Afternoon Tea with a Twist

While our Afternoon Tea with a Twist won’t look exactly like the image above but you get the idea. It’s not the usual one. This is our first event and we’re both very excited. It will be our test run. We are trying out new ideas and a new look for it.

It will follow the expected conventions of a typical traditional afternoon tea in that there will be finger sandwiches (or as we call them in NZ, club sandwichs), a selection of savories and finally a selection of cakes and sweet treats. April 29 between 3-4 pm at the Cawdor Community Cente in Cawdor is the location. And yes, there are a couple of tickets still available. If you want to see the menu before you decide if you’d like to attend or not, you will find it here  The Menu

If you would like to buy tickets … Eventbright Ticket Sales

We look forward to seeing you and hope, if you do decide to join us, you will be as excited about eating the food as we are about preparing it for you.

 

 

The Menu

Afternoon Tea with a Twist

Menu

Sandwiches

Smoked Gouda with apple butter

Avocado with basil pesto mayonnaise

Baked ham with pineapple relish

Cucumber with dill and lemon butter

Savouries

Cheddar scone with spiced fig jam

Goats cheese cake with red onion jam

Asparagus and hollandaise tarts

Tomato, Saffron and parmesan tarts

Sweets

Chocolate scones with orange fool filling

Gin, citrus and pink peppercorn éclairs

Earl Grey and lemon mini cakes

Raspberry and white chocolate macaron

Chocolate and salted caramel brownie

Tea Selection

Assam

A strong full-bodied tea which has a distinctive ‘malty’ flavour

Darjeeling

An aromatic and astringent tea with a hint of almonds and wild flowers

Earl Grey

A blend of black tea scented with Bergamot oil

Lapsang Souchong

A Chinese tea fired over smoking pine needed to produce a smoky odour and flavour

For non-tea drinkers, coffee is also available

Vegan cakes recipes

I don’t like publishing cake recipes unless I’ve actually tested them myself and this is one I used to make to sell in my cafe and which was very popular. I’m sorry there are no photos since I haven’t made it recently but it is pretty straightforward so I’ll leave it up to your imagination. It’s a satisfyingly light cake with a tasty peanut butter filling and topping. I guess if you don’t like peanut butter you could just as easily try any other nut butter such as almond or hazelnut.

Banana cake with peanut butter frosting

For the cake:

280 gms plain flour
115 mls light olive oil
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
165 mls maple syrup
1/4 tsp salt
3 medium very ripe bananas, mashed
110 mls non-dairy milk (almond, soy, cashew, etc)
1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar

For the frosting:

175 gms peanut butter
40 gms vegan cream cheese
1 1/2 tbsp vegan butter
1 tsp real vanilla extract
210 gms icing sugar

Method:

1. Line the bottom of two 20cm (8 inch) cake tins with baking paper. Oil and flour the sides.
2. Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C Fan bake or 350°F)
3. Add balsamic vinegar to non-dairy milk. Set aside to curdle (about 5 minutes)
4. Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
5. Beat together the oil and sugar with a handheld mixer for about two minutes.
6. Add the milk/vinegar mixture and mix together until just combined.
7. Add the mashed bananas and beat together making sure there are no lumps remaining.
8. Add the flour in 2 batches, gently beating in after each addition until the mixture is smooth. Do not over-beat the mixture.
9. Divide the mixture equally between the two cake tins and bake 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of each cake comes out clean.
10. Place on a rack to cool, about 10 minutes. Remove from the tins, peel off the baking paper, and leave on a rack to cool thoroughly before frosting.

Peanut Butter Frosting

1. While the cakes are cooling bring the peanut butter and vegan butter to room temperature. But not the cream cheese. This must be cold.
2. Whisk the peanut butter, vegan butter and cream cheese together until smooth and soft.
3. Add the vanilla extract.
4. Add the icing sugar 2 heaped tablespoons at a time, beating to make sure it is thoroughly combined. addition.
5. Place the frosting in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before using.

Assemble the cake:

1. Place one cake on a cake stand or flat dish. Put about 1/3rd of the frosting in the center of the cake and with a spatula spread it evenly across the surface.
2. Carefully place the second cake on top of the first one. Put the remaining icing in the center of the cake and evenly frost the top and sides.
3. Garnish with some chopped, roasted peanuts and/or dried banana slices (optional)

Enjoy!

If you try this recipe, please share your views and comments.

 

Apple and Honey Cake with Salted Honey Caramel.

‘Life is a cake and love is the icing on top of it. Without love, it becomes difficult to swallow life.’

Mehek Bassi

Ah, couldn’t agree more.

The weather is slowly moving into spring; it’s lighter in the mornings and the evenings actually feel like evenings rather than night. Our Crowdfunding started off really well but seems to have slowed. Not sure what to do about this. Perhaps just accept this is it. Not that either of us is complaining since we are enormously grateful for what we’ve received.

Back to cake.

I’ve been thinking about apple cake. I’ve been given some apples and, to be honest, they’re not my favourite fruit but I do like a good apple cake. I also have some honey. Apple and honey seem to go together. There’s something restorative and possibly medieval-ish about the combination. However, most recipes I look at seem the standard apple with cinnamon or variations on that theme. I’m thinking about ramping it up a little so I’ve been working on a recipe for Apple and Honey cake with salted honey caramel. Well, I can only try. This is my plan for Friday: to make it and be prepared (for a change) with phone camera handy so I can map the stages. So until tomorrow…

 

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining us!

“Happiness is knowing there is cake in the oven”

 

And so the blogging journey begins.

Hello, we are Nancy and Julie and we hope you will join us on our blogging journey.

This is more than a blog journey, however, because after spending more than a year in a self-imposed baking desert, Nancy is about to venture out again. After years of baking more cakes and bakes than she cares to remember on a daily basis for her cafe, she is trying her hand at baking on a smaller scale: farmers markets, food events, festivals and fetes, and, perhaps, to sell wholesale to cafes and shops.

When she sold the cafe (Black Cat Cafe in Cambridge), she left behind all baking equipment, recipe books, and taking-cakes-around-to-customers transport. Now we are about to launch a crowdfunding page. Nothing grand but for enough to get us started.

Baking equipment (mixer, baking tins and so on)

Packaging and transporting (cake boxes)

Car/Van (to get cakes to markets etc.

We hope you’ll join and support us because

–sometimes, you just need cake–

Nancy & Julie