Watermelon Slush

I have two favourite things to eat when I'm sitting beside a pool in a hot climate (which is rare, sadly) and those are: watermelon and slush. A few weeks ago we got a heatwave in Glasgow - which was excellent when I wasn't in work. All I cold think about was watermelon and slush and so I decided to combine them to make a delicious summer drink. The best part is that you're eating fruit and also having a sweet treat (good news all round).

I'd actually forgotten I'd made it until I came across a photo on my phone, and so I thought I'd post it here. In this version I didn't add mint, but I have before and it was pretty nice, so if that's what you want to do I'd add 1-2 leaves per serving. Using my small smoothie blender I make this recipe one serving at a time, but if you have a bigger, more powerful blender then you'll probably be able to make a few at once.

(Serves 2)

INGREDIENTS
1 small watermelon, cut into chunks
1-2 cups of ice
juice of 1 lime

DIRECTIONS
1. Add watermelon and a splash of water to blender and blend until it has formed a thick juice.
2. Add the lime juice - I add 1 lime but this really is to taste.
3. Gradually put the ice into the blender until you have a thick and slushy consistency - again this is to taste as I like mine quite slushy but this is really up to you.

Serve in a glass with a straw, and pretend that you're on holiday and you don't have to do the dishes.

Hope you enjoy!
Zoe

Carrot and Walnut Cake

Last year I set myself the task of finding the ultimate carrot cake - and I am very pleased to report that I have now found it. The cake that inspired me to find a new recipe was from the Cottonrake Bakery in Glasgow which - in my opinion - has the best carrot cake ever. It's dark brown in colour - which gives it almost a caramel quality to it, contains walnuts (always a plus), its never too dry, and the cream cheese icing isn't overly sweet and has a slight tang to it. Eating it transformed carrot cake for me and turned it into one of my favourite types of cake. In fact, I received an entire one for my 21st birthday earlier in the year and I'm (almost) embarrassed at the amount of it I ate by myself... It really is fantastic and if you're ever in Glasgow then I insist that you go and try for yourself. This recipe however is the closest thing that I've found to Cottonrake's.

the wonderful cake at Cottonrake

I have to say, I felt very proud when I served this cake to my family - it was exactly what I wanted it to be and it has now become my staple carrot cake. It also got rave reviews from my family - in particular my mum who said it was best carrot cake she'd ever had (I know she's my mum and so she may be a tad biased BUT she's also very honest so theres that!). So I hope this works for you, because I am over the moon that I came across this recipe.

My version of the recipe is adapted from The Brick Kitchen's Favourite Carrot Cake - I am very grateful that you posted this.

INGREDIENTS

For the cake:

200g plain flour
1 ½ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 eggs
170g caster sugar
170g dark brown sugar
275ml vegetable oil
150g grated carrot
100g walnuts, roughly chopped
70g crushed pineapple (weight after remaining liquid removed)

For the icing:

125g cream cheese
125g mascarpone
35g icing sugar
zest of 1 orange

DIRECTIONS

Cake
1. Preheat oven to 170°C/150°C fan and line a cake tin.
2.Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and spices.
3. Add the remaining ingredients and mix for one minute on a slow speed, scrape the sides and then mix for a further 3 minutes. (I used a standing mixer for this, so you may want to mix for longer if you're using a handheld mixer. Just make sure that it's all well incorporated.)
4. Pour into the lined tin and bake for 1 hour and a half.

Finish
5. Allow the cake to cool - this will take a while as it is a big cake, I would allow 2 hours or so. When I did it I was very impatient and put it in the fridge, then iced it when it was still slightly warm BUT it tasted good anyway.
6. For the icing - simply whisk all of the ingredients together until you have a smooth icing. I think it's sweet enough, but feel free to add more sugar if you think it needs it, it will only make it slightly thicker.
7. To ice, I just add the icing to the top, smooth it out and dust on some cinnamon to serve.

I hope you enjoy, let me know if you do.

Zoe

ps. apologies for the bad iPhone photos - but needs must!

On Hold...

Not so surprisingly, life got very busy and this blog got forgotten about. I won't offer any excuses, I just didn't make time for it. Now, I'm in Stockholm for a semester, and so I won't really be able to bake at all as the kitchen here isn't the best size and paying for new equipment seems like a waste of money? But things may change, who knows!

The baking in Stockholm is incredible however, and so to make up for the fact that this will not have any baked by me content for so long I thought I'd blog my search for the best cinnamon roll (or 'kanelbulle'). I got here just over a month ago and have consumed quite a few of these delicious cinnamony pastries (more than I care to admit...) and I figure I may as well figure out where I can get the best one?

Adjö!

