Category Archives: Recipes

Exam term Medicine: GF/DF Chocolate Cake with Marshmallow frosting

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Exam season has hit Cambridge. Even those of us who haven’t got exams can feel up in the air, or is that just the dismal weather. Remember back in April when the sun was shining? No me neither, we do live in England after all. Not only is the atmosphere pretty grim, but extra curricular and social activities have dropped to virtually nothing. Other than a housemate trip to the very English ‘Cambridge Beer Festival’ things are pretty quiet. Im aware I am making myself incredibly unpopular to those with exams by keeping myself busy with Sudoku puzzles and the like, so I thought I would cheer them up by making a cake. As it is a cake for the choir, it is of course Gluten and Dairy Free for the Gluten and Dairy Free boy. I also thought it would be a bit more fun if I made it in the shape of book, specifically the book that is pretty much the foundation of knowledge for any music student. That way the music students can get a kick out of literally devouring their revision.

Cake

600g ground almonds

6 eggs

100g cocoa powder

2tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp baking powder

4tbsp honey

200g sugar

2tsp vanilla extract

Large pinch of sea salt

4tbsp water

Marshmallow Frosting

3 egg whites

300g sugar

Vanilla extract

  1. Preheat the oven to Fan 180*c and line a 20cmx15cm baking tray.

  2. Whisk the egg, sugar, vanilla, honey and salt together. Meanwhile combine all the remaining dry ingredients. Mix the two bowls together and add water to thin the mixture a little.

  3. Cook for 15-20mins in two batches, until set and a spatula comes out clean.

  4. Meanwhile make the marshmallow icing. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks. Meanwhile heat the sugar with a splash if water until it becomes a clear, bubbling liquid. Pour into the egg whites whilst still whisking. When all the syrup is combined, keep whisking for 4-5mins. Spread or pipe onto the cake, using some to sandwich the cake and some to ice the cake.

NB If you want to recreate the book, use ready to roll icing and roll between to sheets of grease proof paper to get a thin sheet without sticking to the rolling pin.  

     


Pan fried sea bream, ginger sweet potato mash, soy and mushroom dressing

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As I’m sure I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this blog, I am going to cookery school next year. Incidentalky, I know Cambridge to cookery school isn’t exactly the most conventional of routes but according to one recent tinder conversation it is hilarious.  

I’m sorry Dylan I don’t think we can be friends.  

Part of what I am especially excited about for next year is exploring a few cuisines I am nit so familiar with. Whilst I reckon I am pretty familiar with french (cream, butter, garlic, butter, snails, butter), Italian (basil, pasta, antipasti, tomatoes, pizza) and of course british (meat, two veg, custard, bread), I have yet to explore cuisines which fall slightly outside my radar. For example whilst I have had some amazing Indian meals, mostly my experience lies in bad Indian takeaway (rarely) and I would like to find out about the proper version of Indian food, which as I know can be fantastic. Likewise Asian cuisine is something I am interested in learning about. The flavours in Asian cuisine are so different from the European flavours that I am overwhelmed even when I attempt to teach myself due to lack of experience. However you have to start somewhere, so when the classicist came over to dinner I cooked her Pan fried sea bream, ginger sweet potato mash, soy and mushroom dressing. 

1. Heat 2 sweet potatoes for 10-12 mins in the microwave on high, until soft. Heat sesame oil, 1 clove garlic (chopped), 2 tsp ground ginger, 2tsp soy sauce and 1tsp sugar in a saucepan for 2-3mins. Scoop out the inside of the sweet potato into the saucepan and combine, mashing as you go.

2. For the mushroom dressing, chop 5 chestnut mushrooms in to thin slices. Sauté in 2 tsp seseme oil, pepper, 1tsp chilli powder, 3tbsp soy sauce, 2tsp fish sauce and 2tsp sugar. Cook for 2-3mins. Add 300ml water and 1/2 stock cube. Reduce by half. 

