Of Simon, Nell and Simnel cakes

 I haven't been a pious Christian since I was 6, Lent only means one thing to me, I will have a birthday soon. Easter wasn't something I particularly looked forward to, and I was surprisingly unimpressed with the overly sweet milk chocolate eggs the easter bunny brought me. Nor did I enjoy the big family gatherings as they always resulted into political debates, and dispute. It is most certainly the reason for my aversion to politics and politicians.

This year I'm celebrating the day of my birth, the day before mothering sunday. It is a day not connected to any other mothers day traditions in Europe or America. Mothering sunday was the day that the girls working as domestic servants or apprentices were given the day off to visit their mother, bringing her gifts, like perhaps a Simnel cake. Why it was a custom at mid-lent is not clear, maybe because at easter the servants couldn't be missed in the large manor houses who would most probably have large Downton Abbey style parties. Another theory is that of coming home to visit the mother church, which appeared to be believed an important custom in pre-Reformation England. 

On Mothering Sunday, the fasting rules were put on hold for the day resulting in the day also being known as a Refreshment Sunday, the other one being celebrated during Advent.

The earliest of references to a Simnel cake I was able to find and verify was in a poem of Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

To Dianeme.  
A Ceremonie in Glocester.

I’le to thee a Simnell bring,

Gainst thou go’st a mothering,

So that, when she blesseth thee,

Half that blessing thou’lt give me. 

Here states the tradition that the cake was given when people went Mothering, what is now assumed as going to visit their mother for mothering sunday but what well could have been a reference to the pre-Reformation tradition of visiting the mother church.

At some time along the way of time the legend of Simon and Nell appeared. A story most people have heard from their grandparents.

This legend tells the tale of an old Shropshire couple Simon and Nell. Nell had some leftover unleavened dough for bread making during Lent. Simon reminded her of the last of the christmas plum pudding as the Lenten dough would make a tasteless treat. Nell as a frugal woman didn't want to waste a thing in the kitchen so it was decided to create a cake for when their children would return home for mothering.

Then a dispute arose about the method of baking the cake which Simon wanted to mould and bake while Nell was convinced it should be boiled. Though some versions tell the tale the other way around and claim that Simon wanted it to be boiled since it was a pudding, and puddings should be boiled.

To solve the disagreement which resulted in throwing a baking stool at Simon, it was decided that the cake should first be boiled, and then baked. And from then on the cake was named SimNell.

A beautiful piece of English Folk lore but it is not sure when the legend was first told.

Cardamom and yoghurt spelt cake and the number 13

 My grandmother always wore a number 13 on a golden chain around her neck. She had a tough life, raising 4 children on her own after grandfather didn't come home from sea. She worked from dawn till dusk. Nanna died from old age many years ago because her body was just completely worn down. I remember her stern nature and I'm sure my father didn't have an easy childhood. I know he wanted to go to school to become a carpenter, dreaming to work with wood and create his own furniture, but he had to work instead.

My father is a man with ambition, a fighter, a daredevil and a great teacher in life. He worked hard to become a paramedic when I was born, and got the degrees needed to save lives. His precious weekends off he spent them as a volunteer with the Red Cross and the Flemish Cross, aiding people in need of care on events, disasters and accompanying disabled children and adults on trips.

I used to joke that the reason he always went to be on the Flemish Cross care unit on big Raves was that he knew I was safe at home but that other parents didn't have that luxury fearing their children were somewhere possibly doing drugs or drinking way to much. He had many teenagers on his gurney and I know he was secretly happy about me being a New Waver and a romantic rather than a raver wearing neon trainers.

My dad taught me - not by telling me this but by example that when I wanted something, I should just go out there and do it.

