lovely macarons

I had been doing a bit of research into Macarons and had found these fantastic images and had to share. I'm not sure what it is about French macarons, maybe it's the dizzying variety of colours, the firm bite which yields into smooth ganache, the crazy flavour combinations or just the sense that they are some kind of exotic Parisian treat, but they are divine - as much a treat for the eyes as for the tongue.

I'd been intending to visit Laduree's London tea shop, but in the meantime I came across the legendary Pierre Herme, who at the beginning of 2010 (hello, where have I been - working in ruddy Oval that's where!) opened a counter in Selfridges. The flavour combinations sound like heaven made flesh - the famed salted caramel will feed my desire for a Reese's substitute; the chocolate and passion fruit simply exquisite. These are macarons like Rococco are chocolates...

So I intend to try it out for myself, instead of salivating over Flickr's many images, in just over a week.


Taken from Foodbeam.com>


Inside the macarons
Originally uploaded by Mad Baker

strawberry fair, horning

The Strawberry Fair isn't really a place to go and eat cake, and it isn't in London but it was more of a chance find. This weekend involved skipping London altogether, missing Lovebox and heading instead to the Norfolk broads to partake in a spot of day boating. We collected our boat from Wroxham and made our way up the River Bure to the picturesque riverside village of Horning where there appeared to be some kind of small and old fashioned village fete in the small public hall. Alongside a slightly miserable looking tombola, and some other people with indistinct offerings was a brilliant cake stall with a range of home-made cakes and multiple servings of eton mess.

The lovely ladies running the stall were initially surprised that we didn't want to take our cakes with a cup of tea, and had to invent some kind of price structure for cake only. But we were glad they did.

Keeping in with the theme of the day (lots of ale) I tried their chocolate and Guinness cake, which I was proudly told was baked to a Nigella recipe, although they also had a tempting range of cupcakes, victoria sponge and assorted home baked deliciousness.






The cake was extremely rich, and very moist with a great chocolate-y taste and a firm texture that made it very more-ish. This got me thinking, can anyone make such delicious chocolate cake just by following this recipe? So I thought that I could share this recipe with you, courtesy of the Nigella website, in lieu of a recommendation of a place to sample cake-y goodness.

If the below recipe is coming out too small to read you can try looking directly at it on Nigella's website, which I have to say I love the design of, especially the little icons at the top, the cluster of food words in different colours and sizes ("what do you feel like") and of course the beautiful food photography.

the old brewery, greenwich

I do like a brew, even better if it's made locally, so it's natural that I should like the Meantime Brewery based, naturlich, in Greenwich.

They already have a pub, called the Greenwich Union, but when I heard that they had opened a kind of bar/cafe/restaurant in the old naval college I was pretty much beyond excited, but it took until a hot weekend in July to tempt me over there.

Unlike a lot of English breweries Meantime is about more than real ale, in fact ale, with the exception of their London IPA, in practically off the menu in exchange for lovely hoppy malty, European style beers and lagers. They also serve a selection of bottled trappist beers, American lager on tap such as Brooklyn lager and various other German beers like Schneider Weisse. Carlsberg, is, fortunately totally off the menu.

We both tried their Kellerbier, although this is the first time I've opted for it, their Pilsner is becoming almost commonplace in pubs and bars around the UK and I've drunk it a number of times. It was pleasant, though I think I thought I would find it a bit less bitter and a bit more refreshing, in line with the Pilsner.

I am ordinarily a massive fan of wheat beer, but the brief tagline on the pump which mentioned it tasted of clove put me off, so anyone who has tasted it please let me know I this is the case.

Mr LROC sampled a Kolner, when quizzed about it he said it was 'like a lager, but nice' so you can see what I have to put up with! My second drink was a Brooklyn lager, described as a 'smooth full bodied lager' it was dark, cool and hoppy.

They also have a restaurant and cafe, although the restaurant menu is served only from 6pm and errs on the pricey side it is all designed to complement the beer and what we did see coming out from the kitchen to the shaded al fresco garden looked delicious.

Personally, as a beer lover, it's great to see somewhere take a stand from to dominance of wine with food and a great place to visit on a sunny weekend.

hurwendeki, cambridge heath road

Hurwendeki opened up about two years ago in a railway arch on Cambridge Heath Road, which conveniently happens to be just around the corner from LROC HQ aka my flat.

Advertising 'Coffee, Antiques, Play' and being most famous for turning its garden area, which overlooks one of East London's major traffic arteries, into some kind of twisted Garden of Eden featuring urinals, carousel horses and sand.

They also make excellent sandwiches.

Although London has been swept by a 3 week heatwave and really it's too hot to eat anything unless it has been barbequed and served up in fancy al fresco style, today I opted for the roast vegetables and goats cheese on a round rosemary foccaccia. This is taken off and grilled up until the foccacia gets a lovely crunch and the chevre melts ever so slightly. It's thoroughly delicious, I might go as far as to say it might be one of my all time favourite sandwiches, it tastes carefully made, natural, homely. The goats cheese is rich, but not overpoweringly so as it can so often be. It's a symphony.



