Cool Brittania, part 2

by Karolina, 15th June 2012

This is the last post from my Diamond Jubilee inspired posts. I can't promise thought that it's the last of Britain and British  in here :) 
Today... tea cake :) Literally a tea cake...

Recipe for this cake is from Moje Wypieki blog with small changes (see my notes)

Lady Grey tea cake

Ingredients:

• 200 g flour
• 50 g potato flour (note: you can use maizena or cornflour instead)
• 150 g caster sugar
• 130 g butter or margarine
• 4 eggs
• 4 tbs milk (note: I usually need more0
• 2 ts baking powder
• 1 ts vanilla extract
• 3 ts dry Lady Grey team - about 2 tea (I usually use 2 teabags of Earl Grey)

* note: cake on the pictures is made from 2/3 of the above ingredients. I made smaller version (ran out of eggs :))

Method:

• Beat butter/margarine until fluffy. Add sugar and keep mixing. Add eggs - one by one while mixing
• Flours sift together with baking powder and mix in tea. 
• Add to butter mix alternating with milk, while mixing. Add vanilla extract and mix.
• Butter bundt cake form  and fill 3/4 with the cake
• Bake around 30-40 minutes in 190º (first 15 minutes in temperature 160ºC).
•  Take out, cool and Enjoy :)

I really like this cake as it's not too sweet, moist but not heavy. And best of all - nobody can guess what's the secret ingredient :) I had once professional chef asking me what was inside - because he couldn't put his finger on this specific taste.

To make this cake little more dressed up for the occasion I added Union Jack bunting.

This bunting took me less than 10 minutes to make. I printed some Union Jack pattern, cut triangles from it. Glued triangles to get double-sided bunting :)  Then glued triangles together and to the wooden skewers. Ta-da! :)

So I leave you with this lovely tea cake and (with the special dedication to all my British friends) - Land of Hope and Glory from last year's Proms.

Enjoy!

Cool Britannia, part1

by Karolina, 9th June 2012

The Diamond Jubilee celebrations have ended in Great Britain. But I wanted to show you a few more details from my British party.



Apart of my flag cake (which you can see in my previous post), I prepared a few more sweet British delights :)

Of course, my party couldn't go without scones - typically British cookies served for tea with clotted cream and strawberry jam. Unfortunately , living in the county which is not familiar with clotted cream, I had to swap it for whipped cream (which worked quite fine as well).

I used this recipe from BBC Good Food website for the quick scones. It worked out quite well.

And here's how my scones looked like straight from the oven. I had to try it - standard quality check  :)

They're the best straight from the oven, so don't bake them too much in advance.

I think they're brilliant for  breakfast, brunch and tea time. Not too sweet but sweet enough for little "yummy" effect :)

Give it a try- old British treat might surprise you!

St George's Day

by Karolina, 23rd April 2012

It's St George's Day today,celebrated by several countries including England where St George is the patron saint. You must not mix it up though - it's English holiday (although not public holiday), not Welsh, not Scottish either. English but not British...I know it's complicated, if you're interested check out this site.
England was my home for over 3 years and I have to say that it's still quite dear to me (despite some small inconveniences & a few flaws).
And I will say it out loud - despite bad reputation- some of the best food I ever had was in Britain. Yes- believe it or not, but there's some really good food out there. OK, I admit, if you filter it down to fish & chips with vinegar, bacon butties & mushy peas...it doesn't look that good at the first sight.
But if you look under the pre-packed, frozen aisle surface you can find amazing gems.
And I'm not even talking about British chefs who are showing modern British cuisine to the world (and to British themselves) like Heston Blumenthal, Nigella Lawson or James Martin (and endless others), but there are lovely British blogs around which show that British is not "yuck" but "yummy" :)

My Favourite spots for checking what's cooking British are:
http://www.britishlarder.co.uk
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com
http://www.renbehan.com/
www.uktv.co.uk/food
http://www.deliaonline.com/

And here are some of my favourite British classics, I'd like to share with you
(singing Jerusalem or Rule Brittania while cooking is not necessary :))

1.Trifle via Moonlit Kitchen
2.Scones with strawberry jam (perfect with tea) via Bananamondaes
3. Beef Wellington via BBC Good Food
4.British gone lux- Beef with beer and roasted onion sauce, mini yorkshire pudding, horseradish flavoured potato puree, oyster mushroom, spring onions and turnip via Almond Corner
5. Phesant with wilted watercress via British Larder