2013 has been anything but unlucky and it reminds me of my grandmothers golden number 13 which I inherited after her death and is one of the only things I have to remind her by. For her, and as for many other cultures, number 13 was a lucky number. 
I got to do fantastic stuff last year but most importantly, I found a way to live with an autoimmune condition. When I got diagnosed in the summer of 2012 I found myself on a roller coaster of emotions. I got worse before I got better in 2013. I know found that living a balanced life, especially with your food is the best way to stay stable and healthy. I am fortunate to be at a stage with my condition that it can stay stable if I rest enough and stay healthy. For someone who is used to running through life rather than walking, it hasn't been easy to slow down. But I did it.

Enjoy my round-up of favourite happenings of last year.

I went on a pig keeping course and it was one of the most splendid days of my life, I have a -not so- secret dream of having a little pig farm one day. You can read the full story here.

You see, I ain't afraid of getting down in the mud with a pig!

The intriguing Twelfth cake

 The Twelfth cake is to me one of the most intriguing of cakes in the British cuisine. The cake is traditionally baked for the feast of epiphany or as the name already reveals - the twelfth night of christmas. But baking a cake for epiphany isn't a custom in Britain alone, in other European countries and in my home country Belgium we have the '3 kings cake' (driekoningen taart) or the 'Galette du Rois' which is a frangipane tart with puff pastry concealing a much coveted bean which will make you king for the day. The 3 kings cake is sold with a paper crown so all is in order for the coronation of the lucky finder of the bean. At some time however it was the fashion of concealing tiny porcelain babies and nativity figures in the cake, a custom my mother in law tells me is still practiced by the bakery in my neighbourhood. I remember as a child, I've never had the pleasure of finding the bean which would make me king, this annoyed me very much as a little girl.
In Britain the tradition was to hide a bean and a pea in a plum cake, the bean would crown the king and the pea would crown the queen. The Twelfth cake would contain spices like cloves, mace, nutmeg and cinnamon along with dried fruits like raisins and candied orange or lemon peel. 

Antique 3 king cake figurines, imagine biting into one of those!

 The earliest printed recipe for a Twelfth cake dates from 1803 and can be found in John Mollard's the Art of Cookery. However, references to the custom of the Twelfth cake and the celebrations surrounding it can be found as far back in history as the 16th century and it is very possible that the tradition has been around for much longer. In a early Tudor manuscript which is kept at the Bodleian Library we find a passage about wassail cakes, which are believed to be heathen Twelfth cakes. Wassail comes from the Old English 'Waes hale' which most likely means 'be whole' or be healthy, like a kind of frase you say while making a toast. We can also find recipes for Wassail which is a type of mulled cider traditionally drunk while Wassailing, meaning a tradition of awakening the cider apple trees while singing and drinking.

Gunpowder, treason and bonfire parkin

The fifth of november, remember?

One of the most intriguing of English traditions to me is Bonfire night. Otherwise known as Guy Fawkes night it is a feast that commemorates the failing of a plot by Roman Catholic conspirators to blow up the House of Parliament in London killing the Protestant King James in the process.

Although Guy Fawkes is mostly remembered on this occasion, it was Robert Catesby who was chief instigator of the Gunpowder Plot. Catesby turned against the government of Elizabeth I when his father along with so many others Catholics, was prosecuted for refusing to conform to the Church of England. When Elizabeth I died, James - son of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots - came to the throne which gave the Roman Catholics new hope for greater religious freedom. When this hope turned pear shaped the English Catholics plotted to put Arbella Stuart on the throne, she was Catholic, James' cousin and a major claimant to the throne of England having both Tudor and Stuart bloodlines. Arbella always stayed close to the throne but never became queen, by blood she had a larger claim to succession and she became known as the 'Queen that never was'.

The seed to the Gunpowder plot however was planted nearly a century earlier by another Tudor, Henry VIII. When he issued the Act of Supremacy which declared him head of the Church of England to be able to divorce the first of his six wives, he started a century of violent religious turmoil. Henry's Church of England wasn't initially Protestant but his son Edward VI instituted more Protestant reforms. Mary I, being Henry's daughter with his Catholic wife whom he divorced to marry Elizabeth's mother Anne, was a Catholic and tried to restore the Catholic faith. She started her five year bloody reign by reviving the laws against heresy and was hated for it. The result was the persecution of Protestant rebels and the execution of some 300 heretics. Elizabeth's accession to the throne on Mary's death was greeted with enormous jubilation from the people. Yet again the Roman Catholics were facing persecution and the plotting to replace Elizabeth I with Mary Queen of Scots began.

