Union Jack Battenberg Cake

This weekend, in honour of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, Joel and I are attending a barbecue with his lab, where I will be bringing one of my most ambitious cake creations yet.

A Union Jack battenberg.

 This first photo is the BBC food version.  Fine, yes, but I thought the red stripes were a little lacking.  They don't quite have the same punch made of jam as they are in this cake as they would if made of, say, cake.

I was actually inspired partly by this cake, or one like it:

As well as by a conversation with a co-worker about what I could make for this barbecue / Diamond Jubilee party.  She suggested a battenberg as a traditional English cake, and somehow we thought up the idea of doing one in the shape of a Union Jack.  I suppose I love the idea of having a "message" hidden on the inside of a cake, so when you slice into it you get a surprise, and what better time to make a flag cake than for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee?

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Union Jack, This is what it looks like:

 I thought any good representation of this flag would look quite pathetic without a good, strong red cross (that strength being what the BBC version is missing).  As an Englishman, Joel agrees.  The main red cross is that of St. George and represents England on the Union flag.

For those of you who aren't familiar with a battenberg, this is what a normal one looks like:

Typically, those squares of cake are almond and vanilla flavoured, held together with apricot jam, and the entire thing held together with marzipan.

So, bearing these things in mind, I set to work.

First off, I needed a blue cake and a red cake.  I used the typical British cake recipe, what Americans would call a "pound cake", or a 1:1:1 ratio, by weight, of flour, sugar, and butter, plus a couple of eggs, a little bit of milk, and whatever flavouring was wanted.  I did the blue in French Almond and the red in Vanilla.

Easy enough.  It took a whole tube of gel food colouring each to get the colours so strong, plus some regular liquid food colouring.  The blue cake has just a touch of red colouring in, and the red has a few drops of yellow gel food colouring (Dr. Oetker's, if you're wondering).

When they were cool, I trimmed and shaped the cakes appropriately.

As you can see, I needed four quarters of blue, then sliced diagonally, and three thin sheets of red.

The cake was filled with buttercream icing, most of it white but between 1/4 and 1/3 coloured red for the diagonal red stripes.

On each of those little squares of blue cake that had been cut diagonally, one side was covered with a thin layer of white icing, the other with red, then they were put together (refer to the two pieces on the right).

To the left in the above picture, you can see the wedge of red cake put upright between two of the reassembled quarters of blue.

I did actually attempt to do diagonal stripes of jam, but I found it far too difficult.  The pieces simply wouldn't stay together.  Shaped as they are, as wedges, they slide everywhere when you try to put things together.  Therefore, at Joel's suggestion, I then coloured part of the buttercream red and used that instead.

Next you frost the TOP of the BOTTOM HALF of your flag and put a layer of red cake on top.  Frost the top of that again, then place the top half of the cake on, like so:

At this point, after checking and re-checking that the cake was properly square and that nothing was sliding anywhere, it went in the fridge for a couple of hours to get nicely solid.

At the end of the chilling time, the cake was quite solid and easy enough to work with.  I rolled out a thin layer of ready-roll marzipan, frosted the outside of the cake (one side at a time!) with the remainder of the buttercream, and pressed the marzipan around the sides.

Now comes the time when any baker is looking at what they've made and hoping, just hoping, that it looks as good as they imagined.

I must tell you, when I cut off the 1/4 inch from each end to reveal the inner pattern, I about died.

Beautiful.

Not quite as clean as I would have liked it, I wasn't as careful as I should have been about the cutting and some of the cooling times, but I'm extremely pleased with it anyway.  It certainly looks more like I wanted it to look like than some of the other Union Jack cakes I've seen online.  ESPECIALLY the colours.  I'm very proud of those colours.

Here's me looking proud of my cake.  Not only does it look nice, it's very tasty.  Almond and vanilla are sure winners in my book.  Next time, though, I would love to try strawberry and blueberry or something...that would be more fitting for those colours.