3. Finally pan fry the bream. Cook for 1min flesh side down in a searing hot pan, flip over and cook for 4mins on the skin side down, it should leave you a crispy skin. Serve. 

  

Caesar Salad, Pancetta wrapped Cod, Jelly, Ice Cream and Chocolate

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Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents dearly. But for two immensely talented and successful people, they are absolutely hopeless at feeding themselves. People think I’m joking when they ask where I learnt to cook and I tell them it wasn’t so much where but why, it was a necessity if I didn’t want to live off fish cakes for the majority of my teenage years. Take this weekend when I came home. I had offered to cook dinner for the parents and the man upstairs, and in return my mum had bought in a shopping order. I had left basic items like stock and dried herbs off the list assuming anyone who isn’t a student, lives in a house full time and presumably eats would have these staples, I was wrong. My mothers response? ‘We had some at christmas’, yes we did, and I used it up, the last time I cooked in our house. My father is I’m afraid no better, while very good at selecting wines for our dinner, he took in the food order and left out most of the veg and salad because they wouldn’t fit in the fridge, the fridge was full of potatoes…. Anyway, for those of you who know how to store vegetables, here is a standard, albeit slightly middle class, quick dinner party menu.

Posh Caesar Salad (Serves 4) 

2 iceberg lettuces, 2 chicken breasts, 4 quails eggs, 10 anchovies, 1 small sourdough roll, 1 egg yolk, 1/3 tsp of English mustard, 1/2 tsp of garlic, finely chopped, 1 1/4 tsp of white wine vinegar, 1 1/4 tsp of lemon juice 1 tsp of Worcestershire sauce, 10g of Parmesan, grated, 120ml of vegetable oil

1. Sprinkle chicken with sea salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil and top with 1/2 crushed garlic clove each. Roast for 12-15mins at 180*C, leave to rest. 

  1. Meanwhile boil the quails eggs for 2 1/2mins, then run under cold water to stop the cooking process. When cool, peel and set aside. Cut the roll into croutons and toast on both sides under a grill, seasoned with a little salt, pepper and olive oil.

  2. For the dressing, blend 2 anchovies, egg yolk, mustard, garlic, vinegar, salt and pepper. Slowly add oil whilst blitzing. Add Worcester sauce, lemon juice and Parmesan, season to taste.

  3. Serve drizzled over Iceberg lettuce topped with chicken, anchovies, quails egg and Parmesan slivers.  

Pancetta wrapped cod, pearl barley risotto, garlic mushrooms, crispy kale, Early Grey jus

4 cod fillets, boneless and skinless, 12 rashes pancetta, 100g button mushrooms, 2 cloves garlic, 100g kale, dried rosemary, 320g pearl barley, 2 stock cubes, 1 onion, dried thyme, drizzle of truffle oil, 3tbsp Brandy. 2 earl grey tea bags.

  1. Soak the tea bags in 300ml hot water for at least 1hr. Wrap 3 pancetta rashes around each fish and set aside in a baking tray. Meanwhile place the kale in a baking dish, sprinkled with salt, pepper, rosemary and a small drizzle of oil. Place in the oven at 140*C for 25mins, stirring occasionally, until crispy.

  • .Meanwhile, slice the onions into small pieces. Sauté for 2-3mins in olive oil and salt. Add the pearl barley, thyme then brandy. Add 600ml stock and cook, stirring occasionally for 30mins, adding more water if needed. Season with lemon juice, pepper, salt and truffle oil and set aside.

  • Forthe mushrooms, finely chop garlic and cook in truffle oil for 1min. Add the mushrooms and cook for 5mins over a high heat, set aside. Put the fish on to cook in 140*C oven for 15mins.

  • Meanwhile, make jus. Combine earl grey stock with stock cube, salt, pepper and lemon juice, reduce by about half.

  • Just before serving, heat jus and risotto. Make a bed with the risotto, scatter around mushrooms, place fish on top, drizzle jus and scatter with kale chips.  