This brings us back to Mary's son James and the infamous Gunpowder treason and plot.
On the 5th of november 1605 Guy Fawkes was apprehended while guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder in the cellar under the house of Parliament. How they found out about the gunpowder in the cellar leads to speculation but it is presumed that someone from within the circle of conspirators of the plot warned someone to stay away from parliament on the 5ft. After his apprehension Fawkes was tortured to give up the names of his accomplices.

Cherry and almond cake and a walk on Gold Hill in Dorset

As the weather suddenly changed from gloriously sunny to dreadfully grey again, I ventured out to beautiful yet misty Dorset to be a judge on the Great Taste Awards.
After seven hours on several trains I finally arrived in Shaftesbury, one of the highest and oldest towns in England. Shaftesbury, also known as Scaepterbyrg in the Domesday book was either built or rebuilt by Alfred the Great in the 9th century when he also founded the abbey where his daughter Ethelgiva would be the abbess. Although a Saxon settlement, there is reason to believe that a much older Celtic village named Caer Palladur used to exist on this hilltop. 

I walked up and down Gold Hill three times and sat on the cobbled street at the top of the hill to watch the evening spread it's cloak over the valley. After a walk I ended my day with a much needed pint of Chocolate Stout at a local pub and a plate of excellent Devon crab - with Hovis bread of course, as you do when in Shaftesbury. The town and especially Gold Hill has become famous for the evocative Hovis advertisement film in the seventies. The film was directed by Riddley Scott, whom you might know from films like Gladiator and featured a small lad pushing a bike with a basket laden with a loaves of bread up the steep cobbled street of Gold Hill on the tunes of Dvorak's 'New World' Symphony. The advert has been voted Britain's most popular advertisement of all time and shows the power of a good advertising campaign. It's a deceiving plot to convince the consumer that Hovis bread is something more artisan than just a factory made bread. It feeds on nostalgia, showing images of times gone by, suggesting the bread is still being made by the traditional method. It is not. It is made by the fast 'no-time dough' Chorleywood method using not only wheat flour but also a larger amount of yeast, emulsifier, stabiliser and Soya flour. Things that are hardly traditional.

This brings me back to the Great Taste awards and how important the Guild of Fine Food is in supporting artisan and 'real food' producers. We're turning back towards foods that are once more traditionally made with the best possible ingredients out there. Pasture fed beef is now a regular term as well as rare breed pork and raw milk yoghurt. We want quality for our pennies again, and we want to make a difference when we do our food shopping.

Strawberry Spelt Shortcake, the history of Shortcake in Britain

A Strawberry shortcake can take on many forms, it can be a scone-like cake, a sponge or a thin biscuit but two things remain the same throughout any recipe: fresh strawberries and lots of pretty whipped cream. Strawberries were first cultivated by the Romans in 200 BC but what about the origin of a Strawberry Shortcake?

In Medieval times newly-weds would be presented with a soup made of strawberries and sour cream topped with borage and sugar. They believed strawberries to be an aphrodisiac, yet no biscuit or cake of any kind accompanied the dish. 
Short meaning crumbly from the Old English 'cruma' is a term that came to be in the 15th century, adding a large amount of fat or 'shortening' to flour results in a crumbly or 'short' texture.

In the Elizabethan cookbook The good Huswifes Handmaide 
for the Kitchin. (1594 -1597) one can find the earliest record of the term 'short cake'. Unfortunately none of the manuscripts that survived of this book are complete.