So to the lovely Queen Elizabeth II: Happy anniversary of your coronation, long may you reign!




P.S. Maybe you've noticed we're obsessed with the Union Jack a little bit?  See the potholder in the background of the photo?  And it's only a fluke that I'm not wearing our Union Jack apron...

Grilled Mushroom Risotto and Baked Spinach and Mozzarella Tomatoes

This week I did some experimenting with a pair of new recipes that I thought would go well together.  I hadn't made risotto before, and it was certainly a procedure that brought new meaning to the words "slaving over a hot stove"!

Risotto is known for being difficult simply because of the amount of time you have to spend standing over the stove massaging the chicken stock into the rice and I have to say, this reputation is well deserved.  Make sure things are set up so you can reach everything, and if anything do put a little extra stock in your pot, as you don't want to run out of stock before the rice is finished cooking.  I would advise that you open a window in the kitchen, if you have one -- it's a very steamy process and my little kitchen ended up much hotter than the rest of the flat by the time I had finished.

I love mushrooms, so a grilled mushroom risotto was the perfect thing for me.  You can use any nice wild mushroom of your choice to go with the big pile of grated parmesan you'll need.

Even though it took quite a long time to make, this is quite a simple risotto, the only frill being the grilled mushrooms that top it off.  I would say that you can add other things to make it more interesting, but be gentle.  The onion and celery have a really great flavour, as do the mushrooms, and you wouldn't want to cover up all that niceness.

To go with the more difficult risotto, I put a much simpler side dish of baked spinach and mozzarella tomatoes that only takes about ten minutes to put together, start to finish.  Here's a photo before it went into the oven:

I started the tomatoes first and simply waited until the risotto was resting to pop them into the oven.  That way they were nice and hot at the same time the risotto was all stirred up ready to go.

Here are the recipes for the food-minded:

Note: for this recipe, please use wild mushrooms -- shiitake, porcini, anything EXCEPT button mushrooms!  Button mushrooms don't have much flavour and this recipe is best with something that does.

Grilled Mushroom Risotto (adapted from Jamie Oliver)

In a stockpot, heat 2 L chicken stock and keep it on a low simmer.

Sautee for 10 minutes at a medium low heat:

Olive oil

1 small onion (chopped fine)

3-4 stalks celery (chopped fine)

Turn the temperature up and add:

2 large handfuls chopped wild mushrooms (more, if you like)

500 g risotto rice

Salt

Begin adding the hot stock to the risotto one ladle at a time.  To do this, add one ladle of stock, then stir the rise until the stock is completely absorbed.  Turn the temperature down to keep the rice at a simmer and always be sure that you stir the rice thoroughly to get a good distribution of stock.

Continue to add stock until the rice is soft but with a slight bite.  This will take about 30 minutes.

In a dry griddle pan, grill:

2-3 handfuls chopped wild mushrooms

When mushrooms are soft, put into a bowl and toss with:

1-2 tsp lemon juice

1 T Italian herbs (or herbs of your choice)

pinch of salt

When the risotto is soft, remove from heat and check the seasoning.  Add more salt and pepper if necessary.

Stir in:

1-2 T butter

2 medium handfuls grated parmesan

Cover the risotto and leave to relax for 3 minutes.

Taste the risotto to see that the flavours are correct, then plate with the grilled mushrooms, more grated parmesan, and perhaps a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Baked Spinach and Mozzarella Tomatoes

Ingredients:

4-5 beef tomatoes

2-3 cloves garlic, chopped fine

Olive oil

Spinach

Mozzarella cheese (fresh), sliced

Salt and pepper

Balsamic vinegar reduction (optional)

If you want to make a balsamic vinegar reduction to go with this, it is not at all difficult and very delicious.  Simply take about half a bottle of balsamic vinegar and cook it in a nonstick pan with a decent amount of sugar until it gets a kind of syrupy consistency.  Use however much you want on this, and the rest can be saved to make some really fabulous bruschetta.  The night I made this there was a bit of difficulty with the fire alarm going off down the hall (someone else's cooking, not mine!) and with all of the distraction I overcooked the vinegar and it caramelized.  That's basically the only way it can go wrong, and if you're keeping even half an eye on it you should notice before it gets to that point.  I was even able to salvage some of mine with a bit of warm water.