Zoe

I have a fear of my own kitchen

This is the first post that I have written in a ridiculous amount of time... In all honesty the only reason why is because I've not actually been doing any baking to blog about. Oddly, baking is something I do when I'm stressed, and yet these past few months have been filled with more stress than I could have ever imagined, and no baking has been done. There are definitely a few reasons why this is the case, and these reasons (excuses) are as follows:

1. I can't really afford to bake the nice stuff as I am a lowly, poor student.
2. My kitchen isn't the best. There isn't much space and I only have one mixing bowl, so the whole process can be slow.
3. I have a gas oven. I hate the gas oven.
4. The first thing I tried to bake living here went so horribly wrong that I actually wanted to cry.

All of these are weak reasons I am well aware, however yesterday I had a big spring clean and a new fridge is on the way and I think I feel ready to tackle my fear of that kitchen...

And so here we go again. Hopefully it will be more successful this time. I do miss cake an awful lot...

Updates and Excuses

Er so once again I have managed to abandon this project... only this time it's only been about 6 or so weeks so it's not the worst ever I suppose? The funny thing is that one of the last posts is how I was going to closely align my baking with the bake off, but then everything go ridiculously busy and I just didn't have the time.

The main thing that kept me busy was finding a flat, which I eventually did and it has a great kitchen bearing in mind that I'm a student so that is wonderful. The other perks are all of the wonderful cafes all around me, in particularly the bakery just up the road - so dangerous for my purse and my health, but great for inspiration which I am all for.

I was also away on holiday. I met my friend in Rovinj in Croatia and we spent a week there and then had a stop over in Olso in Norway (Scandinavia is the dream) which was fun, and I ate lots of cake and dessert so that made me want to get back into baking again (which hopefully I can again now).

That's not to say that I haven't been baking, as I've baked a lot but the camera that they are on is at home.... oops!

Anyway, thats me just about back at uni, and therefore back into a routine soon and hopefully that means posting again, and more people to test my bakes on which is always a bonus!

Zoe

One Step Espresso Ice Cream

This is my absolute go-to recipe when it comes to an easy ice cream. I've been using this recipe for over a year, long before I got an ice cream maker, and every time (even when I make slight errors) it seems to work. Although I do enjoy making ice cream with a custard etc, this is the only espresso ice cream I've ever attempted.

My parents are definite coffee lovers, and so this doesn't seem to stick around long in our house. I had mine with brownie crumbs as there was some in the tin from when I made brownies this week - but you can eat it however you want. The recipe comes from Nigella Lawson - and she eats hers in brioche buns which sounds good, but I'm yet to try. I think I might put it in a blender and add milk to make an iced coffee, but we'll see.

I've actually doubled the recipe here as I had a 600ml tub of cream and knew the other 300 would end up going to waste, the original recipe yields around 1 pint, so I am assuming this makes 2 pints? I've also used coffee that's a little too grainy here - I'd usually make it a bit finer but I was being lazy (as per) and so I didn't bother. I don't mind, I quite like how speckled it is but it's up to yourself how you have it.

The original recipe is from here.

INGREDIENTS:

600ml of double cream
350g of condensed milk
4 tablespoons of espresso powder (as fine as you can find)
4 tablespoons of coffee liqueur (I used Tia Maria this time, but whatever you have)

DIRECTIONS:

STEP 1: Place all of the ingredients into a large bowl and whisk until still peaks form, then transfer into a freezable container and freeze for a minimum of 6 hours.

It's almost embarrassing how easy it is??

Setting GBBO Goals

As everyone knows, today is the much-anticipated return of the Great British Bake Off. I am very excited (who isn’t) and in anticipation I have been going through my Grandma’s old recipe books writing down my favourite ones, all whilst browsing the Lakeland website (obviously). The Bake Off is something that I usually watch with my mum (it’s our thing yo) but this week I’m with my grandparents so I’ll be watching without her (sob). Anyway, we’ll see how it goes but I might post about it later. Or maybe I’ll just tweet. Chances are I’ll just tweet actually. You can see my real time reactions (so insightful I’m sure) on my twitter here.

Last year I actually planned to blog through the GBBO but moving to uni got in the way, and so this year I’ll (hopefully) complete a series of blog posts. In these posts I will bake following the GBBO. So, I’ll make my own version of the signature dish, attempt the blind bake (although –luckily- with more instructions), and do my own showstopper (although this will definitely be a downsized version). I’m not sure what day these will be posted, most likely on Sunday’s but we’ll see how it goes. I do like a challenge in baking, and so maybe this will help my skills?? So yes, it will have a name soon as I only have 15 minutes to get my GBBO snack on.

I don’t think anyone is reading this yet (much like most of the time I am speaking to myself ha) but I’m quite interested myself to see what the results will be!

Zoe