I think of myself as a fairly modern woman. I want a career, and I've spent years working hard to get where I am.

But a recent article I read in the Guardian, plus others in a similar vein, with their posturing of 'a woman doesn't need a man to be happy!' 'we need to tell women it's ok to be single!' made me feel a little out of step with their apparently 'modern' view of what women want and the relationships we have. Above anything, even above my desire to be a Science presenter on the BBC, I want to marry a man who will love me and have my back when things get tough. The Guardian article and others like it suggest that I'm old fashioned to want this, particularly the marriage part.

My parents met, fell in love and married at a fairly young age - they were 24 when they wed. And it wasn't until the painful ending of a three year relationship at university that I realised my life might not pan out in the same way. I had always assumed I would meet my future husband at university, and that I would be married and a mother by the time I was 30.

It was the crushing of that long-held assumption and the realisation I still had to find the man I would spend my life with that was one of the hardest parts of the breakup. A period of being single followed, which while at times disheartening, did allow me to travel the world in order to start building my career - I did (and still do) fully appreciate that I would have found it much harder with the desire to be with someone tying me down to England.

The problem is, I'm still looking for the man I'm going to marry. The sadness at a more recent breakup was again added to by the fear of having to go 'back on the market'.

So although I would say I was a fairly modern woman, I feel like I'm harbouring a dirty, outdated secret that I want so much to be a wife and mother. There is absolutely no pressure from my parents (not directly anyway, but more on that in a moment) - they would never want me to 'settle' for just anybody, and I don't think they would be bothered if at age 35 I decided to become pregnant through sperm donation and raise a child on my own. But that would bother me.

It is often said that children of divorced parents have their views of marriage shaped as a result. But I would argue that the same is true of children of any type of marriage. Perhaps my expectations have been set unreasonably high by my parents' happiness - a marriage based on them clearly loving, supporting and, yucky though it is to say it, fancying each other. So, having had my desire to get married shaped by their marriage, all these pro-feminist articles feel like a dig, saying 'oh you're so old fashioned that all you want is to be happily married!'.

But am I the only one who feels this way, while all the young women around me are rolling their eyes at long term monogamy and marriage? Apparently not. On voicing my concerns, a friend agreed with me and suggested that many of us girls in our mid-twenties are now in a post-Sex and the City generation, that doesn't necessarily want to shag around, but does seek longer, more meaningful releationships, and marriage.

So what do you think? Are you like me, longing to find the man who will be your husband, the father of your children and who you can spend your life with? Or do you think that marriage is an outdated institution?

For the past two summers, I've attempted to do a bit of veg growing in my garden. Last year I managed to grow some dwarf beans and a courgette plant FROM SEED and had several happy meals involving my homegrown babies.

This year for my birthday, a friend gave me some more veg seeds, plus some chili plants and tomato plants. After nurturing through the spring on my windowsill, the tomatoes went outside into a grow bag, and even survived me moving the whole growbag in my car to my new house. Two of the tomato plants are cherry tomatoes and the other one started growing absolute whoppers bigger than my fist.I only attempted to grow cucumbers from seed this year, and I had success!

A weird little spiky yellow snooker ball grew, and I managed to harvest it before I accidentally killed the plant with waterlogging. The little salad I made with this and some of my homegrown cherry tomatoes, dressed with lime, agave nectar and chopped coriander made a perfect sweet, crunchy, fresh side to veg and leftover roast chicken cooked with chipotles en adobo. And it was all made doubly satisfying by knowing I grew them! A lovely contented feeling.

Now for the whopper tomatoes. These are the sweetest, most flavoursome tomatoes I have ever eaten - I had pretty much given up on ever eating tomatoes again over the past couple of years, after endless disappointment in supermarket offerings that were too crunchy, too sour and too watery.

After a weekend feeling poorly, I fancied a fresh, tasty lunch, and since it would be a travesty to cook these babies, I thought of a classic tomato and mozzarella salad. Marks and Spencer provided the mozzarella - a whole wobbly, soft ball all to myself. Super creamy and delicious. Plus the crunch of pine nuts and fragrance of basil. It was heavenly.

