Bake Off Bake Along: Madeira Cake

Here's how I described The Great British Bake Off to my colleagues when I presented them with half a Madeira cake yesterday morning: it's a baking contest and it's incredibly competitive, but it's also twee and old-fashioned while being self-aware of how hip it actually is.

From the GBBO website:

The Great British Bake Off is the ultimate baking battle where passionate amateur baking fans compete to be crowned the UK’s Best Amateur Baker. Over the course of 10 hour-long episodes, the series follows the trials and tribulations of the competitors, young and old, from every background and every corner of Britain, as they attempt to prove their baking prowess. Each week the bakers tackle a different baking skill, which become progressively more difficult as the competition unfolds.
It's tremendously fun watching, if you can tune into the BBC by legal means (ahem... or otherwise)!

In every episode, the bakers have three challenges: signature, technical, and showstopper. Lots of fans are baking along with the show, and Amanda and Ala, to show their deep and abiding love for GBBO, are hosting a bloggers' Bake Off Bake Along for the duration of the show - and of course I wanted in! As my baking skills (and tastes) are more classic than creative, I suspect I'll most often be making the signature recipe in each episode. Last week, that was the traditional Madeira cake.

It must be admitted that, while my Madeira cake was delicious, it probably wouldn't advance me to the next round of the competition. I used the BBC recipe and it didn't rise nearly as much as it should have or sport that gorgeous tectonic crack down the middle that you should see on loaf cakes. But it was yummy - especially when topped with blackberry coulis (made from the blackberries I picked on Sunday) and homemade lemon curd!

Madeira Cake - as per the BBC
makes 12 slices; 6 Weight Watchers pointsplus per slice

Blackberry Coulis - as per the BBC
makes 12 servings; 1 Weight Watchers pointsplus per teaspoon

Lemon Curd - as per Smitten Kitchen
makes about 2 cups; 1 Weight Watchers pointsplus per teaspoon

A Special Relationship

October 19, 2009: our first date

October 19, 1781: The British surrender to American and French forces at Yorktown, ending the Revolutionary War

August 24, 2013: we got married

August 24, 1814: British forces capture Washington, DC and burn landmarks (including the White House)

There is, I sometimes like to think, a nice coincidence of noteworthy dates in my relationship with Jon and America's relationship with England. While Jon has promised not to ransack DC, the metaphor for October 19 and August 24 is too good to ignore, and Jon and I have lots of fun teasing each other* with our respective countries' shared history. A few weekends ago, the opportunity arose to experience some of that history when the good ship Hermione docked in Baltimore harbor.

Who or what is the Hermione, you ask? Let me tell you!

In 1777, the Marquis de Lafayette, then only 19 years old, came to the colonies from France to volunteer his services against the British in the Revolutionary War. He returned to France in early 1779, having served with distinction and been made a general under Washington, to convince King Louis XVI to send men to join the war to help turn the tide against the British. A year later, Lafayette sailed back to the United States aboard the Hermione with the news that a large and well-equipped French force would be coming to supplement the ragged but undaunted American troops. General Lafayette's forces and the Hermione, which was part of the blockade in the Chesapeake Bay, played a critical role in the siege of Yorktown in 1781 that led to Cornwallis' surrender and American victory.

The Hermione ran aground and was wrecked off the coast of France in 1793, but a 20-year effort yielded a perfect replica of the 18th century frigate and, in late spring, the new Hermione set sail from France towards the United States. The voyage took 34 days - it took 38 in 1780 - and the ship and its crew were greeted with great fanfare in Yorktown in early June. We caught the Hermione in Baltimore and had a blast roaming the deck and chatting with the fantastic historical re-enactors!

Jon has actually sailed on tall ships, so he approached the day with a professional eye. Here's what he has to say about the Hermione:

Obviously, I can't give the Hermione too much credit for anything, because that would be giving credit to the French and their history, and to do that chills me to my British core. That said, she's a beautiful vessel, and all the more so because of the love and painstaking attention to detail that clearly has gone into this decades-long rebuild of one of the great gallic square-riggers. Understandably, we were only shown around the top deck, but I would love to see how "authentic" life has been made below decks for the volunteers (who were hanging around forlornly in period costumes). I didn't see too much evidence of scurvy on the crew, happily, so perhaps some concessions have been made.

As a side note, at the centre-top of the photo below is the topmast - a small platform you use to get up the rigging to the top sails. There are two ways to get on it from below - you can use the lubber's hole, which allows you to just pop though a small opening in the topmast and get on the platform. If you're confident/want to look cool, you use the Jacob's Ladder - an overhanging rope ladder that juts out diagonally from the mast below. The guys going up these things have harnesses, but you only clip on once you've got to where you're stopping, so fair play to them!

*Mostly I have fun. Jon doesn't have as much fun. That might be because his country lost to my country... twice. But whatever. That's water under the bridge, right?

