You know the scene in Alan Partridge where he talks about his Toblerone addiction and driving to Dundee in his bare feet?
That is the inspiration for this blog post. The Dee chocolate problem.
This problem is a strand that snakes through my family tree, skipping some and engulfing others, which is why certain members of my ancestry have a chocolate drawer, a cupboard, a shoebox and why certain family members will drive to a garage at 2am for an M and S chocolate mousse or some 3 for 2 Cadburys. In a truly bizarre coincidence (yeah right) this strand in my family tree is also the strand that suffers severe mouth ulcers.
To put it simply, I don’t trust people who say they don’t have a sweet tooth… I think they’re lying.
A woman at a restaurant I used to work at once took a piece of brown bread from me saying
‘oh go on then…I’ll be naughty’
…. and inside…silently… I celebrated my life choice.
BUT HAVE YOU SEEN THE WEATHER? Even the most dedicated chocolate obsessed baker would struggle today. I was given a welcome break from my dissertation in the form of Mary Berry’s ‘Simple Cakes’….thank you Mum. Today was the kind of Cotswold day where the air looks dusty with pollen and I play Johnny Cash over and over so I can pretend I’m a 50’s Southern American country singer too…..(sidetrack….another dream). Chocolate was not on the cards. So I went retro to the Grandmother of English Baking, Mary Lovely Berry. Feeling Lemony and Gingery I tried the Ginger and Treacle Spiced Traybake and had a go at reinventing the lemon cake.
(Ginger and Treacle Spiced Traybake recipe here: http://100cookbooks.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/ginger-and-treacle-spiced-traybake-mary-berry-baking-bible/)
Livi’ Super Easy Lemon Cake with Ginger
6oz caster sugar
6oz butter
3 eggs
6oz plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
grated rind of two lemons (unwaxed)
200g icing sugar
lemon juice
powdered ginger
Cream the butter and sugar by hand or in a food processor, then add the eggs one at a time. Blend in the flour and baking powder. Pour into a square sponge tin. Bake at gas mark 4/5 until a knife plunged into the centre comes out clean.
Mix lemon juice with enough icing sugar to make a opaque white paste and cover the cooled cake.
Mix water and icing sugar to make another opaque paste, and add ginger to taste- either ginger syrup or powder works. Drizzle this is crazy zigzags over the top.
Decorate with stalks of lavender (for summery colours)
This lemony spicy cake is a sure fire cure for a cold or hayfever…………………………………………probably.
Stay Unchained ❤
Unchained Baking 