As we were away for the weekend, and with yesterday being my last French lesson of this term, (when dinner was fromage et vin rouge in class) there has been a lack of activity in my home kitchen, apart from rustling up a quick pasta, peas and spicy sausage dinner on Monday when I got back from Auckland.
Today is my birthday. As a child, growing up in the Northern Hemisphere, my birthday marked the start of the school summer holidays (Scotland has different holidays to England). Now of course we are in the middle of winter down here, so there are no strawberries or other summer fruits to celebrate the day. Naturally though there is still cake.
This year I just made a simple Victoria Sponge – the first cake many of us in the UK learn to bake. The recipe I first used was still in Imperial measurements with the ratio of ‘4:4:4:2’ ie 4 ounces of flour, 4 of caster sugar, 4 of butter and 2 eggs. This now translates to 3 x 100g +2, which just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
Those familiar with this cake will know you cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs with a little flour one at a time, then gently fold in the rest of the flour. Place the mixture in a 18cm greased cake tin and bake at 180C for around 40 minutes depending on your oven. This makes a nice small cake, perfect for just the two of us for a couple of days.
You then cut it in half and fill with jam, cream, or in my case today mascarpone (which certainly was not available where I lived when I was first learning to bake) and cloudberry jam, a delicious favourite found in Sweden and Finland. I found I had no icing sugar to dust the top to make it look pretty, but it tasted just right with a cup of tea.
Anyway, just a brief post from me today but this well be entered in the What’s on Your Plate blog challenge hosted by bloggers Widow Badass and Retirement Reflections.
Thistles and Kiwis is a Wellington, New Zealand based blog written by Barbara, who likes cats, summer, good food and pretends to garden.
You can find Thistles and Kiwis on Facebook, and also on Instagram @thistlesandkiwis. If you want to get in touch, email me on thistlesandkiwis@gmail.com or lofgren@thistlesandkiwis.co