Paradise is...

Just get me started and I could wax lyrical for hours about the marvels of butter. It's a natural product (unlike margarine), a source of calcium and vitamins A and D and, best of all, it tastes fabulous. And although I wouldn't use anything else in my cakes or icings, it's equally wonderful in savoury cooking - sautéed mushrooms anyone? - or simply slathered (or thinly spread depending on your preference) on a slice of hot toast or fresh, crusty bread. As my Dad succinctly put it the other day, butter is 'God's gift' (Dad does love his butter). The chef Valentine Warner is another man who extols the virtues of butter. I was watching a repeat of his food adventures in Scandinavia and while in Stockholm he visited a cafe and made cinnamon buns with two bakers. Upon tasting the buttery cinnamon buns warm from the oven at the end of the episode, he exclaimed 'Life is short...' and they all finished together 'so enjoy as much butter as you can!'. Men after my own heart.

Paradise Bars in progress

So we're all agreed that butter is wonderful and you'll find many of my blog posts describing cakes and sweet treats made with it (where would buttery vanilla fudge be without it?). Now this is all very well, but what if you're allergic to or intolerant of dairy products / lactose? Or what if you just don't like eating dairy for moral or other reasons? Well then, this post is for you. But this is no low fat and generally taste-poor treat. It's full of yummy coconut - oil, creamed and desiccated - and with Halloween just gone it seems timely to feature a coconut recipe (I have fond memories of bashing the hairy little fruit with a hammer on the concrete garage step every Halloween to release the sweet flesh). Hand on heart as a true butter-believer, give this one a go: they're called Paradise Bars; dark chocolate coconut bars, a deeply delicious improvement on the overly sweet, sickly Bounty bar. It's a recipe I've been wanting to try ever since I bought the Hemsley sisters' cookbook 'The Art of Eating Well' (in any new cookbook I head straight for the sweet section). No.1 Sister beat me to the punch and was raving about them and I had all of the ingredients sitting in the cupboard, so really, it was always just a matter of time.

Bars ready for chocolate dipping

Regular readers will remember my flat-tyre misadventure in July - a hard week at the office followed by a flat tyre and rush hour traffic all combining to create the perfect storm (that being my near nervous breakdown). If memory serves, I coped with the wait for assistance by sitting in my car and imagining all of the lovely things I could bake if I were safely home and well rested. Not even four months later and the same tyre (long since repaired mind you) failed me again (damn dastardly nails). Blissfully unaware of the hour change on the Sunday of the bank holiday weekend, I awoke early, got up and was pottering about for a couple of hours before I realised that my phone and television were both telling me a different time to the kitchen clock. Once my confused (still sleepy) mind had cleared, I realised that my day had suddenly gained a whole 60 minutes. It stretched out before me with no big plans, just lots of lovely time to play with.



Freshly dipped coconut bars

I jumped into the car to get the Sunday papers and had barely travelled 20 metres before I felt the sluggish pull of a flat tyre (I can now tell instantly why a car is behaving like a sullen teenager, dragging itself unwillingly along at my command). Thankfully this time I was only around the corner from home so I went back in and rang the roadside service. According to the helpful man on the phone, someone would be with me in the next 45 minutes or so, the perfect amount of time required to get my Paradise Bars started.

It's a very simple process with an equally simple list of ingredients (see below), all of which combine to make a chocolate snack that feels wicked (because it tastes so good) but which doesn't send your blood sugars rocketing. The creamy coconut and vanilla centre is filling and the dark chocolate coating is delectable. This is by no means a low calorie snack but at least those calories aren't empty (yes I'm looking at you chocolate digestive) - they have a nutritional value and will keep you going for much longer than other sweet snacks. But to be honest, if you were unaware of the nutritional benefits, you would taste these and immediately place them on your 'so good they must be bad' list (they really don't taste like a 'healthy' treat). To heavily paraphrase the hit song from the 60s (which plays in my head every time I think of these bars), if paradise is half as nice as these luscious little bars, I know which I'd rather have.

My kingdom for another scone…

Date scones

Scones are the unsung heroes of the baking world, often ignored in favour of their more glamorous cake cousins. They aren't ornately decorated and with their squat, brown exterior and small size, they are easily overshadowed by the luscious gateau sitting next to them on the countertop. Scones are, however, one of the most adaptable and speedy of all the baked goods. Much like bread in their versatility, scones are far quicker and easier to make, meaning you can go from concept ('oooh I'd love a scone') to finished product (satisfied smile and happy tummy) in less than an hour.

There are countless varieties of scones (different shapes and flavour combinations) but in essence, only three basic types. There’s Posh Scone; a small, fluffy number found in the rarefied surrounds of exclusive hotels, served on pretty tiered plates at Afternoon Tea and accompanied by homemade jam and a dollop of clotted cream. A more common sight is Breakfast or Elevenses Scone; larger than the posh version and traditionally available in two types, plain or fruit. This scone is generally purchased in newsagents or garages (scone quality: substandard) or in coffee shops (scone quality: variable). The more refined Foodie Scone makes an appearance in some of the more upmarket cafés, bakeshops and farmers' markets, a freshly baked offering that is often as good as homemade. In addition to the usual plain or fruit construct, the Foodie Scone is notable for its variety; it can appear as a sweet scone (e.g. pear & almond or white chocolate & cranberry) or as a savoury morsel incorporating different cheeses, olives and herbs (and as you might expect, the ingredients should be artisanal and local in order to score maximum points on the Foodie Scone Scene).

