recipe, a merge between the creations of Nigella and Jamie, and it was part of The Biscuit Monster’s Emergency Fresher Pack. This pack was one of my best sister-ideas so far this year and it contained anything and everything a Fresher might want/can’t afford in their first weekend away from home. there were fancy dress props, little tubs of UV paint, biscuits, sweets, chewing gum and real alcohol. She had posh toiletries, paracetamol, a pack of cards and breakfast bars as well as chocolate powder and herbal tea. Each item had a label and I made a medical pamphlet of instructions for their use.
I was pretty proud of it.

The idea of giving an entire box of treats came from the growing realisation that, as we get older, our presents get smaller. They are normally much more valuable and will last longer (expensive earrings versus large pink plastic dolls house), but there is something special about having lots of items to unwrap and being surrounded by discarded paper. It’s how I see my Christmas shopping going this year…shoe boxes of lovely but little gifts that take time to open for ultimate enjoyment. There wont be any cake involved at Christmas, though, thinking as I write, gingerbread shapes might be a sweet idea for tags….

 

Before I run away with that thought, The Biscuit Monster loves carrot cake. Especially the one from our local cafe. So I thought I’d have a go. While shopping for ingredients I had a slight wobble in confidence so asked an elderly lady in the baking aisle for advise (she seemed a safe bet) but she too was shopping for ingredients for her first ever carrot cake and we left the supermarket wishing each other luck…if hers worked as well as mine did, I think she’ll have been a very happy baker.

Ingredients

• 250 g unsalted butter, softened
• 250 g light brown soft sugar
• 4 large free-range eggs
• 1 orange, zest and juice of
• 170 g self-raising flour, sifted
• 1 slightly heaped teaspoon baking powder
• 100 g shelled walnuts, chopped
• 1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch ground nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• 250 g carrots, peeled and coarsely grated

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4 and grease your 22cm cake tin.
Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add in the egg yolks one by one, and add the orange zest and juice.
Stir in the sifted flour and baking powder, and add the walnuts, spices and grated carrot.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff, then gently fold them into the cake mix.
Scoop the mixture into the tin and cook ifor about 50 minutes until golden and risen.
Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then leave to cool for an hour on a rack.

For a Lime Icing:
Mix 

• 300 grams cream cheese 
• 200 grams icing sugar
• The zest and juice of two limes

…and spread generously on top of the cooled cake. 

 

Birthdays Abound

The day this post will be published in the University paper, November the 15^th, the first Friday of winter and my favourite day in the whole calendar…is my birthday. It’s a big deal. Always has been and always will be.
I count down for months.

 On my 18^th, the entire sixth form was prepped weeks in advance and one of my teachers actually sent an email to a group of students to remind them the night before the big occasion. They treated me like a six year old, giddy with excitement, who needed nothing more than balloons and cake and someone singing Happy Birthday every five mins in the corridor. With a smile from ear to ear, I walked through the buildings with my badge on, trying to guess what the theme was for my surprise party, gleefully thanking people who wished me a nice day and politely ignoring those who liked to remind me I was getting old. Then they brought alcohol and the day got more interesting!

My 21^st started around three months ago when I received a birthday card containing tickets to see a musical in London on the day in question, and the fun hasn’t stopped since. Ninja Housemate turns 21 on the 18^th so it only makes sense for us to have a joint birthday party and we’re having a whale of a time in the process.

I must just add, that while I’m having fun with these pseudonyms, and Ninja Housemate has appeared several times now, I may have to change her name…. She’s just been accepted onto her perfect Masters course which requires a great deal of celebration, champagne and the potential alteration of her pseudonym to Kingston Housemate…but we’ll see how I fair.

Two of our housemates and my best friend are already 21 so we have lots of ideas for a party. There is only element over which we have no control over…yep, you guessed it…the cake.
Nothing, Nil. Zero. Zilch.
We’ve been banned from baking.
Which rather ruins my article.
And my relaxation time between shifts and study.

