Madeleines

Blah blah blah, don't play with your food... but don't these shells look like synchronised swimmers?

Or something oceanic. The scalloped edges against the irregular glints in the green-blue marble countertop recall rock pools and trips to beaches. Though seaside picnics don't normally require such delicate pastries (and nor should they!).

I made these because, tucked away in the treasure chest of James' parents' kitchen, I found a madeleine tray. And it was so nice and so underused and has such function-specificity that I wanted to give it a spin. I trusted Dan Lepard as my baking guru to guide me through these pernickety cakes because a) his book appears very confident and filled me with reassurance, and b) his surname sounds like 'Leopard'. And leopards are my favourite animals.

And so to begin.

See, it's a fairly simple collection of ingredients. Eggs, butter, flour, sugar, rising agent. All the classic components for cake goodness. And that sneaky madeleine tin. Don't worry! You can use ramekins and just shape them like pop-overs.

(Weirdly, James' house has a madeleine tin - the most obtuse of kitchen gadgets - as well as a cherry-stone-picker, a garlic grinder, a variety of chopsticks, and a tomato knife... but no ramekins. What is that? Who in this household is witholding the creme brulée possibilities that only ramekins offer, and why?)

We have two things to do next.

Number 1: Beat the eggs and sugar together until they're thick, doubled in volume, and have a lathered-shampoo look of frothiness. Add the vanilla. Next the flour.

Number 2: Melt some butter in a small pot.

Then yes. This gets to happen. We pour butter into the eggs and sugar. Next I combined it with very gentle folding actions with the red spatula you can see. I did not take a photo because the recipe said 'fold through very gently' and, as such, demanded my full concentration.

Note the well-buttered madeleine tray.

This recipe is an ode to butter.

I wasn't kidding.

Dan the Leopard (indulge me) very teasingly suggests adding a dollop of butter to the mix before baking, so of course I did.

This is butter three ways. Coating the exterior of the shells, melted and folded into the batter, and with a delicate morsel on top which will melt and OHMYGOD let's stop talking about butter and just look at the finished photos.

 

Sunday Bites (on a Saturday)

Have you noticed it's not Sunday? Er, me too. Let's just go with this.
My sister booked flights yesterday to come visit in London! We're so excited. It's mostly going to be a tour of shopping centres and restaurants and we cannot wait.

• 27 ways you are not Carrie Bradshaw. Let's all remind ourselves of no. 7, constantly.

• Speaking of, here are the floorplans of some fictional TV apartments. A 28th way I'm not like Carrie Bradshaw is my closet doesn't take up 25% of my living space.

• Real life, the morning after.

• Kiss. Lots of lips.

• Say goodbye to any productivity you had planned for this weekend. THE PROCATINATOR!

• Oh my. Hybrid celebrities. You'll like this link. Especially the last one.

• The life-affirming and life-staying power of bacon.

• Old London captured in videos! Don't watch this if you're about to enter a commuter-packed rush-hour tube, it'll only make you sad.

• We spent way too long in work contemplating which of these 33 photos of animals with stuffed versions of themselves should feature as our desktop backgrounds. Erica went with No. 9. I'm veering towards no. 15.

• Oops, lol.

• Oh no. A restaurant group (who Gordon Ramsay found difficult to work with - what?) had a 'bit' of a social media meltdown. This is not good.

• Comparing Sterling Cooper ads to real ads from the 1960s. Maybe this is why they're struggling for clients.

• Food, yes.
• Mini cream cheese & chive biscuits. Mini so you eat them like popcorn.
• Roasted strawberry BBQ sauce! I want this.
• This has been intriguing me all week. It's controversial but I'm fascinated. Peanut butter & pickle sandwich. You read right.
• Enjoying the flavours in this apricot, sage & hazelnut galette.
• And the combination in these bourbon, basil & blueberry doughnuts.
• Finally, some sweet little rhubarb pickles.

