Yearly Archives: 2010

A London Heron and others

The grey heron is a familiar site in London and indeed in Bristol where I live now. This one was fishing at Chiswick House last month. They roost high in the trees and make large nests in colonies, though when they are full grown they are quite solitary. They are reknowned for emptying ornamental ponds of fish, but I think they are extraordinary looking birds, I love to see them fly ponderously across the skies, reminding me that birds are directly descended from dinosaurs.

and here is a resourceful coot, recycling rubbish, on the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens…

Here is Zeb’s sworn enemy – the urban fox cruising the back lane that runs up behind our house and peeking through the trellis from a few years back. The tags are courtesy of Bristol University which has a long running urban fox study going back years. Some of the foxes have radio collars on as well.

What wildlife do you have in your local towns and cities? I’d love to hear from you!

Stone Fruit Yoghurt Cake with Plums

: Lets hear it for the plums! Yay!

I haven’t made a cake for a while now but at the weekend I made a version of Dan Lepard’s stone fruit yoghurt cake from the Guardian recipes this time last year. I know Caroline makes this cake a lot – see her lovely summer version of this cake here. I had some dark skinned plums that hadn’t made it into the latest batch of plum preserves, and a little pot of mahlab, (obscure ingredient of desire sourced here) duck eggs which are great for cakes, and some yoghurt made with double cream (whistles and looks the other way).

I want to put it on record, that I’ve decided that I can make cake with pieces of fresh fruit in after all. The last time I attempted to make a cake with fresh fruit it went very wrong, have a look here:-

what can I say?

Using this recipe it came out like this:

: Just out of the oven

Once it was cooked, we left it to cool for a bit and then turned it out. With great restraint left it to cool and then ate it with some more of the supersonic yoghurt. Yum. I really recommend treating yourself to double cream yoghurt once in a while. It comes out like a cross between clotted cream and creme fraiche. I might put some it in some scones next.

: Oh Yes ! It’s looking good !

This cake made 8 glorious slices:

We had two test pieces the day it was made, and a further two pieces on Sunday afternoon for tea in the great outdoors, having burnt a few calories rambling in some fantastic woods in Gloucestershire.

Another two pieces were warmed up in the oven and then forgotten, thus evolving into an all together different sort of cake with a gorgeous crusty caramelised exterior which we had on Monday night; and the final two pieces a few nights ago with some extra cooked plums (microwaved with vanilla and cinnamon and a little sugar) and a little more cream yoghurt. School puddings were never like this….

: Ah memories!

Now it’s all gone.

To make divinely decadent yoghurt, or maybe what I made was creme fraiche? you take 200 grams of double cream, heat it gently till it just comes near the boil, allow to cool down, add two teaspoons of yoghurt and mix in and then leave to culture as you would any yoghurt you make at home. A perfect way to use up transform elderly cream that you forgot about in the fridge.

Soft butter rolls and (rye sourdough with walnuts)

Egg glazed high baked rolls

Here we go with two of the September breads for Mellow Bakers, who are baking their way through Bread by Jeffrey Hamelman in an easy going and take our time sort of way. Join in, bake a couple of breads with us, bake loads, it’s all good fun!

I baked these rolls a little hot, hence the colour, and they were very petite in scale. The dough took forever to prove, no idea why and I wasn’t very optimistic, but I managed to make them. Didn’t read the bit about putting them close together, if I had done that they would have risen like batch rolls and then the sides would have been soft.

I only made a half batch which was plenty for us and we had them for lunch with some good Ardennes paté. You can taste the egg and the butter in them, a little like a poor cousin of a brioche, perfectly nice as a side roll goes. I would say make sure you use good quality butter if you make these as it will show if you don’t.

Good with some chunky paté

They reminded me of meals in old fashioned restaurants with my grandparents, with stiff white linen tablecloths and dusty wineglasses; the waiters would ceremoniously bring you a teeny tiny roll, which you would try to eat slowly, and always ate really fast because you got bored waiting for the food to show up…. Some of the other Mellows said they weren’t too keen, we thought they were fine, they are what they are that’s all.

♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣

I could lie a bit at this point and post a picture of the rye sourdough with walnuts, but the fact is you can’t smell pictures. The rye sourdough with walnuts was not a success. I thought I would be adventurous and added some walnut oil to the dough. Unfortunately I didn’t smell the oil before I tipped it in and it had gone stale and the smell of the bread when I had baked and cut it was so bad I had to throw it away. (weeps bitter tears….) There is a moral in that somewhere…. I might make it again one day but not just yet.

To see what the bread should have looked like have a peek here at Natashya‘s lovely take on this or Andrea‘s light and open loaf and maybe visit Mellow Bakers here to see what the others come up with this month.

But to cheer you up after that sad news here is a picture of Zeb instead!