Although I hear that the coffee is delicious (another La Mazocco machine) I haven't tried it as I've never really understood hot drinks (heresy i know for a nation that loves tea!). The cakes however, do leave something to be desired and the selection is quite small. Today a carrot cake, a lemon cake, a pecan pie, brownies and I think some kind of lemon meringue pie was on offer. Of course I tried the brownie.



It was alright - equal to anything I could make myself, but no way comparable to the quality of the brownies from some of my other London favourites, or even as good as last week's Popina. It was chocolate-y but not rich or decadent. The texture was good - soft in the centre with a slight crunch in the corners but it didn't make me want to bathe in it. If I'm going to consume those calories, they better be worthwhile.

The other cakes on offer look nice, but not exceptional.

So, in summary, Hurwendeki is great at savoury, but not loving sweet so much.

Of course the main reason that anyone would pay a visit is for the wacky and unusual interior, most of the internal fixtures are for sale and they seem to have slashed the prices, probably because it's the last place anyone would think to look for antiques and the prices are not particularly Bethnal Green friendly. There's lots of taxidermy and skulls, including an £800 penguin, record players, old plugs and also a deli selling gluten free flower and the such, and it's also probably my nearest purveyor of Montezumas chocolate.

Free wi-fi is a great touch too, and there was a notable presence of the MacBook posse tapping away whilst enjoying their lattes (iced?).

Convieniently they also offer free membership which entitles you to 10% off, not only in the cafe but in the boutique and salon in Spitalfields too, which is handy if you live nearby.











I'm also planning on a wee hiatus from the cake blogging; I'd always planned for this blog to be full of visually engaging original material that spoke about food in a way that appealed to the heart and to the eyes, and by taking photos using my iPhone camera that's not really happening, it's not becoming what I wanted it to be just yet.

So the cake posts will be back in around 3 weeks, and the whole blog will hopefully have a new look if I can figure out how to get rid of this pink template!

I also have a little bit of weight to try and loose for a surprise I have planned for Mr LROC for our first anniversary. More of which later! So, yeah, no cakes for a bit, and definitely no beer....

weddings and cupcakes

Because cupcakes were involved - here's some of my favourite detail shots from my own wedding to Mr. LROC.









The cupcakes came from The Hummingbird Bakery - other than their downright deliciousness I'm not entirely sure that I'd recommend them as a wedding cake supplier - they don't deliver during an exact time slot and they don't loan stands - meaning they had to be collected on the day and we had to collect assorted vintage style cake stands from ebay, willing elderly relatives and car boot sales.

Still, since they make a supremely divine red velvet cake, and the whole thing cost around £150 they can be forgiven.

All images by AJ Williams Photography.

popina

Sometimes I forget how wonderful it is on a sunny Saturday to wonder up to Broadway Market and grab a few bits from the stalls and eat them in the sunshine, and that's exactly what I did yesterday.

There's a wide number of stalls selling baked goods that make appearances at all of London's food markets but when I'm there browsing for the sweet stuff I keep getting pulled back to Popina. I think maybe because they have less artisanal bread and more cakes.

Unfortunately my camera situation is still leaving a little something to be desired with regards readily available digital photography so I've had to rely on some images from their website to show their delicious range of savoury bits and bobs and fruit tarts.




I picked one of the spinach and cheese Bureks which is a kind of Turkish savoury with a filling of spinach, cheese and potato layered between a very fine pastry and served sliced into triangles. The filling is rich, tasty, moist and most importantly on a hot summer day, surprisingly cooking. A great grab-and-go snack.

I also picked up a brownie and a lemon drizzle cake, to split and share with my friend, the lovely Kathy from 5678 Vintage. Brownies are a good measure of baking prowess, as I know exactly how I like them to be, in fact the Ottolenghi book waxes lyrical about the way one should be cooked to be just so. Popina's brownie was extremely chocolatey and moist in the middle, but maybe could have had a slightly more 'mousse-y' centre. It had the added addition of cranberry, well at least according to the labelling on the stall. Although I found no chunks of cranberry as I think it was pureed, it offset the richness of the cocoa in a surprising and delicious way. The sun's rays on the top of the miniature picnic we had assembled actually brought out the flavouring, which suggests that if you were going to buy one of these at a market somewhere round town, take it home and heat it up and serve with some cream, then you might be in for a hell of a treat.

The lemon drizzle was just like you wish you could make them yourself. Tangy but not sticky with the fruit syrup, a good crunch on the icing and a splattering of ground pistachio on the top. It's a simple classic.







all gone...


Eating these in the sunshine reminds me how one should never buy cakes from a service station, or why those tubs of 'brownie' square from the cake counter in the supermarket are just junk. Real baking rocks.

Popina has won a load of taste awards, and they have quite an interesting story behind them... Their founder describes it thus :

"it was food for art's sake that was so inspiring it strengthened my desire to set up a food business that was about art for food's sake"

so if that has you intrigued you can read all about it here.

Memories of me

Memories of me
Originally uploaded by o&c Photography

I love this sweet image from O&C photography - especially the balance of the yellow and coral against the great soft blue. Would be a great colour scheme - or the starting point for a collection.

Memories of me
Originally uploaded by o&c Photography