Madeira cake to get you through the busy days

For years I thought Madeira cake was made with the fortified wine Madeira, I thought it was the English equivalent to an Italian Vin Santo cake, which is in fact made adding the Vin Santo.
Madeira cake is a closed textured cake that was designed in the 19th century to accompany a glass of Madeira and other sweet wines. It was a cake for the upper class, people who could afford to bake a dry crumbly cake that doesn't keep well and had to be enjoyed with a drink of some kind and best within two days before it would get too dry.
Precision and plenty of beating is required to achieve that close crumbly texture. You have to be a patient cook and the ingredients used must be of the best possible quality.

Cobnut and apple tart

I'm very happy to announce, I've been asked to write for Great British Chefs
Here I am, a Belgian girl writing about Britain and British food and I am really proud that they have taken me under the Great British Chefs' wing.

I didn't have to think twice when I was asked to write about something for a mostly British audience, recently I've been quite obsessed with Kentish cobnuts and I have many more recipes up my sleeve.

When I think of my beloved Kent, apples, cobnuts, cherries and hops are the four things that define this county for me. They have moulded the landscape with their orchards and plats and have influenced the kitchens and culture.

I discovered Kentish cobnuts on a late summers day when they are sold fresh in their green husks. The kernels are then juicy and resemble a chestnut flavour, yet more delicate. When autumn arrives the cobnuts are ripened, the husks, then turned brown, are removed and they look more like the hazelnut we generally know. Now they are dried and referred to as Golden Cobnuts. The flavour of the nut has developed while ripening, and has gone from fresh and juicy to an intense nutty flavour. When stored dry they keep till christmas. The Kentish cobnut is larger and more ovoid shaped than a hazelnut and also has a different and slightly more intense flavour.

Cobnuts generally grow in Kent, where the variety the 'Kentish Cob' was planted in the 19th century by a Mr Lambert of Goudhurst.
They have however been around since Tudor times and were but revived by the Victorians who considered them to be a delicacy. There are more varieties of cobnuts but as Kent has historically been the main county producing cobnuts, the term Kentish cob is often used generally for every variety of cobnut grown in Britain.
Cobnut orchards are known as 'plats' and the nuts are harvested by hand by workmen called 'nutters'. In the old days cobnuts were also sometimes picked by hop pickers coming down from London as cobnuts and hops both ripen at the same time. The disappearance of the Hop pickers roughly corresponds with the decline of the cobnut plats.

Kentish Cobnut cake with apple compote - a marriage made in autumn

It seems like in a weeks time the days have started to get more chilly and shorter. The trees are starting to shake off their leaves and we are greeted by cobnuts, apples and plums. Autumn is definitely upon us.

Last week I walked in a sunny meadow in Kent wearing a summer dress and red dancing shoes, today I'm packing a warm cardigan for London where I will stay with friends for a few days to attend this years food blogger conference. This time away from the hectic magazine deadlines and the company of like-minded food lovers from all over the globe will warm me with a fire of creativity.

In Kent, my mission was to find the 'Kentish cob' which is a type of hazelnut that has been grown in England since Tudor times and perhaps even earlier. The Victorians considered the Kentish cobnuts to be a delicacy and therefore are responsible for planting 7000 acres of cobnut orchard or 'plats'.
Like the cherry orchards, after first world war the amount of cobnut plats in Kent was drastically decreased to no more than 730 acres with a further decline to 250 acres today.
Unlike most hazelnuts, cobnuts are sold fresh and not dried. They are in season from the end of august through october.
At the beginning of the season the husks are green and the kernels very juicy, further into the season when the nuts have ripened the husks and shells are brown and the flavour has developed further to the hazelnut taste that we are used too.

This cake has a wonderful nutty flavour, together with the apple compote the flavours are a marriage made in autumn. Just glorious cake.