    • Grown-up Jelly, Ice cream and chocolate sauce

    A nostalgic nod to my primary school, The Rowans, where we indulgently were given those wonderful ice cream squares, strawberry jelly and chocolate custard, my favourite dessert. We used to mix them all up together in a wonderful synthtic, sugary mess we loved. This thankfully is more refined, very simple and quick and tasty, try adding ginger to the ice cream.

    1 tub vanilla ice cream, 200g shortbread biscuits, 4tbsp maple syrup, Silicone half sphere moulds, 300ml grapefruit juice, 4 gelatine leaves, 200g dark chocolate, 50g sugar, 50ml water, pinch of sea salt.

    1. Let the ice cream soften, until it can be squeezed out of its tub. Use a pastry brush to coat 4 silicone moulds. Crush shortbread in a plastic bag with a rolling pin to fine crumbs. Pour into moulds to coat and shake out so you have an even layer lining the moulds. Scoop ice cream into each mould, using a knife to level the base. Freeze.

  • For the jelly, heat grapefruit juice to boiling. Soak gelatine leaves in cold water, squeeze out and stir into grapefruit juice. Pour into a base lined square dish and refrigerate for at least 2hrs.

  • For the sauce, heat water and sugar to boiling. Stir in chocolate and salt until melted. Chop grapefruit jelly into squares. Serve beside ice cream and jelly in a little jug.

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    The Easter Chocolate Collection – The Italian Job

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    As documented in this blog, I gave up alcohol and chocolate for 2 weeks in a bid to give my voice a rest and semi detox. Of course my immediate response was to spend the weekend exclusively cooking with alcohol and chocolate (see Exhibit A – Banana, boozy, chocolate sponge). As Easter was coming up, I had the perfect excuse to make a new chocolate collection for Easter gifts, some people watch Netflix when they’re bored, I make chocolates. As my collegue Molificent says, I always like to add one ingredient too many, but it usually works. 

    Firenze- Dark chocolate shell, orange gel, Cantucci biscotti crumbs and vin santo ganache, drizzled with orange coloured white chocolate.

    Siciliana- Rosemary and Orange Ganache with a milk chocolate shell.

    Affogato- Milk chocolate cup, amaretto get, espresso gel, vanilla cream, topped with chocolate shavings.   

    I’m not going to bore you again with the basics of making chocolates (you can find that here). But I will fill you in on a few things I learnt this time around. 

    • Making jelly from anything is easy, heated liquid/ sugar syrup mixed with gelatine for an intense flavour hit. To make a gel layer, fill a frozen chocolate mould, wait for 30 secs then pour out, for a perfect gel layer. 
    • If you have over filled your chocolates and can’t get a chocolate layer on the base, turn it into a cup, dessert style chocolate, and streak with chocolate for a topping. 
    • To colour white chocolate ONLY USE GEL COLOURING- anything else will act like water to chocolate and you will be left with a grainy mess. – water is chocolates enemy.
    • Weird combinations do work, best time to experiment with flavours is in a chocolate as it is a burst of flavour in one bite. 
    • And finally as always, a freezer is your best friend.

    Easter Day with the Gullifers

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    Aren’t you lucky, today you get a double whammy of Gullifer Eats. Second part here. Partly because Easter weekend is all about food (and music and religion), or is that only in the Gullifer household? And partly because I am currently on a three and a half hour bus journey back to Oxford and am extremely bored. Most people are not put upon by relatives to host major festivals until they are at least settled with a mortgage, but for some reason the Gullifer clan descended on me this Easter holiday. Apparently it had something to do with the fact I mentioned I wouldn’t be able to come and cook the normal Easter feast at home, due to work….. But of course I relished in the planning, cooking, and of course the food shop that arrived to my door paid for by the parents, as I couldn’t afford to pay to feed everyone. It was a lovely weekend, peppered with Kings college concerts and services, the most amazing brunch at Cau (see below), cocktails with my sister and chocolate. For the main event I invited over Gluten-free-Dairy-free man and the Perpetual Poldark lover as they were in Cambridge for finals and I thought I’d add to their stress levels by inflicting my family on them.  