 The traditional scone mixture (flour, raising agent, butter, sugar and milk) is a simple one. As with a basic bread recipe, the scone is in essence a vehicle to carry or sit alongside other flavours. So a plain scone might be a little bland on its own, but add a spread of good salted butter and suddenly it becomes a tasty snack, while a small dollop of jam elevates it to teatime treat. If you substitute some of the white for wholemeal flour, the scone can be a healthy accompaniment to a bowl of soup or a cheeseboard. But by far the best way to vary your scone is to add something new to the mix before baking. Most often the addition will be dried fruit (raisins or sultanas) in the case of a sweet scone or cheddar cheese in a wholemeal or savoury scone, but you can really please yourself here (if you love chocolate, then a chocolate scone it is). You can also enrich the basic recipe with cream and egg, thus creating a scone that has one toe dipped firmly in the realm of cake (still very much a scone but less fluffy and light, with a tender, more cake-like crumb). The enriched scone is luxurious and infinitely more filling that the regular one, as you'll know if you've ever eaten a scone purchased from Avoca (delicious but a meal in itself quite frankly).

Glorious Apple Scone Round

One of the lesser-spotted scones, but my favourite by far, is the apple scone. My mam used to make it alot when we were younger, but until recently the recipe had languished forgotten in the good ol' Hamlyn All-Colour Cook Book. It's traditionally baked as one large round, with lines scored into the top of it before baking, and then cut or broken into triangles to serve. The recipe doesn't contain cinnamon, but I think that would make a lovely variation on the original, given its natural affinity with apples. You can treat it like a normal scone and spread it with butter but the additional moisture of the apple means that it is equally good without. The tartness of the apple also sits nicely against the sweetness of the scone, with the soft texture and crunchy sugar topping providing a lovely contrast.

Apple scone mid-devouring

Since its relaunch at my Birthday Festival, the apple scone has been making regular appearances at various family get-togethers, to much applause by all concerned. I can't recommend it enough (recipe for you to try can be found below). But before I go, just a quick update on the date scene… sorry, I mean the date scone (slip of the keyboard, so to speak). I love the versatility of the English language don’t you? One quick letter change in the word 'scene' and all of a sudden an exciting account of my love life becomes another dull treatise on scones (I'll keep it brief, I promise). Third time lucky and I think I've cracked it - I went with my baker's instinct and used an egg in the recipe, thus getting the texture I was looking for. In addition to chopped dates, I also used a homemade date syrup instead of sugar (basically dates soaked in water then whizzed up), which gave me both the colour and toffee-ish taste that I'd been missing. So the Mystery of the Date Scone has been solved once and for all. Scooby, Shaggy and the gang have nothing on me.

A rose by any other name...

Cake!

As you might expect from a girl who loves to bake, I have any number of tins and boxes in which I store my cakes. They range from the practical but boring plastic 'click & seal' tubs to charming biscuit tins I've accumulated over the years. I'm a sucker for a pretty tin, so much so that I've been known to spend a silly amount of money on not-very-nice biscuits I don't want just to get the delightful tin they come in. I also have a much loved, purpose-made red cake tin that was a gift from my sister - vintage in style, air-tight, with 'Cake' printed on the side. Altogether fabulous.

Sadly empty Roses tin

The far less glamorous side of my tin collection, however, is the ubiquitous Cadbury's Roses tin, now sadly emptied of chocolates and used to house various items, baked or otherwise. There used to be a tradition of re-using chocolate or biscuit tins, but as with everything else, tins are now seen as disposable and once the Christmas chocolate binge has morphed into January belt-tightening, out they go into the wheelie bin. The fact that the big brand tins (Cadbury's Roses, Nestle's Quality Street, Jacob's Kimberleys, etc.) are far less imaginative in design than the decorative tins of the late 19th and earlier 20th century, no doubt discourages people from holding on to them.

New tin lid

Re-using empty tins is good for the environment (less crap going into the landfills and fewer resources being wasted to create new tins); they tend to be air tight so they make excellent storage for baked goods and as they're also fairly sturdy, stackable and neat in size, they make ideal receptacles for the odds and ends that tend to accumulate around the house. The problems arise when you spot one of these tins, get terribly excited at the prospect of a chocolate or biscuit, only to find that it's either empty or full of something else altogether. Some of my earliest memories are associated with the disappointment of coming across a Roses tin post-Christmas and finding not chocolates but left-over Christmas cake or some meringues (not a bad thing you might think, but when you have a hankering for a chocolate, cake or meringue is no real substitute). The use of an empty biscuit or chocolate tin as a 'bits and bobs' tin was also fairly common in the past and an even more distressing memory is of opening the USA biscuit tin in my Nanny's pantry only to find loose screws, nails, bits of string and the odd bolt or too. Crestfallen doesn't even begin to describe the look on my little face.

