Can you make the perfect bloomer loaf at home? I put Paul Hollywood’s recipe to the test

A few weeks ago, I had the sudden urge to bake my own bread. I longed for a thick slice of crusty white toast with butter and honey – and that cathartic release that only bashing about a lump of stretchy dough can bring. Plus I’d read somewhere that supermarket bread is often full of sugar and other nasties so I wanted to create as naked a loaf as possible.

So I had a go, using the first recipe that Google brought forth. Truth be told, it wasn’t very good. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t golden and crusty and chewy and tasty in the way great bread is supposed to be. Then lo and behold, my prayers were answered when Great British Bake Off’s finest, Paul Hollywood, goes and gets his own BBC TV series called Bread and the very first type of bread he make is a white bloomer loaf. Watching the episode I was amazed at how different Hollywood’s recipe and technique were to mine, and I resolved to replicate them. The resulting loaf far exceeded my previous paltry attempt, and my subsequent two loaves have been even better. I can’t recommend it enough.

So, here’s Paul Hollywood’s bloomer recipe as interpreted by yours truly, with all his excellent tips from the TV show thrown in.

Ingredients

500g strong white bread flower, plus extra for dusting

10g salt

7g fast-action dried or quick yeast

40ml olive oil, plus extra for oiling

300ml water

1. Tip the flour into a large mixing bowl. Add the salt to one side of the bowl and the yeast to the other (they can’t mix yet or it kills the yeast) then add the oil and 240ml cool water and mix it together using your hand in a claw shape (dinosaur growling sounds optional at this point). Gradually add in the rest of the water until you’ve got a sticky dough.

Paul’s tip: You might not need all the water. Stop adding it once all the flour is absorbed.

2. Knead the dough by working it firmly on the work surface until it has turned from a rough texture (a bit like cellulite to be honest) into a smooth and springy ball.

Paul’s tip: Use about a tablespoon of oil on the work surface to stop it sticking and make it easier to knead. Just don’t use too much or it absorbs into the dough and makes it too sticky.

3. Put the dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl and cover with clingfilm until it has tripled in size, which will take up to three hours.

Paul’s tip: The dough doesn’t need to go somewhere hot to rise, between 18 and 24 degrees will do. (My house is freezing though so I put it on a tea towel on the radiator in winter).

It should go from this:

To this:

4. Take the risen dough out and ‘knock it back’ by tipping it onto your work surface and simply bashing it flat into roughly a rectangle. To shape it into a bloomer, fold the ends into the middle, flatten it again, then fold the other ends in and flatten again. Curl the ends under and you should end up with an oval loaf shape.

Paul’s tip: try and get the dough into a nice fat oval so that it rises up rather than out in the oven (my first bloomer was flatter than it should have been for this very reason).

5. Put the dough on an oiled, floured tray and cover with oiled cling film suspended over a couple of mugs on the tray. Leave it to prove (that’s what they call the second rise) again until it’s doubled in size, about an hour.

Paul’s tip: You’ll know the bread is ready to bake if it springs back when you press it with your finger.

6. Preheat the oven to 220ºc/gas mark 7 and put a roasting tray in the bottom of the oven. Lightly spray or sprinkle the dough with water and then flour and make a few diagonal slashes across the top with a sharp knife.

Paul’s tip: The water and flower will help create a nice crust, while the slashes stop cracks forming anywhere else. (But you need a VERY sharp knife to make them, I tried with a less than sharp knife and ended up significantly deflating my loaf).

7. Just before the loaf goes in, pour a litre of water into the roasting tin to create steam around the bread. Bake for 25 minutes then lower the temperature to 200ºC and bake for 10-15 minutes more. You’ll know the bread is ready if it sounds hollow when you tap the bottom. Put it on a wire wrack to cool.

Paul’s tip: Don’t worry if the crust browns very quickly. I thought my loaf was done because it had gone very brown but I realised after taking it out of the oven the bottom was still slightly damp and had to put it back in for another 10 minutes.

And you should end up with something that looks a bit like this…

Caravan | Home of possibly the best brunch in London

Caravan on Exmouth Market in Farringdon offers an exceptional brunch menu on weekends – if you’re prepared to wait for it.