London from Above

Now that Christmas is over and all the gifts have been unwrapped, I can tell you about the rest of our most festive day in London!  Before our mad two hours at the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland and bedazzled wander through Selfridges, Jon and I enjoyed one of his presents a few days early: drinks and a breathtaking view at the top of the Shard.

I managed to keep our reservation at Gong, on the 52nd floor of London's tallest building, a surprise for Jon, despite several conversations (instigated by him) about whether or not we might want to go to the top at some point on our trip.  We arrived at 2pm and, after having our bags x-rayed on the ground floor, were whisked silently up in the fastest elevator to the Shangri-La Hotel's main reception on the 35th floor.  Easing our way past stacks of high-end luggage, we gawked at the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows - but only for a moment, because we knew we were heading to an even more impressive vantage!  Our ears popped in the second elevator and we both laughed.  I think we were feeling a bit giddy, to be honest, but when we were ushered into the bar proper and shown to a table by a window our giggles turned into awe.

London is incredible from 52 floors up.  It's always incredible, of course, but seeing it open up below you like a map is really something.  Landmarks like Big Ben, St. Paul's, the Eye, and Tower Bridge are just as iconic from above, and it was glorious to see the city's green spaces dotted below us; we even spotted the transmitter at Crystal Palace!  There were a few clouds, but it was a brilliantly clear day and we could see all the way past the Thames barrier in the east.  (It's fascinating just how curvy the Thames is towards Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf!)  We enjoyed our drinks and the company, naturally, but were really there to soak in the view.

A note about our non-visual experience at Gong: Jon ordered the award-winning Black and Blue Swizzle, which he liked but which wasn't to my taste at all, and I played it safe with a yummy Bermondsey Bubbles.  I was told in my confirmation email that there's a £30 minimum per person, which would have been two drinks each, but we asked for the bill after one and our lovely waitress brought it without comment.  Given that it costs £25 for one adult ticket to the Viewing Galleries on floors 68, 69, and 72 just to look around, I think we got quite a good deal!

This was, if I do say so myself, the perfect Christmas present for Jon.  He loves architecture and urban planning, so the opportunity to take him up a Renzo Piano masterpiece and let him explain his beloved city to me was ideal.  He pointed out all the construction work that's going on at the moment, identifying buildings that have sprung up since I moved away and waxing lyrical about proposed changes to this neighborhood or that.  He was in his element!  Whenever we're on walks through London, Jon recalls the most random trivia - I have no idea where he learns this stuff, but I asked him if I can share some of his favorite tidbits here, and he emailed me the following with barely a pause:

Helicopters with only one engine have to fly along the path of the Thames if they're going over London - if you see one going directly overhead then it has to have two, just in case something breaks down! 

Crystal Place, one of the world's most spectacular buildings until it burnt down between the two world wars, is going to be rebuilt by the Chinese! Churchill is said to have wept when he heard about the destruction of the first.

 Speaking of foreign largesse, the "helter skelter tower" in the London Olympic Park is funded entirely by India's wealthiest man, Lakshmi Mittal. It came about when mayor Boris Johnson cornered Mittal in the changing rooms at Davos and "persuaded" him. Aesthetically, the tower is divisive - some people think it should be torn down and the earth underneath salted so nothing can ever grow there again. Others think it should be turned it into a kick-ass roller coaster.

The average Londoner's soul is no longer enough to put down as the deposit on a studio apartment, and now requires the blood of the first born and the ritual sacrifice of the family dog to guarantee getting a mortgage.

The West End has the highest concentration of bars, clubs and pubs of any city in the entire world.

The reason London has never had skyscrapers, until recently, is because there isn't any bedrock to support foundations - unlike NYC. London is mostly built on a clay floodplain - and one of the reasons why the city had the world's first subway network is because clay is very easy to tunnel through.

Why is there always some strange work of modern art on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square (as opposed to some bloke on a horse, as with all the others)? It's an open secret that the spot's being reserved for Her Majesty the Queen, on the sad occasion of her eventual passing.

There you have it, dear readers!  London from Jon's mind - and the top of the Shard.

Father Christmas at Snape

On Sunday morning, Jon's mum* and I went for a lovely run around the heath, through the marsh, and along the river Alde.  The plan was - as it usually is when we go that route - to meet Jon and his father at Snape Maltings, where there's a little café, for a cup of tea before all driving home together.  When we rounded the corner of the concert hall on the grounds, though, we were surprised by how crowded it was!  There are always walkers around there and we expected the house and garden shop to be busy with a last-minute Christmas rush, but the masses of families with young children milling around were a bit of a puzzle.

Finally, we figured out what everyone was waiting for: Father Christmas!