However, I will not be thwarted!
Gym-Monkey Friend is baking, The Biscuit Monster and the Little One will be baking AND Director and Desert Housemates will be baking…but that will not stop me!
As luck would have it, a very beautiful friend of mine, a colleague at work, will have turned 18 by the time you read this, and what better way to celebrate finally being able to drink legally, than alcoholic cake! Now, I know it’s depressing to read about an 18^th birthday party, for most of us it’s been too long since we turned 18 and it ‘s upsetting to realise we’re no longer sneaking into clubs, or buying cider in supermarkets with fake I.D or sipping fosters in the local bus stop (I don’t speak from experience, on that last one). However, the truth of the matter is, people are turning 18 all over the place and it’s only fair that we welcome them to adult life…not that all of us have found it yet.
I narrowed my choices down to Champagne Cake or a cocktail-based cupcake. It would have been cheaper to do champagne with hindsight, I could have bought a glass from work rather than a bottle from Tesco, but on asking the birthday girl, Mojito’s were the favourite cocktail and therefore the basis for my recipe.
As per normal, I looked at several different recipes and then made my own based on my patience, personal preference and the ingredients I could access easily. The recipe makes twelve cupcakes, an abundance of icing and some rather lovely decorations. All of which, I’m pleased to say, were a hit.

Cakes
Ingredients
– 125g Butter
– 125g Sugar
– 125g Self Raising Flour
–  A slug of Rum
– 1 tbsp. Mint – finely chopped
– 1 Lime, zest and juice
– 2 eggs
– Vanilla Essence

Method
– Whisk the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. If your arm doesn’t hurt, you’ve not been doing it for long enough
– Add the eggs little by little
– Add the finely chopped mint, zest, juice, rum vanilla essence and finally the flour, scraping the sides of the bowl to make sure everything is incorporated.
Be sure to save a little mint and lime zest back from your icing.
– Spoon the mixture into twelve cupcake cases and bake at Fan 160C/Gas Mark 4, for twenty minutes.

Frosting

Ingredients
– 20ml of Rum 
– 125g Cream Cheese
– 250g Icing Sugar
– Finely chopped Mint and Lime Zest

Method

– Mix the ingredients together until you have a stiff frosting that can be piped onto your cupcakes. Do this using a piping set or a sandwich bag with a hole in the corner. Add a little green food colouring to heighten the Mojito experience.

Crystallised Lime Slices
Ingredients
– 1 lime
– 240ml Water
–225g Caster Sugar

Method
– Slice the limes thinly
– Blanche the slices for two to three minutes until the pith is translucent
– Add the sugar and simmer the syrup mixture gently for ten minutes
– Drain and leave the slices to  dry for an hour before coated them in sugar and leaving to set.

Chocolate Decoration
Take a bar of Cadbury Mint Bubble, melt it down and wait for it to almost harden again before drawing shapes onto a piece of greaseproof paper.
Leave these to set in the fridge and then carefully peel off the paper with a sharp knife to place on top of your finished cakes.
(I used edible glitter to turn my shapes silver)

Guy Fawkes Ginger Cake

We have enjoyed a splendiferous summer this year. Lazy days and sun-kissed skin, paddling pools, picnics and chances for barbecues that last long into the night. It is, however, finally time to let go and look forward to crisp autumn mornings and November’s long evenings. It’s time to bring back the coats and the boots, the gloves and the scarves and gear ourselves up for the truly changeable climate we’ve grown to love.

With Halloween behind us now, the next celebration in the calendar is Bonfire Night and there’s no time better to start thinking of warming winter recipes. In my house, the 5^th of November means fireworks and food. It means the Biscuit Monster is likely to be exploding conkers in the oven and my youngest sister, the Little One, will be resisting the purchase of a coat for another season. This year she’s at University for the first time so I’d like to think she has found something suitable to wear around campus but in my heart of hearts I know she’s simply layering up hoodies against the chill. I’m berated year after year for taking up too much space in the house with my coats and boots, but that’s not likely to change any time soon, especially with my most recent pay check purchases….
This week I wanted to make a cake that would match up to the sensations of Bonfire Night. The warmth of the flames, the excitement of the fireworks, the darkness of the night…all encapsulated into a taste explosion. I don’t think I quite managed my intended sponge, what I ended up creating was a moist cake with more of a pudding consistency. Still delicious in its own right, it’s dark, spicy and sticky but best served warm with a dollop of cream or ice cream.

