A Sprinkle of Sequins

Easter Bunnies and Chocolate

                                    

I was a very happy girl (in fact i still am!) yesterday as i was given for Easter an egg which i have always wanted to try.  It's from Chouchoute, which is one of my favourite shops in Birmingham.  A beautiful, tiny shop in an arcade which is just full of exquisitely made chocolate.  I had hinted that i would love, love, just for this one year to try one of their Easter Egg's.  Then, i can happily report that my wish came true when i saw this bag in front of my eyes on Sunday morning...

                                                   

See sometimes wishes do come true...

It's Spring! - Easter Weekend

Wow, i've had a lovely few days...but it seems to have gone past so fast.  Work last Friday was ok.  Good Friday working always seems a shame in a way but then it feels quite like a holiday while you're working anyway, and being so spring-like i felt hugely motivated to spring clean, always a good thing in my book.  Then i had a weekend to have fun. 

Went to Chester, a lovely place in the North West of England.  I have been a few times in my life as my dad comes from Chester originally, and he supports the local football team which results in quite a few trips up there for him during the year, but i haven't visited for about 8, maybe 10 years.  I had forgotten just how lovely a place it is.  It is most famed for its two mile ring of medieval and Roman walls, which unfortunately we didn't get time to go round this visit.  Inevitably for 2 girls going round together, me and my friend S, got sucked into the shops...and boy do they have some great shops there!  Spent a few hours ambling around The Rows, which are probably the other thing which Chester is most famous for.  They are as the Rough Guide to England says "Unique galleried arcades running on top of the ground-floor shops", and a very beautiful thing they are too. 

I got very excited when we passed by a busker in the street who i thought was making a really lovely sound, and then i realised that i knew that distinctive sound.  About 10 years ago when i was still at school i started to take yoga classes, and while there the teacher frequently played a piece of music by someone called Ed Alleyne-Johnson.  I fell in love with it and subsequently fell in love with the album Purple Electric Violin Concerto Volume 1 after i purchased it, but to cut a long story short, the person i heard playing in Chester was him!  He has a new cd out Echoes, and was promoting that, but i strongly recommend the Purple Electric... for some great atmospheric music.

After that we went for some afternoon tea at one of Chester's most exclusive hotel's The Chester Grosvenor.  It was a truly decadent experience which we English love to indulge in occasionally.  Beautiful silverware and cutlery, very fine tea and then scones with jam and clotted cream.  Perfect for a spring afternoon watching people go by.

Then a mad dash back to Birmingham to go to the theatre with a couple of friends.  We went off to see Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party at the The Birmingham Rep.  Had a great meal there and the play was certainly interesting, not as depressing as i had been warned about!  Then we went out for drinks after, which certainly made for a great evening.  I love weekend's when they're spent like this...

IMBB #13 - My Little Cupcake!

The glory of cupcakes...I was excited when it was announced by Maki that the theme for this month's Is My Blog Burning, was to be cupcakes or muffins.  Now, i don't profess to be a master baker or anything, but i do like a playful bit of baking in my kitchen and so this theme had me tickled pink!

Whenever i'm baking i always feel a little more contented than usual, it makes me feel serene and happy to be home.  Baking is also a temporary respite from the mundaness of everyday life, you know the kind of feeling you get in the middle of winter when the day's just seem to be going on and on and then...i'm baking and the scent  and waft of wondeful things happening in my oven help me to rise above the glum and dark day.

So for this theme i decided to go with a couple of different cupcakes that relate to my recent and younger times of life.  The first cupcake i offer has become a firm favourite over the last few years and i make it often.  Taken from Nigella Lawson's wonderful, wonderful book How to Be a Domestic Goddess, the recipe is "Carrot Cupcakes with Cream-Cheese Icing", and i think it is my idea of cupcake heaven.  Nigella suggests they go down particularly well after fish, but i think they go especially perfectly with a nice steaming hot cup of tea.