Kentish cobnut cake
traditional Kentish recipe adapted from English Teatime Recipes

Britannia sandwich cake - Best of British

As the reign of Elizabeth I is referred to as 'The Golden age', I wonder what they will call the reign of her namesake Elizabeth II.
Elisabeth, born in 1533 was known as the 'Virgin queen'. She never married as she never wanted to be ruled by a man. She might be the first feminist in history. As the previous two queens in English history both failed and her reign was of such epic importance, the role of women changed quite a bit. It started with noble men who started to educate their daughters so they wouldn't look ignorant in the presence of the highly educated queen. But in general, independent women were still being called spinsters, witches or prostitutes.
When her sister 'Bloody Mary' died, she inherited a bankrupt nation scattered into pieces due to religious conflict. She had to breathe new life into Britain.
With her came the flourishing of British drama, she was a great supporter of Shakespeare and Marlowe. How would the world have looked like without Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear? 
We wouldn't suddenly shout "Romeo oh Romeo" when we found ourselves on a balcony, we would just look at the view. The English language wouldn't be what it is today without Shakespeare as he invented nearly 1700 words for his plays, sonnets and poems. Words you wouldn't expect like 'frugal', 'gloomy' and 'monumental' were all invented by the man himself.
It is fair to say Elizabeth I reshaped Britain, made it "British", gave her name to an era and reigned supreme.

This weekend we are celebrating the current queen Elizabeth.
The Diamond jubilee is inspiring people to celebrate Brit style with street parties, cake contests and an explosion of Union Jack bunting everywhere.
If only Britain could look like this every day.
Shop windows competing for celebrating Britishness the best, biggest and most typical.
As an Anglophile, these are good times for me. I can buy Union Jack pajamas, purses and… shoes!
I finally have an excuse to decorate my cake with it, get out the bunting and watch the boats on the Thames while reading a British classic.
I celebrate, not my love for a monarch but for a land, its culture and its pride.

So this cake is for you, Britannia.
May the tea flow plenty in flowery teacups, the cakes be decorated with joy and the discussion scone-cream-jam versus scone-jam-cream go on until eternity.

'Union Jack' Britannia Sandwich cake.
I've tried a few Victoria sandwich recipes before I came to this one after testing.
This cake is slightly more solid than your average sponge cake.

What do you need

for the cake:
200g softened unsalted butter (I made butter recently, it's so easy. Go to the tutorial >)
200 g golden caster sugar
200 g self raising flour
4 medium eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of milk.

for the filling:
500 g double cream
if you can't get hold of double cream, you can use mascarpone
0,5 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Strawberry or raspberry jam
strawberries

decoration:
strawberries, tips for the top and slices for the filling
blueberries
or
go traditional with a icing sugar finish

Method
Preheat your oven to 180°
Line the bottom of two 20 cm cake tins with baking paper.

Put the butter and sugar into a bowl and whisk until creamy.
Add the eggs one by one, whisk well so the egg is completely mixed in before you add the next one.
Add the milk and vanilla.
Add the flour and fold it in gently.

Divide the dough over the two prepared tins and spread out well with a spatula.
If you only have 1 tin, bake one first and then the other.

*If you have smaller tins, you can make some little cakes too!

Put in the oven for 25 minutes, whatever you do do open the oven or the cake will collapse.

For the cream
Whisk the double cream with a hand mixer until you get a stiff mixture.
Add the vanilla

Decorating the cake
Put the cakes with their good side down on a tray.
Spread the jam on the cake for the bottom side, then add the strawberry slices
Spread half of the cream on the other side and then sandwich this side on top of the other, the cream side down.
Press down so they stick together.
Spread the rest of the cream on top of the cake.
Use the tips of the strawberries to create the St George's cross and then next the other red cross for Northern Ireland.
Now fill up the gaps with the blueberries to create Scotland.

All done!

Now make a cup of tea!

Please feel free to leave a comment, I love reading them!