• Why Angelina Jolie's piece in the New York Times is really important.

• And the best link of the week: Don't make fun of Dan Brown.

• 8 Signs You Are Actually A Cat. So that's why James likes me.

• Nick Offerman reads tweets! I love Ron Swanson. I've spent the whole week laughing at THIS FALL.

And some things that made my week:

1. A bouquet of flowers from the Covent Garden Academy of Flowers, 2. Free lunch at Leon!, 3. Not quite there with my cappuccino skillz, 4. Sharing a Coke with James.

5. The Mishkins' team at Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Day last night, 6. QI recording on Monday evening was great fun.

7. Happy Fake Sunday! With an apple & elderflower candle (oh my god). There is no more appropriate photo with which to finish this post.

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

I wish I were more interested in football.

I’ve gone to some Chelsea games with James and he just gets so enthused. He cares so much. If they score he turns to me, all frantic-eyes and his mouth agape, unable to articulate his joy because of all the excitement and adrenaline suddenly rushing through him.

And if someone dares to foul his team he gets so indignant, the injury may as well be personal. How dare they. And the poor referee, possible of nothing right but forced to navigate a jagged landscape of wrongdoings. The referee gets some horrendous abuse hurled towards him.

It would be easy to put all of this down to the atmosphere of actually being there, in the stadium, as chants circulate round the seats and the players actively perform for the thousands of fans.

But even watching football on TV produces the same sort of mania whenever anyone scores. He leaps off the sofa, punching the air with glee, with a carnal roar of pleasure. A goal for the opposite team makes him curse at the television, audible throughout the entire house that he and his team have been wronged.

And his passion translates into everything - evening five-a-side matches, hours (and hours) of training his team on FIFA, reading the sports pages before the news headlines every morning, internet fantasy team things (?), a wardrobe of football tops of a rainbow of horrendous hues, incredibly detailed analysis of each kick, goal, move, player, team, game…

…And I’m a jealous because I don’t care about anything that much.

I don’t know if I’ve ever screamed at the television, and my adrenaline surges are far less frequently piqued by my hobbies.

I've tried to get interested in football, and briefly flirted with self-identifying as a fan when Chelsea were managed by Roberto di Matteo. We shared initials (RDM) and I definitely felt a certain onymatic kinship there. I like individual players; David Luiz has great hair and a fun twitter feed, and I kind of fancy Mata. And maybe one day I'll be moulded into less of a fairweather fan (no, really, I'm not interested in watching if it's cold or raining).

Oh, by the way, none of this is related to peanut butter chocolate chip cookies other than they’re another thing James supports, albeit with less ferocity. I’m talking about football because I’m sitting next to him right now while his emotions and stress levels endure a 90-minute test to see whether or not Chelsea will make it into the Champions-Premier-sponored-by-a-bank-or-beer-tournament-competition-league thing.

Here are my thoughts on the cookies whose photos have been interspersing this monologue about football:

For being one of my favourite ingredients, I have been far too lax about peanut butter’s inclusion in my recipe index. But it’s here now, in a wonderfully easy format, where it makes new best friends in the form of chocolate chips (a gregarious lot) and oats (not for everyone, but lovely when you get to know them).

These cookies are nothing short of perfect. They bake evenly and quickly, they can be prepped in a single mixing bowl, and they’re the right combination of soft interior to crunchy exterior – with added chewiness throughout lent by the oats.

Yum.

Whisky Lemonade

Have I ever told you about my all-time favourite game, Does It Go With Gin?

The rules are fairly self-explanatory. My friend and I try gin with lots of other spirits and different mixers, discovering if it’s a good pairing or not. So far we’ve yet to find anything so unpalatable to be officially declared not a friend of gin, but that might say more about our levels of discernment than about gin's all-embracing compatibility. I recently heard a sneaky rumour about gin, southern comfort and orange juice which I'm anxious to investigate, and the 'Cucumber & Apple Collins' I had at the weekend deserves some lengthy research and tasting sessions. Also as we’re both Scottish we’ve given Irn Bru a free pass on this game.