     

    (Eggs Royale with grilled avocado and chimichurri sauce)

    I am ashamed to say I didn’t cook any of the starter, I was a little strapped for time. But Waitrose came up trumps with their anti-pasti selection and the Sister arranged a Work of Art on the plate to make it that extra bit special.  We had giant Sicilian olives, gin and orange soaked olives, ricotta, baby mozzarella, fresh grilled anchovies, chargrilled artichokes (in some amazing dressing), smoked sundried tomatoes (wow) and some of the best pesto I’ve  tasted, with whole shreds of Parmesan.   

    What I was pleased with was the wine selection, thank you Cambridge Wine Merchants. My sister had made an off hand comment earlier in the week about new world sparkling wines all tasting too sweet and sainsburys Cavaesque. I was determined to prove her wrong. I was recommended a Zuccardi Blanc de Blancs, an Argentinian sparkling wine aged on the lees (yeast) for 58 months. As the lady said to me, it tastes like liquid shortbread. Think a really intense champagne, reduced at the moment in the wine merchants to £16 it tastes like a much more pricey champagne, if you are in Cambridge I recommend. 

     

    For main course, to mix things up from the traditional Lamb, we had whole baked salmon. Not only was it different and undoubtably healthier than lamb, it also only took 45mins (15mins on the highest temperature, 30 at 180*C). This was served with a lemon, dill and yoghurt dressing. Accompanied by smashed sweet potatoes – Simply cooked in a microwave for 15-20mins, smashed up with olive oil, a drizzle of truffle oil, thyme, salt, pepper and a little lemon juice. – We also had brussel sprouts with chorizo, which ‘convinced a fussy eater that sprouts were delicious’ according to the Perpetual Poldark lover. -Halved Brussel sprouts, drizzled with sesame oil, salt pepper, 1 onion, finely chopped, 1 garlic clove, finely chopped, and 200g cubed chorizo for 20-30mins at 180*C. -Finally we had asparagus with balsamic drenched tomatoes. – Blanched Asparagus, cherry tomatoes cooked in a little oil, salt and balsamic for 5mins and a scattering of basil.  

       

    Finally for dessert, I couldn’t do anything but go down the chocolate route, it was Easter after all. (For the record Steve had coconut pannacotta, with sweet and salty almonds – literally coconut milk, sugar, lime juice, vanilla extract, gelatine, topped with toasted almonds tossed in sugar and salt-) I made orange and basil mousses, chocolate soil and white chocolate dipped strawberry. Any guesses as to what I was trying to recreate?  

     

    We ended the meal in truly decadent (and bordering on bizarre) fashion. Vin Santo and Cantucci biscuits, Articulate – our favourite game, ridiculously competitive, and my father lighting amaretti papers on fire in the conservatory. Fun fact, did you know they rise like a pretty lantern when they burn? Next party trick. 

    Banana,Coconut and Lime, boozy sponge with Avocado-Chocolate ganache; a nostalgic nod to Brazil.

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    What with the launch of the Gonville and Cauis CD of Brazilian music, I got rather nostalgic today for my 2 weeks in Brazil last year and turned back to The Comedy Agent’s Birthday present to me from last year; a book of Brazilan recipes.
    IMG_1240IMG_1238Cabana:The Cookbook is not just a recipe fountain but also contains essential guides for life such as ‘how to dance the samba’,
    IMG_1237‘how to recognise Brazilian fruit’ (something that would’ve come in useful while in the fruit markets in São Paolo), and of course the vital ‘how to make a perfect Caipirinha’. (I’m still not sure I’m pronouncing it properly, for reference: How to say Caipirinha.)IMG_1239
    it is full of wonderful recipes such as: Crazy lady cake (a rich dark chocolate sponge), the addictive Pao de Queijo, and one of my favourite recipes that I am constantly doing variations of, Fejioda, or Black bean stew. Of course being me, I decided to ignore all these recipes and instead take inspiration from all the different flavours. Here is my Banana,Coconut and Lime, boozy sponge with Avocado-Chocolate ganache. As usual, a normal version of this is not enough of a challenge, so this is my healthy, dairy and gluten free version. (Hopefully proving Dairy and gluten free isn’t all expensive, hard to source ingredients)