Other posts in the 'Best of British' category can be found here >

You might also like:
Parsnip and apple breakfast cake
Glutenfree Chestnut cake
Vegan chocolate beetroot and walnut cake

Sticky Lemon Curd Cake by Charlotte White

Guest post*

Today I would like to introduce you to Charlotte, a 50s loving girl like myself and a baker of fabulous special occasion cakes. Charlotte and I met in februari when we were both modelling pretty dresses for my dear friend Sassy and her epic shoot in Birmingham (wanna see? you'll find it here).
She is sharing with us her 'Sticky lemon curd cake' and the story of how she became to be a professional cake designer.

picture by Carla Thomas                                                picture by Rockabetty Studios

If I could go back in time ten years to tell myself that I would be baking for a living in 2012, I doubt very much that the cocky little film student would believe me. I was studying with the intention to be a film producer 'when I grew up' and my baking was limited to delicious treats for our student parties. Honestly, I think that these were probably the most civilised student parties ever - our house was always filled with baked goods whenever we had guests, perhaps as a little something sweet to mask the taste of that cheap student alcohol. When we needed to raise funds for our final year documentary, I made fudge and sold it on campus; when we were away shooting on location, I baked cakes for the student crew. It never crossed my mind that this was a potential career. I had just always baked.

Vegan chocolate, beetroot and walnut cake

Today is my birthday, the day I look forward to all year...

I'm a child when it comes to my birthday, I start counting the days from August.
You would think I have it all planned out, but indecisive as I am about this -on the day- no reservations for dinner have been made and no outfit is chosen.
The only certain thing is that I will most likely be in a little village in East Sussex.
Today is my day, the day that I am allowed to be a child again, sing very loud, blow out candles and dance in the street.
I don't care what people think, I hold on to this joyful occasion and cherish it.
Because you have to hold on to your inner child and keep that little fire burning. That's where creativity thrives and tales are invented.
Today anything is possible, I have wings to fly to magical places, where the grass is greener, the flowers enormous and the food, of course the food delicious and plenty.
Today I fall into a hole in the ground and have tea with talking rabbits.
Today is truly mine.

So on this day I bring you a birthday cake.

The past year a lot of things changed, I started this blog, got married and got to know who my friends are. I feel I grew up just a tiny bit more.

One of the new things in my life is experimenting with vegan cooking, especially for cakes and cookies. I love to make sweet things slightly more healthy and as I don't really have a sweet tooth, I don't make them overly sweet.
As you might have guessed from my Parsnip and apple breakfast cake, I have a thing for putting vegetables into sweets. The classic carrot cake used to be my all time favourite tea time treat, until this cake came along...
This mouth full of yummyness is moist, full of the darkest chocolate and contains one of my favourite veg: beetroot.
Beetroot is incredibly healthy as it is a rich source of antioxidants, nutrients including sodium, magnesium and vitamin C.

I love the way beetroot colors your hands...

What do you need

220 g wholemeal spelt flour

40 g walnuts or pecans

baking powder: 2 heaped tsp

cocoa: 4 heaped tsp

100 g dark chocolate

360 g cooked red beetroot in cubes

50 ml olive oil

50 ml maple syrup

1 cup of soy yoghurt

a pinch of seasalt

• Peel the beetroots and slice into 1 cm cubes, cook until soft and mash.

• Preheat your oven to 160°

• Get your dry ingredients in one bowl and your wet ingredients in another.

• Add the baking powder and soda last as it has to get in contact with the wet ingredients straight away to give the best result.

• Melt the chocolate and add to the wet ingredients, mix the ingredients.

• Add the wet to the dry ingredients and mix.

• Line a spring form with baking paper and dust with some cacao.

• Pour the batter into the springform and put in the oven for 55 minutes.

• Be very careful when you take it out of the oven, let it cool in the tray.

Decorate with some melted chocolate drizzled over, and serve with yoghurt mixed with a teaspoon of beetroot juice

Enjoy with a glass of oat milk or Earl grey tea!