Imagine if you took a fat wedge of cornbread, turned it into French toast, topped it with thick slices of bacon, chunks of avocado and a little heap of fresh rocket, then drizzled the whole thing with sticky maple syrup. Is your mouth watering? Mine was when a plate of exactly that was placed in front of me last Saturday.

We were at Caravan, the restaurant/coffee shop so renowned for it’s weekend brunch menu that we basically had to suffer a two-hour wait for it. Well, I’m kind of exaggerating; my best friend Caroline and I turned up at Caravan at 1pm to be told there was a 45 minute wait for a table, such is the popularity of the place. Rather than hang about, we headed to the also excellent Gail’s bakery further down Exmouth Market for coffee and returned to Caravan at 3pm (with my friend Neil in toe) when the queue had subsided. I’m glad we did because it was certainly worth the wait.

Where other London breakfast-y menus stick to the usual well-worn egg routine (Benedict, scrambled, omelette et al), Caravan really goes to town. As well as my pimped up sweet-and-savoury French toast (£9), you can get baked eggs with tomato and pepper ragout or grilled ham with bubble and squeak and poached eggs, as well as hearty bowls of banana caramel porridge and honey roasted museli with stewed pear. You’ll pay an average of about £8 for plates and £5 for bowls.

The drinks menu is worth a mention too, for the luscious virgin cocktails like sparkling lemonade and cranberry iced tea, all made on the premises of course. Plus, I drank the tastiest cup of green tea I’ve ever had. It was from the Rare Tea Company, and it certainly was a rare blend of subtle flavours, quite a contrast from the sharp, almost salty taste than green tea often has.

So you can see why Caravan shot to the top of my best brunch in London list. It’s just a shame that, like all the best places in London, you can’t rock up spontaneously. They don’t take booking for brunch, so utilising those well-honed British queuing skills is a must.

Caravan, 11-13 Exmouth Market, London EC1R 4QD. Visit the Caravan website.

Eight colours, six YouTube videos and 1kg of icing | How to make a gift-wrapped chocolate fudge cake

After seeing about a million amazing cakes at the Cake and Bake Show last month, and spending more on food colouring in one go than I probably have in the rest of my life combined, I thought I’d probably better make a cake. When my sister and I decided to arrange a surprise 30th birthday party for our friend Neil, I set my sights on a birthday present-shaped cake. By using a bunch of Google images inspiration, a load of instructional YouTube videos and a bit of trial and error, here’s how I made my edible gift wrapped chocolate cake with a little miniature Neil figurine on top. Check out step by step videos in the photo gallery below.

You will need:

1 chocolate fudge cake

Chocolate buttercream frosting

1 kg of ready to roll fondant icing

Sugarflair colour paste in 8 colours – poppy red, baby blue, navy, holly green, black, dark brown, egg yellow, dusty pink/wine.

1. Make a chocolate fudge cake in a square cake tin. I used this BBC recipe but cooked it in one batch rather than two as they recommended.

2. Cut the cake in half, add a layer of chocolate buttercream in the middle and cover all the sides. This is called ‘crumb coating’ and provides and I watched this video that shows how to do it. Leave it to set in the fridge so the fondant doesn’t slide about when you place it on top.

3. For the icing, first I made small balls of each colour by using a toothpick to add a drop of the colour paste and kneeding it in. For the skin tone I used a really tiny bit of the dusky pink and yellow to create a soft peach colour. For the other colours I gradually added more paste until the colour was dark enough.

4. To make the spotty ‘wrapping paper’ covering I totally improvised. I made a big ball of yellow (it took a good few drops of colour paste and a  LOT of kneeding) and rolled it out on a piece of greaseproof paper. On the other side of the paper I drew a square using the cake tin as a guide. When it was rolled to about a centimetre thick I took little balls of the other colours and pushed them into the yellow, then put another piece of greaseproof paper on top and kept on rolling until the icing was as big as the square and about a millimetre thick.

5. To cover the cake, roll the icing up over the rolling pin and unfurl it gently onto the cake. It may look difficult to make the icing fit over the square corners but it’s actually not. The trick, which I learned via another YouTube video, is to just gradually smooth the icing down all the way around an inch at a time then cut off the excess at the bottom.

6. For the gift bow, cut two inch-wide long strips of orange and stick them across the top of the cake using a little bit of water. Then make lots of little strips of different colours, wrap them round the end of a pen, attached the ends with water and cut them to a point. Leave them to dry for an hour or so then stick them on top of the cake in layers using buttercream adhesive. Video number three helped with this.