Carrot Cupcakes with Cream-Cheese Icing

Makes 12 cupcakes, using a 12 bun muffin tin, lined with muffin cases

For the Cupcakes:

100g light muscovado sugar

175ml sunflower oil

2 large eggs

225g plain flour

3/4 teaspoon bicarb of soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch of salt

zest of 1/2 lemon and 1/2 orange

150g carrots, grated

100g walnuts, chopped

For the icing:

125g cream or curd cheese

250g icing sugar, sieved

1-2 teaspoons lime juice

12 walnut halves

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C/gas mark 6.

Beat the sugar and oil together, then add the eggs one at a time.  Add the flour, bicarb, cinnamon, salt and zests, then fold in the grated carrot and walnuts.  Spoon the mixture evenly into the muffin cases, and bake for 20 minutes.  Cool on a rack and you can then start the icing.

Beat the cream cheese in a bowl until it is smooth and somewhat softened, and then beat in the icing sugar.  Squeeze in lime juice to your taste.

When the cupcakes are cool, just smear the icing on top and pop a walnut half in the centre of each iced cupcake. 

Now that i've introduced you to my adult choice of cupcake, it is now time to let you into my favourite cupcake of the past.  The second part of this "Tale of Two Cupcakes" is one of the very first recipes i remember making as a child, and that is "Butterfly Cakes".  I have very fond memories of making these gorgeous, pretty cakes with my mum when i was little and all the fun i used to have licking the spoon, and ok the bowl as well sometimes!  So today, as a dedication to my wonderful mum i thought i would make these little gems...

How perfectly they turned out, just like i remembered.  Wonderfully  light sponge and and then the yummy buttercream, and then there was the fun part of adorning the cake with wings and then decorating the middle of the wings...this was pretty baking of the highest order, and they tasted good too!  All in all a fun afternoon of baking was had and of course there were lots of appreciative tummies afterwards too..

Sugar High Friday #6 - Caramel - Sticky Date Pudding with Caramel Sauce

I've made it just in time!  Didn't think i would, but i was determined to take part in my first SHF, so i pulled my finger out and got on with something this evening and i now feel like a total pig!  Caramel was such a great choice, so thank you Debbie at Words to Eat By for such a fabulous topic to cook by.  But i'm afraid, no, what am i talking about!,  i'm not actually afraid because i enjoyed it so much, but my entry was a full on stodgy one!  I took a vote with my colleagues at work and they all ooohed and aaahed over this one and said it had to be.  This is even though it was a beautiful weather day here in the UK and in no way was it a night for eating calorific, winter stodge...but hey, sometimes a girl just has to get on with it...

My entry is taken from The Essential Dessert Cookbook, which is a lovely huge tome of a recipe book just filled with sweet thing after sweet thing, it's enough to make you want to jump for joy at the greatness of dessert...Highly recommended.

Sticky Date Pudding with Caramel Sauce

Serves 6-8 people

370g pitted dates

1 1/2 teaspoons bicarb of soda

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

90g unsalted butter

250g caster sugar

3 eggs

185g self raising flour

1/2 teaspoon mixed spice

creme fraiche, for serving

Caramel Sauce

150g unsalted butter

230g soft brown sugar

80ml golden syrup

185ml cream

1. Preheat the oven to about 180 deg C.  Grease and line the base of a deep 23cm (9 in) diameter cake tin.  Chop the dates and put them in a pan with 440 ml of water.  Bring this to the boil, then remove from the heat, add the bicarb of soda and ginger and leave to stand for 5 minutes.
2. Cream together the butter, sugar and 1 egg.  Beat in the remaining eggs one at a time.  Fold in the sifted flour and spice, add the date mixture and stir well until well combined.  Pour into the tin and bake for 55-60 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle.  Cover with foil if overbrowning during cooking.  Leave to stand for 5 minutes before turning out onto a serving plate.
3. To make the caramel sauce, stir all the ingredients in a pan over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved.  Simmer, uncovered, for about 3 minutes, or until thickened slightly.  Brush some sauce over the top and sides of the pudding until well-glazed.  Serve immediately with the sauce and a dollop of creme fraiche.