Slice the tomatoes between 1/4 and 1/2 inch thick and lay them out on a baking sheet lined with aluminium foil, overlapping the edges slightly.  (optional) Drizzle a small amount of balsamic vinegar reduction over the tomatoes.

In a hot pan, sautee the garlic in a dash of olive oil, then add the spinach and cook until wilted, stirring constantly.

Place the spinach and garlic mixture on top of the tomatoes, then lay the sliced mozzarella cheese on top.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then place in a hot oven for 3-5 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and starting to brown around the edges.

To serve, cut through the mozzarella and pull the desired number of tomato slices free.  Alternatively, the tomatoes can be made in individual mounds rather than a sheet.

Enjoy!

Mmmmm....Gravy Biscuits.....

Ah, what a lovely week!

There's something about the days getting noticeably longer and getting a new start with the new year that is extremely refreshing.  Particularly when that is coupled with, for me, starting a new job on Monday and having a nice bunch of things to do.

Joel and I were very excited when early this week we had a knock at the door and a large box was delivered -- in that box sat most of the music the ward choir will be performing this year, shortly followed by the delivery of a further large envelope of music when the regular post came.  We are so pleased to be in the music callings that we are and are having a great time choosing and rehearsing music.  I suppose our only wish is for more members of the choir, especially as we're going to be doing some eight-part music this year and we want more than one voice on each part!

For a sampling of the music we're going to try out this year, check out the following links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU7o0OJQBJQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8og_kWv0as
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScQMxiyEIfs

The only thing that would make it better was if we actually had the Orchestra at Temple Square to complete the mix...

This week we had the fabulous opportunity to have some friends over for dinner.  Angus, Emily, and Chauncy joined us for my very-first-ever quiche Lorraine, jacket potatoes, and a nice rocket salad.  The quiche turned out really well, I was very pleased with it and likely to make it again very soon.

Angus and Emily, married in December, had a bit of a mishap with their wedding cake, so we pulled out the cake slice from our wedding and had them reenact the moment so I could capture it for eternity:

You can see Chauncy "hanging about" in the left margin...

(Emily made the cake, by the way, and it was delicious!)

Also this week we had the epitome of Southern comfort food, the illustrious Gravy Biscuit.

I'm not certain if Joel completely understood what the fuss was about biscuits and gravy until I made these.  He wondered about whether you could use normal British gravy (the thin, glossy brown kind) and why you would eat them as a main course.  Naturally, these are American biscuits, and you must use American sausage gravy.  I am glad, however, that he persuaded me to use the good British sausages instead of something else, as the gravy was perfect.

Last time I made biscuits we had them with stew, and Joel could barely stop himself from eating them before dinner even though I hadn't worked out the timing in the oven completely and they came out rather brown and dry.  This time they were decidedly better, so much so that when we followed up dinner with some biscuits and jam, Joel said it was almost a shame to have jam on the biscuits as they were so perfect.  Indeed they were, light, fluffy and buttery, perfection in bread.  They're actually very similar to plain British scones, but with almost a more cakelike texture.

Because I'm a nice person, I'll give you the secrets to this super-easy meal.  Really, it cooks up in something like 30 minutes, start to finish.


Mom's Buttermilk Biscuits
In a small bowl, add
1/8 C warm water
1/2 T yeast
Let yeast proof while you mix the dry ingredients.