Tin base

I'm proudly continuing the family tradition and use some of my old tins to store goodies or bits and bobs (odd lengths of ribbon, embroidery / sewing kit, cookie cutters, cake decorating paraphernalia, etc.). My magpie-like habit of buying pretty baubles and trinkets (e.g. ornamental buttons that I can't resist but which I will probably never use), is probably linked to my desire to have as many attractive storage options as possible (those buttons are currently housed in a recycled fluted glass jar). Rather than spend money on brand new fancy tins to fulfill my storage needs, I'm more than happy to re-use the tins left-over from the festive season, but since I don't find them at all lovely to look at, I tend to shove them under the sofa or inside a cupboard. Problems arise when the cupboards are full (which they are) and nothing more can be squeezed into the narrow space beneath the sofa (try as I might). If I'm going to have tins on show, then they will damn well be pleasing to the eye. 

Tin in situ

So in theory, the empty Christmas chocolate or biscuit tin is the ideal storage solution. In practice, well, as discussed, they're not very nice to look at - bland and as far from unique or interesting as it's possible to get. The main issue is one of aesthetics. What's a girl to do? Decoupage ladies and gentlemen - a spot of cut and paste and before you know it, you'll have your very own decorative tin in which you can put all manner of odds and ends. I've been planning to upcycle my collection of Roses tins for ages and finally got round to doing one (and boy am I glad I have more to play with, as I've noticed that this year's batch of Christmas chocolates come in nasty plastic tubs rather than tins - end of an era folks).    

My chocolate tin

I went for a black and white colour palette with a historic theme (you can take the girl out of archaeology...). I used sections of John Rocque's map of Dublin (my home town) from 1756 and prints of different views of Georgian Dublin. Now I have a tin full of chocolate that I can proudly leave sitting atop a pile of books in the corner of my sitting room. A tin plastered in old maps and images of the Fair City in days of yore might not be everyone's cup of tea, but that's the point. It's my tin, decorated by me, for me and it makes me smile every time I look at it. Job done.

First dates & photo opportunities

A lovely tea-pot in Hatch & Sons

If there's one thing I hate, it's having my photograph taken. Some people are naturally photogenic - strike a pose, any pose and they look fabulous. Not me folks. Point a camera at me and I immediately feel ill at ease, with all natural facial expressions becoming awkward and frozen. The result tends to be one of three things when I have to 'pose' for the camera: me with a forced smile that looks more like a grimace; me with a grin and manic expression worthy of the Joker in Batman; or me with a grumpy /slightly pained expression where the camera has caught me in between the cheek-aching forced smiles. 'Don't pose. Just be natural!', I hear you say. Unfortunately, in the no-pose scenario the camera has a tendency to catch me mid-sentence, as I turn to say something to my companion, eyes half closed as I blink. Usually I end up looking like the runner-up in a gurning competition or with the gormless expression of the village idiot (not a good look, trust me).

At best, the camera might catch me with my natural resting face, which is pensive verging on serious. (Even when I'm thinking pleasant thoughts and I'm perfectly happy with life in general, strangers have been known to tell me to 'Cheer up love, might never happen!'). It's been this way since I was born, with the majority of my baby photos capturing my rather solemn mien (laughing hat photo in recent blog post aside). In most of them, I stare imperiously at the camera with large serious eyes, in a 'We are not amused' kind of way, while photos in the ensuing years capture a quiet, serious child, with no wild antics or crazy poses (unlike my siblings). 

Now given that I've never really liked 'performing' for the camera, you can imagine my dread last Saturday, the day of our professional family photo shoot. It was a birthday present for my Mam, as we haven't all been in a photo together for years. So there we were - the parents, nieces, sisters and husbands - up early on a Saturday morning, washed and dressed and looking as presentable as possible. Happily, the photographer was very friendly, put us all at our ease and made us laugh for the photo (incredibly, I am neither gurning nor weirdly manic looking). Somehow, in less than half an hour (that was one speedy photographer) we managed to get a pretty good family photo that will soon be hanging in pride of place back home for all to see (so all the more reason to be grateful that I don't look like the village idiot again).

As a reward for such an exhausting experience (all that smiling!), we retired to Hatch & Sons on Stephen's Green for a late breakfast. If you haven't been, it's a wonderful cafe in the basement of one of the Georgian townhouses along the north side of the Green, beneath the Little Museum of Dublin. The style is a softened industrial chic meets old-fashioned kitchen, with the grey painted cabinets and panelling and the bare wooden floor a nod to its 18th century heritage. It's informal rather than fussy and a welcoming, comfortable place that strives to celebrate and serve all manner of Irish artisanal food (and with ten of us sampling the menu, I can report that it does this very well indeed). 

The rest of the family ordered extremely tasty hot breakfasts (the sausages served in a soft, floury Blaa come highly recommended), but I wasn't particularly hungry so I went for the scone and coffee deal (very good value). The chalkboard menu declared that the scone of the day was a Date Scone, which seemed an unusual pairing (much as I love dates, it would never occur to me to put them in a scone and in all my years of baking, I've never once seen a recipe for them either). But a scone is a scone, I thought, and as mentioned in a previous post, I do love a good scone. 

Stocks for Scone Offenders

The scone, when it arrived, was most unprepossessing. It was the size of an average home-made scone (middling to small in scale) and looked like it might have spent a few minutes too long in the oven, being a rather burnished, nutty brown colour. I was slightly concerned when I felt that it was warm - as a rule, if a scone has been reheated, you can be sure it's been zapped in the microwave. Since the result of this is a steaming hot scone with an unpleasant rubbery texture that worsens as it cools, I'll take the unheated version every time. (As an aside, if I were Queen of the World, reheating a scone in the microwave would be punishable by a spell in the stocks - naturally, as Queen, I could insist on there being stocks in all town squares in which we could place the offenders and pelt them with hot, rubbery scones fresh from the microwave). 