Ingredients (serves one convalescent)

2 big sweet tomatoes
I ball of mozzarella
Big handful of pine nuts
A few basil leaves
Colona olive oil
Aged balsamic vinegar or sherry vinegar
Salt, pepper

Method

Slice the tomatoes and sprinkle with some sea salt on a chopping board. Put the pine nuts in a little pan over a low gas and toast them (keep an eye on them - those cheeky little buggers burn quickly!). A little liquid will have come out of the tomatoes after a minute or so, so arrange them on a plate. Drain the mozzarella and tear it into pieces over the tomatoes, definitely trying some just to, y’know, *check* it’s ok... Tip over the pine nuts and tear the basil leaves. Drizzle with a little Colona olive oil (I like the lemon one - it works so well here, but a good extra virgin oil will do) and a tiny bit of vinegar to add a touch of sharpness. A nice big crack of black pepper and you’re ready to go!

I can’t recommend growing your own enough. I have been consistently amazed at how easy it is, and it is so satisfying and joyful to be able to use something you saw turn from a little wee baby plant, grow up and burst into flower, then saw the tasty morsels grow day by day, in your cooking. Give it a go - happy growing!

BB x

Just a quickie here. Last Friday I went along to the first day of opening for the new reincarnation of Fitzbillies, the legendary Cambridge bakery and cafe. Except that when I went once before in my student days, I was mightily unimpressed with the place and the service. I did have a very tasty Sachertorte bought for me there, but I was never really a huge fan. I was sad to hear it had gone out of business, but didn't feel it would leave a cakey hole in my life.

But now it has been taken over by the lovely Tim Hayward and his wife, and redone with white walls and blue tiles (the colour of which apparently took a lot of choosing, but was made to match the colour of a Cambridge Blue scarf). Miss Sue Flay mentioned she and Sarah were going, and I decided to tag along, and buy some cakes.

This is only going to be a brief review of the three cakes/buns I tried - they're starting savoury food this week, and should be open for dinners soon too, so will post a much more in depth review once I've been along (and you can bet I will be, if the standard of the cakes is anything to go by...)

So, to the cakes. Don't they just look gorgeous? All the flower decorations are made by a charming 83 year old gentleman who trained in the London hotels in the 40s and is still going strong. Awesome.

They were selling vanilla, chocolate, carrot and coffee & walnut cupcakes, plus Chelsea buns for their first day of opening. I tried the carrot, the coffee and walnut and a chelsea bun (hot out of the oven!).

The carrot was, I think, my favourite. The sponge was dark, moist and incredibly soft (I made a right mess eating it on the train). The fruit (raisins I'm guessing) were almost caramelised and treacly. And perfectly set off by the soft, sweet, slightly sharp cream cheese icing. Will definitely be back for some more of these.

The coffee and walnut had a drier, more solid sponge texture. I would have preferred it a little lighter, but it was again very tasty. The icing and chopped walnuts topping it off went well too, though perhaps it was a touch too sweet for me (gosh, I am picky about my cakes!). Very very good though.

And now the Chelsea buns. I hadn't had one before, and Tim did warn me that I may need to be hooked up to an insulin drip after eating one, as they are notoriously sweet, being covered in a cinnamony sugar syrup. He. Was. Not. Wrong. My GOD those things are sweet. Just about cut through with the sharpness of the little currants inside, but even so, the three of us SHARED one in the cafe, and all agreed that was enough. I made the point that eating one with a nice big mug of tea, whilst reading a book or the paper in the afternoon, over the course of about an hour, is probably the way to do it. If you eat it all quickly, then you'll be bouncing off the walls, tripping out on the sugar. Very nice caramelised flavours on the corners and undersides though, and lovely soft pastry. And the smell they filled the cafe with once out of the oven was so homely and intoxicating, I wanted to move into a corner of the kitchen with my duvet right then.

So, in summary. Fitzbillies does excellent cakes. And that was on their first day of opening, when the previous night the shop still looked mostly like a building site. The coffee smelt and looked lovely and a lot of thought has gone into their tea - what to use, how it's brewed etc. Always a good sign. The staff were all smiley and the decor inside is pretty and light. Go now. I will be getting myself back down there for some cakes, and for some more substantial food too, as soon as I can.

 

BB x

I've had the good fortune to have some very satisfying crafty time over the past couple of weeks, with my proudest creations being a little thank you gift for a friend's dinner party, and a tote bag I made during a lovely evening making bags and eating cake at the Cambridge Cath Kidston shop...

My first little craft project was a Thank You cupcake for my friend Sabrina who was cooking a Spanish Sunday lunch feast. I don't like buying wines or chocolates for other people as I don't know what they like, but a little hand made surprise is, I've found, always welcome. So here's the little cupcake, made using felt that I bought from the lovely Lupin Handmade.

It went down very well, so I was thrilled.