Guy Fawkes Ginger Cake

Ingredients

200g Stoned Dates
300ml Milk
100g Butter
140g Dark Muscovado Sugar
140g Ginger Preserve
3 Large, Ripe Pears
175g Self Raising Flour
40g of Candied Ginger and Mixed Peel
2tsp of Ground Ginger
1 tsp Bicarbonate
2 Eggs Beaten

Method

 

1. Put the dates, milk, butter, ginger preserve and sugar into a pan and simmer over a low heat until the butter has melted and the mixture starts to bubble. Set aside for an hour to cool.
2. Heat the over to 180C/Fan 160C/Gas Mark 4 and grease a 24cm tin
3. Peel and chop the pears and place them into the tin
4. Mix the flour, candied ginger, mixed peel, spices and bicarbonate of soda and add to the sugar mixture along with the beaten eggs
5. Pour over the pears and bake for 40mins before covering with foil and bake for a further 25mins, until the leaves sticky crumbs on a knife. The cake may look wet around the pears.

To make an indulgent syrup, simmer 85g of light muscovado suger with 50ml of water for around five mins before adding 70ml of brandy and leaving to cool.
Drizzle a small amount over the cake and leave the rest in a jug to serve with the cake later.

Enjoy after watching a fabulous firework display with a glad of mulled wine for complete satisfaction!

Happy Halloween

Hubble Bubble, Toil and Trouble
Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble
Spider liver and vampire bats
Adders eggs and six black rats
Newts for texture, toads for spice
A dash of blood and zombie lice
Mix together with a witch’s broom
And leave to chill in a Mummy’s tomb

Avoiding werewolves, search the night
For poisonous frogs and iced moon light
These last few treats make decoration
On cakes perfected for vile occasions
Be sure to eat before midnight strikes
Else creatures fierce may steal your slice.
Be warned however, before you’re through
The cake may curdle and then eat you!

Be Sure To Eat Before Midnight Strikes

Okay…so poetry isn’t my forte. My housemates will cringe as they read my forced rhyme and uneven rhythm. Ninja Housemate may actually refuse to speak to me on account of my ruining the witches’ song from one of her favourite tragedies (Macbeth if you’re interested and don’t know). However with the help of Halloween treats I hope to win them round.

The Monster Mash

As a child, I was always wary of Halloween, and a fancy dress event at Guides put me off The Monster Mash completely. However, since The Biscuit Monster and I were kicked out of said corporation, The Monster Mash has become an all time favourite track and I have come to love everything about the ghoulish festival.
I am lucky to live in a cottage that lends itself perfectly to decoration. Nearer to Christmas I shall post some photographs of it’s little doors and windows (hopefully) frosted with snow. For now though, if you could please imagine your typical fairy tale cottage lit by tall, burning candles in it’s windows, bags of bones hanging from the porch, little ghost lights threading through the roses around the door and a fire raging in the front room, complete with a huge, blackened kettle, pumpkins on the mantle piece, and a spider the size of Aragog (no exaggeration, we got a little carried away in TKMaxx one year) sitting on top of the piano (or the Peugeot, depending on the weather)….you’ll be somewhere near the state of my house once the girls and I have finished with it. There’s always a bowl of sweets outside for the younger villagers who come to peer at the little old house at the end of the lane, and spooky skeleton hand glasses poking up from the flowerbeds. My parents despair but there’s a fever that comes upon us, no doubt caught from the gnomes living by the brook at the end of the garden, and we become creatively obsessed with the marvels of the Dark. However, if there are plenty of bats hanging from the walls and ceilings, my Mum is happy and my Dad is amused by our antics so long as we cause no structural damage to the house. Or his car.

With both my partners in crime across the other side of the country, I was left to my own devices this year, although with the help of a goodie –coffin of treats from my Mum, I think I’ve managed a fairly gruesome feast. Fencing Housemate came home (from fencing, obviously) to find me adding eyes to my ghosts while Microwave-Maestro Housemate witnessed me dipping eyeballs in chocolate earlier in the evening. No one had quite grasped the full extent of my banquet until it was all laid out on the table and at that point I really believe they expected me to start cackling and own up to being well versed in witchcraft.

Creepy Creations

There may be a lot on the table, but the recipes are all very simple and extremely effective. As I write this, Director Housemate is shopping for ingredients for a monstrous main course so I shall have to be quick; #78hvn are in for a spooky but satisfying evening!