But back to my Date Scone. On closer inspection (a tap with my finger nail), the scone had an oven-heated crispness rather than a nuked, yielding sponginess. Even better, when I cut it in half to butter it, it was still soft and moist and not a bit over-baked. Eating my first mouthful I realised that the nutty brown crust was probably the result of caramelised brown sugar and chopped dates. The belated realisation that this was a darned good scone indeed is the reason why today's photos feature a half-eaten scone and not the intact, uncut version. I was so under-awed by it when it first arrived that I had no intentions of either taking its photo or discussing it in my blog. How wrong I was; this was an altogether wonderful scone to go with a particularly good cup of filter coffee (in most establishments 'good filter coffee' is an oxymoron, but not here). 

Date scone served warm with Glenilen butter

I have since tried to re-create my first date scone experience, but ended up with fluffy white scones with dates in them rather than 'date scones' per se; nice in their own right but definitely not the delicious Date Scone a la Hatch & Sons. I may need to add an egg (less fluffy, more soft and cakey) and experiment with muscovado sugar or even a date syrup to achieve that caramelised crust and hint of toffee flavour in the scone. I don't think you can ever completely recapture the magic of a (successful) first date, be it in a scone or one of the romantic variety. But that doesn't mean to say you can't try. I've had a nice-but-not-quite-the-same second date (successful marriages have been built on less). Third time lucky? I'll be sure to let you know.

Once upon a time...

Living in the 21st century means that we are often slaves to time. The alarm clock alerts us that it's time to awaken and wrenches us from sleep. We rush to get the 7.32 train or the 8.16 bus or to cycle our 40 minute commute. We take an hour's lunch (if lucky) and a 15 minute break (if very lucky) during our working day of carefully clocked hours, squeezing in a 20 minute presentation or a two hour meeting. For a quick dinner, we might cook pasta (boil for about 10 minutes) or watch the timer on the microwave count down the 3 minutes it takes to heat a ready-meal. We're told to take at least 30 minutes of exercise every day. We're constantly measuring time, whether by ticking clock or watch, or by digital display on a phone, computer or TV, and we're regulated by the minutes and hours that make up each day. 
  

Of course human beings have always lived and worked to a rhythm (with the rising and setting sun being the most basic), though modern technology has allowed us to take this to extremes. But as regimented as this can be, being able to tell the time down to the minute is not always a bad thing and no more so for me than when baking and cooking. Take a typical cake recipe, which will instruct you to beat the butter and sugar for 10 minutes with an electric whisk or to bake in the oven for 35 minutes. Giving specific timings in a recipe means that (in theory) anyone can follow the instructions and successfully bake the cake. Similarly, we can set a timer when boiling an egg, knowing that in precisely 8 minutes we'll have the perfect hard-boiled egg. 

Obviously being able to time certain parts of the cooking process has always been necessary, but what do you do if you don't have a clock or other time-piece? Well, an experienced cook can usually tell by the look and smell of a cake that it's done, even if there's no timer beeping officiously when the requisite 35 minutes is up. But how to discern if an egg is boiled to your satisfaction while it's still in the pot? How to instruct an inexperienced cook or to describe the timings in a new recipe? It all becomes rather tricky without the handy device of precise time-telling. The mechanical clock wasn't invented until the 14th century and clocks (and subsequently watches) remained a rare and expensive luxury during the medieval period and into the early modern period. Surviving recipes show that cooks relied on communal knowledge to measure time, using prayers (e.g. boil for the time it takes to say two Hail Mary's) or even distance (e.g. bake for the time a person would take to walk three miles), though the latter is rather subjective, depending as it does on the speed, height and gait of the person walking. 

Timing by prayer would have been a particularly useful measure in an age when daily life revolved around the Church and everyone was expected to attend mass and know their prayers. I've been trying to imagine how 21st century cooks might manage if all of our clocks, watches and digital appliances magically disappeared. In our more secular and multi-racial society, we would struggle to find a prayer, song or poem that would be known by both young and old alike (I might know all the words to that classic 80s power ballad - ahem - but I can guarantee that my niece will not). For all that I sometimes resent being tied to timetables and schedules, hours and minutes, I won't be giving up my precious timer anytime soon.


You might be wondering right about now what any of this has to do with the photos of French pastries dotted throughout the post. Well, I had plenty of time to ponder the rhythms of our days and our reliance on clocks while I was making them. I've long wanted to try my hand at making croissant dough and finally had a few days free recently and a good incentive (Mam's birthday weekend). 

Full disclosure here: Making French pastries at home is a labour of love. I enjoyed both the process and the result (outstanding pastries, well worth the effort), but it would only be repeated for very special occasions. Granted, I made life even harder for myself by making three types of pastries - plain and almond croissants and pain au chocolat - so if you fancied giving it a go, making just the one type should ease the burden slightly. If you do decide to try, I followed Paul Hollywood's recipe, which is clear, concise and illustrated with photos of the different steps (happily it also sticks to modern conventions of timings, with not a Hail Mary in sight). 