Parsnip and apple breakfast cake

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, we all know it.
There is a saying: eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar
In Britain and Ireland the day is started as a king with their traditional cooked breakfast "the iconic fry-up". Cooked well, the "English breakfast" truly is a wonderful dish.
If you want to do it right you should start with a bowl of cereal and a piece of fruit, fresh juice and finish the meal with a slice of toast topped with marmelade. Last but not least, all this must be washed down with a nice cup of tea.
If this isn't a hearty breakfast, I don't know what is.
Naturally you can't eat like this every day, most people only treat themselves on a traditional "Full monty" when on holiday or on special occasions.
So alternatives are beans on toast or perhaps this breakfast cake.
Also perfect with your 'four O' clock' cup of tea and much better than a candybar.
Go on, treat yourself.

"And then to breakfast, with what appetite you have." Shakespeare
This breakfast cake is very moist and more a cross between a bread and a cake.
Someone from Ireland told me it also resembles an "Irish tea brack" though this is not made with tea.
I left out the "normal" sugar in this cake and substituted with honey and apple sirup. This makes this cake a healthier treat.

Chestnut cake from Monteriggioni, Tuscany

A beautiful farmers market in the heart of a fortified town.

It was a sunny autumn morning when we left for Monteriggioni, the fog had slipped away and gave way to a yellow and brown colored landscape.

We changed our clocks one hour ahead that night so when we awoke the dew had already dried up and the sun was giving a warm glow.

We drove trough the rolling landscape of Tuscany to reach the hill where the quintessentially fortified town of Monterriggioni lies.

From a distance the town looks like a giant fairytale castle, as we drove towards it my thoughts wandered off to the Middle Ages when Monteriggioni was at the very heart of the conflicts between Florence and Siena. I imagined large battalions of knights approaching the town and peasants going about their business. The knights have all gone now but the farmers remained and were the reason we were driving here today.

Today was a special day in Monteriggioni because in the heart of the fortified town there was a farmers market going on. It was only for one day and there were no certainties for it to happen ever again. The town square was filled with food stalls, producers were proudly presenting their new Organic olive oil and wines were given to taste generously. There were smiling faces everywhere, from the stallholders insisting we’d try their food to the people who were enjoying the scenery and the sun. It was like at this moment, everyone was happy here. There was no music, no dancing but nonetheless this was a feast, a food fest.

The produce at this market was absolutely beautiful, if I could I would have bought something from every stall. But luggage restrictions bound me to making choices, a choice like this is hard to make. What do I leave behind, the glorious organic chestnut flour or the tasty Boar salami... I decided to leave the Fava beans behind and regret that choice every day since. What if I could have fitted an extra bag in my luggage?

Oh well, you can’t have it all and I went home with a beautiful selection of food. 

Monteriggioni

Chestnuts roasting

Chocolate and ricotta spelt cake

Chocolate cake, don't we all need it once and a while?

I do, not even being a chocaholic I do crave chocolate cake sometimes.

But my needs are specific, I don't want it to be to sweet, to spongy or to dry. I want a moist, firm cake with a bitter taste of chocolate and some nuts.

I spent years baking chocolate cakes trying to perfect the recipe, they all came out wrong. Some were to moist, to heavy, to sweet, to salt, to dry, to burned... you know the story.

A few weeks back Zita a fabulous vegetarian food blogger from Hungary I met in the summer, shared a vegan chocolate cake recipe with us, using whole grain and white spelt flour. I love Spelt, I use it for bread all the time but for some reason I've never tried using it to bake this cake before.

I decided I wanted to use Ricotta, because I had cake in our favorite Italian restaurant that had Ricotta in it and made it taste so creamy.  That, and because I just LOVE Ricotta in every way.

The best chocolate cake I ever ate was in a small tearoom in Glastonbury when I was 18 years old, it was the first holiday I went on without my parents.

This means it took me 10 years to create a cake that equals that cake I ate in 2001.

To be fair, I didn't bake for about 5 years. And perhaps the fact that I was on my first holiday alone had something to do with it.

But here it is, my favorite chocolate cake.