The Biscuit Monster likes to have a happy pumpkin, I tend to stick to simple but scary and The Little One is always incredibly creative with her designs

Edible Eyeballs

-100g Biscuit
-100g Madeira Cake
-100g Milk/dark chocolate
-200g White Chocolate
– Smarties
– Icing pens
– Cocktail Sticks

 

Eerie and Ever Watching You

1. Using a rolling pin, or other heavy object, bash the cake and biscuit into crumbs

2. Melt the milk/dark chocolate and combine it with the crumbs, rolling the mixture into 10 – 12 small balls. Stick cocktail sticks into them and set them in the fridge for an hour to harden

3. Dip the hardened balls into the melted white chocolate and stick into potatoes/newspaper/sponge/half a pumpkin to set.

4. I did two coats of white chocolate on each ball and added the smartie just as the second layer was cooling

5. Take the pens and draw a pupil onto each smartie plus veins around the outside for an extra creepy look!

Gooey Ghosts

– 200g Rice Krispies
– 300g Marshmallows
-100g Unsalted Butter
– 50g Milk Chocolate or Icing Pens

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and then add the marshmallows. Spend around six-ten minute melting them, always stirring the mixture.
2. Add the Rice Krispies and stir to make sure they are all fully coated.
3. Spoon the mixture into a roasting tin/baking tray/large Tupperware box and leave to set in the fridge for a few hours
4. Once hard, cut into shapes, stick onto cocktail sticks and coat with melted chocolate

Tip: Keep the shapes small to avoid them falling apart on the sticks

5. Melt the milk chocolate and decorate your ghosts with terrible expressions.

Ghosts Have Fangs Don’t They?

 

Bug Pots (with extra slime and soil)
– A Packet of Jelly
– Worms, Teeth and Creepy Crawlies – sweets, not real ones
– A Chocolate Biscuit
– 12-15 small glasses/bottoms of plastic cups/shot glasses 

1. Make up your jelly mixture and fill your pots two thirds full. Set this mixture for forty minutes in the fridge.

2. Drop your sweets into the pots and pour over the rest of the jelly mixture before placing them back into the fridge.

3. Just before they set fully, crush the chocolate biscuit and sprinkle it over each cup, partially burying your bugs.

There Are Teeth In My Jelly!

 

Cobweb Cupcakes

– 200g Grated Pumpkin
– 175ml Sunflower Oil
– 175g Muscavado Sugar
– 200g Self-Raising Flour
– 3 Large Eggs, beaten
– 1tsp Vanilla Essence
– 1tsp Baking Powder
– 50g Dried Apricots
– 20g Crystallised Ginger  

– 200g Full Fat Cream Cheese
-100g Icing Sugar
– Icing Pens

Spider Stand of Cobweb Cupcakes

1. Preheat the over to 180C/Fan 160C/Gas Mark 4
2. Mix the sunflower oil and sugar together before adding in the eggs, pumpkin, apricots, ginger and vanilla essence
3. Add in the flour gradually, stirring thoroughly, followed by the bicarbonate of soda.
4. The mixture will be quite wet but spoon it out into 15 cup cake cases and place in the oven for 25-30mins
5. While the cakes are baking, mix the cheese and sugar together – add orange or green food colouring if you wish to make them extra spooky!
6. Once the cakes pass the clean knife test, leave them to cool before spreading the icing on top
7. Draw four/five concentric circles onto your cakes and then use a sharp knife or cocktail stick to draw the icing out from the centre at regular intervals to make a spiders web.

Winter Warmers

Today I moved to the dark side. I’ve done it before, and I shall do it again. Eating chocolate when I know I ought not to; borrowing clothes from my sisters without asking; pencilling in the crossword answers before my Dad has had chance to see it… Things I’m not proud of but still do for the small hit of devilish satisfaction. Today though, I chose the dark on a more serious matter, and it wont be so easy to forgive myself.

Starbucks v Costa…there’s no middle ground. You choose your side and you stick with it to the bitter end. Today however, I abandoned my hometown, tax-paying favourite. Today, I sullied my soul in its cowboy of a cousin.

This year, Starbucks have a Spiced Pumpkin Latte and a Salted Caramel Mocha as their winter specials and truthfully, the first sips of my latte were great. The shot of caffeine was perfect for clearing the last layers of sleep from my mind and the spice of the cinnamon powder was perfect.

Moving onto the mocha I was certainly pleased with the salty tang of the caramel though the intense sweetness was too much for me. The cream and chocolate powder (Costa do real chocolate sprinkles) make it a luxurious evening drink, however I’d not rush back for one first thing in the morning. Returning happily to my latte I was disappointed to find that, without the cinnamon, the artificial pumpkin flavour was all but drowned under the milk, which was a shame. I would be interested to know how the flavours might come across in a cappuccino, though I’m nervous of being disappointed a third time.

