The boys are off for their annual holiday this week without us. I am both excited (yes, for them, but also at the prospect of having time to paint the stairs, sleep in and, well, drink Aperol spritz and the like) and worried about missing them.
Failure can be a good thing. Take London for example. The first time I took a solo trip to London it was a disaster.
In 1999 I was a fresher at Liverpool University, studying for a degree in English Language & Literature. One day I bought a copy of Vogue. Now given I was a chunky size 14 this was ill advised. However this copy did feature a writing competition. Which I of course, being full of arrogant youthfulness, entered.
Months later I received a very proper looking embossed letter telling me I hadn’t won, but I was a runner up. How exciting! Imagine! A girl from Leicester, via Liverpool, being invited to London! All the L’s and all the exclamations. At this point I should have been happy in my triumph, left it there and declined. But I didn’t.
I bought a pashmina. Because that’s what I imagined women in London who were invited to Vogue House might wear. It was beige. I also bought a pair of pedal pushers in a kind of gold colour. They fit badly and made my already reasonable sized backside look gargantuan. I also wore a white loose fitting peasant style T shirt. And heels. A pair of heels that barely fit, were again beige, and hurt considerably. Oh and a beige handbag that didn’t fit much in. Not an umbrella for instance.
But wait! The horror wasn’t complete! I decided, the night before I caught the train to London, from my teenage bedroom in Leicester, to fake tan my whole body.
Reader, I don’t think I need to tell you how bad I looked. A beige monstrosity, streaked in orange. It rained in London, as it often does, and I, being a girl from up North, had no idea that carrying an umbrella in the heat of the capital’s summer might be a good idea. I arrived; wet, streaked, stressed and beige.
I managed to sit through the lunch, in a panelled board room, with Alexandra Shulman (Editor), Miranda Sawyer (Journo) and Nick Hornby (Author), the latter whose work I bought days before to swot up on.
Shulman and I didn’t speak. I imagine she was concerned the beige horror might be a contagious disease. Sawyer chatted kindly, though clearly not engaged in anything a 19 year old student might have to say. (I don’t blame her). Nick was lovely. So interested in everyone. A real gent.
I took the Midland Mainline back to Leicester on the to pick up my Fiat Panda, feeling London was so very unattainable to me. I had embarrassed myself and done a disservice to every girl from the Midlands trying desperately to reinvent herself.
Just 3 years later I moved to London, again, solo. And it was anything but a disaster. I loved it. And I never wore a beige pashmina again. Or gold pedal pushers. (The same can’t be said for my love affair with ‘Holiday Skin’ fake tan).
I made a lovely video with the Scoff folks to show how to make these very easy white chocolate mousse eggs. You can see the vid on my YouTube channel and also the Scoff one. You can watch it below too.
Lots of great recipes like this in my book, Recipes from a Normal Mum, out now… on Amazon, The Works, at Waterstones, WHSmith, The Book Depository and many smaller outlets.
One year ago: Florentine quiche and Flourless chocolate cake and Cadbury Creme Mini Egg chocolate flapjackand School fair rocky road
Two year ago: White chocolate & cranberry hot cross buns and Cadbury creme egg mess and Banoffee pecan mini pavs
Three years ago: Easter Apostles scone loaf and Carrot cake in a cup for Mother’s Day and Cranberry oaty biscuits
Four years ago: Mini chocolate birds nests and Puff pastry and Walnut bread
White chocolate mousse eggs with lemon curd yolks
Makes about 9 though depends on the size of your chocolate eggs
Ingredients:
For the curd:
For the mousse:
To finish:
NB: These hollow eggs must be kept in the fridge until serving. It is advised not to serve raw eggs to young children, pregnant women or the elderly.
Here’s an easy pudding for all the cooks out there thinking how on earth they can cater for the non Christmas pudding eaters without driving themselves round the bend with extra prep and work. Have a go at this and watch them weep into their mousse glasses.
One year ago: Mini Yorkshire pudding canapes and Christmas pudding fizz and Brandy butter icing and Rudolf morsels
Two years ago: Lime meringue pie with chocolate pastry and Christmas scones and Ginger cake with Christmas cottage and Hot chocolate on a stick
Three years ago: Moonuts and Cheese biscuits and Parsnip soup and Inauthentic chicken tagine
Malteaser malted mousse
Makes 8 portions
Ingredients:
Break the chocolate into pieces and melt in a bain marie or in the microwave in short bursts. Add the drinking powder and stir with a wooden spoon until well mixed. Set aside and allow to cool a little. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and set aside. Then whisk the double cream to soft peaks and set aside. Fold the cooled, melted chocolate into the whipped cream and gently fold the egg whites into the mixture. Spoon into glasses and cover with crushed Malteasers. Refrigerate for an hour or more before serving.