Mix
2 1/2 C flour (any kind seems to be fine)
1/2 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/8 C sugar

Cut into the flour mixture
3/8 C of butter (yes, weird, but this recipe has been cut in half from the standard)

To the flour/butter mixture, add the yeast mixture and
1 C buttermilk

Mix all ingredients and knead for at least a minute.  The dough should be cold, soft, and feel very light.  It will be moist -- add a little more flour if needed, only until the dough holds together and doesn't stick too much to your hands when you knead it.

Roll out to about 1 inch thick on a clean surface and cut out biscuits with a cookie cutter or cup.  This size batch makes about 16 medium biscuits.

Bake at 200 C for 15 minutes.  To check doneness, lift the top of a middle biscuit and look at the inside.  Biscuits should be golden on top with the very littlest bit of golden brown.  Brush tops with butter straight out of the oven.

The buttermilk is key.  Don't try to replace it with something else unless you really can't find buttermilk!  If you can't find buttermilk, you can put a little bit of vinegar in a cup of milk and let it rest for a few minutes, and that will give a similar flavour.

The dough can be made ahead of time and refrigerated until you're ready to roll it out, cut it, and bake it, which makes things even easier.  If you have a few minutes in the morning, mix it up and stick it in the fridge to bake for dinner.


Sausage Gravy
Remove skins from 3 medium sausages (3 inches long) and cook in a frying pan until brown, chopping into smallish chunks with spatula.  If there is any fat, drain it off.

In a small jug, whisk together
1 C milk
1 T flour
salt
pepper

When the sausage is cooked, pour in the milk mixture with the sausage and cook over medium heat until it starts to boil.  Cook another 2-3 minutes, or until gravy starts to thicken.  Remove from heat and serve immediately.

Halve biscuits and ladle some gravy onto each half.  One cup of milk will do enough gravy to cover about 4 medium biscuits, which is enough for two adults (and by enough I mean that at that point you know you should stop eating though you may perhaps want to continue).  Adjust the amount of liquid however you like to get the perfect balance of sausage to gravy.



Gravy biscuits are such a staple of Southern American life that I can't imagine going without them, even though I am most certainly not southern.  They're simply too good to pass up.  Unfortunately, you can't skimp the butter or buttermilk in the biscuits and there's really no way of making the gravy less fatty, so you're stuck with the calorie content unless you want to skimp on the flavour.  My advice: don't make it too often.  It's simply not advisable for the sake of your arteries.

But oh, they taste good.......

Woodstock

Today Joel and I decided we should take a bike ride to get out and get a bit of exercise, as with him home this week we haven't gotten out on the bikes much.  This proved to be a very good decision, because in spite of the fact that it is only early January the weather was very fine.

Our destination of choice was Blenheim Palace, Woodstock.  For those unfamiliar with Oxford, it's about seven miles from where we live on the north side of the city to Woodstock.  We took the canal path for about a mile and a half, which was a pleasant discovery.  We've been on the canal path before, but only in toward the city, so going out of the city on it was a surprise.  It's actually quite nice up there for walking, and there was the additional surprise of finding a house with no roads to it, but a canal boat parked out front and water on three sides.

It was a relatively easy ride, and a nice way of getting out of Oxford to see some of the countryside immediately around.  What surprised us both was realising how close Blenheim Palace actually is -- we thought it was farther away than an easy 45 minute cycle.

Upon arrival in Woodstock, we stopped for lunch in a cafe restaurant before going to the palace and getting our day passes, which you can, for very little trouble, convert into year-long passes for no extra charge!  So considering the easiness of the ride and the beauty of the palace, Joel and I will certainly be making our way back a few times this year.