It's a long, drawn-out affair- albeit not particularly difficult - that is very much regulated by time and by the different stages in the process over a period of two or three days. There's lots of rolling, folding and chilling involved and to describe it in detail here would bore you silly, so in case you're rushing to catch the 17.13 train home, here's the abbreviated version: 

Once upon a time, I made some French pastries. They were flaky, buttery and delicious and everyone loved them. 

The End.

Figaro, Figaro, Figaro!

Magical fig tree

For no reason other than their shared initial letters, every time I think of figs, the jukebox in my head starts singing Figaro's aria from the Barber of Seville opera (you'd know it if you heard it). Figaro is the name of the aforementioned barber and has not a thing to do with figs, but either way, I've found myself singing the tune constantly since I came back from my holidays, partly because figs were in season while I was there and partly because of the beautiful fig tree on the beach (I know! Who knew fig trees could grow on beaches??). It was old and gnarled, with wide branches sweeping down to the sand and laden with unripe fruit. The low-lying branches and full foliage created a majestic canopy, providing a cool, shady den for anyone who needed it (one man appeared to have taken up almost permanent residence there, blankets and all). And every time we passed by, there was the most incredible perfume in the air - slightly sweet and nutty and uniquely figgy. 

And since we're on the topic of figs, have you ever wondered how Jacob's get the figs in the Fig Roll? I've puzzled over this mystery for many a year, no doubt prompted by the TV ad of my childhood which asked the very same question (the one with the cartoon spy trying to gain access to the factory to find the answer). Now it's not something I've thought long and hard about, but it has warranted the occasional musing. If you make a sausage roll, for example, the crease where you join the two sides of the pastry is always visible. But any dough soft enough that it melts in the heat of the oven - thus smoothing out the crease - could not be moulded successfully into shape to contain the figs. A veritable conundrum, but one that was finally answered when I thought to ask a friend of mine who used to work in Jacob's (she shall henceforth be known as Agent F). The answer is remarkably (and sadly) mundane: co-extrusion (the method whereby both filling and dough are extruded at the same time from two tubes, one inside another). As is often the case, life's little mysteries are much more exciting unsolved. Ho hum. So apologies if I've taken the magic of the Fig Roll away. I'd like to blame Agent F, but really, I did ask.

The King of Dates

When it comes to using dried fruit in treats - baked or otherwise - I find figs a little underwhelming, so in spite of the lengthy intro featuring figs, I'm now going to turn my attention to dates (another exotic fruit not native to our little island in the Atlantic). If your only experience of dates are the small, dried-up variety, may I introduce you to their much rarer cousin, the Medjool. They are at least twice the size, softer, squidgier and decadently plump. In the same way that regular dried dates are like nature's toffees, these are a sophisticated soft caramel created especially by Mother Nature. They are quite expensive to buy here, when you can find them, but every year I bring home an enormous bag of them from the market in Spain (much cheaper). Generally I just eat them as they are - a sweet treat with a cuppa - but this time I had bigger plans. Home-made Nutella.

Chocolate nirvana

Yes, you read that right. I've been wanting to try my hand at a home-made hazelnut chocolate spread for quite some time now and recently came across a recipe that used Medjool dates. The original recipe came from Deliciously Ella, a blog dedicated to wholesome recipes, and uses only good things (which of course means that this is one guilt-free treat). The Medjool dates (full of nutritious goodness) provide much of the sweetness as well as adding a soft texture and caramel notes. For the chocolate spread, they're blended with raw cacao powder (like cocoa, but in its natural, unroasted state, so it retains the nutrients and enzymes of the cacao bean), roasted hazelnuts, water and some pure maple syrup (another natural product). I tweaked the recipe, adding a greater amount of cacao powder for a richer chocolate hit and roasted hazelnuts instead of soaked, unroasted ones. I also added a little bit of Maldon salt to balance the flavours and a sprinkle of instant espresso powder to further enhance the chocolate kick. 

Oat cakes made chocolatey

As my food processor is not brilliant, the hazelnuts didn't get completely whizzed into a paste, but the resulting spread had a pleasing nutty bite to it (much like crunchy peanut butter, which I love). Although you need to keep the spread in the fridge, it remains slightly soft; the perfect spreading consisting. In keeping with the healthy theme, I tried it on some oat cakes (yum), on a spoon (even more yum) and had to draw the line at just diving on in there face first, though it was tempting. I reckon it would make a delicious filling for a chocolate layer cake and I'm looking forward to trying it on toast, fresh crusty bread, crackers, on a larger spoon... While this is indeed a very healthy treat, good health is first and foremost about moderation, so I may be in trouble here. It's possible that I have just created my own chocolatey doom. But what a way to go, Ladies and Gentlemen, what a way to go.

Happy Mistakes

I'm currently on my holidays and so, it seems, are my brain cells. There is always a natural wind-down in the first week of a holiday, when you realise how tired you are, so you sleep alot, eat and drink nice things then come alive a bit in Week 2. Worryingly, I've done the opposite. I was positively buzzing at the start of Week 1 and managed to read three books in two days. Since then, I've been slogging through the fourth book, even though it's actually a very easy read - not too taxing, good characters and a plot that races along nicely (the perfect holiday book). More worrying still, I can't seem to get any of the answers in our daily beach crossword (it's all happening here folks) and - worst of all - I'm making really silly grammatical mistakes. I've been saying things like 'it was wrote', 'warm it is' and 'she rided the bike', and just generally stumbling my way through sentences like a foreigner speaking English for the first time.  