You read that right, dear readers.  Santa came to Snape Maltings, Suffolk.  As he has every Christmas since Jon was a toddler, Santa sailed up the Alde in a century-old barge (his arrival dictated by the tide, of course, because that's what happens when you don't have your reindeer with you) to wave to everyone, booming "Ho ho ho" across the water.  I clutched my decadent hot chocolate in one hand and Jon's arm in the other, and we joined the the madness at the water's edge.  The parents around us seemed more excited than the children, to be honest, but eventually everyone got into the spirit of things; I heard one little girl, perched on her father's shoulders, ask "Is Father Christmas bringing me a present today, Daddy?"

Santa was welcomed by a brass band and disembarked at the quay so that he could hold court in his grotto at the Maltings and meet every child individually.  We made our escape before things got too chaotic, but it was such a fun surprise!

*I know that sounds totally pretentious and I'm sorry, but Jon's mother is his mum.  She just is.  My mother is my mom and his mother is his mum.  That's the way it is.

London's Winter Wonderland

Friday may have been our most festive day in London of this whole trip - for starters, I gave Jon the first part of his present, which I'll blog about after the 25th, and then we spent the end of a gorgeous afternoon at the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland!

Jon and I had been to the annual festival together only once before, in early December 2009.  We'd had a big night out the evening before and had crashed at a flat near the Bond Street station and, in the weak light of morning, still in our party clothes, decided the best way to work through our hangovers was by experiencing Hyde Park Winter Wonderland.  I have this very visceral memory of stumbling across Marble Arch, absolutely freezing because my tights had gotten ripped the night before and so I'd thrown them out, and blinking into the grim scene of mud, mud, more mud, and enforced frivolity before us.

We wanted a do-over.

So, along with the merrily heaving throngs, we approached the fair from Hyde Park Corner arm-in-arm and passed under an arch strung with evergreen branches and fairy lights that proclaimed "Angels Christmas Market."  (I grumbled about the missing apostrophe after the S, of course, but only for a moment because this was a jolly outing.)  After nearly three months in the States, Jon was desperate to legally drink outside on public land, so the first place we stopped at was one of the bars on site; I sang along as a live band played Sweet Home Alabama while Jon bought himself a pint.  We wound our way through the stalls, admiring the tchotchkes for sale and having intense debates about the merits of the varied food options.  After a  quick snack - Jon chose a pulled pork sandwich and I settled on a ham and cheese crepe - I found myself being strapped into the Star Flyer alongside my husband, who had somehow gotten me to forget that I'm terrified of heights.

I had to talk to myself through the entire 60-foot ascent because I was freaking out so much, but I did manage to open my eyes a few times as we swung around and I admitted for the second time that day that London is truly beautiful from up high.

Once our feet were firmly on the ground, we set our sights northward and came out of Hyde Park near Marble Arch.  We had a quick aspirational meander through Selfridges and took one last gander at the Oxford Street Christmas lights before heading home to dinner, bed, and Suffolk the next morning.

It really is the most wonderful time of the year, isn't it?

Frock Fridays: Animal Print

The other day, as Jon and I strolled the West End - London's shopping district, more or less encompassing everything between Marble Arch and Covent Garden - marveling at the festive lights and decorations, I gave in to the pressure of all the pre-Christmas sales.  Actually, I was only really lured into one shop: Hobbs.  I'd perused all their dresses online when working on last Friday's blog post, so I didn't think I'd be tempted too much by anything I saw on the racks, but you know what they say about hubris.  Unsurprisingly, I walked out with a little bag on my arm and a big smile on my face.

I'm absolutely in love with the dress I bought - for £49 down from the original £99 - and, in fact, am wearing it today!  (I'm taking Jon out for part one of his Christmas present this afternoon.  Check Instagram later to see both the dress in action and where we're going!)

Hobbs dress / Target blazer / David Yurman earrings / Assets tights / Blondo boots

Walking the Southbank

I just realized, as I uploaded the 1259 photos I've taken since our plane took off from Dulles on Wednesday night, that I never blogged about the London adventures Jon and I had when I came to visit in August!  (You can find the Suffolk posts here and here and the English garden wedding post here, if you missed them the first time around.)  Maybe I'll get around to sharing those photos in February, when we're two months from this trip with the next in the very distant future and we'll need those memories from a week of summer in London to cheer us.  Well, I promise to try, anyway!

Of course, this stay is going too quickly already; I think it's best if I start publishing some of our explorations before time really gets away from us, don't you?  On Thursday, the day we landed at Heathrow, we spent the whole afternoon wandering along the Thames.  Walking the Southbank is one of Jon's favorite past times, and it was a beautiful crisp afternoon for a jaunt.  (We emerged from the depths of the Underground at Embankment, walked over the bridge towards Waterloo, headed east past the Royal Festival Hall and the National Theatre and the OXO Tower and Shakespeare's Globe, and made our way to London Bridge, which we crossed before continuing eastward on the north side of the river.  Then we crossed the Thames again on Tower Bridge and hied ourselves westward past More London to hop back on the tube at London Bridge.  There's a map at the bottom of this post for you London-lovers!)  I must admit I forgot how early it gets dark in London, but that just made the end of our outing that much more magical!  See for yourselves...