Sophia turns ONE next month and her Mama bear is looking for party ideas. Here’s one that would be awesome:
At-home sushi conveyor belt via Kidcrave
Aaaaand I just know you’re rolling your eyes at the idea of serving sushi to children instead of the chocolate and cake and sugar they await. I will answer your collective eye-roll with this:
Sweets that look like sushi via Dinner: A Love Story. Yes. amazing.
Maybe. In fact, that is very obnoxious of me to suggest – and probably not even true. If you’ve ever been (or will be) to O’Conaill’s Chocolate Shop on French Church Street in Cork, Ireland, then it is most certainly not true. Their signature hot chocolate is better than mine. I guess that goes without saying.
Allow me to start again. This is a very decent hot chocolate recipe, that I came up with myself and that you will definitely not hate. There! The recipe was actually intended as a recreation of the O’Conaill’s one I was craving in the run up to Christmas, while I was still in Abu Dhabi and thousands of miles away from that kind of perfection.
Here’s the recipe. It’s for those of you who, like me, think of hot chocolate as more dessert than drink… though I’m sure you could lower the chocolate: milk ratio and that would work too.
Hot Chocolate (makes 2 standard sized mugs)
What you’ll need:
Semi-skimmed milk (Use the mugs to measure – 2 almost-full mugs)
35-40g good quality dark chocolate (70%+)
35-40g good quality white chocolate
35 –40g Lindt Excellence Extra Creamy Milk Chocolate (this exact one)
A good pinch of Maldon salt
Here’s how:
Life got a little tastier since I started dipping clementine wedges in melted dark chocolate, sprinkling them with sea salt and putting them in the fridge for a few hours. The simplest treat – that is pretty much guilt-free (especially when you compare it to my December diet). These babies are delicious.
Originally spotted on Express-o – thank you Diana!
I made this Peanut Butter Birthday Cake (adapted from Joy the Baker’s recipe – here) for my bestie Marie’s birthday last month. (Marie is one half of the awesome duo responsible for this surprise last year).
Everyone agrees that the peanut butter frosting is the best part of this cake. Here’s a guide to frosting your birthday cake (the easy way) in 7 easy steps.
A few tips before we begin:
Tip 1: Make more frosting than you need. Frosting will inevitably end up stuck on the spoon, and the sides of the bowl, and on your clothes and in your hair and mouth. That excess icing adds up. I doubled the recipe. That may seem extreme, but I’ve never heard anyone complain about too much frosting before. “Oh dang, just what are we going to do with the leftover frosting?” We’re going to lick it slowly off a cold spoon while staring dreamily into space, that’s what.
Tip 2: Once it’s made, chill your frosting for an hour or two, then take it out of the fridge precisely 15 minutes before you start the frosting process. This is the only part of my step-by-step guide that must be followed exactly. It ensures the frosting is still chilled, but malleable. (I just typed the word malleable on my blog – whaaaat?)
Step 1: Place the cake on the cake stand you intend to serve it on. There’s no moving the cake post-frosting.
Step 2: Spoon a lot of the mixture on to the top of the cake.
Step 3: Start smoothing the frosting out over the cake with a metal spoon, pushing dollops over the edges. Add more frosting as necessary. The spoon should never touch the cake, only the frosting. We don’t want crumby icing.
Step 4: Keep smoothing and dolloping until you can’t see any more cake. Your cake will look like a messy blob at this stage, but don’t panic. If you can only see frosting, you’ve done it right.
Step 5: Take a clean metal spoon and make a swirly pattern on the top of the cake. Work from the outsides in, again not touching the cake.
Step 6: Now, take a flat (butter) knife and trace around the rim, roughly flattening the sides. This will ‘trim’ a lot of excess frosting from the sides, which goes back in the bowl (for later).
Step 7: Take a dry, clean napkin and wipe the messy frosting from the edges of the serving plate. Immediately follow with a clean, damp napkin to remove the sticky frosting residue.
And that’s it! I kept the decoration pretty simple this time, but you can be as creative as you like!
Happy Birthday Marie – I loved our mini celebration! xo
I’m one of those annoying morning people. My power hours come early – even after a late Saturday night and one too many Cuba Libres, chances are I’ll still be up at 8am making these muffins. The muffins make up for the irritating chirpiness. I think.
They’re called ‘Rose Bakery (style) Muffins’ because they were inspired by muffins that Fiona and I were (begrudgingly) served on our trip to The Rose Bakery Café in Paris. I usually find myself disappointed with breakfast muffins being either overly sweet or dry and mealy; these were near-perfect. Since the café staff definitely did not suffer from early-morning chirpiness, we dared not ask for the recipe.
This is Fiona’s recreation.
