Gluten-free lemon, polenta and pistachio cakes: buttery and moist with a hint of texture thanks to polenta, nutty yet bright with citrus. Finished with a tart lemon glaze – you won’t be able to stop eating them!  Jump to Recipe 

I can’t look at these lemon, polenta & pistachio cakes without being transported back to my first day in London (a couple of months ago now – so cliche but time freaking FLIES). It was a camera-toting, 35,000 step walking kinda day – maximum sight-seeing and eating involved. I don’t know about you, but my personal tried and true methods (no actual evidence) of minimising jetlag on those 30 hour multi-stop flights and make the most of that first day off the plane are: grab a few hours sleep on route in the timezone you’re travelling into; arrive basically wrecked in the evening at your destination; immediately pop melatonin and sleep like the dead for a straight 12 hours. The next morning, add (in this case) an early bird coffee stop at Brooklyn coffee and a bowl of Ottolenghi’s bircher, studded with sesame brittle, swirls of tahini date sauce and dollops of roasted strawberries = jetlag cured.

Bowled over by the tiered sugary window display at Ottolenghi, I couldn’t leave without taking something for the road – an intriguing and sturdy lemon, polenta and pistachio cake. And trust me, I got countless envious (maybe curious, but I’m going with envious) looks from fellow tourists a few hours later when I plonked myself in the sun at the Tower of London to eat it. The rest of the day was a blur of wandering over various London bridges, gazing at views from the galleries of St Paul’s, and getting a mini Soho tour from Bec – dinner perched on stools at The Barbary, countless sneaked samples of that incredible silky dark hot chocolate from Whittards, and indulgent salted caramel doughnuts from Bread Ahead Bakery.

As you may know from my instagram, that was hardly the only time I indulged at Ottolenghi – there were salads eaten curbside at the Portobello Road Market, indulgent cinnamon coated berry french toast pre-Harry Potter, a smoky capsicum-tomato shakshuka topped with spoonfuls of labneh, and an intense dark chocolate cake with a tahini-caramel centre. Oh, and a huge summer-peach-berry-meringue-slice-thing. Yes, I’m sure I probably put on 5 kilos while I was away. Yes, I loved every single bite – no regrets there. And yes, I absolutely cannot wait until his new book comes out!!!

Anyway, I had to try and recreate those lemon polenta cakes. It took a couple of tries (hence the couple of different photo-shoots, and 2 different sets of loaf tins because on one occasion they stuck  – sorry about the completely different lighting situations happening here), but to be perfectly honest – this version is even better than the real deal in London. Seriously. Those had a bit of crumbly-dryness that is completely eliminated here – just buttery, moist, citrus-y, tangy, nutty, bright cake. They’re also gluten free – it wasn’t my initial intention, but if you’re gluten intolerant or catering for someone with coeliac disease then they’re even more perfect!

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Lemon, Almond & Raspberry Layer Cake with cream cheese buttercream and pink white chocolate ganache drips. Gluten free option. Jump to Recipe 

I’m not sure what this lemon, almond & raspberry layer cake is celebrating. Maybe it is a half way mark cake – marking the start of the second half of my university degree (2.5 years to go!), or just a much-too-fancy afternoon tea cake. Though I have been making it on and off all year as a 21st birthday cake, there was no such event or excuse this weekend. Just a desire for cake, the time to spend on icing and layers, and the willingness to sit and create silky drips of ganache, sliding gently down the sides. It’s not as sleek and precise as many these days, with the drips imperfect, the buttercream with edges and nicks, and the whole entity threatening to tilt on a slight angle – but it is one of the best tasting cakes I have discovered. It’s the sort of cake that improves over a day or two and having it dry out is never a concern – ground almonds and berries add moisture, lemon zest and juice infuses it, and the tangy cream cheese buttercream is the sort you could eat straight from the bowl.

The sort of cake that always makes your day a little brighter.

I wish life in the hospital was as simple as that – giving patients cake for a miraculous cure, or at least a smile. Hospital food is dull. The smell wafts through the wards as we finish our rounds, lunches of watery, pale orange pumpkin soup and overcooked broccoli, accompanied by some unidentifiable curry – or, if you are diabetic, it is dry wheat sandwiches, vaguely soggy with tomato and cheese. Anything eaten in the hospital never tastes as good anyway, even if it formerly was. Maybe it is the smell – antiseptics and sterility and something I can never quite put my finger on but is instantly recognizable as the scent of illness.