Blenheim Palace amazes me in all sorts of ways.  First of all, there's the house, which is both enormous and architecturally beautiful.  Colonnades, balconies, columns, all coming together to create a massive building that seems to reach out on both sides to envelop you completely in 18th century elegance.  In a haze of amazement, I kept asking Joel, "Can you imagine what it would be like to live there?" and interrogating him about who on earth the Duke of Marlborough was to have deserved something like this (in case you didn't know, he's considered by many to be the greatest British military commander in history).  Between the massive house, the even more massive gardens, and the impressive history written on the column found on the grounds, it is certainly a place to visit.  Really, the grounds are massive.  The grounds at Blenheim Palace are to your garden at home like a Stradivarius violin to a ukelele.  Or like a skyscraper to a treehouse.  Or both.

Here's Joel and I, looking adorable outside the gate of the formal gardens.

And me, looking stylish and safe in a brand new dayglo orange safety jacket!  Just the thing for cyclists in Oxfordshire during winter!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all our readers!  May this be a successful year for everyone and bring much happiness to all!

We have some points of news for the new year already that we want to share.

1. Jess got a job at the University of Oxford as a research technician in the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour.  Most of the time she will be feeding flies... for the moment anyway.  Ah, the life of a scientist.  The job pays well enough, but at least offers us a lot more stability as it is a 4-year contract, and is finally the kind of laboratory job that Jess has been looking for.  Strangely enough the Centre is in the same Department as my DPhil will be, but in another building, so for the next few years there will be two Beevers in the Department.  On a funny side-note, when I got my pass to work at the Hospital where my first research project is taking place, they managed to misspell my card as Mrs J Beevers rather than Mr.  Is this some strange new application of Genesis 2:24?
   
2. I have a beard again for the moment, thanks to a whole week of not shaving after Christmas, which I then decided to continue for the present.
   
3. Bad news - Jess had some problems with her tooth (the one that's been troublesome for nearly a year now) culminating in a course of high strength antibiotics and the need for a root canal in a couple of weeks.  Then yesterday when I went for my checkup my dentist found the small beginnings of a problem and decided it would be best to just go ahead and do a filling.  Fingers crossed that the anaesthetic will work this time, as it's on the same problem side of my mouth as the previous dental-disaster.
   
4. At our guests request for tonight's dinner, we made Eton Mess, a mouth-watering picture of which is included below:
   
   
5. Don't watch the first Johnny English film - it's pretty awful.  Unless you want to buy the DVD from us, in which case it will be the best film you watch all year...

Ain'-A That Good News!

There has been lots of good news for us this week, which has been a nice early Christmas present. Here are some of the great things that have happened in the last couple of weeks.

1. Probably the best news of all has been that the grant to fund my PhD studies has been awarded! This means I have a full scholarship to pay for three years of research at the University of Oxford studying an aspect of the genetics of Parkinson's disease. It was very welcome news, and means that I no longer will be worrying about where the funding might come from, and whether I needed to choose a different college to be eligible for college scholarships in case all of the other funding routes didn't come up with the goods.
2. I had my qualifying exam for my MSc course just over a week ago and the marks came back yesterday. While the exam is technically just pass/fail, I was told that I managed to get a distinction, which was also very welcome news. So basically lots of good stuff is happening in my academic life at the moment. Now that the exam is over I will be getting my teeth into my research projects beginning in January.
3. Jessica got an early Christmas present from Adam and Alexa of some yummy Swiss Läderach chocolate. Sadly it had to be eaten within a couple of weeks given that it was fresh chocolate, so we couldn't wait until Christmas itself! Jess was kind enough to share some with me, but here's a picture of her devouring the last piece:
   
4. We have been running the ward choir (Jess is the director and I am the pianist) and tomorrow is our Christmas presentation. Things have been very busy in preparation for this, and everyone is looking forward to it. We had a rehearsal with brunch this morning at the chapel, for which Jess had to make her traditional once-a-year sweet rolls. It was quite the epic event. The dough (big enough to fill a huge stockpot) was started yesterday evening and regularly squashed down to allow it to continue to expand. Then Jess woke up at 4am this morning to work on it some more, went back to bed, and got up at 6am to start baking it all. She made 6 different offerings: 2 apricot-almond rings, a berry ring, a chocolate-covered custard-filled log, a lemon-glazed tear-and-share, and a set of cinnamon rolls. Our entire table was covered in them this morning and the smell waking up (even after an interrupted night's sleep) was amazing. Needless to say Jess is asleep for the afternoon now while I am writing this because she is exhausted. Here's a picture of the ones we didn't take to the brunch:
   