Now you may have gathered from previous posts that I love language and all its intricacies - I read books on word origins, meanings and linguistics just for fun - so for me to start spouting sentences with glaringly poor grammar is akin to walking along a crowded path in Dublin while wind-milling my arms and shouting at passers-by. It is both horrifying (what on earth is happening to me?) and embarrassing (I wince when anyone else uses bad grammar and this is infinitely worse, as I know better). My youngest sister, who is on hols with me, is greatly amused by my grammatical slip-ups - she reckons I never get anything wrong (absolutely not true) and sees this as a breath of fresh air. Perhaps this is a form of Tourette's Syndrome, only instead of cursing or twitching, I use the wrong past-participle? Hopefully, it's simply the result of extreme tiredness and will pass before I head home. If it continues to worsen, this may well be the last comprehensible blog post that I write (if indeed you can understand my ramblings at all). 

In the meantime, I shall leave you with a wonderful recipe for muffins - originally by Hugh Fearnsley-Whittingstall and improved through happy circumstance. The use of lemon zest, lemon curd and ground almonds in these muffins seems fitting, given that I am, at present, ensconced in sunny southern Spain. Both lemons and almonds abound here and are used in both savoury and sweet dishes alike. I first made these little treasures a couple of months ago and haven't yet gotten round to sharing them with you. They are about half the size of the typical shop / cafe muffin, which means that they are a guilt-free pleasure or indeed that you could happily eat two of them (baker's choice). The use of ground almonds helps them to stay lovely and moist - a bonus with muffins as generally they're best eaten on the day you make them (home-made muffins contain less fat proportionally than other cakes and so stale more quickly). 

The original recipe called for the lemon curd to be swirled through the batter in the bowl, but being lazy that day I just dropped a blob into each filled muffin case and popped the tray in the oven. This led to an unforeseen volcano-effect, with the lemon curd bubbling up and spilling over slightly onto the tray (oh dear, I thought, when I saw what had happened). But the butter and sugar in the lemon curd caramelised and formed a crust on top of each muffin, which was such a fantastic bonus that it more than made up for the sticky mess on the tray (nothing a sink full of hot sudsy water couldn't tackle anyhow). The lemon curd beneath the sticky crust remains like the liquid gold it is; a melting, creamy, zingy contrast to the sweetness of the light almond sponge. These are an altogether wonderful addition to my catalogue of muffin recipes and in the event that I continue my slow but steady decline into Jelly Brain, with grammatical errors at every turn, I can console myself with the fact that not all mistakes are unfortunate; some are very happy indeed.

The Great Birthday Festival, Part 20

It has been a festival of many parts and while I do exaggerate slightly in the title (not quite Part 20 yet, though I'm getting there), the celebrations have indeed been many and varied. There were lunches out and lunches in, glasses of bubbly, birthday cakes (yes, plural - who has just one birthday cake?), a birthday dinner, birthday bouquet and lots of fabulous presents. As is ever the case, some of the best gifts are handmade and I was lucky enough to receive some really thoughtful ones: a beautiful, soft grey woollen blanket, hand-knitted by No.1 Sister; a framed photo collage featuring yours truly over the years, which was put together by my Mam (it includes this photo of one-year old me, very much delighted with myself in a rather wonderful lace-trimmed hat); and a playlist of my favourite songs from the last four decades or so, painstakingly selected and burned onto CDs by No.3 Sister (in deference to my car stereo, which is stuck in the pre-digital age).

The Birthday Bouquet

As it was my birthday, I was banned from baking and was instead given the opportunity to select whatever cake I liked for my birthday (which No.1 Sister would make for me). It proved a difficult decision (so many cakes, so little time!) and made me realise how much more I like baking cakes than eating them. Or more accurately, how much I enjoy the combination of creating the cake and then sharing in the eating of it. With the prospect of baking and decorating a cake removed from the equation, however, I had to think long and hard about what it is I would like to enjoy with a cup of coffee on my birthday weekend. 

Birthday Cake No. 1

I had made a chocolate fudge cake for No.1 Sister the previous weekend for her birthday down in Kerry, so it wouldn't be that. A summer staple in our house is the simple but delicious Victoria Sponge filled with cream, jam and strawberries, but much as I love it, my Mam had already surprised me with a yummy swiss roll with cream and strawberries on my actual birthday. The meringue and lemon curd variation of the Victoria Sponge, lovely and all as it is, wasn't calling me either (one of the layers is a fabulous combination of sponge and meringue - a neat trick that looks much more impressive than it actually is, but that's a topic for another day's post). Coffee and walnut cake was a real contender and plans advanced enough that there were discussions of trying a cream cheese instead of plain butter coffee icing. Although it didn't win pride of place as my official birthday cake, it is a variant I am determined to try soon. But ultimately, the only way I could choose was to figuratively remove my baker's apron and hat and pretend I was sitting in a cafe, a cup of steaming coffee in front of me. What would I like to see on the plate in front of me? 

The Definitive Carrot Cake 

The winner, ladies and gentlemen, was the humble carrot cake. It can be found in different forms in cafes and tea-shops across the land; some of them too dry, others too dense and many too sweet and lacking in any discernible flavour. But when it's made properly and decorated as a luscious gateau, it is one of the best cakes you could ever wish to have alongside your cup of coffee (or tea, if that's your tipple). The use of oil instead of butter and the chopped nuts and grated carrots in the sponge ensure that it gets better with age (much like me, ahem). 