Then patients have to deal with us – a whole group of doctors and students, from the registrar to the interns, the fifth year trailing along with the notes, scribbling away madly, and the third years just following like sheep. We surround their bed, standing there all healthy and harried, distracted by all the other patients on the list and ticking them off like an itemised box on the morning round. If you’re in a room of four, privacy is non-existent – a thin curtain separates you from your neighbour. I can’t imagine trying to recover from illness surrounded by the voices of other patients, nurses and visitors on top of the constant beeping and hum of equipment.

It’s strange as a student too. Like being an observer to some of the toughest times of people’s lives, not really contributing anything but there for the purpose of learning. Privy to the most personal of conversations and procedures – the older man with chronic pain and suicidal thoughts, the young woman in with infection but struggling with an ongoing drug habit, the woman with teenage children and a new terminal cancer diagnosis.

It’s hard to remember, rushing around on wardrounds between thirty different patients, that these are people just like me – with complex situations, with family and friends and thoughts and opinions, with LIVES outside this hospital room. It is all too easy to switch off and brush over them as a condition to diagnose, rather than a person in pain. But I can see that there has to be a balance too, because doctors also can’t take on that suffering themselves – to an certain extent, they have to be able to leave the cases and patients behind when they go home.

Enough of the rambling – we’ll get back to the cake. It’s a lemon, almond & raspberry layer cake with cream cheese buttercream and white chocolate ganache drips, flowers optional. I’ve made it a few times in much bigger forms for birthdays – see instructions below on how to achieve that. Not too rich, so a perfect daytime cake, and full of juicy raspberries and the scent of lemon. The sort of cake that makes your day a little better.

Cook’s notes:

• If rhubarb is in season, it also works beautifully – just cut the rhubarb stems into 1-2cm pieces and fold into the batter after the lemon juice and zest
• I made it in 2 x 15cm tins, which resulted in a deep cake and a darker crust than usual  – though initially concerned it was overcooked, I had comments that the crust, caremelised and dark, was the best bit. However, to avoid this, make it in 3 x 15cm tins for 3 more even layers. This also avoids having to split the layers in half.
• You could also make the cake in 2 x 20cm cake tins for a thinner, double layer cake. Watch the baking time carefully as it will probably only take about 20 minutes.
• For a large celebration cake to serve 60-80 people (see picture here):
  • Make 3 x 26cm layers, each using a 2/3 mix (200g butter, 4 eggs per cake)
  • Make 3 x 20 cm layers, each using a 1/2 mix (150g butter, 3 eggs per cake)
  • Make a double mix of cream cheese buttercream.
  • Stack together the same way, but you may want to use a couple of skewers to make the height a little more stable!

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Lemon, Coconut & Berry Layer Cake with tangy lemon curd, vanilla cream cheese buttercream and dollops of torched Italian meringue – inspired by Andy Bowdy.  Jump to Recipe 

A belated birthday cake for my 19th year!

The actual date was last week in the hours prior to a major exam – it didn’t give me much of chance to celebrate. More hectic days of exams, packing up my life from where it had scattered over the little square box of my college room, saying goodbyes for the summer, and heading home to Auckland followed. The first priority (okay, maybe not quite the first..but up there!) was to solidify my status as one of those people that make their own birthday cake. Is it sad? I would argue that I love the process of creating it so much, thinking of possible flavour combinations, colours, decorations – that it is like a gift in itself, an excuse to break out as much butter and sugar as I can handle and construct something really out-there, epically over the top.

I have been following Sydney’s Andy Bowdy on instagram for the past year or so, and love his style of cake decorating – the flavours he dreams up, the dolloped meringue spilling dramatically over the side, and the mounds of colour and texture adorning the top. It was only a matter of time before I tried it for myself, and my birthday was the perfect opportunity.

The three layers of cake have a lemon base, moist and textured with desiccated coconut and folded through with berries. Between each layer is a tangy cream cheese buttercream and swirls of rich lemon curd, while torched Italian meringue as a topping adds another dimension. Fresh berries and spare drips of lemon curd finish it off.

(just be prepared for a whole load of photos…I had great difficulty deciding which I like best!)

It wasn’t without its trials, however – I had few cream cheese buttercream issues along the way. WAY too runny the first time, and I couldn’t get it to thicken, even in the fridge. I attempted in vain to stack the cake together, but the layers slid over each other, buttercream spurted out the sides, and the whole thing threatened to collapse. I did read that extra sugar can just make it even more runny because of the cream cheese forming water with it – can anyone shed some light on that for me? I ended up rushing to the supermarket (literally took me 10 minutes door to door) and making another batch – a different recipe this time, where I used equal parts butter and cream cheese. It ended up much thicker and more stable, so once I scraped the former batch off the cakes and started it again it all held together. If anyone has any cream cheese buttercream tips though, I would love to hear them – I couldn’t figure out whether you should beat it until fluffy after adding the icing sugar, or whether that would just make it runny and you should just stir the sugar in gently. So many conflicting accounts!