A ‘Winter Warmer’, should heat your hands against a cruel wind as you hold it close to your face and inhale the spiced steam; then, when you’ve taken your first sip, it should warm you from the inside and lead you on a whirlwind tour of sensory winter recollections. I needed that from my drink this morning and so I was genuinely sorry that the Starbucks specials didn’t impress. In the interest of fair play, I shan’t now praise Costa’s superiority… I would simply have been better purchasing a Starbucks Chai Latte with an espresso shot and enjoying the wintery flavours for less money and fewer calories.

A friend of mine who is strictly a Starbucks fan, took the Costa side and I shall be certain to post her response when I receive it for the University paper. She can’t deny the clear winner in this scenario!

Tall Poppy Foods – Vegan Food At It’s Absolute Best.

Tall Poppy Foods is the favourite new food shop of students in Selly Oak. Situated on the Bristol Road opposite the Tesco petrol station, Tall Poppy Foods serves piping hot, Fairtrade coffee and hot chocolate as well as a dazzling range of muffins, cookies, wraps, soups, burgers and much much more. I was lucky enough to be invited on Monday morning to speak with owner Erin about her company, her ethos and her plans for the future. Turning up at the shop window in the pouring rain at 9am, I was ushered inside, offered coffee, breakfast and a seat in a little room behind the shop for our interview. I must admit, rather sheepishly, that while I took the offer of a cappuccino gratefully, I declined the offer of a muffin on the personal opinion that it was a little early for food, a decision I later regretted as we started to talk about the menu!

Coffee and Cake – a match made in heaven

As readers will be aware, I’m an avid baker so my first question to Erin concerned the muffins, cupcakes, ‘show-stoppers’ and cookies that she makes by hand daily. Her flavours are always changing which means I have to keep taste testing (such a shame, I know) but having never tried baking a vegan cake before, I couldn’t imagine not using eggs. So, how does she achieve such perfection? ‘It’s taken a lot of testing’ was the response; teamed with a laugh and the smile that remains on her face for the entire interview. Discussing recipes, I was suddenly struck by the fact that my cappuccino couldn’t possibly contain conventional milk and yet it was as good, if not better, than any coffee I’d had previously. Soya milk is the main alternative served at Tall Poppy Foods however almond milk is available for those wanting protein shakes and smoothie mixes – the shop is next to Shapeshifters so there is definitely a market for protein packed food and drinks.

Freshly baked, home made Cookies

Once conversation finally, albeit reluctantly, moved from cake, we started to discuss the ethos behind the company. Erin and her family follow a vegan lifestyle and I asked how she felt about advertising that fact and whether she felt it was the most important aspect of her catering. The conclusion reached was almost instantaneous, ‘People who follow a vegan lifestyle will find us by choice, everyone else simply needs healthy food that tastes great’…and I couldn’t agree more. Sometimes people can be overwhelmed and put-off by the idea of food missing conventional ingredients so having the simple advertising but providing classic meals and tasty treats with a twist, attracts the widest audience possible…and my word does it work! Tall Poppy Foods are currently in the UK’s Best Vegan Awards shortlist for ‘Best Caterer’ so we shall watch out for the results in the next month and hopefully I will be publishing a celebratory photograph and article. It certainly would be a great accolade for a company who have only been in Birmingham for three months. I asked Erin how she was enjoying being in Selly Oak (‘very much!) and whether there were any plans to have a larger premises in the future. The replies were so positive that if you told me even next week there was a cafe up and running under the name Tall Poppy Foods, I’d honestly believe you! Though logically I think there’s a lot to take in for the moment without that added pressure. Things are finally coming together for Erin after a brilliantly busy opening period. The new website went up on Monday and has a sophisticated edge, filled with photographs that make the mouth water just looking at them. The official menus should have been delivered by the time this article goes to print however I have had a sneaky look through the version online.