Birthday Cake No. 2

The cake remains beautifully moist, so you can safely make it a day or two ahead of time (ever a baking bonus). The addition of lemon and orange zest really perk up the flavours of the cinnamon, ginger and mixed spice, while lemon juice in the cream cheese frosting is the perfect counterpoint to the sweetness. At my request, No. 1 Sister used pecans instead of walnuts - for some reason, walnuts baked into a cake make me nauseous (weird but true), but by all means stick with walnuts if it makes you happy. And if I've learned nothing in my forty years thus far, it's that cake is all about what makes you happy. This is the definitive carrot cake, made to a recipe adapted by No. 1 Sister especially for me, from the 'Best Ever Carrot Cake' featured in the Good Food magazine (see her variation below).

So 10 days on from the birthday and the festivities continue a-pace, but I've taken a moment to reflect (a much needed moment - these extended festivals require some stamina!). With age comes a certain amount of wisdom, but as the saying goes, you learn something new every day. My first discovery of this decade is a modest one (no Nobel prizes here) and possibly already a well-known fact, but I thought I would share it nonetheless: a slice of delicious carrot cake goes equally well with a glass of prosecco (complete with drunken strawberry) as it does with a cup of coffee. Just so you know.

The Great Birthday Festival, Part 1

The Wild Atlantic Way

Today is my birthday and, as anyone who knows me will be aware, that makes me very, very happy indeed. The fact that this is a Big Birthday (as we call them in our house, when referring to the mile-marker ages - 13, 18, 21, 30, 40 etc), means that I can extend the birthday celebrations beyond the usual weekend or week and keep the festivities going for at least a month or two. So although I only turned 40 today, party-time commenced last weekend on a mini-break in Kenmare, when I shamelessly muscled in on No.1 Sister's birthday (though to be fair, we've been sharing the birthday-party spirit ever since I arrived just five days after her first birthday).

G&T by Cocoa Bean Chocolate Co.

As mini-breaks go, this one deserves its very own Carlsberg ad. We had mostly fabulous weather, despite dire predictions by Met Eireann, with the only rain falling on Friday while we were safely ensconced in what is probably the world's best spa (Samas in the Kenmare Park Hotel if you're interested). By Sunday, the sun was shining once more, the sky was blue and the views were outstanding as we drove along a stretch of the Wild Atlantic Way towards Valentia Island. We reached the Skellig chocolate factory just before lunch time and decided to pop in for a look, thinking we might have a browse and maybe (!!) buy some chocolates. Much to my surprise and continued delight, there was a tasting area where you were welcomed by a cheerful chocolate-loving assistant, who made it their business to introduce you to as many wonderful chocolates as possible. 

Now by 'introduce' I mean 'encourage you to eat', which we did. Presentations were made in twos: there was the battle of the pralines (dark chocolate vanilla versus milk chocolate hazelnut); an alcoholic skirmish (Irish whiskey truffle in dark chocolate weighing in against a milk choc strawberry champagne truffle); and a duel of chocolate brittles (dark chocolate mint versus milk chocolate orange). I know there were others - one stand-out winner was the lime zest and black pepper dark chocolate bar - but sadly I can no longer recall the details thanks to partial amnesia as a result of the ensuing chocolate coma. 

Edible G&T 

However, I was determined not to be defeated by the tasting and shuffled along the counter with the rest of the chocolate zombies to the bagged and packaged chocolate treats available for purchase (canny Skellig chocolatiers!). Despite grabbing up more bags of chocolates than I could safely hold, I managed to exercise a little restraint and settled for a bag of milk chocolate salted caramels (amazing) and a bar of Gin & Tonic dark chocolate (yes, really!). The latter is produced by the Cocoa Bean Chocolate Company (also responsible for the fabulous lime zest and black pepper bar). They recently joined forces with Skellig Chocolates (makers of the incredibly yummy salted caramel chocolates) and may I say, I wish them a long and happy marriage and hope to hear the pitter-patter of tiny chocolate feet for many a year to come.

The G&T chocolate bar is, I've decided, the perfect treat to settle down with and enjoy as I launch myself into my forties. I adore nothing more than a cold G&T (made with Bombay Sapphire or Tanqueray gin) with ice and a slice of lime, ideally imbibed on a lazy, sunny afternoon. Unfortunately, alcohol is not always my friend, especially when I'm unwell, which has put paid to many a lovely G&T moment over the last few years. Happily, chocolate is a loyal and constant ally and now here it is, in the guise of my favourite tipple. The fresh lime zest and crushed juniper berries in the dark chocolate somehow fool the brain into thinking you've just had a sip of a G&T, instantly transporting you to your happy place (Margaritaville here I come!). Sophisticated flavours, very pretty packaging and delicious chocolate - who could ask for anything more? The perfect mini-break in Kenmare, a G&T in a chocolate bar and with more treats and celebrations yet to come, this is probably the best birthday festival in the world. 