Apart from the buttercream struggles, the cake really it isn’t as hard as it might look – I started the cakes around 10am, finished the lemon curd as they baked, made the cream cheese icing before construction, stacked the cakes and chilled them to set the icing for an hour while making the meringue, then put it all together. If you didn’t have the day, you could easily make the cakes and lemon curd the day before (just store the cakes tightly wrapped in gladwrap in an airtight container and the curd in the fridge). And it doesn’t matter if it gets a bit messy – rustic and well-loved is what we are going for here.

The tiredness has finally caught up to me in the last few days – heavy with fatigue, my eyes seem to want to drift shut every time I sit down in the afternoon, and the screen is starting to blur – so I will sign off here. But if you need an over-the-top, impressive layer cake for any occasion (especially if someone isn’t a chocolate fan!), or are just seized with the desire to construct one, here is your answer.

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Flaky, buttery, crusty-edged lemon & blueberry scones with sweet-tart lemon curd and tangy buttermilk whipped cream.  Jump to Recipe 

Stop whatever you are doing (well, okay, maybe you can’t – but you should) – and make these scones. These Lemon & Blueberry Scones with Lemon Curd and Buttermilk Whipped Cream. At least make them this afternoon, or tomorrow morning, or on the weekend – but no later. Seriously, they are that good.

It has taken a while, but I have FINALLY mastered the scone. After years and years of not really understanding all the fuss about scones, or really understanding why any sane person would choose to make them (like, why would you not just make brownie instead?!), I get it. My childhood scone experience consisted of those plain, dry raisin scones you make a kindergarten and primary school, and the date scones from Bakers Delight – neither of which were particularly earth shattering. But I started to notice scone recipe after scone recipe in blogs and cookbooks – endless variations of blueberry, raspberry, chocolate, date & orange, cream cheese & apricot, you name it – and decided I needed to figure them out. Like being able to whip up scones on a moments notice is a skill a baker should have. Well, it took a while.

The huge quantities of cream and butter in so many recipes was a little off-putting for a while, as a thick, stodgy scone was not what I was after. However, I soon came across the recipe of San Francisco’s Tartine Bakery – and after a bit of trial and error, a bit of practice, and a few adaptations, I had it. My ultimate scone.

Flaky and not too sweet with a sugar crusted exterior, these scones are lightly lemon scented and generously studded with blueberries, with the texture lightened and given a slight tang by the addition of buttermilk. When paired with smooth, sweet yet sharp, golden lemon curd and tangy buttermilk whipped cream, they are elevated to new heights – bursts of blueberry set against warm crunchy-edged scone, silky rich curd and dollops of cream. It doesn’t get much better.

And you know what the next best thing is? The scones take about 10 minutes to whip up, with another 20 minutes or so in the oven. The curd makes a lot – so if you had some stashed in the fridge, you could be half-an-hour away on a lazy morning or afternoon with unexpected visitors from the glorious kitchen smells of these lemon & blueberry scones.

They are so easy that I have managed to successfully make them a couple of times in our tiny, completely under-resourced kitchen in the apartment we are staying in this week. I wasn’t quite aware of how much I relied on my kenwood stand mixer, my good-quality knives, pots and pans, the barbecue, and even just the space of our kitchen at home. Making dinner here for the six of us is quite a challenge, to say the least. Even not having a food-processor has me stumbling – I wanted to make pesto, hummus, whole lemon bars, almond butter, a marinade.. but haven’t quite figured out how. Does anyone have any tips for making those sorts of things without a food processor or blender? Surely it is possible? Maybe?

Anyway – at least these scones were very manageable, and I am LOVING having the week off university for mid-semester break. Just having a few extra moments to sit on the deck and read a book over breakfast (actually just finished All The Light We Cannot See, and thought it was one of the best books I have ever read – would highly recommend), to wander down to the beach with no time-schedule at all, to go for runs in the national park, and just sit here typing out this blog post without the urgency of getting back to study. Time just seems to pass a little slower, a little more lazily, than it does normally – though these last three days have rushed by in a whirlwind of not doing much at all. Hopefully this brief reprieve will carry me through the next few weeks of learning and exams, the final push to the end of semester and my last pre-clinical years.

But seriously. Make these scones. 

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