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!

God Save the Queen...

by Karolina, 3rd June 2012

...or how I celebrate Diamond Jubilee.
A lot of you probably know that this year marks 60 years of Queen Elisabeth's reigns in Great Britain. The main events are happening this weekend and spilling into next week when British are enjoying extra 2 days of holidays. Although I don't live in UK anymore, I decided to have a small Diamond Jubilee celebration. Any occasion for celebration is good, isn't it? :)

So, I looked around for some inspirations.And I found this gorgeous cake on  BBC Good Food website.

It was just perfect for my Jubilee party.

Unfortunately I ran out of time and some ingredients, so I had to improvise and change a recipe but the general idea stayed the same.

I was creating the flag! :)

Yep, this is it.

Original recipe calls for sponge cake with icing cream. As I ran out of eggs and time I made it with waffles, layers of custard with whipped cream on top covered with berries (strawberries and blueberries) to create the pattern of Great Britain flag.

I agree that version with sponge would have been nicer and more practical to eat. Next time I would just try the original recipe. However, I think it was good enough and this cake definitely has the looks :)

On top of that it's finally the season for berries, which I looooooooove :)

This cake will be perfect for any tea party and I'm sure you could create pretty much any flag using your imagination and some fruits and berries :)

I would love to hear from you, maybe you have some great ideas?

And how do you like my flag-cake?

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