    Cake
    100g coconut flakes
    2 bananas
    1tsp vanilla extract
    3 eggs
    170g caster sugar
    100ml oil
    Syrup
    75ml cachaca (or rum if none available)
    50g sugar
    pinch sea salt
    Ganache
    1 large avocado
    1tbsp cocoa powder
    2 pinches of salt
    2tbsp honey
    Icing
    200g icing sugar
    1tbsp cocoa powder
    1. For the coconut flour, Soak the coconut flakes in 25ml hot water for 4hrs. Blend in a blender, drain well, lay out the flakes on a baking tray and dry for either 3hrs at 170°C or overnight with the light on in the oven. Blend in the food processor to a fine powder.

    2. Mix the ingredients for the cake in a food processor. Spoon into a lined cake tin and bake for 30mins at fan 160°C until browned. Leave to cool.

    3. Meanwhile, Heat the syrup ingredients together till sugar is dissolved and syrup has thickened slightly. Pour over cake.FullSizeRender 4. Leave cake to cool COMPLETELY. Make the ganache. Blend the ganache ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Spread onto the cooled cake.

    4. To finish. Make a glace icing by mixing the coca powder and icing sugar with 2-3tsp of water to a very thick icing (nb mix well before adding more water).

    5. Spoon into a piping bag and decorate!

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    NB As you may have noticed in this post, I’ve learned how to use links in my blog, onwards and upwards…

    Pan-Fried Salmon, Lentil Dhal and Peanut-butter yoghurt with blueberries: Indulgent health food

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    The Daily Mail is particularly good at the odd health slogan. Some of my favourites include: ‘a mind is a terrible thing to waste and a waist is a terrible thing to mind!’, or ‘he who indulges, bulges’, and my personal favourite ‘If you let the cake control, you’ll look like a cinnamon roll’. While I’m not particularly motivated to avoid food based on either these slogans or the dismally contradictory “health” articles that follow the headlines, I do listen to my singing teacher. She has practically begged me to spend two weeks giving up alcohol, singing and talking in order to finally rest my voice after 3 years of singing almost every day. While I was being this quiet and anti-social, I thought I might as well use the opportunity to try and quell my addiction to chocolate and be a bit healthier for all of to weeks. While I’m never going to turn into a seed eating, yoga loving, alcohol abstainer, I have to admit that I do feel better and will hopefully keep the daily yoga up, [purely because I quite enjoy the satisfaction of finally being able to do a plank for 3 minutes without collapsing…) However I don’t think I would have ever been able to cope with these two weeks if I hadn’t still been able to eat tasty food, while still healthy. Finding partially smoked salmon fillets in sainsburys, I used some of the money I’d saved on booze from the fortnight and created the following dish. The peanut butter yoghurt was a no-brainer for me, I adore peanut butter (have you heard it’s healthy) and mixed with greek yoghurt, it tastes like an indulgent pudding.

    Pan-Fried Salmon, Lentil Dhal, serves 2

    1. For the Dhal: Sweat 1 onion and 2 cloves garlic in 1tsp coconut oil and a pinch of salt. Add 1tsp each of; ginger, cumin, turmeric, coriander and chilli powder. Add 1/2 tin chopped tomatoes, 1tsp sugar, 100g red lentils and vegetable stock to cover. Simmer for 15-20mins, stirring occasionally.

    2. Meanwhile, take the salmon out of the fridge at least 1/2 hour before cooking. Heat a pan, add the salmon, flesh side down for 4-5mins. Flip and cook skin side down for 2-3mins, until skin is crispy. Place on top of the dhal, skin side up and scatter with coriander leaves.