With meal deals costing only £5 for hot food, crisps and a drink, it’s a perfect choice for lunch on the way in to (or out of campus). I can recommend first hand the jack fruit burger which is delightfully unique and utterly delicious, inspired by Erin’s time spent living in Thailand. The coffee is divine and the new hot chocolate is sublime. There is also a 10% discount for those who check-in while at the shop. Moving the conversation to one of my favourite topics – Halloween – Erin sheepishly says that she has been unsure whether or not to decorate her window but insists that there will be Halloween specials, I caught a whisper of pecan pie and pumpkin soup but I wouldn’t want to excite anyone too soon. I continued to drop hints that decoration was essential so I challenge you all to look out for cobwebs at the window and bats hanging from the ceiling!

Muffin Magic

We turned momentarily to plans for Christmas but sensing Erin’s excitement and knowing my potential to talk for hours on the subject, I moved back to the show stopper cakes – visible on the website (www.tallpoppyfoods.co.uk). ‘They’re still going!’ she smiles, ‘I prefer to have people get in touch with me by email to discuss the cakes though’ – presumably because the designs are extraordinary and very complex. With dozens of us turning 21 every month in Selly Oak I can certainly see an avenue for coming-of-age cakes! Tall Poppy Foods are a gorgeous company and the staff are all behind the ethos of providing great tasting food that has the added benefits of being healthy and vegan. ‘We have pens in the kitchen and I came in to find staff doodling poppy designs onto the paper bags, it was brilliant’ Speaking to a member of staff later in the day it was clear that she loved the business and was full of her own ideas and suggestions – not that Erin is lacking in them herself! Repeatedly we discuss ingredients and covered the fact that the coffee is Fairtrade, the produce organic, locally sourced and that everything is homemade. Again and again we both return to this point, until I began to take it for granted and was shocked on returning to reality that food could possibly be anything other than 100% natural and locally produced. Leaving Erin, I felt inspired and full of her infectious excitement for the future of Tall Poppy Foods. As students we’re always looking out for the next big (food) thing and I can say quite easily, that this is it!

Banana Bonanza

I have quite a large family history of hoarding. Not that we use that term of course. We collect. We keep. We rescue. We store. We are in too deep to accept the negative connotations of the word ‘hoard’ and I fear that future generations of Walker’s will suffer the same fate. 
There’s a range of different things that we accumulate. One of my sisters (The Biscuit Monster) has a problem with purses; piles of purses sit within each other and are then tucked into bags, which are packed neatly into a box under her bed. Then there is a cupboard downstairs in our house, in which a great many sheets of carefully folded wrapping paper are stored having been gathered up after birthdays. I know full well that the next time I make a scrapbook, I will require their pretty designs. The rest of the house is a skilfully albeit craftily designed trinket box of beautiful objects that my Mum has amassed over the years. They’re masquerading as ornaments but revelling in their success at being salvaged. At the other end of the stockpiling spectrum, beyond all help and reason, is my Grandad. I honestly don’t believe my Nan Nan realises how much fishing tackle and gardening equipment is secreted away in their barn. How many good lengths of string and nice looking pieces of wood are accumulating in the workshop. How many old machines and miscellaneous parts are being preserved, how many books and jars and candles and bottles and tins are amassing on shelves, waiting for the inevitable day when someone, somewhere, will be glad they were saved.

We’re not messy magpies, we’re really very ordered as far as our treasure troves are concerned, but the sad fact of the matter is, we refuse to throw things away. 
Which is exactly how I ended up carrying three overripe, bin-bound bananas home from work with me the other night, absolutely determined that I would be able to use them for something. Low and behold, there was flour in my cupboard, eggs in the fridge, a few hours to unwind before bed…and before I could stop myself the Banana Bonanza had arrived. It’s a large cake, suitable for sharing, very simple to make and really rather delicious… a shining example of the benefits of hoarding.

Ingredients   

Suitable for a 24cm tin.

260g Butter
250g Light Muscavado Sugar
340g  Self Raising Flour
3x Medium Eggs
2x Ripe Bananas
1tsp Cinnamon
50g Walnuts
75g Dates
75g Apricots

Method

– Grease the tin and pre-heat the oven to 160C or for a Fan Oven 140C
– Whisk the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
– In a separate bowl whisk the eggs together
– Add the eggs and the flour into the mix, stirring continuously
– Roughly chop the fruit – scissors are often better than a knife for this
– Add the fruit and cinnamon to the mix, stir until even and spoon into the tin

– Bake for an hour, or until you succeed with the clean knife test

Add a last layer of flavor by making a Toffee icing using 50g of icing sugar and a spoonful of toffee yoghurt.