I am sitting here typing away on the sofa with bright red, just painted, glossy Chanel red finger nails. And a can of Carlsberg topped up with lime (lager and slime as we used to call it as teens) balancing precariously on top of a cook book by Aggie ‘How clean is your house?’ MacKenzie. From my pew I can see at least 3 spiders webs that have been woven in just 24 hours. I live with wildlife – the backdoor is mostly open so my spider pals like to be friends. The ridiculousness of this scene is not lost on me. My toenails are similarly adorned with crimson paint as I hear creatures like it.
The last time I painted both my finger and toenails was the night before I met my husband. So you could say things have been busy in the last 5 years. They have, they really have. I bounce from one drama/deadline/snotty child to the next. Anyway, this isn’t even what I wanted to write about. I wanted to say that I am enjoying the summer holidays. As in the ones that release my children from playschool and let me have them back from dawn till dusk every day of the week. But this is so unfashionable I barely dare type it. The red nails are spurring me on though.
What is fashionable in Mummy World (remember Children’s World – that dreadful shop where you could kit out your kids under one roof, from haircut to trainers? Imagine how wonderful Mum’s World would be – red wine, cats to stoke, bikini wax, eyebrow shaping, bras, gossip and therapy for shouting all under one roof. Heaven.) is to moan about the kids, wish them back at school/playschool and generally hate every moment of the summer hols.
Now before anyone gets upset and calls me smug, this is not about me having perfect kids who don’t try and poke each other with sticks or hit each other on the head with wooden trains. This isn’t even about me having a myriad of ideas to keep small people occupied, because by 4.30pm we’re all looking at each other in wonderment of how on earth we fill the last few hours of the day. It’s not about any of that. It’s just to say that I LOVE not having to abide by deadlines. So there’s no playschool opening time. There’s no pick up time. There’s no lunchboxes to fill. There’s no tennis lessons to arrive at and stand miserably watching a game I don’t understand. There’s no nothing – other than trips to places we like (the zoo, the local steam railway, the park, the local shops for spurious errands to buy unnecessary items) so basically we’re all pretty unstressed. Still there’s been time for some low level misery about the local zoo replacing the giraffes with camels. But then you can’t have it all. Summer holidays, they rock.
Now, this recipe. Hmmm. I have to be honest with you and say I didn’t love it. To be clear I made it for a vegan friend who was visiting as a substitute chocolate mousse. But just like when I serve my husband veggie meals, I went sniffing out the dairy produce. And it just wasn’t there. So I have remamed it chocolate pud. It’s very much a pudding and it’s very very rich. This amount made 4 servings but I could barely eat a third of mine and I have a ferocious appetite. I think it would make mighty fine truffles rolled in chopped nuts. Or very good vegan icing for a cake. Just serve the cake cold as the chocolate pud stuff starts to melt at room temperature. It’s funny old stuff.
One year ago: Clementine cake and Macadamia and white chocolate shortbread
Two years ago: Teacher’s pet chocolate and hazelnut oaty biscuits and Spelt loaf and Vanilla cupcakes
Three years ago: Restorative chicken and leek risotto
Rich vegan mousse/chocolate pudding (recipe from Vegan Magic)
Serves 4 – 8 depending on how much of the rich stuff you can take
Ingredients:
You need to start this the day before you need it. Put the tin of coconut milk in the fridge overnight. Then about 2 hours before you want your pudding pour boiling water over the dates (in a small bowl) and leave to soften for 30 minutes. In the meantime open the coconut milk and remove the hard cream into a measuring jug – you should have about 200g. The milk leftover can be added to curries, frozen for later or used in custard for a totally tropical taste.
Strain the dates then add them to the coconut cream. Use a hand blender to blitz the lot together until you can only just see flecks of the date skin. Then push this mixture through a fine sieve and discard any date skin leftover. Add the cocoa to the leftover datey coconut cream, mix well. Then blend for 2 minutes with the stick blender. Spoon into dishes and chill for at least an hour before serving. I think this might make nice ice-cream but haven’t tried it. If you do please let me know.
FYI: My vegan pal loved it. She took the rest of the portion she couldn’t eat home.
The first time I was pregnant, everyone knew within about 2 days of the positive test, and all because I ordered an orange juice. Let me explain.
Thanks to a combination of a very active social life and a decade spent almost entirely on a low carb diet, come 2008 I hadn’t willingly eaten fruit for some time. The grapes that maketh red wine not counting of course. So when I met for a friends birthday 2 days post the positive test I made the school girl error of ordering an orange juice. Fool. Every girlfriend at the table focused on the glass and a chorus of ‘you’re pregnant!’ followed.
So here is my advice to anyone trying to conceal a pregnancy.. Order sparkling water with ice and a slice masquerading as a G & T. Or.. just stay in. Safer.