7. For the little person figurine I used yet more YouTube vids to learn how to make a face and then hair then just freestyled to create the body, and sat the smiling, waving Neil on top of the cake.

Get ready for some more cake porn

As well as all those seaside themed competition cakes, there were so many ridiculously awesome baked goods on show at the Cake and Bake Show that I went to the other week that I ended up taking about a million hunger-inducing photos. Biscuits, cupcakes, epic wedding cakes, and even an entire English teatime set up all made of edible sugary goodness, they’re all here in the gallery below. Enjoy!

Girl vs Food: What are the best healthy snacks?

We all know that snack foods are not born equal.

There are numerous nibbles masquerading as healthy-eats when we may as well throw down a Snickers and be done with it.  Similarly, confused parents feed their kids sugar-laden cereals safe in the knowledge that they’re ‘low in fat.’ Don’t believe the low-cal hype people.  We now know good fats can actually help reduce waistlines and are essential for optimum health.  Rather than bore you with facts about omega-3 or the wonder of seeds, here are some snacks that are less guilt-inducing than the culprits lurking in the vending machine.

First up, a pair of hearty in-betweeners:

Waitrose Sushi Wrap 

Pret A Manger Miso Soup

These are both great in-between meal snacks because they’re like a mini meal in themselves and have contain a variety of tastes and textures meaning you’ll feel more satisfied than if you’d had those crisps.

Itsu Crispy Seaweed Thins

Not as weird as you might think.  These tasty morsels are harvested from the crystal clear seas around South Korea which make them sound exceptionally nutritious.  My new go-to snackette.

Trek Bar – Wholefood Energy Bar

These are super high in protein and really do fill you up for the afternoon so you don’t slump into your keyboard at 4pm .  They’re cold pressed (not baked), have no added sugar and count towards your 5-a-day.

Panda Liquorice Bar

Throughout history licorice root has been used for relaxing the body and reducing stress, which makes it an ideal work snack. This bar is made from all natural ingredients, has no added colours, salt, artificial flavours or preservatives.

M&S Single Cheese Portion

Not usually heralded as a health food yet cheese is a good source of calcium and high in protein (meaning it’ll keep you fuller, longer).  The portion controlled size means to won’t be tempted back in for ‘just a slither’ as you would with the giant slab you get at Christmas.

The Story of O-food

No, this post isn’t about some kind recipe book sequel to erotic novel The Story of O. It’s about a new sandwich shop in Shoreditch (try saying that three times quickly).

O-food is a pop-up sandwich bar on Rivington Street that originally popped up or ‘soft launched’ in August (that’s marketing newspeak for opened without a grand opening). It was the official launch last week and I went along to sample some sandwiches and find out what it’s all about.

O-food aims to bring sustainable, healthy and tasty fast food to London. How? First of all, they don’t use any meat, because it’s a highly energy intensive food to produce. Secondly, they don’t use any of the ‘big five’ fish, the most popular and over-fished varieties (haddock, prawns, tuna, cod and salmon), while the fish they do use is sourced from low impact fisheries in Kent. Thirdly, all the vegetables used are sourced from British farms, meaning they don’t have a gigantic carbon footprint from their jumbo jet flights into the UK from overseas.

Since fish and vegetables are generally lower in fat than meat, and since you won’t find these sandwiches slathered in butter and mayonnaise, that’s the healthy bit covered. As for deliciousness, having sampled several miniature versions of the O-food speciality sandwiches like the Hastings (a fish patty with romaine lettuce, tomato and gherkin) and the Portobello (mushroom, mature cheddar, tomato, red cabbage and pesto) I can vouch for the tasty factor. And they all come wrapped adorably in white paper packages tied up with string. You can also get salads, coffee and a few breakfast bits.

The shop was set up by Jens Hannibal, Daniel Flosser and Roel Philippart. The trio met while studying in London and discovered they wanted to combine their interests in sustainability and business.

‘We’re not people who think that meat-based fast food is inherently bad,’ Hannibal explains. ‘We just think that someone needs to take the lead to show people delicious, low impact, alternatives to meat and mainstream choices of fish.’