The next exciting craftiness of the week was the evening at Cath Kidston, set up by the ladies that work there. Miss Sue Flay invited me to go along, and I chose to go for the more ambitious sewing project of a tote bag. The evening was free - we just paid for our fabric, which they gave us a 50% discount on! Despite occasional stresses of having not got the pattern right, and lots and lots of pressing of fabric and seams, I had this glorious contrast lined tote to show for it, plus a little needle holder that I managed to make too.

Oh, and there was also some of Miss Sue Flay's reliably gorgeous cake. This time a victoria sponge filled with vanilla buttercream and apricot and amaretto jam. Bliss!

Very proud of my little crafting creations - it's a very satisfying, cozy way to spend an evening, making something for yourself, or for a lucky recipient! Happy crafting...

BB x

Mulberries are a glorious and under-known summer fruit. They have an incredibly intense sweet, fruity, almost lemon sherbert-y flavour, and if you have a tree near you, I implore you to go out and pick some. A word of warning though, wear dark clothes, because the juice stains like nothing else I know, and wear latex gloves if you don’t want your hands to end up like this:

But back to the jam. Much like the wonderful children’s book Frederick, mulberry jam can bring back the memories of summer even in deepest winter, and is really really easy.

Last year I managed to get some from the two trees in the garden in my old College, and make jam, but silly me, I didn’t note down the recipe. The season has come around again, so I thought I should share the mulberry joy with you all. The jam is delish on scones, on thick toast with lots of butter, and heavenly in a Victoria sponge cake.

Ingredients

700g mulberries
700g sugar (castor or granulated, it doesn’t really matter)
4 lemons - zest of 2, juice of all 4
1 side plate
jars - this amount made 4 small-ish jars of jam

Method

Put a side plate in the freezer - this is for testing if the jam is done. Wash some jars, then put them on a baking sheet in the oven to dry out at about 130 degrees C. Put the lids in a saucepan and boil in water for a few minutes. This ensures you’re all ready with your jars and lids when the jam is finished.

Tip all the mulberries into a big pan, add the zest of 2 lemons and juice of 4 and heat on a medium flame (I did mine straight from the freezer, which works just fine), until they start to release juice. Smoosh them up a bit with a potato masher too. Add the sugar and give it a stir. Turn up the heat to start to dissolve the sugar and bring the mix to the boil. Keep mashing the fruit every now and then.

You’ll start to see scum forming on the top - skim this off with a spoon, as well as as many of the mulberry seeds as you can. The seeds will all rise to the top too, and if you turn down the heat a touch so it stops furiously bubbling, they’re easy to see and skim off. Don’t worry if you don’t get all of them (you won’t), but it helps to reduce the crunchy seed factor in the final jam. Keep boiling the mixture for about 20-30 minutes - it’ll start to get quite gelatinous with gloopy strings when you pull out the spoon. Get the plate out of the freezer and tip a little bit of the jam onto it. Leave for about a minute then run your finger through it. If the surface wrinkles, then the jam is ready! If not, boil for another few minutes and test again.

Ladle the jam into a pyrex jug, take the jars out of the oven, and fill them from the jug. Using oven gloves, put on the jar lids and screw them shut. Leave the jam to cool - if you check the little clicky buttons on the jam lids after a few minutes, they should either have clicked in by themselves, or you can push them down and they won’t spring back up again. This shows the jars are sealed. Label the jam and store (or eat it straight away on some toasted brioche...yum!)

BB x

Oh dear, it has been rather a while since the last post hasn't it? Well, I have an excuse, as I've been moving house, to a new place with a MUCH bigger kitchen - hurrah! Plus a garden full of blackberries...

 

My tomato plants made it here safely, and I've 'harvested' the first few sweet little morsels... (I picked five more this afternoon! FIVE!)

 

I felt like treating myself on moving day to some fresh fish from the fish van man outside the Portland Arms, so bought some gorgeous steaky hake, and panfried it to have with a bulghar wheat salad - with cucumber, peppers, avocado and artichokes and a dressing of lime juice, agave nectar and chopped coriander. Very refreshing and yummy on such a hot day...

 

And then I had my first guest round for dinner two days later - super super easy ricotta gnocchi or 'gnudi', using Deepa's recipe. They turned out beautifully; little soft pillows of slightly cheesy goodness, smothered in a courgette and garlicky tomato sauce, with lots of parmesan. Yum!

So that's what I've been busy doing whilst I haven't been packing/unpacking or maiming my car in attempting to get it into the tiny garage entrance... A new proper post soon, I promise...