 

 

Solero Cupcakes

I am female, and I like to bake, I am a walking talking, self-raising embodiment of one of our most prevalent stereotypes. Not that it’s ‘just a girl thing’, I could instantly name four male friends who love to bake, and many more besides if I took my eye off the whisk long enough to think. It is quite simply an addiction and there are hundreds of people out there suffering from it. The rest of the population are suffering expanded waistlines as a result but we forgive them if they like our work.

For me, the joy comes not only from the therapeutic qualities of the process but also from making a treat for other people. There’s a submerged maternal instinct within me that cries ‘Feed Everyone’ and a little French queen that ends the sentence with ‘Cake’. After that I like to indulge in the decorating process and I’ll admit there’s a ‘show-off’ in me there…. it’s crowded in my head! Charity baking competitions have seen a Phoenix spread its wings on top of a monstrous victoria sponge and a turreted Christmas Castle emerge from a Winter Wonderland. Birthdays have led to Olympic Podiums, Cocktail Cup Cakes and an entire jungle complete with waterfall and animals. In the last fortnight alone I have baked five times, much to the amusement of my housemates, but there really were valid reasons to try that recipe again!

Today I would like to share a cup cake creation that was invented in the early hours of a restless nights sleep and made the following morning before breakfast.
I had named them Passion Fruit Cupcakes however a housemate quite rightly compared them to a favourite ice cream and therefore they also bear the title, Solero Cakes.
I do realise that most people will not have Passion Fruit Curd sitting in their University food cupboard as I did. The poor jar was an unfavourable purchase of my Mum’s that was speedily offloaded – not an infrequent occurrence!
However, the recipe will work just as well with jam (any variety) or Lemon Curd, so long as you have a good fruity flavour to help ease you from Summer’s ice creams to Autumn’s cakes.

(Recipe Makes 12 Large Cup Cakes)

Ingredients

For The Cake –
250g  Butter
250g  Caster Sugar
200g  Self-Raising Flour
4 Large Eggs
1 tbsp Curd (Jam)

For The Hidden Icing –
50g Icing Sugar
1tsp Curd (Jam)
– Use Water or Greek Yoghurt to thicken.

For The Frosting –
140g Butter
280g Icing Sugar
2-3tsp Curd (Jam)

Method

 

Cake –

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160C and line a muffin tray with cup cake cases.
2. Whisk the butter and sugar until smooth and light in colour before adding in the curd.
3. Whisk the eggs in a separate bowl.
4. Alternate adding the eggs and flour into the butter and sugar, always mix fully before moving on to the next addition to prevent curdling.
5. Once all of the ingredients are incorporated and the mix is even, separate it into the cases and put into the oven for 25-30mins
6. When you cakes are golden brown, even in height and pass the ‘clean knife’ test, remove them from the oven and leave to cool before icing.

Icing –

1. Hidden – Place the sugar and curd into a bowl and add very small quantities of water or yogurt to create that is thin enough to be drizzled into the centre of the cakes but not so thin that your cakes will be soggy!
   – Personally, I find that yoghurt gives a nicer flavour to plain icing than water and the very slight bitter tang can remove the sickly-sweet quality of many butter-icing mixes.
2. Frosting -Mix the butter, curd and sugar into a bowl until you have a smooth, pale frosting to pipe/spread onto the top of your cakes.

Assembly –

1. Take a sharp knife to your cold cup cakes and carefully remove a small cone of sponge from the very centre
2. Into this hole, spoon your thin icing as a surprise treat for the consumer
3. Spread or pipe your frosting onto the cup cakes, hiding the newly filled hole and decorate at will.

Is Britain the Fat Man of Europe?

With the Olympic legacy getting stale, New Year’s resolutions lying forgotten at the back of the fridge and the ‘I’ve given it up for lent’ promises starting to sour, are we ever going to win the war against our waistlines?

Before we get started, I feel I should make one thing clear: this article is 100% diet free. Not one horsel, sorry morsel, of diet jargon will be found between these paragraphs. We’ve seen enough ‘cabbage soup slimmers’ and Hollywood health plans to last us a life time, yet according to recent information published by the British Dietary Association, we’ve eaten our way to the top spot of Europe’s fat-file with two thirds of our adults overweight and a quarter obese.