Gnome-man's Land

Gnomes. A rather odd preoccupation and yet, there they are, stumpy little bearded fellows with conical hats and brightly coloured tunics, constantly popping in and out of my head over the last few days. Possibly the onset of madness, but in this case I reckon I know the cause. I was working near Stepaside last Thursday and driving through it sparked a memory of childhood trips to the seaside. Stepaside was en route to Brittas Bay in County Wicklow and one of the houses in the village was practically suffocating beneath hundreds of gnomes: In the garden, on the garage roof, on the window-sills... they were everywhere, in varying sizes and hues, some with garden tools, others in lederhosen and most with beards, hats and chubby cheeks. Slightly creepy when I think of it now, but as a child it was simply mesmerizing - my sisters, my brother and I would watch anxiously from the car window on the approach to the village, for fear that we'd miss it. 

Recipe Folder

Sadly (or perhaps not), I couldn't find the Gnome House last week but the memory lives on in my head and since it doesn't seem to want to leave, I decided to write about it and (hopefully) exorcise it from my mind. Having gnomes on the brain has not led to a cake- or baking-inspired post, so this is not an account of a gnome-shaped cake or a cake that a gnome might like to eat (Which would be what I wonder? Mississippi Mud Pie perhaps?). Instead, today's post is all about being crafty. And by 'crafty' I do of course mean the art of making things, rather than the art of wily, crafty ways, a la Machiavelli. Bit of a leap from gnomes to arts and crafts I hear you say, but as gnomes are often ceramic, it made me think of plaster casts and pottery, which in turn lead to arts and crafts (you see? demented but still logical). 

Having outed myself as a closeted baker in one of my early posts, I think it's now time to exit the crafting closet, embroidery in one hand and decoupage glue in the other, proudly declaring my love for all things crafty. Looking back, I can see that I come by my crafty ways honestly. Early exposure to BBC's Blue Peter was reinforced by RTE's own arts and crafts show, hosted by Mary 'Make and Do' as she was known to all of us (apparently her real name is Mary Fitzgerald and the show was called 'How do you do?', though I have no memory of that). Hours and hours of fun projects involving crepe paper, cardboard toilet roll inserts, glue and paint... Resistance was futile. 

As a grown-up, arts and crafts can be fun and you can produce some really fabulous pieces even if you don't have specialist training and an elaborate work-shop. Not all crafts require you to fabricate an object from scratch, so even if you don't have the particular skills or tools needed for the likes of pottery, silver-smithing, woodwork or dress-making, there's always something you can do. Much of what I enjoy in the craft world is essentially embellishment or ornamental work - taking a plain, bland or unloved item and making it pretty (or otherwise livening it up - it doesn't have to be pretty, it can be a mad gothic delight if you so choose). 

Decoupage swan tray

A very simple technique to use if you can't paint or draw a picture to save your life (that would be me) is decoupage. It comes from the French word meaning 'to cut up' and unsurprisingly consists of cutting out bits of paper (from magazines, newspapers, old wallpaper - whatever catches your eye) and gluing them on to whatever it is you'd like to embellish. I decided to do a spot of decoupage on the folder that I use to store torn-out or scribbled down recipes. It was an old, cheap, red plastic ring-binder that upset me with its ugliness every time I took it down from the shelf. The joy of decoupage is that you can make any pattern or design that you like, very easily. Simply cut and glue (that really is all there is to it), then in the case of my folder, I simply covered it with clear plastic sticky sheets. Alternatively, you could jazz up an old wooden tray by painting it white and getting busy with some cut-outs, before varnishing the finished surface to protect it. The craft world is your oyster, so to speak.

Art Deco Poppy

Embroidery, as I've mentioned before, is another craft that I turn to every so often and there are any number and variety of needlepoint kits out there, from the twee kitten ones to heavy-metal band logos (Seriously). I've framed two of the larger embroidery pieces that I've completed, but as it seems a tad 'Cat Lady' to cover the walls of my apartment in embroidered images (it would be very easy to find yourself slipping down that particular road), this begs the question: what does one do with the finished pieces, accumulated over years of embroidering? Generally I just put them away somewhere and forget about them, since for me the joy is in the process rather than in the display of the finished product. I did, however, come across an embroidered poppy bookmark last year, safely stashed away in a book on Classical art (a heavy tome of a book, so I presume I put it there to press it). It was quite a stylised image, reminiscent of Art Deco designs, and it inspired me to decorate a big, grey velvet lounging cushion (sourced from Ikea) to give to my sister for her birthday. A few scraps of material, some pretty gold ribbon and lots of tiny stitches later, No.1 Sister now has a comfy Art Deco-style cushion to prop her up as she drinks her coffee on a Sunday morning.

The birthday cushion

So from decorative pieces to hang on your wall to gifts for loved ones - arts and crafts are the way forward. Indeed, there's an awful lot to be said for the therapeutic nature of craft and the satisfaction to be gained from creativity. Just one note of caution though - dip your toe into this crafty world and you can suddenly find yourself diving head first into the deep end. One day you're embroidering a small scene of lavender fields and the next you wake up to discover that you've crossed no-man's land and entered enemy territory - there are framed embroidery pictures on every wall, lace doilies on the tables, knitted cushion covers on the sofa, crochet dolls covering the toilet roll in the bathroom and an extended family of ceramic gnomes inhabiting your garden. So if you're thinking of taking up a craft, go for it - I can highly recommend it and if you're not quite sure where to start, there's inspiration to be found all around you. Just don't stray into gnome-man's land. It's a scary place of no return. You have been warned.