5.  A bit of trivial good news now. For some Christmas just isn't Christmas until you've seen the new Coca-Cola advert with the train or the line of trucks and Santa drinking his Coca-Cola. Well, for me and hundreds of others who went via Broad Street in Oxford yesterday morning, it was a nice surprise to see the Coca-Cola Christmas lorry there parked in the street! So of course I had to snap a picture to prove it:
   
6. Jess has been working the past month at a large publishing company. It started as a 3-day temporary post, which then became a month-long position, and now they want to extend it to at least another six months. While Jess still hopes to get a lab position somewhere eventually, this is very good news for the moment as it means that we have some better financial security for the foreseeable future.

Merry Christmas to all who read this, and here's for an even more successful and joyous 2012 for everyone we know and love.

Qualifying Exam... Check!

The day finally came - the culmination of this term's work and lectures - our qualifying exam for the MSc in Neuroscience. Technically if we didn't pass this we wouldn't be able to continue for the rest of the MSc where they let us loose in labs and write long essays. But I think it has been six years since someone failed and had to resit in January. While I don't want to tempt fate (it's not been marked yet!) I think something pretty bad would have had to happen for me not to pass the exam today. So really my efforts were so that (a) I felt a little more comfortable in the exam (preparation only has so much of an effect really!), and (b) so that if I did very well it would be good for the sake of the reference that my course lecturer will be writing this month.

Anyway, I'm sure whoever is reading this doesn't really care about the nitty gritty of the exam. But I'm sure you would be interested in the traditions that come along with taking an exam at the University of Oxford! First, the set of clothing known as sub fusc or "of a sober hue" are required. This is the same as what was required for Matriculation, when students are formally admitted to the University. In more explicit terms it means to wear a dark suit, white shirt, white bow tie, gown, and mortarboard (not worn indoors but must be carried!). For most of the students in the group this is only the second time they have had to wear their gown, but thanks to choir I have worn it weekly over the last term.

Second, a tradition began in the 1980s to wear a carnation for each exam. The exam period would begin with you wearing a white carnation, pink carnations for each exam in the middle and a red carnation for your final exam of the session. The tradition is also that someone else needs to buy it for you. As I have only two exams for my MSc I decided that this would be the white exam (even though it's hopefully my last ever written exam) and that my viva voce exam next September would by my red exam. A friend from the college choir who is near the end of his DPhil bought mine for me, which was very nice of him. It's the first time I've had something exciting in my "pidge" (pigeon hole at the College). The rest of the group decided that as this is our only and last ever written exam that they would wear a red carnation, and a number of them met up at the florist this morning to buy flowers for each other!

The third interesting thing about exams at Oxford is the location. Students are members of Colleges and as such the College puts students forward to the University to take their exams. So rather than University exams taking place in Colleges or departments, they take place in a wonderful building called the Examination Schools, on the High Street. The building is beautiful and has a number of rooms where exams take place, with large corridors and grand staircases to take you to them. Ours was in a fairly plain room about as far as you could walk from the entrance along the corridors, but we had actually been there before for a less formal exam a couple of weeks earlier so it was familiar. As term finished last Friday ours was the only exam on today - they didn't even bother to turn on the computer information screens to say where our exam was - a simple piece of paper pinned up would suffice!! And the usual request to "please remain quiet as you return to the entrance hall because there are other students still taking their exams" was rather redundant!

So, having fully explained the Oxford traditions, here's a picture of me (1) in my sub fusc, (2) with my white carnation and (3) infront of the entrance to the Examination Schools. Thankfully this will never be repeated!