We had a small family party on her Birthday to celebrate and of course, she had a Birthday cake too. It was themed on her wallpaper – delicate girly butterflies & flowers (sparkly of course, but that doesnt show very well in the pics).  It was another traditional madeira sponge with jam & buttercream with white regalice.

On arriving we went downstairs to the Bistro/Bar area and ordered a drink, this was the only sneaky tactic I didn’t like as our table was ready and waiting when we arrived, but some restaurants do have a bad habit of getting you to order a drink before ordering wine for the table.

When we were eventually seated (we played a game of musical chairs first!) the Maître d’ came over and handed out the menu’s.  He then theatrically read aloud the days ’specials’.  We’re not sure if he was new and performing with much enthusiasm or is always so entertaining, but with much gusto he detailed the dishes brilliantly.

It took us a while to eventually decide on what to order but I think between us we sampled quite a few of the dishes.  To start I ordered Scallops in pastry with red pepper & aioli and Anthony eventually decided on the Assiette of Duck.

The scallops were fantastic and cooked beautifully. Personally, I didn’t think they needed the puff pastry or anchovies contained within. The scallops and aioli would have been good on their own.

Anthony thoroughly enjoy the Assiette of Duck and I have to agree, the best of the three would be the spring roll.

We both also tried an oyster for the first time and we’d definitely order some again  if we get the chance – the texture was not what we were expecting and coming from Anthony (not a fishy person) that is quite something!

For the main course I chose Halibut served with Roast Salsify, Popcorn Shrimp, Butternut Squash Puree and White Wine Veloute.  Anthony couldn’t resist the Venison served with Haggis Fritter.

I hadn’t tasted halibut before and I have to admit the Popcorn Shrimp caught my attention – I am very glad they did as the fish was beautiful. It just melted in your mouth and together with the roast salsify and white wine veloute it was fantastic.

Anthony ordered the Venison medium and it was cooked perfectly. Again, melted in your mouth. The haggis fritter was like a creamy melt in your mouth mousse but crispy on the outside – amazingly delicious.

We managed to squeeze in a pudding and I chose the Chocolate Tart with Orange & Honeycomb and Anthony had a 60 Hope Street Signature Dish, Deep Fried Jam Sandwich with Carnation Ice Cream.

I was quite full at the point but it seemed rude not to join in. Again though I felt the chocolate tart did not need the pastry, in fact I left some.  The chocolate part of the tart was more like a chocolate fondant than a cold filling like I had expected.  A bitter orange mousse was served alongside the tart in a shot glass and was very nice with the fondant-like filling.

The Signature Dish, a Deep Fried Jam Sandwich with Carnation Ice Cream went down a treat, unsurprisingly! Everyone on the table managed a taste of this jam doughnut style pudding.  The rest, Anthony ate very quickly.  Need I say anymore?!

Overall, we’d definitely go back again if the chance arises.  The restaurant itself was lovely, warm and modern.  The tables weren’t squashed in or overlooked. A lovely dining experience, some very lovely food and a really nice evening.

Baileys Chocolate Mousse Recipe (based on recipe from Waitrose)

175g Green & Black’s Organic Dark Chocolate, broken into small pieces
Knob of butter
5 large eggs, separated (3 yolks, 5 whites)
2 tbsp Baileys

Method
1. Place the chocolate and butter in a large heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. Leave to melt for 2-3 minutes – do not allow the bowl to touch the water. When it has all melted, remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
2. Using a wooden spoon, beat the egg yolks into the chocolate with the liqueur.
3. In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they form stiff peaks. Using a large metal spoon, gently fold the whites into the chocolate mixture until completely incorporated.
4. Divide the chocolate mousse between 4 glasses and place in the fridge to set for at least 2 hours.

After a few ideas (like making a cake model of a Mini!) I decided it was best to keep it simple. I already had a silicone rectangular cake tin, so based on that, I thought a simple sponge with white icing, a 30 in black icing which would be the track and a mini cooper cake topper. How easy…

First of all I needed to find a firm sponge so I tested out a Madeira recipe from a cake decorating book I have. It worked well and Anthony even did a taste test for me under the guise that it had come from my mums work! hehe…

Next, I wanted to make my own icing. So after taking over my mum and dads kitchen and covering it in icing sugar I came to the conclusions I wouldn’t be able to (a) make a piece big enough to cover the cake/roll it out to an even thickness or (b) get it from the worktop to the cake (it was rather sticky!). I decided quite quickly that I’d use a ready rolled fondant icing instead.

Making the cake
I made the madeira sponge 3 days before the big day and the sponge turned out well. After leaving it overnight I turned up at my mum and dads house (our kitchen is too small) ready for some cake decorating… with my mum looking after Elodie I set about triming the sponge (cakes in silicone tins splay out at the sides!). Triming the cake was a time consuming and delicate job as I was scared a huge chunk of cake would come off!

Once I’d managed to make the cake more rectangular I set about splitting it in half and filling it with a thin layer of raspberry jam and buttercream. With a little help from my mum we managed to put the cake back together in one piece.

Next, I covered the cake in a very small amount of warmed marmalade to allow the icing to stick and started to ice it… I have to admit at the point I was rather lucky with the ready roll icing – I could only get a circular one which just fitted over the rectangular cake with a little nip and tuck ;)

I had bought a block of pre-coloured black fondant icing. With some careful rolling out I cut out my 30 and with my mums help again, we transferred the numers to the cake (they were very flimsy!).

It had taken a few hours to get to this point! So I was relieved to put the finishing touches to the cake (white icing for road markings and a black ribbon to hide the bottom of the icing!) and we put it away in a cake tin until his birthday.

Anthony seemed to like his cake but I think he enjoyed the driving experience even more – I thought I was giving him something to pacify his love of Minis when all I seem to have done is make it worse :) Ah well…

Here are some pictures of the cake and one of Anthony enjoying his present…

I haven’t much foodieness to write about just now (except the discovery of smoked brie – oh my goodness it tasted soooooooo nice) – so I shall share a few recent pictures including Elodie helping herself to my doughballs in Pizza Express :)

But it’s the happy times I wanted to (eventually) share with you all and the reason I have been off my food.  We’ve been baking a little baby :)

The other good news is that I am just about back to eating more ‘normally’ and am even venturing into the kitchen again.  It is the only time I have ever been off my food and Hubby didn’t know what to do with himself when all I could managed for tea was a crumpet!

I’ve held off until today to blog about this as it was our 20 week anomaly scan this morning.  All seems to be ok and it looks like the Little One is going to be a girl – despite us both thinking it would be a blue one!

So in the last 20 weeks, this is what we’ve been baking ;)…

My mum kindly offered my services a few weeks back to bake some cakes for the cake stall at the Zoes Place Summer Fete.

It seemed like a great idea at the time, come Saturday evening post-baking it seemed altogether exhausting.  We arrived to set up our stall very last minute, but despite the rush, it was nothing less than a huge success.

Every year Zoe’s have a cake stall & the local Greggs bakers supply them with numerous freebies to sell so we had a front stall of homemade cakes and a side stall of Greggs baked goodies.  I am pleased to say that the homemade cakes sold out quickly & we were left with lots of Greggs muffins and cookies but by the end of the day everything had been eaten.

Between us, we made:

• 3 sandwich cakes
• tray of rocky road
• tray of mars bar rice crispy bake
• 24 sponge cakes with icing
• 24 rolo cupcakes
• chocolate muffins
• blueberry muffins
• chocolate cornflake cakes

We’re not sure of the final figure but it looks like we made just over £200 which will be doubled by my mum’s work, so it was certainly worth an exhausting days baking.