What you’ll need:
Dry ingredients: 70g plain flour, 40g wholemeal flour, 20g brown sugar, ⅛ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, ½ teaspoon baking powder, ¼ teaspoon salt
Wet ingredients: ½ banana (mashed), 30g melted butter, ¼ cup buttermilk, 1 egg, ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Fruit: 50g of your chosen fruit e.g blueberries, diced apple or pear, raspberries, strawberries (a mix of two types is good)
Here’s how:
Preheat the oven to 190°C and line a muffin tin with muffin cases. Mix together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix together the wet ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix well. Add fruit. Divide the mixture between the muffins cases evenly and bake for 15 –18 minutes.
Can you trust me when I tell you that you’re going to love this? I’ve never lied to you before. To make this healthy breakfast platter for two, chop up a pineapple, empty a carton of blueberries in the middle, squeeze the fresh lime wedges over and top with Rachel Allen’s Coconut Greek Yogurt. You didn’t need those instructions – it’s all there in the picture. The combination is mouth-wateringly good. You’ll see. (Fiona made this for me… thanks Fi!)
The last thing I needed was another reason to visit Paris, but here it is anyway: Pink Flamingo Pizza. There are several locations dotted around the city and their exotic menu looks so good.
You can eat in one of the trendy restaurants OR just stop in, place your order, take the cheerful pink balloon they hand you and wait by your picnic blanket for them to come find you. That’s not even a choice, is it? You’ll be waiting for their trademark pink delivery bicycle (!) somewhere along the Canal St-Martin, won’t you? I’ll be right there with you.
In case you missed it, see my full guide to Paris here and a photo diary from my last visit here.
I did it! At the weekend, I made the Barrack Obama of ice-creams. I’d like to thank my Sister, Fiona for her unwavering support and encouragement and God for not letting the custard curdle.
The whole tub has been consumed, exactly 24 hours after I started making it. Of course.
Recipe here.
€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’. Click here if you too would like to donate online.
There are times in all of our lives when we have to make dinner for our friends. There is no point trying to avoid it, your turn will come. Dinner has been made for you seventeen times now and you haven’t volunteered to do it once. Not once. People are starting to talk. There are no more excuses.
If the thought of hosting a dinner party causes your heart to start beating like a dryer with shoes in it, I understand. I’ve felt the fear and done it anyway, and when I did I realised there was nothing to be afraid of after all.
There is nothing scary about The Dinner Party. We’ve already established that you will eventually have to feed your friends at some point – it’s just good manners. The Dinner Party is merely a way of feeding your friends in a predictable environment. The last thing you want is to find yourself staring into your kitchen cupboard during an unplanned feeding crisis, wondering how you can make two tins of beans and an old potato look like dinner? (Real life). The Dinner Party allows you to plan, to buy fresh ingredients, to arrange some soft lighting and put together a chilled-out playlist. The Dinner Party is indeed a grown-up affair, but it’s nowhere near as stuffy or pretentious as you thought.
Still afraid? I have some tips.
Don’t do it by yourself. Co-hosting is easier than hosting. A three-course meal is daunting for anyone to undertake alone; taking charge of one course is much more doable. Baby steps.
Have everything ready. Only cook things that can be prepared (and ideally completely finished) ahead of time. When your guests arrive, you will want to spend time with them. Things to avoid: steaks cooked to order, recipes with the word flambé anywhere in them, risotto, roast dinners or anything with lots of ‘sides’, béarnaise sauce or homemade custards, anything that needs last-minute ‘assembly work’, soufflés or anything else that will require your attention when you should be refilling everyone’s drinks.
Stick to what you know. At a dinner party a couple of months ago, I served Spaghetti Bolognaise as the main dish. There is nothing sophisticated or showy about Spaghetti Bolognaise but I’ve been making that dish (dare I say well?) since I was fifteen. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and all the plates were cleared. Success. Do you watch Come Dine With Me? (My Mam is obsessed). It always baffles me how often the contestants attempt a recipe for the first time on the show. That’s just taking a bath with a toaster. There is nothing wrong with easy and simple, if it tastes good.
Eat later than usual. I’m slightly hesitant to reveal this one but… giving your guests a little time to work up an appetite will make whatever you serve taste better – so make them wait. Leaving some time between the main course and dessert has the same effect. My secret’s out.
It’s not all about the food. I mean it’s not really about food at all, is it? It’s about spending quality time with friends. Of course. You knew that. My friends and I started this little tradition recently. Every time we sit down to eat together, before we dig in, everyone shares one thing they are grateful for and (just for fun) one thing they are not grateful for. It’s a nice way to start the dinner conversation.
Make it special. Clean up, tidy up, dress up. Light a few candles. Heck, string some bunting. Buy the good wine. People will notice.
€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’. Click here if you too would like to donate online.