Hannibal and co have been so pleased by the response to O-food that they’ve decided to keep the shop popped up even longer so they can continue to spread the word. So you’ve got until 23^rd September to get down to the ’ditch and experience the future of fast food for yourself.

O-food, 54 Rivington Street, LondonEC2A 3QN, will be open daily from 8am to 4pm until 23^rd September 2012. Visit www.o-food.co.uk.

Bi Bim Bap: Soho’s best Korean Eatery

Despite having worked in London’s Soho for the past few years, the sheer volume of amazing eateries, cafes and bars that litter this area of the West End still means I seem to have only scratched the surface when it comes to my search for the best Soho has to offer.  However, I do feel that I can finally start to legitimately offer sound restaurant advice after discovering a couple of gems, and one of these has fast become my favourite restaurant of all time (for now anyway).

I was introduced to Bi Bim Bap, a cosy Korean joint rooted at 11 Dean Street by a friend a few months back, and after a follow up visit this weekend, I can honestly say it is amaaaaaziiinnnggggg.  Not only is their Chilli Chicken Ramen to die for, the staff are incredibly friendly and efficient, and the walls are covered in mini Polaroids of all their customers having a great time.  Seriously, you won’t see anyone crying in them, and as far as restaurant recommendations go, I think this is a good sign.  This quaint Korean eatery also benefits from lying just outside of the hustle and bustle of the main street and G.A.Y et al, so you can almost always get a table straight away, plus it remains one of those diamonds that haven’t been discovered by the hoards of tourists spilling out after seeing Jersey Boys.  And there isn’t a sex shop next door which, in Soho, is a minor miracle. So, unless you actually hate Korean food, I would hop foot it down to Bi Bim Bap as I don’t believe my ravings even do it justice.

All images courtesy of Bi Bim Bap Facebook page which you can find here.

Dîner en Blanc | Apply now for your spot at London’s first 1,000 person flashmob picnic

I think this sounds pretty awesome. And kind of epic.

On Thursday 20th September at 7.30pm, 1000 people will descend upon a secret London location, all dressed in white and armed with the ingredients for a rather posh picnic. Given just one hours notice of the destination, they will take their hampers, plates, cutlery, food and fizzy wine (there’s no beer allowed) and congregate for a magical, communal, al fresco dining experience.

Why? Just for fun really. It’s called Dîner en Blanc and it’s a concept that was invented by (you guessed it) a Frenchman, François Pasquier, in 1988. On returning to Paris after several years abroad, Pasquier wanted to gather his friends for a dinner party. Rather than host it in his own maison, he told all his pals to meet at a park and wear white so they could find each other. Now the ‘epicurean flash feast’ takes place in 20 cities across five continents every year and it’s coming to London for the first time in September.

Despite the 1,000-strong guest list and outdoor location, it’s actually a pretty exclusive affair. To gain a place (and a plus one) you have to register on a waiting list, with preference going to previous attendees first. Last year, more than 30,000 people applied to attend the first US Dîner en Blanc, in New York’s Battery Park.

If you are lucky enough to grab an elusive invitation for the London event you’ll have some pretty strict guidelines to follow. As well as adhering to the compulsory ‘any colour as long as it’s white’ dress code you’ll be required to bring a picnic hamper with ‘high quality menu items’, wine or champagne (beer and spirits are prohibited), a white table cloth, white cloth napkins, a table (of a specified size), white foldable chairs, and flatware, stemware and crockery in fuchsia (just kidding, of course they’ve got to be white too). I think the idea with the  is to weed out anyone who can’t be bothered to make an effort. And judging by the video below, the diners in white sure do make an effort.

At the end of the night everyone packs away their things and it’s like they were never there. Oh, and for the cynics among you, this isn’t some thinly-veiled PR stunt. There’s no big corporate sponsor and it’s run by a not-for-profit organisation – ‘there is no goal except to spending an extraordinary night‘ they say. So Parisien, non?

But what if it rains? I wouldn’t worry, I’m sure it’ll be all white on the night. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)

Dîner en Blanc London takes place on Thursday 20th September 2012 at 7.30pm. The location will be revealed to invitation holders an hour before the event. Visit www.london.dinerenblanc.info/waiting to register or visit the Facebook or Twitter pages.

Summer Recipe | How to make houmous from scratch

And now to a guest post from the woman who has made some of the finest foods to ever pass through Style & Then Some’s lips, Aisling Lavelle. Finally she sets down some of her wisdom in blog form, starting with homemade houmous.