 

BB x

 

 

 

Last week I threw a celebratory dinner party to say goodbye to the house I’m moving out of. I had 10 friends coming over and no idea how I would make enough food to feed that many people, with minimum effort and time. One of the big suggestions on twitter was tagine, which sounded perfect. The final menu ended up being a mezze type starter with various tasty dips (including a rather experimental but tasty canellini bean, parmesan and yoghurt one), the tagine, then hot gooey chocolate puddings with cream.

So, after deciding on a tagine, I just had to figure out what meat, what spices etc. A little bit of internet perusal brought up some tasty recipes, including Sabrina’s gorgeous sounding lamb tagine, which I used as a guide to spices to use. After a call ahead to my lovely local butchers (Andrew Northrop on Mill Road) to order boned chicken thighs, and chicken drumsticks, I went to pick them up, and discovered Al Amin, just down the road. This is an incredible shop selling all sorts of fantastic Middle Eastern, Indian and Asian ingredients. I picked up my favourite Lebanese bread to go with my mezze starter, and some fragrant fresh coriander.

And now to the tagine itself. This is certainly one of the most satisfying, delicious pots of food I have ever created, which made me utterly thrilled, because it was also one of the easiest. Prep took about 20 minutes (but that’s because I had so much chicken to brown in batches!), and then it’s just a question of leaving it alone for 3 hours. Super easy!

This recipe serves 12 - when I make it again for a smaller number, I’ll update the post with a scaled down version...

Ingredients

12 boned chicken thighs, 12 drumsticks
2 large brown onions
5 big cloves of garlic
1tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp ground cumin
1tsp ground coriander
1tsp sweet paprika
1tsp garam masala
generous pinch of saffron
1tsp black peppercorns
1 small chilli, chopped, seeds and all (bite the end to check how hot it is - if it's really hot then leave out the seeds)
½ litre/1 pint stock (I used Buillon powder dissolved in boiling water
⅔ jar of passata
2 handfuls apricots
handful of chopped fresh coriander

Method

Start off by browning all the chicken pieces in batches in a large pot (I used a soup/jam pot, but a le Creuset casserole or similar would be great too) in a good glug of olive oil on a high heat.

Watch out for the hot fat spitting at you - hot chicken fat in the face is not fun my friends. While the chicken is doing, roughly chop the onions. When all the chicken is done, add the onions to the oil and fat that will have rendered out from the browning chicken. Tip in the chopped chilli and all the spices except for the saffron, which you should stir into the hot stock, and stir them through the onions as they soften a bit. Add back all the chicken and add the stock/saffron mixture and the passata. If I’d had space in the pot I would have added some cubed sweet potato and butternut squash here too, so if you’re scaling this down, then do add them!

Give it a stir (or a cursory poke about if the pot is too full to stir, like mine was), stick on the lid and move it to a low heat. Leave it bubbling gently away for three hours, while you bugger off and do other things (my activities of choice were a couple of exercise classes and going to borrow more plates for eating the tagine on!). It doesn’t need poking, or stirring or anything, though do watch it doesn’t bubble over - mine did a bit, so I came back to a tagine-y saucy oily soup on the top of my hob. Lovely.

When you come back to it, the whole room will smell of spices, particularly the saffron. Give it a taste - it shouldn’t need any seasoning, and should have a fabulous deep, rich, savoury flavour. If you’re planning on serving it then and there, stir in the apricots and allow to warm and soften in the mix for about half an hour. I re-heated mine for a dinner party the next evening, gently bringing it back to the boil, and adding a touch more stock - I added the apricots here, so they ended up being in there for about an hour before serving.

Just before you serve it, sprinkle over the chopped fresh coriander. I served mine with fruity cous cous - a variation on a recipe from the wonderful (sadly now closed) 101 Pimlico Road restaurant, some carrots braised in a touch of water, a knob of butter, and cumin and caraway seeds, and some green beans cooked then tossed in oil and lemon. I was very gratified with all the ‘WOW!’s I got bringing it to the table.
Then all that’s left to do is to sit back and enjoy the ecstatic facial expressions of your friends as they tuck in. Oh, and make them do the washing up afterwards...

BB x

On one of the only proper summer days this year, hot and bright, with that gorgeous smell of sun-heated grass, I discovered possibly one of my favourite ever restaurants, the Bristol Lido. Normally, my restaurant horizons only extend to Cambridge and London, but because of a family friend’s wedding, my parents and I were in Bristol for the weekend. After a very enjoyable wander around some little boutique shops of Clifton, and a walk over and back over the stunning Clifton Suspension Bridge, we headed over to the Lido, tucked away amidst some rather unprepossessing 60s office buildings. It is an utter oasis of old school English swimming heaven - I could just imagine groups of Victorian men and women in those stripy long sleeved and legged swimming costumes lazing around.