My theory behind our achievement can be summed up in two words: bad attitude. If we take a moment to analyse the BDA’s new ten point plan for whisking away the obesity crisis, we find emphasis on ‘training’, ‘education’ and ‘standards’ in relation to advertising and food labels. These aren’t suggestions for ‘trying one weird trick to reduce belly fat’, but moves to change the way the general public think about food.

In order to ascertain why we reached ‘Fat Man’ status, I set out to discover how the rest of Europe is staying slim. Basic prejudice tells me that the French are renowned for their pastries, the Spanish eat enough at lunch to necessitate napping in the afternoon, the Italians live on pasta and ice-cream and the Germans eat cheese for breakfast…so how on earth are they staying light while we go soggy in the middle? Playing heavily to stereotypical menus from different countries, I gathered some basic statistics; colour coordinated the best (green) and worst (red) and laid them out on the dining table in the hope of seeing exactly where we were going wrong. As you can see however, my mathematical meal was less than satisfactory. The results do not give a clear indication that a typical British diet contains more calories than that of other European nations.

Cuisine Meal	French	Italian	Spanish	German	English	Birmingham Student
Breakfast	Croissant and Coffee 233 Calories	Bread Roll and Hot Chocolate 229 Calories	Fruit Salad and Orange Juice 194 Calories	Ham, Cheese, Bread and Orange Juice 732 Calories	Full English Breakfast 800 Calories	Aldi  – Coco Hoops with Milk        131 Calories
Lunch	French Soup and Bread 290 Calories	Chicken Caesar Salad 440 Calories	Fish, Potatoes and Salad 466 Calories	Potato Salad 245 Calories	BLT Sandwich 349 Calories	Heinz Tomato Soup and a Slice of Bread   210 Calories
Tea	Beef Bourguignon and Mashed Potato 583 Calories	Spaghetti Carbonara 702 Calories	Paella 500 Calories	Hotdog 697 Calories	Bangers and Mash 480 Calories	Aldi- Four Cheese Pizza    300 Calories
Drinks	250ml Red Wine 170 Calories	Martini 190 Calories	250ml Sangria 190 Calories	Pint of Becks 226 Calories	Large Gin and Tonic 160 Calories	Vodka and Lemonade   108 Calories
Basic Daily Calories	1276	1561	1350	1900	1789	1398

Which brings me back to the idea of attitude. In a world of deadlines and ‘Drive Thru’s’, rush hours and ready meals the average British adult sets aside 39 minutes a day to eat. That’s seven minutes and twenty seconds to cram in cereal at breakfast, twelve minutes and forty seconds to scoff a sandwich at lunch and a slightly more relaxed nineteen minutes to take delight in dinner. With this hurried lifestyle we rely on sugar rushes to keep us awake at our desks and make excuses for eating fast food by skipping breakfast. Our ‘stereotypical’ daily meal plan resembles the drop down menu of www.hungryhouse.co.uk rather than the one in my table. Weeks of desperate dieting are balanced with weeks of binge eating, take-away meals in front of the television are standard and supermarket offers on junk food are just too tempting for the pinched pockets of the recession.

The BDA can easily be accused of recommending solutions that are near-impossible to act upon such as ‘reducing the proximity of fast food outlets to schools…and other places where children gather’ but they do raise issues of education and also nutritional standards in government funded organisations. If people are aware of what they’re eating and develop a healthier mentality towards food, binging and the snacking should start to fade from our culture. Laws have already been put in place to ensure food packaging contains nutritional information and there are proposals for a 20% tax on sugary drinks. If, in addition, there could be more government subsidies on fruit and vegetables, the ‘Fat Man’ may find himself shedding the pounds as people are forced to take notice of what they’re actually eating.

We may mock the siesta and feign horror at pain au chocolat’s for breakfast, but in doing so we miss the crucial element of European eating habits – they take pride and enjoyment in their food. Maybe we Brits ought to do more exercise, we definitely ought to stop binge drinking and if you’re reading this knowing that you eat a Full English Breakfast every day, I’d recommend seeking medical attention for your cholesterol levels…but what we really need to do is get a new attitude to the way we view food. Personally, if that means taking a European outlook on life and cooking with my housemates instead of drawing straws for who’s walking to Roosters; or taking time out from studying to eat lunch so that I don’t fall asleep in the library and find myself on Spotted…I’m more than up for donning a sombrero, drinking lager at lunch and having gorgonzola with my croissants.