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    Peanut butter yoghurt, serves 1

    1. Heat 1tsp peanut butter in a bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds. Mix in 170g greek yoghurt and (optional) 1tsp sugar. Top with blueberries.

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    Home, Sweet Home

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    I have, unfortunately, got a back log of blogs, something I never thought I’d say. So during a period of self induced anti-social behaviour (by this I mean speaking as little as possible, no drinking, no noisy places etc in order to heal my vocal chords after years of singing on them sub-par) I am attempting to knock as many of these out as possible. Let’s start with my trip back home for the weekend, partly on the way back from an interview at Leiths cookery school (shameless name drop there) and partly to catch up with my grandma (and of course download the link to this site as part of her desktop so she never misses an article). I come home and suggest a nice dinner out, my parents enjoying my company, me exploiting free, nice food. My mother had other ideas. She had recently had a delivery from Sandy Lane Farm, the lovely oxfordshire farm that provided our Turkey for Christmas, of an assortment of random vegetables. In her own words, she was never going to get around to using them this week, as they were out almost every night, so could we maybe eat in? Well played mum, who’s exploiting who now…. On that note, Happy Mothers Day for yesterday So here is the vegetable inspired 3 course meal. (NB I think I may have found a way to convert even the most die-hard anti-sprouts veterans with this starter)

    Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Wilted Cavolo Nero, Lemon-yoghurt dressing, Parmesan shavings, Poached Duck Eggs.

    1. For the brussels sprouts, wash, trim and cut brussels sprouts in half. Place in a dish and scatter with truffle oil, black pepper, salt and lemon juice. Roast for 20mins at 180°C.

    2. Meanwhile combine lemon juice, pepper, greek yoghurt and a pinch of sea salt and mix well. Wash the cavolo nero then pour over boiling water to wilt slightly, toss in dressing.

    3. Finally poach 4 duck eggs for 2-3mins so the centre is still soft. Top the cavolo nero with the brussel sprouts, parmesan shavings and finally the duck eggs.

    Pan Fried Sea Bass, Swede and roasted garlic mash, walnut pesto, roasted lemons and maple roasted baby carrots.

    1. Peel and chop swede, boil with salt, bay leaf, thyme and pepper until soft. Meanwhile roast the garlic (Whole) and slices of lemon for 20mins at 180°C.

    2. For the pesto, blitz 200g walnuts, handful of parsley, 1tbsp walnut oil, 1tsp truffle oil, 2tsp lemon juice, salt and pepper in a food processor.

    3. For the carrots, scrub, top and tail the baby carrots. Roast for 15-20mins in a drizzle of oil, maple syrup, salt, pepper and white wine vinegar.

    4. For the sea bass, put 4 sea bass fillets in a pan of cold water with a bay leaf, peppercorns, thyme and cumin. Bring slowly to the boil, as soon as you reach the boil turn of the heat and leave for 10mins. Pan fry in a drizzle of oil skin side down for 2mins, until skin is crispy.

    5. To serve, mash the swede with 2-3tbsp olive oil, a pinch of cumin and the roasted garlic. Serve topped with the fish, walnut pesto, lemon slices and carrots.

     Maple and Sweetcorn Pannacotta, Maple Popcorn.

    1. Bring 600ml milk and 200ml cream to the boil. Add 1tsp vanilla extract, 3tbsp maple syrup and 500g sweetcorn kernals, simmer for 2-3mins. Blend until smooth and pass through a sieve. Meanwhile soak 4 leaves of gelatine in cold water squeeze out and add to sweetcorn mix. Pour mix into ramekins.

    2. For the popcorn, drizzle 1tsp oil in a pan. Add 2tbsp unpopped popping corn. Cook covered until the popcorn begins to pop, turn off heat and leave covered until the popping stops. Add 2tbsp maple syrup and shake well to coat, leave to one side.

