battenburgbelle.com

Guess the name of the cake?

Half term is not the same these days, what with the teenager having her own stuff to do. But I had booked the week off anyway, so when she went to Brent Cross with her chums the other day I pondered popping off to the flicks but nothing was on at the right time. So I did some baking, obviously. I decided to give baguettes a try for the first time since my trip to the Bertinet cookery school. Something went slightly awry in getting the loaves off the baking tray where they were proving and into the oven. One was nice and straight and looked like an actual baguette. Unfortunately the other one resembled a boomerang – although a friend suggested I call it “la courbe” and pretend it was meant to look like that. This moving of the bread is a problem I have encountered a couple of times, so I am very pleased to be heading back to the Bertinet Kitchen in a few weeks for some more lessons.

The good news is that the baguettes were very delicious, a perfect accompaniment to the smoked mackerel paté that Jenny brought round for our starter.

Jenny made us some lovely David Niven fishcakes for our main course. His recipe was light on detail, so I persuaded Jenny to add a few little 21st century twists – full report on those at www.silverscreensuppers.com soon, I hope.

Due to the extended absence of Missy B that day I amused myself once the baguettes were in the oven by making an orange drizzle cake to take on a visit to the Essex branch of the family. This was another recipe from my friend Roger’s great book World’s Best Cakes. After some confusion about the name of the cake (one of Missy B’s cousins thought we’d brought an orange dribble cake, while the other one convinced himself it was orange piddle cake), they wolfed the lot.

Roger says in the book that it will stay fresh for the whole weekend. How can he know that?? I can’t see how it would survive past one sitting, even without my little brother’s family  at the table!