The pool and spa facilities have been gorgeously redone, and even on such a hot day, it was busy and buzzing around the pool but not crammed. The poolside cafe was all scrubbed wooden tables and piles of tasty looking tarts and puddings, and I was a little disappointed to be told our table was booked for the upstairs restaurant. I really needn’t have been. Shady, with open sides and a view over the pool, plus a view of the kitchen, it’s a perfect spot. I am absolutely gobsmacked that it was so quiet on a Sunday lunchtime. And the food! Prepare yourselves for some serious superlatives people. How much did I love this place? Well put it this way. It’s worth a day trip to Bristol just to go there. But I digress...

As we sat down, the very helpful waitress plonked a big carafe of iced water down on the table, and refilled it whenever it got too low. Perusing the menu, it was clear it was definitely one of those places it’s hard to choose because you want everything. They have an a la carte menu, but we ordered from the set menu - which was a nice surprise to have on a weekend.

To start us off, we ordered some bread and some gorgeous smoky, sour Morcon Iberico - a little bit like chorizo. The bread was amazing. Chewy, soft sourdough with the yummiest crust I’ve ever tasted, and lovely grassy olive oil for dipping. It was so good we hoovered it right up and ordered a second lot (in fact we even begged to be able to buy a loaf to take home, and they very kindly obliged given it was a Sunday). Drinks were elderflower bellinis and my choice of a crisp, fresh, cold 250ml of Pinot Grigio. What I really liked about this was they brought it in a little carafe rather than in one big glass, which psychologically made me feel like there was more of it, and could top up my glass as I wished.

To start, I had grilled sardines with chopped Turkish salad - the coold, fresh flavours of the salad and yoghurt dressing a perfect foil for the hot, crisp fish. The only fault I would pick with this was that it was in fact only one sardine - putting it in the plural on the menu made me a little disappointed when it did arrive. Mum had goats curd and juicy tomatoes on some of the tasty sourdough toasted, and Dad had the mussels with chorizo. All perfectly light and incredibly flavoursome.

For mains I did get quite serious food envy - both parents had the wood roast hake with tabbouleh and tahini, while I had the tagliatelle with goats curd, courgette, thyme and poppy seeds. Mine was delicious - the poppy seeds were an unexpected but surprisingly good addition - their crispness added texture to the soft courgettes and pasta. But the hake was something else. Roasted in the wood oven where they make the bread, it was meaty, juicy and crispy, and the tabbouleh and tahini/allspice sauce worked perfectly with it.

Given it was such a hot day, it seemed rude not to try the ice creams, and once again I did get food envy a little bit. Served in gorgeous little Moroccan glasses, I had the raspberry, strawberry and creme fraiche ice cream, which was excellent, with the right balance of sharp fruitiness and creaminess. But the Pedro Ximenez and raisin ice cream was incredible, especially with an extra glass of the thick, sweet, treacly, burnt-sugar and caramelised fruit flavoured sherry in question.

And for only about £30 a head all in, it really was the best value for such a high quality meal that I have eaten in a very very long time. All in all, a completely joyous experience, with un-rushed, friendly service and exceptional food in a gorgeous location. I’m already planning a return trip with a pre-food swim to work off all that food...

BB x

Good customer service always makes me smile, and of course, keeps me shopping there. And some of the best is definitely at my local Waitrose. After buying some fruit for a friend’s dinner party, I realised there was a problem on the receipt, so took it to the shop the next day. They were terribly apologetic, and instead of just refunding me the £2 I was owed, they refunded me AND gave me two more packs of fruit for free! Bless them. But that left me with a dilemma - I now had one and a half punnets of blueberries to use up.

Coincidentally I also needed to bake a cake for a friend’s birthday, so I decided to make my go-to almond cake, and mix things up a bit by making a blueberry and white chocolate version. I’ve made this cake a few times in its usual raspberry and lemon incarnation, and it’s always a big hit.

It’s vaguely based on a Nigel Slater recipe for a lemon and thyme cake I saw in the Guardian. Well, the basic cake mix is, but you can add almost anything. I am a big fan of recipes that can just be altered to suit whatever takes your fancy or whatever’s in the fridge or cupboard. This version is much sweeter than the raspberry and lemon version, as blueberries are less sharp than raspberries, and you’ve got the added sweetness of the white chocolate. But it’s still wonderfully summery and fruity, as well as having those gorgeous fudgy cooked white chocolate chunks.

