BERRIES & CREAM TARTLETS

Wet, penurious, snusless Januaries can do funny things to your head (that or, people) and with a little career advice from this volatile entity called hope, plus good books with a nice cover and a worryingly long list of flight confirmations, your mind also hands in a resignation letter, and moves on to a more senior position in this fictitious place and time where no one objects if all you do is stroll down the Rye and on through pretty streets, and stop for vegan chocolate and then on again to parks and cemeteries, and take photos; and where soya condensed milk hasn’t disappeared from the face of the earth; and also where wool jumpers are a mandatory part of the dress code; and in this place and time you would hang out with your lad friends and they would always have your back because never mind the hair bows and pink outfits, they know you’re secretly one of them. But jobs at pharmaceutical firms aside, and even though your dressed-up self still hangs out on twelfth floors of corporate buildings with a view, and vegan condensed milk takes five years on the hob to make, and there’s no chocolate adventures in sight for right now, private lad parties are sometimes still included in your job description, and you better be ready to make celebratory fruity cream tartlets for the occasion, just in case someone opts for a free-from cake diet, and in fact it could well be a wet, penurious and snusless day, but there’s birthday treats; and I wouldn’t change my mind in a thousand years: berries & cream tartlet treats bright up the darkest day.

RASPBERRY LIME DRIZZLE CAKE

The extremely engaging tale behind this week’s cake that I’m very unsurprisingly writing whilst falling asleep on my keyboard begins when you find yourself signing a lease for a flat an impressive amount of Overground stops away from where you’ve spent over seven hundred and thirty days of your existence.

Now it so happens that my occupation in the past couple of months has switched from that of full-time hermit to head of the wild puppy and trouble making department, which implies spending Saturday mornings staring at the empty space at local cafes that go under the name of Healthy Stuff, and filling yourself spherical with the aforementioned healthy stuff in an attempt to readjust brain functionality levels and regain a human appearance (and arguably sometimes failing).

Moving the other side of London sadly leaves me healthy stuff-less, and the vegan berry lime drizzle cake that has multiple times saved me from irreversibly turning into a zombie will be greatly missed.

So here’s my own version of it, if there’ll ever be a Saturday-morning-after-the-Friday-night when I’ll wake up all emotional for having run away from North East London; but also to salute the coolest little flat in the coolest former Victorian orphanage and a microwave and a sofa and three (three!) windows, and don’t hate you all, a heated Olympic-size swimming pool in the back garden, and a part of town that looks like an even better version of my dear Bushwick, just with the added bonus of an arcade bar and a much higher quantity per capita of plantain sellers; and to officially say, good night Dalston & good morning Peckham.

CRANACHAN - SCOTTISH DESSERT

Strolling along the Clyde and finding cheap warm jumpers and cheap everything and the Necropolis covered in snow and flowers and plants and funny currencies and techno clubs and seriously fishy birthdays and the best food you can possibly imagine, and you kind of forget that it’s minus eight degrees and that you could die at any moment slipping on the icy streets and you can’t really understand what anyone says (although you still want to hug them and never let them go), Glasgow you’re pure dead brilliant and I salute you with some very Scottish vegan Cranachan. 
You shall see me again.

BAKEWELL SANDWICH CAKE

I didn't mention last Sunday that I was having a bit of a hard time (read: sheer panic. Utter despair. Tears. Hopelessness. Ha) with my oven last week. My beloved old oven broke in a mysterious way and I got it replaced but this shiny new one is such a twat :D. Shall I mention carob brownie charcoal soup and six (SIX) batches of soggy muffins that found their home in the bin. Maybe not.

But you don't mess with birthday cakes. So magically, when the moment came to bake my colleague Matt's birthday cake, the monster behaved. And a Sunday-baking-session later, baby Bakewell cake was born, properly cooked and everything. Thank you, monster oven, for dismantling my self esteem no more.
And here it is. It's a Bakewell cake because it's kind of like a Bakewell tart except it's not a tart, it's a cake. Ehe. It's sweet and moist and nice and fluffy and you should totally make it for a very English birthday. Or a Japanese or a Peruvian one, the cake doesn't mind.
Aaaaand many moooreeee. 

RASPBERRY & PISTACHIO TART

My gluten-free adventures continue, how exciting.
So as not to murder my coeliac colleague, this time I made quite a yummy gluten-free vegan raspberry & pistachio tart. Not all of it made it to work (vegan gluten-free tart pregnancy), but hey, murder-free deliciousness, what more can you ask for.

RAW JAMMIE DODGERS

I'm quite sure vegans all over the UK are forever thankful to Burton's for making (accidentally?) vegan Jammie Dodgers. Several parties and social situations must have been saved from wreckage by that one packet of Jammie Dodgers that lies unattended amongst trays of cheese and shortbread or whatever it is that people eat at parties here. How would I know. Anyway now I'm bringing Jammie Dodgers to the next level. These are vegan but also raw and gluten free and there's no possible excuse not to eat them. Unless you're like allergic to deliciousness. In which case, it may be worth the pain. Let me know.

COCONUT PANNA COTTA

It is now in the public domain that I bought a blender. And if you didn’t know, now you do. I thought I would be blending away stuff all day long, but in fact I was quite intimidated by it at first. It might be because I am known for breaking stuff in very mysterious ways. However, after spending several moneys (!) on it, being stopped in the street by jealous passers-by on my way home from the blender shop (!?) and having received a giant parcel from my mamma full of nuts and dried fruit (which, I think you should know, also included a mouse kitchen timer) (awww), it’s only a matter of time before I fully master it. In this recipe, I take it easy on the blending, and, in fact, you don’t really need one, but I used mine anyway because did you know I got myself a blender. I also used my new mouse kitchen timer (awww). But anyway, this time I’m making vegan and gluten-free panna cotta using coconut milk, and I might lose Italian points if I say it, but this one’s better than the traditional one, serious. It’s so full of flavour and goes perfectly with the raspberry sauce, which I made using a blender. Because I got myself one. Ok enough. Try it it’s yummy.

RASPBERRY JAM CROSTATA

My mum saw my blog and told me off. She said that all cakes and cookies and treats here are very British and there’s no Italian recipes in sight. You could argue that my cardamom pudding recipe last week was adapted from an Italian cookbook, but truth is: I’ve never made a proper Italian cake. I have nothing against Italian sweets and desserts, I promise. BUT, most Italian cakes are quite simple (recipe- and flavour-wise), much less sugary, less buttery and gooey (and in most cases, significantly healthier) than their British counterpart. Actually, there’s no Italian word for muffin, cheesecake, brownie, nor cookie. Italian traditional biscuits are the drier kind (see biscotti & co.), and we don’t really do shortbread as such. So, even though I’ve always been best friends with stuff like pandoro and bomboloni and tiramisù, which are all but dry, low-sugar and healthy, I still found myself stuffing my face with huge amounts of muffins, brownies, cookies and all sorts of puddings as soon as I stepped into the UK, and that’s what I learned to bake.

But not today! Today I will be a militant Italian baker – I will show you the wonders of crostata. This tart is very quick and easy to make, full of flavour, super pretty and reasonably healthy. It’s also quite customisable as you can use whatever flavour of jam you prefer for the filling. Actually, crostata alla Nutella is a thing in Italy. Just saying.

Buon appetito!