    3. Serve pannacotta topped with popcorn.

    Peanut butter-banana Pancakes or I-missed-pancakes-on-pancake-day-but-now-it’s-lent

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    I very rarely wake up in the morning feeling like I want to be healthy but I woke up this morning wanting to go for a run. Maybe it was the yoga I’ve started doing or the fact I’ve started using hashtags on Instagram but I’m becoming dangerously close to a healthy lifestyle. At least Pret appears to be on a one shop mission to corrupt this attitude with its dark chocolate and sea salt bars. Following my run I decided to continue the theme with a banana and peanut butter omelette. Unfortunately the box of 12 eggs I bought less than a week ago has fallen prey to Mark-Francis/Violetta’s insatiable poached egg habit, there was 1 left. So I fiddled around a but. I present to you the (in keeping with the theme of recent posts) gluten and dairy free, protein rich breakfast pancake, eatable in lent without fear of guilt.

    For 1

    1. Combine 1 egg and a tablespoon of peanut butter. Mix together. Add 50-75ml milk and (for an extra sweet/salt hit) a pinch of sea salt(optional).
    2. Pour mixture into a heated frying pan and cook on medium until the bottom of the pancake starts to become easy to release from the pan.
    3. Fold in half and serve with a drizzle of honey and a chopped banana.

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    Blue Velvet Cake

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    My colleague Molificent and I came upon the topic of cakes the other day (you would have thought this topic came up a lot given I work in a cafe but apparently not so much) and I began wondering, as only the mind of someone staring at cake all day can, why we have red velvet cake. Why not other colours? Admittedly a green cake might put us off our food, but why not a blue cake. Unnatural yes, but then what is natural about the vivid red hue of a true red velvet cake? To be terribly British of me, it is the epitome of the difference in cuisine between Americans and English. The English like basic, traditional stodge and couldn’t care less if it was plated up. The Americans like exciting colourful reinterpretations of the classics like cake pops and whoopie pies (stereotyping I know but this is a food blog post not a political argument). So I scoured the internet for Red Velvet Cake recipes. I discovered that unfortunately the cocoa was essential for more than just flavour. The chemical reaction between the cocoa, bicarbonate of soda and red food colouring was what increased the intenseness of the red colouring. How was I meant to recreate this given that there is no such thing yet as a white chocolate cocoa powder. Molificent suggested investing in a dehydrator, but firstly I can’t afford another slightly unnecessary kitchen implement, secondly it wouldn’t have the same effect as cocoa as the whole point of cocoa is the lack of dairy or sugar and finally my housemates wouldn’t let me buy anything more that might clog up our kitchen surfaces. So instead I upped the bicarbonate of soda to increase the acid levels to supplement the acid in the cocoa and added white chocolate pieces to add a white chocolate flavour in lieu of the cocoa flavour. The result was the moistness of a red velvet cake with the overwhelming sweetness of a white chocolate cake (NB this recipe is for the sugar addicted only). My only regret is that I didn’t add enough blue food colouring so the resulting cooer of the cake was too green, for future reference, a whole bottle of blue gel food colouring will be needed.

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    Blue Velvet Cake

     

    120g Butter
    300g caster sugar
    2 large eggs
    Bottle of Blue food colouring gel
    1tsp Vanilla extract
    350g Plain white flour 
    1tsp Sea Salt
    240ml Buttermilk
    1tbsp White wine vinegar
    2.5tsp Bicarbonate of soda
    150g white chocolate, finely chopped

    Icing

    100g Butter 
    600g Icing sugar 
    250g Cream cheese full fat
    2 tbsp lemon juice

    1. Cream the butter and sugar together, add the eggs and vanilla extract, beat well. Add the flour, food colouring, salt, chopped chocolate and buttermilk, mix.

    2. In a cup mix the vinegar and soda and immediately add to the cake mix. Pour immediately into two prepared sandwich tins.

    3. Bake in the oven at 180oC for 30-40mins until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool COMPLETELY.

    4. Meanwhile mix the WELL SOFTENED butter with lemon juice and icing sugar together. When beaten, add the cream cheese. Spread onto the cooled cake as a a filling and topping. Serve.

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