Earl Grey Cake with Lemon Glaze

 ”Talk and tea is his speciality,’ said Giles. ‘Come along inside… We’ll see if tea and buns can make the world a better place.”

There may be something quite twee about starting a post with a quote from Wind in the Willows, but I firmly subscribe to the idea that tea and cake does make the world a better place. Saying that, I also believe that having a slice of cake for breakfast, dinner and tea constitutes a balanced diet. It’s a balm for the soul – guaranteed to make even the worst of situations seem that little bit better.

I woke up on Sunday after a riotous few days of eating, drinking and dancing, and realised I hadn’t made a cake in ages. The past few weeks have been ridiculously busy with work, wedding planning and other life admin, and I wanted to calm my mood by losing myself in a frenzy of whisking, bowl licking and icing.  So, I set about rummaging through my cupboards to see what ingredients I could combine to turn into something tasty.

Spring is in the air in Bootle at the moment, and, despite all the diurnal temper tantrums that March inevitably brings, there’s a real feeling of freshness, of the world reawakening after the long dark Winter months. I’d recently seen a recipe for Earl Grey Cake on the lovely baking blog Raspberri Cupcakes, and immediately knew that it was just the thing I was looking for.

The idea of putting bitter tea leaves into a sweet cake may seem like an odd one. But Earl Grey tea actually adds a lovely dimension to baked products, providing them with a lovely pop of citrus and bergamot without being overwhelming. A lemon glaze just gilds the lily slightly, adding a nice bit of zing. The overall effect is comforting and curiously addictive – both myself and Mr. Cay have kept creeping back to the kitchen over the past few days to sneak surreptitious slices. It may not look like much, but this cake might just be one of the best things I’ve baked this year.

EARL GREY CAKE WITH LEMON GLAZE

Earl Grey Cake recipe adapted from Raspberri Cupcakes

You will need:

For the cake

• 2 Earl Grey tea bags (about 3 tsp leaves)
• 60ml boiling water
• 80ml milk
• 100g butter, at room temperature
• 2 medium sized eggs
• 160g caster sugar
• 190g self-raising flour

For the lemon glaze

• 3 tbsp icing sugar
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp grated lemon zest
• 1 tbsp milk

Make It!

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4. Grease and line a medium sized cake tin. Empty the tea leaves from the tea bags into a cup and add the boiling water. Steep for 3 minutes then add milk to cup.
2. Place butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Then, add the eggs one at a time, beating until smooth. Next gradually add the flour and tea mixture, alternating between wet and dry ingredients. Beat gently until just combined.
3. Pour mixture into prepared tin and bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden and a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. After around five minutes, turn it out onto a wire rack or a large plate.
4. Whilst the cake is cooling, make the glaze. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add the lemon juice, lemon zest and the milk. Beat until smooth and glossy (feel free to add more icing sugar to the glaze if you feel it looks a bit thin)
5. Once the cake is sufficiently cool (this should take around twenty minutes or so), pour the glaze over it. I like to take a small pastry brush and brush the glaze over the sides so that it’s almost entirely covered with zesty sugary goodness.
6. Serve immediately. This cake tastes good when freshly made, and even better when refridgerated overnight.

Red Lentil & Lemon soup with Harissa croutons

And so, December rolls around again like a tinsel-bedecked juggernaut. The big kid in me always loves this month, with the promise of Christmas (and the prospect of a week devoted to immense gluttony) just around the corner.  The part of me that appreciates not working to walk in the middle of a howling hailstone storm, however, isn’t as keen.

I always think that Bootle looks especially bleak in the Winter months, when not even the sight of the Seaforth docks, with its grain silos wrapped in fairy lights and cheap tinsel, can alleviate some of the gloom. I walked home last night in the rain; the slick wet pavements lit up by the sodium glare of streetlights the same dirty colour as the snood I’d bundled into, and decided that I needed three things to get me through a cold Monday night:

1) Tea

2) A hug from Mr. Cay

3) Soup. And plenty of it

One of my favourite soups to make when the weather take a turn for the worse is this Red Lentil & Lemon soup. I first read it about it on Orangette, who describes it (quite aptly in my opinion) as being ‘a quiet soup’. Indeed, there is something reassuringly simple and comforting about this combination of lentils, cumin and lemon juice – although it doesn’t smack you in the face with spice, there is a certain ‘something’ about it which makes it so much more than just another lentil soup. The dab of tomato paste also lends it a certain umami zing, which is just the thing to put some life back into cold bones.

Because I like a bit of crunch with my soup, I also whipped up some Harissa Croutons from the leftovers of a sourdough loaf I’d baked on Sunday. Whilst I am a firm believer in the benefits of making your own Harissa (Eat Like a Girl has an excellent recipe on her blog if you feel like whipping up a batch sometime soon), I am also terribly lazy. So, I just used the stuff from a jar which I’d recently bought from Steenberg’s Organics.

Warm soup, spicy croutons, hot tea and Masterchef on the telly. Winter may have hit Bootle with a vengeance, but so long as I have all of these things at my disposal, life will always be good.

RED LENTIL & LEMON SOUP WITH HARISSA CROUTONS (Serves four)

Soup recipe adapted slightly from ‘In the kitchen with a good appetite’ by Melissa Clark. Harissa Croutons recipe originally by Eat Like a Girl

You will need:

• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 large onions, finely diced
• 2 garlic cloves, finely diced
• 1 tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 tsp ground cumin (I like to use whole cumin seeds, which are toasted in a pan and then ground in a pestle and mortar)
• 100g  red lentils
• 2 large carrots, peeled and diced
• ½ tsp  salt, or more to taste
• A few grinds of black pepper
• Pinch of red chilli flakes
• 2 pints of chicken or vegetable stock (I used chicken)
• Juice of a lemon  to taste
• A good handful of fresh coriander, finely chopped

For the croutons

• 1 tbsp harissa
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 100g sourdough bread, cubed

Make It!

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F/gas mark 2. Combine the harissa and olive oil and season. Toss with the bread to coat. Bake for 20-25 minutes until crisp, shaking occasionally.
2. In a large pot, warm the oil over medium-high heat until hot and shimmering. Add the onions and garlic and sweat for around 4 minutes  until golden.
3. Stir in the tomato paste, cumin, salt, pepper, and cayenne, and cook for another two minutes. Add the stock,  the lentils, and the carrots. Bring to a simmer, then partially cover the pot and reduce the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Continue to cook for around half an hour  until the lentils and carrots are soft. Taste, and add more salt if necessary.
4. Once cooked, puree around half of the soup using a hand blender (or a food processor if you’re lucky enough to own one) . It should still be slightly chunky. Reheat if necessary, then stir in the lemon juice and fresh coriander. Serve the soup drizzled with good olive oil and topped with the harissa croutons.