Um, obviously whisky isn’t gin. I know that.

 But I’m very slowly coming to enjoy whisky, stealing a tiny sip from any after-dinner glasses that have been served and enjoying the peaty, burnt-caramel-y aftertaste. It’s only in super tiny measures so far, but I’m fairly confident in my tastebuds' abilities to assimilate themselves to a new spirit.

This drink is a good introduction. It still tastes a lot like whisky but transforms it from a bedtime treat to a summery evening (ahem, late afternoon) long drink which I could drink many of in quick succession. 

Slightly-intimidating whisky gets mixed up with a whole load of friendlier ingredients.

Honey, I’m totally down with. You could probably use sugar instead, but honey carries the sweet notes of the whisky better. Hey, that sentence sounds like I know what I’m talking about! (I don’t really).

Lemons, I’ve encountered before – I know their deal. Sour, yeah, but real lemonade which tastes like real lemons is so much more real and lemony. (And with that sentence I let myself go again).

And soda water, yeah, I can handle. Nothing controversial there.

So, shall we?

Whisky Lemonade
Makes 1, can easily be doubled/tripled/etc.

1 tablespoon (15ml) honey
50cl whisky
Juice of one freshly-squeezed lemon (about 80ml?)
Soda water

In a boston glass, mix honey and lemon juice and stir until the honey is diluted and less viscous. Add whisky, stir, and top with soda water. Play with quantities to adjust sweetness/sourness/alcohol...ness. If you're fancy, add a curl of lemon peel and flavour the rim of the glass with a little lemon juice.

Sunday Bites

Hi everyone.
This weekend has been awesome.
I am back home and reunited with Lola!!! She's even better than I remember.
Gianni & Nicola's wedding was gorgeous and fun and drunken. Meeting friends for drinks yesterday was great. Dinner last night was tasty. Before we get the train back this afternoon I'm definitely doing a supermarket run to stock up on Irn Bru.

Apologies for all of the caps lock emphasis below in these links, but I just need you to click on them.

• Did you see Daniel Day Lewis' stunning method acting in this sneak preview of Obama?

• MAMESHIBA!

• So you remember that Sorority Girl's email to her sorority sisters which went viral last week? (Here's a reminder). Well, Michael Shannon - the creepiest man INTHEWORLD - has made a spectacularly creepy video of it.

• BAGRAM BATMAN!

• This article is so cool - a man who gave up the internet for a year.

• This is basically how Lola and I cook together.

• Lol, Slothahontas. Disney's Sloth Princesses.

• You should award yourself, you're pretty awesome.

• Did you see these links about how historical figures would look today? Click on it and then agree with me that we really need Tilda Swinton to portray Elizabeth I in a film.

• Stay safe at work!, say vintage Netherlandish posters.

• These actors made huge weight changes for films, eek.

• I'm behind the low-heeled shoes trend and I don't care who knows (I bought these yesterday).

• I admit: I'm a Diet Coke addict. (Also SugarFree Irn Bru. I thought I was doing okay with that one because it's harder to get in London, but a newsagents on the same street as my office sells it for 49p a can. I am back on it, baby!)

• Let's eat! I'm in the mood for cake, is that okay with you?

• Like this sweet berry lime cake. See how she rubs the zest into the sugar? That's genius.
• & I'm 100% sold on the simple pleasures of a cream cheese pound cake.
• Yes yes yes tres leches cake.
• And finally, how useful is it to know how to bake a flat cake? Implementing this tip as soon as I begin my baking frenzy of all these cakes.

• Everyone, TOM CRUISE JUST GOT STRANGER.

• Can I own this dress, please? Actually, she's just gorgeous. I'll take her entire wardrobe and her legs.

(I'll show you my cute Lola photos later, promise!)