There is clearly a time and a place for shop-bought houmous, but it’s not in this lifetime you’ll find me buying in what has to be one of the best health:taste ratio snacks in the world.  Chick peas are so self-righteously healthy that you can eat houmous by the bucketful and not feel bad about it.

As with all dishes that go back centuries, there are countless recipes to be drawn upon. Felicity Cloake recently wrote a ‘How to cook the perfect….’ on houmous, which was very informative but far too fussy for anyone with a passing hankering for the Middle-Eastern delicacy.

Recipes should act as a springboard for your own tastes: they should demonstrate the basic elements required, and allow enough flexibility for you to fiddle about with the results until they suit you.  It seems I’m not alone either, as foodies-du-jour Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Dan Lepard regularly champion learning a few key steps before adding your own twists to their dishes.  I hope this recipe will allow you to do just that while keeping washing up to a minimum.



Ingredients:

1 can chick peas, drained and rinsed well

Juice of 1 lemon

1 clove of garlic roughly chopped (a fairly chunky clove – about the size of a broad bean, but again, you can tinker later on)

1 heaped teaspoon tahini (substitute with peanut butter if you can’t find tahini, or doubt whether you want it kicking around in the cupboard after houmous-gate)

1 tbsp olive oil

Pinch o’ salt

Water



1. Bung all the ingredients except the water in a mini-blender or food processor and blitz.

2. Add water, about a tablespoon at a time, and keep whizzing until you get the consistency that you know and love.

3. Check the salt levels – add more if you fancy

4. Transfer to a bowl and pour over a drizzle of olive oil

5. Choose a suitable vehicle with which to transport the houmous to your mouth.  I prefer chunks of a Pide, which is a large, flatish, focaccia-esque Turkish loaf, but if you can’t get one then pitta will do.



Now for the adjustments!  Remember that bit about fiddling?

Here’s my favourite variation:

1tsp ground cumin (grind it yourself, if you know what’s good for you)

1/2 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp chilli powder

A few sprigs of coriander (I will admit here that I tend to just keep a bag of coriander in the freezer.  There.  I said it.)

Add these ingredients to the ‘original’ houmous and you will have a serious party going.

Obviously for the non-spicy eaters you can just save some of the ‘naked’ houmous for them. You can put it at the back of the room where all the vegetarians are hiding.

Don’t forget to wash it down with something sensible – my wine-savvy friend Hugo Read recommends either Paul Blanck Alsace Auxerrois 2008 (available at Waitrose for about ￡13.50) or a Cederberg or Morgenhof chenin blanc costing ￡8.95 and ￡11.95 respectively (also from Waitrose) .

And of course, please leave a comment to share your own versions!

Cupcake lust and canape porn

I’ve been to a lot of press events recently (darling), featuring everything from painting to pore cleansing, but on Wednesday night I went to a couple of events that really brought out the foodie in me. That’s right, don’t be deceived by these skinny limbs, I’ve got an appetite to rival that guy off Man v. Food at times.

First up it was the QVC press day. While Helen was trying on every diamond (and Diamonique) ring she could find and imagining with which one Prince Harry would choose to propose to her, I was transfixed by the best baking gadget I’ve seen in years. The Cassie Brown Cake Decorating Airbrush Set allows you to unleash your inner domestic goddess – or grafitti artist – on fondant icing. The QVCers had taken some ready iced cupcakes and added their own artistic flourishes, which was cute, but frankly, if I got my hands on one of these (hint, hint: it’s my birthday in 2 months people, and I think £109 is very reasonable) I’d be trying to recreate the Mona Lisa on a lemon bun, or at least a blurry version of Monet’s Waterlillies.

After tearing myself away from the cupcake stand we wandered over to – or rather, got a bit lost on the way to – a party celebrating the launch of new website London-Boutiques.com. Here, it was the excellent dessert canape selection that I was feasting my greedy eyes on. I failed to get a photo of the adorable miniature cones filled with tequila flavoured ice cream, but check out this cheeky jelly pop with a glace cherry centre. And I had to hand it to them for their superb branded biscuits. I don’t think Cassie Brown could have bettered them. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to make a Pinterest board called Canape Porn. Or maybe just canaporn?