This is a great picnic cake if you cut it into squares and wrap it in foil (or in a layer of baking paper first, then foil - thanks Helen!), as it travels really well and doesn’t need icing. It can also be turned into a gorgeous pudding for a dinner party as well, with a dollop of natural yoghurt or creme fraiche and a handful of the fruit that’s in the cake.

Ingredients

Basic cake mix:
200g very soft slightly salted butter
200g caster sugar
4 medium eggs
100g self raising flour
100g ground almonds
A dash of vanilla extract

For the blueberry and white chocolate version:
100g white chocolate, chopped
150g blueberries

For the raspberry and lemon version:
Zest of 1 lemon
150g raspberries
Big handful flaked almonds

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C, or gas mark 5, and line a square cake tin with baking paper. Put both the almonds and flour in the same bowl. Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy, then add the vanilla extract and beat again. Add one egg and sift in a quarter of the flour and almonds. Beat it all in until nice and incorporated. Then do the same with the remaining three eggs and three quarters of the flour and almonds, trying to incorporate as much air as possible. If you’re making the raspberry/lemon version, add the lemon zest now. Tip two thirds of the mix into the cake tin and level down.

Sprinkle with the blueberries and white chocolate, or with raspberries, then top with the rest of the mix and smooth it over. Sprinkle on the flaked almonds if making the raspberry lemon version. Put in the oven for about 45 minutes or until a metal skewer or knife comes out clean. Let it cool on a metal rack, then cut into squares. It keeps well for a couple of days, but is delicious warm from the oven.

When damsons and plums come into season I might try using them, sliced up. Also, if you want to make it in winter, it works well with frozen raspberries too. Happy baking!

BB x

Living in Cambridge, I’m pretty far from the seaside.But for a summer BBQ I wanted to bring a bit of the seaside to my garden, so decided to make some ice cream cupcakes. My baker-extraordinaire friend Emily had made them a while before and they looked just amazing, so I had to give them a go. If you want to make something that is super easy, but make all your friends go ‘wow!’, then this is the recipe to go for! They would also be great for children’s parties.

I followed Ruth of The Pink Whisk’s recipe, but I found that it made way more than the original recipe said - I ended up making 20, rather than 12!

Ingredients

For the cake:
200g very soft slightly salted butter
200g caster sugar
4 medium eggs
200g self raising flour
Vanilla extract
Flat-bottomed ice cream cones (I bought mine in Sainsburys)

For the icing:
200g soft unsalted butter
350-400g icing sugar
Vanilla bean paste
Piping bag with a star-shaped nozzle

Flakes (to get that proper 99 Flake look!)
Cake sprinkles, ice cream sauce, whatever you fancy to decorate!
Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees or gas mark 5.

Get the cones ready for the mixture. If you have deep muffin tins, you can wedge one cone in each muffin hole with some foil. If you’re like me and don’t have a deep muffin tin, you can stand them up in a large cake tin.

Beat the butter and sugar together until it’s nice and fluffy. Add about a capful of vanilla extract (a little under a teaspoon), and beat again. Dipping your fingers in at this point is optional, but encouraged ;)

Add the first egg and sift in a quarter of the flour. Beat these in, incorporating plenty of air. Do the same for the remaining three eggs and three quarters of the flour, one egg/quarter of flour at a time.

Fill the cones about half full of mixture. I put in ⅔ and that was a bit too much - you want the tops to be below the top of the cone to fit in the icing. If you have some left over, just put them in regular cupcake cases. Put them in the oven for about 30 minutes, until a metal knife or skewer inserted down the middle comes out clean. I'm still amazed that the cones don't burn, but they're just fine.

As you can see, mine came out a bit too full, so I took the tops off to fit the icing in And you know what that means - EXTRA CAKE!

While the cakes are cooling down, make the icing. Put the butter in a bowl and give it a bit of a stir to make it nice and soft. Add the icing sugar a bit at a time, until the icing is nice and stiff. Add the vanilla bean paste (or extract if you don’t have it, but the black vanilla seeds look very pretty). Spoon it into a piping bag and swirl onto the tops of the cakes. Cut the flakes in half (or they’ll be too long), and stick in the side. Add sprinkles, and they’re done!

These actually keep really well in the fridge - we were still enjoying these on Monday evening, after I made them on Saturday afternoon. If there are any left, of course... Happy summer!

BB x