Peanut Butter Birthday Cake, pictured with Marie’s famous brownies
Marie makes the cakes. That’s how this whole thing stays together. If there is a cake that needs baking… a birthday, an engagement, a new job? Marie has a cake for that. There’s no big fuss about it either. If you walk into Marie’s apartment when she’s baking, she doesn’t look like a hot mess and she doesn’t tell you to come back in an hour when she has her shit together. She can hold a proper conversation with you, while she carries on weighing and measuring and beating and folding (that’s a baking word I learned from Marie). I think she actually likes it.
The other thing is that everyone loves Marie. Really, everyone. She’s a crowd-pleaser type of person. I should be clear that this has exactly nothing to do with her baking skills. Marie, as a person, is sweeter and lovelier than any of the cakes she’s produced. Even the carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.
I tell her all the time how glad I am to have her in my life. But that’s not enough. She deserves more. On her birthday, at the very least, she deserves a cake that she didn’t have to make herself.
So, that is what I gave her. I knew I couldn’t pull it off with the same panache as Marie, but a cake was called for, and a cake I made. I put on some old school Smashing Pumpkins and followed the goddamn recipe. I listen to The Smashing Pumpkins while I bake cakes. That makes me a badass.
It’s a tremendously easy cake to make. In fact, the most difficult part of this recipe is not eating too much of the frosting before you are entirely sure you have enough to cover the cake. That requires willpower beyond my limits.
Anyway, here it is.
Peanut Butter Birthday Cake
This recipe is adapted from the Joy the Baker cookbook and makes one 8 or 9 inch round cake. The original version is a double layer cake, which I also made, but wasn’t entirely happy with the result – I felt it wasn’t the right cake to frosting ratio, but maybe that’s just me.
What you’ll need:
for the cake
150g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
100g peanut butter
50g unsalted butter, softened
60g caster sugar
60g brown sugar
2 medium eggs
150ml buttermilk (I used this substitute)
for the frosting
300g cream cheese
100g unsalted butter, softened
100g peanut butter
250g icing sugar
Seeds of 1 vanilla pod
pinch of salt
Here’s how:
€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’. Click here if you too would like to donate online.
I’m flying home tomorrow… again! Then to Sicily on Sunday. Of course I am thrilled about both, just less so about the plane trips. Air Travel is entirely exhausting.
Here are three tips that make it easy (er):
1. Wear the softest, most comfortable clothes you own.
What I usually wear on plane journeys are actually intended for sleeping in, but they pass as acceptable to wear in public (in my opinion at least…). Oysho seem to nail that ‘looks like clothes but feels like pyjamas’ thing I’m crazy about.
Just before my flight home last Christmas, Lucy gave me a gift of these slipper socks from Oysho (aren’t they cute?). They are twice as warm as regular socks, which is important since planes always tend to be freezing.
2. Try to get some sleep.
Even if it’s a daytime flight, sleeping makes the journey seem much shorter and more bearable.
A good neck pillow is a must – I love this one by Muji – and although I always feel pretentious putting on an eye mask, they really work by tricking you’re brain into thinking it’s night-time.
Let ear plugs deal with the noise. If you’re already thinking about a soft blanket, I’m right there with you. I just use a scarf from Zara- unfolded it’s huuuuge. Build a jersey cocoon around yourself and hey presto, cozy-town central. Population: one.
3. Pack a picnic.
We’ve talked about this before. Honestly, this is the best advice of all. This time I’m making a cous-cous salad and packing Bateel caramelised-pecan dates (my favourite) as a little treat.
I’m not even going to tell you to drink lots of water. Everyone says that. (They say it because it’s true).
Happy flying!
Clever, clever people at Eyescream and Friends, Barcelona.
Eyescream is a ‘shaved’ ice-cream imported from Taiwan (it’s texture is somewhere between sorbet and ice-cream). It was a challenge to introduce it to the European market because, in their own words, this ice-cream is not very attractive. They found a way to bank on the ice-cream’s ugliness by creating a monster character for each flavour and adding sugar eyes.
I love everything about this.
So I became a vegetarian for a month. No biggie.
Times when this was hard: that time we went to Fuddruckers and I ordered an extra-large side of mashed potato, forgoing the main event.
Times when this was easy: the rest of the time
Vegetarian-friendly recipes that make this an easy thing:
Tomato soup with grilled cheese croutons
Nectarine Pizza with Basil and Balsamic
Roasted Pear and Chocolate Chunk Scones
Peach, Tomato and Mozzarella Crostini,
Notice how the majority of these recipes contain cheese. Now, giving up cheese was another story entirely.
Is little t turning into a food porn site? Maybe…
€5 has been donated to UNICEF Ireland for the completion of this ‘thing’. Click here if you too would like to donate online.