    We thought it turned out wonderfully.  The pudding itself was a very nice texture thanks to the lovely dates and it smelt gorgeously aromatic.  The caramel actually turned out pretty well too, and look at the photo, we had tons of it to enjoy and slather onto the pudding, always a bonus i think!

Fingers crossed i think this has turned out ok for a first time effort.  If you've got any comments for me i would love to have some feedback either on the recipe or how i have written about it (not totally sure on the protocol of these things, have i noted the weights and measurements in the right way, have i forgotten to include anything of importance).  Anyway, hope you enjoy this recipe, give it a go on a cold and rainy night when you need something to provide sustenance and food satisfaction.

The basics...

Tonight i thought i would post just quickly to introduce you to my beloved bookshelves....i know you're thinking, why?  But i have to tell you that i'm very attached to my books and therefore the shelves are in with it too.  I have books everywhere, and i do mean everywhere...Absolutely anywhere in the house where i can find a bit of floor or space, bam, a book can go there.  Now i'm usually ok doing this for most books, they make it into the house, but there is one type of book which gets me into BIG trouble...ladies and gentlemen, it is the specimen known as 'the cookery book'.

I do have an absolute soft spot for cookery books, my knees weaken and my mind starts to sing every time i spot a beautiful new cookery book to peruse.  This i'm afraid is an occupational hazard of being in the bookselling business.  New books come in all the time and therefore new objects of lust appear for me.  This weeks book is called The New English Kitchen by Rose Prince, which to me just from the way it looks is food book heaven.  Read Nigel Slater reviewing the book here.  It reminds me (in a purely beautiful and aesthetic way) of a book which came out a few years ago now called Thai Food by David Thompson, which just had the most glamourous cover i think, all pink and gorgeous, most definitely a lust object!

For me a cookery book is a basic of how i cook and what i cook.  I loathe the fact that i am one of those cooks who cannot survive without a cookery book or recipe, but boy do i love just having the books around.  I have to have a cookery book with me to keep me focused, to reassure me, to give guidance.  I am not, and doubt whether i ever will be one of those cooks who can produce something off the top of their heads and be wildly experimental, i just have to have my trusty little friend there with me.

These two pictures are just a bit of an introduction to my plentiful and varied selection of food and drink books, many of which i will be cooking from and mentioning more in future posts.  You never know, that new lust object might even have made it's way into the collection next time i take some pic's of my treasures!

So if you drop by do let me know about your cookery book collection and any new finds or lustable books you have seen.  Would love to hear all about them.

And so it begins...

Definition

sprinkle  verb
to scatter a few bits or drops of something over a surface

sequin   noun
a small shiny metal or plastic disc sewn onto clothes for decoration

So, this is my very first post, on my very first weblog.  I am excited but full of nerves as well.  Before i even get started i have to explain that i will make spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, knowledge mistakes and heck, just plain life mistakes but i want to give this a go and i hope eventually once i get the hang of things it will become a regular thing for me.  I have been reading lots of blogs for quite a while now and, you know how it is, every time i read a good post on these blogs i would nag myself to start one of my own.  Et voila....now i have!  So if i can write and design a blog anything like these - Seattle Bon Vivant, Chocolate and Zucchini, 101 cookbooks.com or Nicole at Browneye then i shall be one majorly dippy, chuffed girl.

Introductions i suppose are the order of the day i think.  I'm Nicola, Nicki, Nikita, Nadaja or Nix, and i answer in general to all of those names at different times.  I'm 28 years old and i'm quite a small town, low key girl in some ways.  I live in the place where i was born, that is a lovely little village near Birmingham in the UK.  I work in a bookshop and have to admit to loving my job.  I feel like i landed in the lucky bit of life i suppose, as most of the time I'm quite happy with my life and how things are going so far.  So other than books, other things that make life great and a reason for happiness are music, friends, photography, as well as food and cooking. 

So this blog hopefully will give me an opportunity to write about some of the things i love, as well as just provide me with somewhere to vent, rejoice, relive and enthuse about life in general.

If you come across me then let me know what you think, and thanks for your time.