Cake. Just give me cake. I'm not all that fussy. Just something moist and flavoursome. Ideally a nice rich coffee cake with lashings of cream and coffee flavoured cream and icing. But the legs can't hold much more saturated fat right now, so we've held off on that craving. But any other cake, baked good morsel, pie or biscuitey concoction will do nicely. I eye off cooking blogs, devouring new cake and baking offerings. And those enjoying summer have been teasing me the last few months with your tales of berry picking and pie making. My adventures with the oven recently have been well documented here - mainly the fact I keep burning myself, and as such have been rather reluctant to put myself forward for further burnt offerings. It only seems to occur when baking cakes too....(Alex, I am forever grateful for your oven mitt) And then there's the fact the oven seems to have developed a life of it's own, and will cook the outside to a crisp while the insides languish in gooey mush. It may have something to do with the door dropping slightly and heat not circulating properly. Or something. So to pick up a recipe and decide, yes, I will make this, and actually waddle to various delis across neighbouring areas to find specific ingredients for said cake (the chestnut flour), is a bit of a milestone. And despite the oven being temperamental, the cake turned out beautifully. It's a Chestnut Flour, Raisin and Rosemary Cake, and although the ingredients aren't typical cake ingredients, they really pull it off together. The cake is moist and flavoursome, and sugary in that molten brown sugar kind of way. And it tastes excellent with thick, fresh King Island Cream. Stephanie gives a brilliant run down on the cakes' origins, and the rest of her blog is worth reading for the wonderful food insights she has (she speaks from immense experience).
Now I'm thinking of pancakes............
yum!
Posted by: sarah | August 28, 2006 at 05:14 PM
Hmmm, you're right. It does look good. And with the king island double cream. That can make anything taste good. Pancakes? That's easy. Greens shake and make. Never fails. Taste great. Just go the original flavour, don't mess with the maple syrup flavour. It's just all wrong.
Posted by: Jo | August 28, 2006 at 06:00 PM
god, that looks so good, it's just wrong. thanks for taunting all of us!
Posted by: leslie | August 28, 2006 at 07:31 PM
Um I baked a hummingbird cake yesterday (complete with two of the most ridiculously expensive bananas known to humankind). I'll save you a piece if you like.
Posted by: Bianca | August 28, 2006 at 11:00 PM
oh!
i want
some!!!
Posted by: bugheart | August 28, 2006 at 11:27 PM
Oh, Alison, what a mouthwatering entry. Chestnuts and Rosemary... never heard about this combination. But you got me, I want to bake. If only it were not so hot and humid and paralyzing here in Japan!
PS: I seem to reach the end of the month being online... despite the many visitors you (and Jan od Be*mused have sent to me on the same day ;-)
Posted by: Alex | August 29, 2006 at 01:55 PM
http://www.castoncastoff.co.uk/blog/2006/02/28/111/ Pancakes, pancakes! Enjoy.
Posted by: Kirsty | August 30, 2006 at 06:20 AM
That is honestly one of the best pictures I have seen on a blog lately. It looks so earthy and tasty. Perfect.
Posted by: Niki | August 30, 2006 at 11:07 AM
have you tried Nigella's chocolate pav? and ditto to Niki, that is a great picture!
Posted by: Miss Dot | August 30, 2006 at 11:15 PM
I have one here, if you're interested...
http://poppalina.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/08/almond_honey_ca.html
Posted by: Shula | September 04, 2006 at 08:30 PM