Flight BA2012 | Fasten your seatbelts for British Airways’ new pop up restaurant

Lucky Craig White of the hilarious but now sadly defunct blog I got it at Versayce managed to nab a ticket for Flight BA2012, the latest pop up restaurant to hit East London, and he wrote us this guest post about it.

Flight BA2012 is the new high concept pop-up restaurant launched by British Airways this week in Shoreditch, to bring together and promote several strands of BA’s high-profile, high cost Olympic marketing strategy. Sounds sexy doesn’t it? Well, as flight attendants usher you to your table in the sleek mock-aircraft interior, it certainly is.

The cabin’s clean colours, sharp lines and crisply uniformed staff make you feel at once relaxed and like you’re at the start of a futuristic adventure. It’s quirky. It’s fun. And the glass of chilled champagne as you take your seat makes for a smooth take off. A look at the menu brings you right back down to earth though.

Inspired by BA’s in-flight food from around the last London Olympics in 1948, you can’t help thinking the average episode of Ready Steady Cook! would have turned out a more enlivened set of ingredients: beef, beetroot, cabbage, mashed potato, mackerel, duck egg. The futuristic ambiance of the cabin definitely sagged under the weight of the bucolic dishes on offer.

Where was the great British food of today? Is fish pie or beef topped with piped mashed potato – no matter how beautifully presented (and it was) – any way of trumpeting what puts the Great in GB 2012?

I should add that all the dishes will be served in either Business or Club Class on actual BA flights this summer, so certain technical considerations limit what is achievable. Nevertheless, most M&S pre-packed salads show more inventiveness than the frankly workaday combinations that chef Simon Hulstone offered up. While well executed, these dishes were examples of British food at its most comforting, conforming to a pervasive and persistent stereotype that British food is unadventurous and rather drab.

If British food was meant to be celebrated and championed by this menu, then it’s a British food of a bygone era. It was a trip into the past which left me feeling that our national airline is misrepresenting us. I just hope visitors from abroad manage to leave their expectations of Britain at the airport gate and discover just how adventurous and inventive we really are.

Dining seats on Flight BA2012 have all sold out, but you can still go for drink in the gallery, no booking required. Visit the Flight BA2012 Facebook page for more info.

Sushi making – is it really that difficult?

Do you love sushi? Me too. But do you think it looks like the sort of complicated thing you’d never be able to make at home without several years of Tokyo-based culinary training? So did I, until I went to a sushi-making class in west London and discovered it’s not so difficult after all.

The class was booked via a Groupon offer as a birthday present for my housemate Alicia, a foodie if ever there was one. The four of us went along to Suzu, a Japanese restaurant in Hammersmith and joined a class of about 15 people, lead by chef Makiko Matthews. Everything was laid out on the tables for us: a sushi mat (which we got to keep), plastic gloves, oil to lube up the gloves, the sushi ingredients and some Japanese snacks and plum wine.

First, we made a classic cucumber maki roll – that’s where the seaweed is on the outside. Using the right amount of rice is key, so Makiko came round and checked our egg-sized balls, before we spread them over the seaweed sheet, placed the cucumber in the middle and rolled them up tightly using the mat. It actually wasn’t so difficult – I was expecting at least a couple of disaster students in the class but no such luck. The rice is so sticky that it dampens the seaweed and holds everything together nicely.

We were then taught how to use the terrifyingly sharp sushi knife to cut our rolls into bite size chunks. After Makiko told the story of one guy who knocked the knife off the table and caught it by the blade we were all VERY careful with it. That was probably the toughest bit actually. Makiko made the cutting look so easy, but getting even sushi pieces was difficult because the knife got caught on the sticky rice a lot.

Next up, we made ngiri sushi, which is the kind with a piece of fish on top of a ball of rice. We used salmon, pre-cut by Makiko. Again, getting the right amount of rice is important. We were told to take a ball of rice the size of a cherry tomato and bend our fingers round it to fashion it into a neat rectangle, before laying the salmon on top and gently squeezing it into place.

Finally, chef Makiko showed us how to make uramaki, the sushi rolls where the rice is on the outside, which were apparently invented in America rather than Japan. I’ve always wondered how they get the rice to stay on the outside, but it turns out it just like maki rolls, except you turn the seaweed sheet over once you’ve spread the rice on it.