And just as it is difficult for a former party girl to conceal abstinence from alcohol, this recipe is similarly difficult, mainly because of the number of stages. There’s the notoriously difficult Genoise sponge, a lightly whipped white chocolate mousse, a lemon sugar syrup and last but not least, a homemade macadamia praline crumb. The idea came to me after the people at Nivea asked me to create a recipe so difficult it might actually make people sweat; all for their Nivea Stress Protect Baking Challenge. So here she is, my stressful cake. Oh and don’t forget to keep the cake in the fridge as it contains raw eggs.
One year ago: Bake me not chocolate cake and Joyful banana, butterscotch and fig traybake
Two years ago: Light and sweet carrot cake and Rhubarb and ginger chutney
White chocolate, lemon and macadamia Genoise layer cake
Makes a huge cake fit to feed 12 or more
Ingredients:
For the cake:
For the mousse:
For the syrup:
For the macadamia praline:
Stage 1: Make the mousse.
Put the leaf gelatine into a bowl of cold water and leave to soften. Pop the white chocolate into a microwavable bowl and microwave in 30 second bursts until just molten. (Or melt in a bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water, being careful that the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl.) Stir until the chocolate is completely melted and smooth. Set aside, at room temperature, to cool slightly.
Whisk the egg whites (using a hand/stand mixer or a hand whisk) until firm peaks form and set aside. Place 50mls of the double cream in a small saucepan and warm a little on the hob, then take off the heat. Squeeze as much water as possible from the gelatine and stir into the warm cream until completely smooth. Set aside in the fridge to cool.
Whisk the rest of the double cream until stiff then whisk in the cooled white chocolate. Add the gelatine-cream mixture and whisk lightly until combined. Add a third of the egg whites and stir with a metal spoon to loosen the mixture. Then add the rest of the egg whites and fold in gently using a metal spoon until you can’t see any flecks of egg white left. Cover bowl and place in the fridge to set. Don’t worry if the mousse looks a bit grainy at this stage.
Stage 2: Make the Genoise sponge.
Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180C. Check the rack is in the middle of the oven. Grease two cake tins (I used 20cm ones but any will do, adjust the cooking time accordingly. The smaller the tin the shorter the bake) with a little butter and then line the bases and sides with greaseproof paper. Pulse the macadamia nuts, lemon zest and flour in a food processor and pulse until very finely ground.
Take a large saucepan, fill with boiling water and check your mixing bowl fits over the top of it without touching the water, then place the bowl over the top of the pan of water with the eggs and sugar in it. At this point, melt the butter in the microwave or on the hob and leave at room temperature to cool ready for later.
Whisk the eggs and sugar for about 5 minutes (handheld mixer of manual) until the mixture doubles in volume. Remove from the heat and continue to whisk vigorously until the egg mixture has cooled, tripled in volume, and looks like softly whipped cream. This takes about 5 minutes and the mixture should form trails like a ribbon when you lift the beaters/whisk up.
Sift one-third of the nut-flour mixture over the whipped eggs and fold in using a large rubber spatula. Repeat twice more until all the nut-flour mixture has been folded in. Do not over mix or you will deflate the batter.
Then take a scoop of the batter and fold it into the warm butter mixture with a spatula. When completely combined, fold the butter mixture back into the cake batter with a spatula. Pour the batter into the tins, only half way up. Bake until the cake shrinks slightly from the edges of the pan and the top springs back when lightly pressed. The time will depend on the size of your tins but with 20cm size it takes about 20 minutes. Cool on a metal rack, removing the cake tins and paper as soon as you can bear to touch them.
Stage 3: Make the lemon sugar syrup.
Put the ingredients into a small saucepan and place on the hob. Heat until bubbling and then boil for 1 minute. Remove from the heat and leave to cool at room temperature.
Stage 4: Make the praline.
Line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper. Place the sugar in a saucepan and place on a moderate heat until light brown in colour. Add the chopped nuts and swirl the pan until they’re covered in the sugar; don’t stir! Then pour onto the prepared baking tray and leave to set, this takes about 10 minutes. Smash into pieces once set using a rolling pin and then whiz up in the food processor until you have a fine crumb. (If no food processor then you can pop into a plastic bag and use a rolling pin to bash into fine pieces.)
Stage 5: Assemble the cake.
Cut the Genoise sponge into four separate layers using a serrated knife. Position one onto the cake stand/serving plate and secure to the bottom with a little mousse, then brush with sugar syrup and add about 1 heaped tablespoon of mousse and spread into a thin layer, then repeat until the last layer. Coat the whole cake in mousse using a palate knife starting by piling the mousse onto the top and working it down the sides of the cake. Add praline around the side and top of the cake using your hands.
Now sit down and congratulate yourself on not having resorted to alcohol to power you through making this cake.
Holly Bell 