OREO CRUMB CRÊPES

The time to celebrate comes when, never mind the death anniversaries, the sweetest blitzkriegs succeed against all allergies and odds and fluffy hair, and the longest week with a survival budget of four pounds and thirteen pence (may I have six tins of soup and a pack of biscuits please, and some self-respect) almost gets you wishing some real horrorshow like punishment upon fellow human beings, but then it doesn’t (because, rewards of basketball sized falafel), and when your longest-anticipated return to the self-proclaimed best travel destination of all time approaches slowly but surely on the back of a life-size mechanical elephant and you better have your emergency rice cakes ready.

The time to celebrate also comes when there’s warm vegan Oreo crêpes and biscuits and ice cream on a peaceful, lazy Saturday morning at the Orphanage, and you won’t even need to hold a penny in your hand and a pan in the other – you’ll know for sure it’ll be a great Crêpe Day this one.

FIFTEENS - NORTHERN IRISH FRIDGE CAKE

Like in my head the winter wind carries me along riversides and across bridges and lifts me up, in-between the tall shiny buildings of the City and I can almost touch them, and what’s left of good-Bye’s summons elusive ghosts on the icy streets, and bills and books and papers turn into trees and tombstones and a hill looking down on a Dear Green Place; in this same way, symphonies from the North fill rooms with warmth and tea-time treats for travel companions; and blue maps of far-away islands on a scaredy child’s bedroom wall make space for grown-up plans, and fluffy cakes; and quiet nights in this country, and another, let the sunrise in and salute it with hearty crêpes and cream and fruit for breakfast.

If I wake up one day and will have desisted living by dreams and day-dreams and songs and stories, I’ll give myself a slap on the wrist, and I would be crazy not to; and as for this town of smoke and trouble – I’m already there; and the most delicious marshmallowy treats is what I’ll give, this time, in return for so much.

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.

HJÓNABANDSSÆLA - ICELANDIC OAT & RHUBARB CAKE

I wonder what it is exactly with me and holidays and wedding-themed cakes when I’m more of a babies-on-spikes kind of person and getting married feels like something that only exists in a galaxy far far away; however, there has been lots of planning and mis-planning and hard-effing-working around this Land of Ice lately, and it turns out that its inhabitants have this amazing thing that goes under the name of Happy Marriage Cake (that and arctic foxes, and little horses), and never mind the weddings, I could be unhappier, and I do have my chums (!) providing for videos of monkey cats, lifts through foggy towns at night, cake appreciation, moral support during IT crises, moral support during life crises, and emergency holidays, and I tend to cherish irony, and choose to believe in blessings in disguise (however: this weekend only, as an exception), and also look forward to seeing what my life-rebuilding session today will bring, and I hope a selected few of my allies will stick around for it; so here’s my own real delicious vegan version of the Icelandic oat and rhubarb Happy Marriage Cake, and for your reference, I may or may not end up legally marrying the thing.

LEMON & CHAMOMILE CAKE

So this is the new year and in new years people have resolutions; and if people with resolutions had a baking blog they would write about them there, in something that I believe would be titled - '2016 - An Introduction', and it would be something very pragmatic and possibly involving detox diets or buying a house or life rebuilding, or something.
I will blame my lack of vitamin B(1)2 that, Wikipedia informs me, caters for paleness and neurological issues, and having watched one Rob Zombie film too many over the holidays, and chocolate overdoses, and being not invisible for once, or twice, and hamster cheeks; but I'm afraid I have no resolution. What I do have, is a recipe for a lemon & chamomile cake that is as oh so pretty & oh so nice as a hairdresser named Manuel from a posh town in Northern Italy; bless his heart; as well as this worrying feeling at the back of my head that this year is going to be an absolute duckin' mess just like its younger brother, and in fact all its siblings; but did I mention I have a recipe for cake; and that means that I may or may not be willing to spend a stupid amount of euros on a toothbrush or mindlessly start humming a song that goes, if a body catch a body comin' through the Rye If a body kiss a body, need a body cry on my way back to the Orphanage and book flights to actual Iceland this time and even glimpse several different futures ahead, in the distance, or find myself looking up and hoping for the best; because did I mention, lemon chamomile cake. I think I did, therefore, hi 2016, and Happy New Year everyone; everything will be fine.

PANETTONE - ITALIAN CHRISTMAS BREAD

It’s only normal that after the oddest-ever-odd succession of Journeys to the edge of nobody’s empire, with a soundtrack of techno music and songs from your childhood, Feverishness and advice and the most sudden fear of owls, Madness, sponsored by emotional charity gone wrong under the ever so watchful eye of the Shard, and followed by Absolutely fucking nothing (topped with golden syrup, and stomach ache), Missions to the future and back, Jam on toast, toilet floors, fallen soldiers, Jamborees, the fairest sun, orphanages, Amazing adventures (or an anachronistic version of them), Sinking ships and planes to outer space, Obliteration, and Nervous breakdowns that cater for symphonies, breakfast, books, bites and warmth; it’s only normal that you find yourself in a state of sleepy, puzzled accomplishment, and you half-wonder whether all this that you managed to more or less gracefully survive was one of those Dreams that make you talk in your sleep; and whether or not you see what happens next, be it because you may be a dormant little witch with a temperance problem, or because you’ve just been given the gift of the self-proclaimed wisdom of the ages (that and snus, plus recipe books, and camera gear), you feel like you really deserve that slice of vegan panettone that is the very last, proper delicious bake of an oddest-ever-odd year; and you hope that the wisdom of the cake will work its magic just as well; for yourself, for all the cake eaters that have been sitting with you at tea time, J through to D, and, most of all, for those who still feel a little bit peckish and won’t mind sticking around for another year.

ROCKY ROAD SALAMI

When it doesn’t really matter whether changing the past was ever a real thing, you’ve got to focus on this more or less expected time of year, which turns out to be all about juggling Pexmas parties and slow-cooked death and retarded cookies and tarots, present shopping and present giving and present receiving, cake receiving and coffee receiving, and sharing, photo boothing, hair cutting and more or less extensive hair dying (yet, no flamboyaging), mulled whining and vintage weighing and recipe improvising, for cake giving; and if you stopped for half a second and looked in the mirror between each ing (or, if you were to spend four hours at the hairdresser’s sat in front of one of said mirrors), you would be astounded to find you could well be a red-haired modern-day version of Anna Karerinina because you’re smiley like that (and only worryingly less photogenic); but then again, why would you stop for even half a second, when the cross that you bear is half as heavy as you run around pushed by the cold wind, and amazing ventures and adventures await, and there’s the new best Engl-alian cake setting in the fridge, ready to be shared like your own special version of gold or frankincense or myrrh, except it’s made of Italian chocolate and English tea biscuits and a bucketload of Canadian marshmallows because you’ve got to make the most of what you’ve got, to wake that winter sun at last.