We all struggled a little bit more with this one, finding that the big slices of avocado that went inside along with the salmon made it harder to roll evenly. None of us won the coveted ‘best uramaki’ prize that Makiko awarded, not that we were enraged or devastated by this, no way, not us.

So all in all, the class was really fun, and proved that sushi making isn’t as difficult as it looks. With a bit of practice I think anyone could do it. The only thing is that making sushi rice sounds like quite a time consuming process involved several different stages of washing, soaking, boiling, cooling etc. But we were given a sheet with all the instructions, so we’re thinking in my house that sometime soon we’re going to get in all the right ingredients, make a big batch and have a sushi making party.

The Groupon deal that we booked can be found here, although isn’t available right now. Or visit the Suzu website to contact them directly about sushi making classes.

This is MADD|Bringing the Thai dessert house concept to London

Have you ever been to a café that specialises in just one type of fruit? Well I hadn’t, until last week. Helen and I went to sample some of the sweet treats on offer at MADD in London’s Soho. It stands for ‘mango addiction’ – because the fruit in question is that juicy tropical delight, the mango.

MADD was opened in December 2011 by Ralph Monthienvichienchai, who originally moved toLondon from Thailand to study at UCL. In Thailand, Ralph told me, ‘dessert houses’ are really popular. They’re like the coffee shops of Europe, where friends meet to socialise and share traditional Thai sweets. He wanted to bring the concept to the UK and so MADD was born. He wants the café to ‘feel like a second home’ so it’s got a bright but cosy feel to it. With the main seating area set away from the entrance you could easily forget you’re in the middle of bustling Soho, and be distracted for hours playing Jenga or Scrabble or Uno or one of the other games that are laid out on the tables. I really like this idea – it’s better than in other places where there are a bunch of games on a shelf somewhere but you daren’t get them down. At MADD, a bit of friendly competitiveness is positively encouraged.

What about the food? Helen and I tried a sharing platter of three desserts – mango cream, which was shot through with a mango sauce; warm sticky rice topped with mango pieces (Ralph’s mum’s recipe no less); and MADD’s take on the classic English fool, you guessed it, mango fool. Clearly, if you’re not a fan of mango, you’re not really going to be a fan of MADD (although there are cupcakes and other non-mango-based desserts on the menu) but we loved everything we tried. You can also get cocktails (mango flavoured, obviously) and it’s open until 11pm weekdays and midnight on weekends so you can enjoy a bit of late night dessert and gaming action too.

MADD is located at 53 Rupert Street, Soho, London W1D 7PH. Visit the MADD website.

Topshop-inspired rhubarb cake

Who says skinny fashion girls don’t eat? Heck, we even bake. Here’s a cake recipe I made last week which was actually inspired by fashion giant Topshop. Well, sort of.

The Topshop show space was a favourite venue of many attendees at London Fashion Week in February, and not just because it played host to standout shows from the likes of Mary Katrantzou and Michael van der Ham. The other attraction was the Topshop Cafe – located in the foyer – which doled out countless flutes of champagne and lots of sweet treats to the audience before each show. At the Fashion East show (you can read my review here) I had a piece of cake which had a gorgeous tangy rhubarb topping and a dollop of sour cream on the side.

I’d been on the lookout for rhubarb cake ever since, so when I was allocated the dessert course for my housemate Alicia’s birthday dinner last week I had a go at something similar. I adapted an American recipe I found online called Mom’s raw rhubarb cake by adding few raspberries, and judging from the dinner guests’ reactions (empty plates; murmurs of approval) it was pretty successful. So here it is, handily translated into British measurements, Katie’s raw rhubarb and raspberry cake.

You will need:

300g brown sugar
115g butter
1 egg
1/2 tsp. salt
240ml sour cream
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla extract
225g flour
200g cut rhubarb
100g raspberries

Topping:
55g cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg

Method:

Cream the sugar, butter, egg, and salt. Stir in sourcream, baking soda, vanilla, and flour. Add rhubarb and raspberries and beat well – don’t worry about the rhubarb being raw, it cooks through in the oven.  Pour into well-greased 9 x 13″ cake pan.  Sprinkle with topping.  Bake at 190 degrees C for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. The mixture is quite wet because of the raw fruit so it may take a little longer.

Serve with whipped cream and a few extra raspberries and it should look something like this…