Vintage Eid Tea Party

During the weekend of Eid, we threw a vintage style tea party on a surprisingly sunny Sunday afternoon. It was the first grown up party that I had taken part in hosting and I thought I'd share a few pictures from the day. It took a few days to plan and prepare, and whilst there were a few stressful moments, it was a very fun and enjoyable day.

It was a real DIY party, as most things were either homemade, like the cakes and cookies or bought from the pound shop/eBay like the disposable tablecloth and vintage style paper straws and washi tape. We placed the flowers in an old glass bottle and a jam jar decorated with paper doilies from the pound shop. Whilst I love those vintage looking glass milk bottles, we had no space to store a set after the party, so instead I bought readymade milkshakes from the supermarket which came in similar shaped plastic bottles, and then I replaced the plastic label with a paper doily. My sister in law prepared the lovely Victoria sponge cake which we decorated with a washi tape cake topper. But our cake stand was nothing more than a plate and bowl taped together! I also had some fun making some tissue paper Pom pom flowers. It's pretty cool what you can produce with a little creative thinking and lots of Pinterest tutorials! 

Tahini, Almond and Honey Cookies

Hello, dear readers! It has been a while. I was recently ill for about a week and didn't quite have the energy to blog. On top of that, I think I underestimated how long it would take for me to settle into the new term at work. Quite frankly, this summer term has had me whipped so far! But all is not lost, and I am back today with a new post.

Remember how I mentioned how I often have things sitting around in the pantry (I know, I know, terrible habit)? Well, I've had a jar of tahini sitting in the cupboard for a while now. I originally bought it to make hoummus, but my versions never tasted quite as good as the restaurant kind, so I never really put it to good use. But I'm trying use up things before buying more ingredients, mainly because we really don't have any space left in out kitchen cupboards! So I racked my brain and the internet for tahini recipes. Initially I saw quite a few savoury recipes, but then I came across quite a few tahini cookie recipes. At first I thought it was a bit weird sounding. In my head, I have come to associate tahini with hoummous, so when I heard of tahini cookies, I just kept thinking of hoummous flavoured cookies. Hardly appealing.

But I realised that, you know, it's just like a sesame version of peanut butter, which I've already used to make cookies. And then I remembered eating sesame snaps as a kid, which were basically shards of seasame brittle. So I thought, what they hey, let's try them out!

With all that drama, you can imagine my surprise when the cookies actually turned rather yummy in the end. Soft, with a slightly cakey texture, these subtly nutty cookies have a fudgey taste that comes from the use of brown sugar and honey. 

You could make these cookies completely gluten free by only using almond flour, however, I decided to use a mix of almond and all purpose flour. 

I adapted this recipe by kind of amalgamating recipes from Umm Hamza at Halal Home Cooking and An Edible Mosaic. 

Citrus and Cardamom Pound Cake with Candied Blood Orange

For the last few weeks, I have been seeing recipes using blood oranges pretty much everywhere on social media. I had only tasted this exotic looking fruit once before, but I was enraptured by all the pictures I saw of these jewel like oranges and vowed to make something myself using them. And that's where the mission began. You may assume, dear readers, that living in London, the metropolitan capital of culture in UK, it wouldn't be too difficult to get your hands on what is simply a red coloured citrus fruit. I've written previously on here about how you can find the most obscure Bengali fish and vegetables in big supermarkets here these days, but finding blood oranges was like looking for a rare and endangered species.

I went to no less than 4 different supermarkets within a several mile radius looking specifically for this fruit. And each time they seemed to have every other fruit under the sun except blood oranges. And when I would ask some poor employee if they had any blood oranges, they would stare at me blankly with a confused expression. I'm pretty sure I scared off a few with the word 'blood' too...

I had just about given up on finding it before the end of the season, when I chanced upon a small selection of blood oranges in a larger supermarket I was shopping in with my cousin. It was one of those light bulb moments and I only just about refrained from fist pumping in the air to celebrate.

 Despite buying a few bags of them, Me and my family gobbled down the blood oranges. I'm not sure if that was to do with the actual taste of them or just the novelty of their appearance. Nonetheless, I began to seek out a recipe to use up the last oranges before my small window of opportunity disappeared.

I've been wanting to make a pound/loaf cake for a while now, and as it didn't seem to complex for a beginner baker like me, I decided to give it a go. The recipe I used as a basis for this cake, used a mix of oil and yoghurt instead of butter and I was surprised at how light and airy the texture of the cake turned out to be.

I also subbed some of the plain flour for half a cup of ground almonds as I seem to love the taste of it in bakes these days.I think I must be turning into an almond nut (get it??).  I used a mix of both lemon and orange zest to add perfume to the cake and then a good pinch of ground cardamom which seems to complement citrus flavours well.

I wavered between decorating the cake with a blood orange royal icing (which comes out a super cute pastel pink, btw) or candied blood orange slices. However, as I'm not too fond of sugary icing, I opted for the latter. To make the candied blood orange slices, you simply let them cook in a hot sugar syrup. While I wasn't altogether sold on the taste of it, it's a pretty way to dress up an otherwise humble pound cake.

The actual taste of the cake however was amazing! I think it is my favourite bake on the blog to date. Like I said, the texture is light and airy and has a range of flavours from the citrus fruit and ground cardamom. I'm just a little bit sad I couldn't get a few more photos of the cake. As I rushed home from work to take a few pictures on another grey and dull London afternoon, I only got a few minutes to photograph before sunset. The odds just seemed to stacked against me from the get go for me on this one, but as they may or may not say, what doesn't kill you, makes you a stronger and more willfully resolved food blogger!

Peanut Butter Cookies

I must have been about 16 or 17 the first time I tried peanut butter. I remember hearing about it through American cultural references, but I think it has only become more popular the UK in the last few years. I also remember thinking how strange the whole peanut butter and jam sandwich combination sounded. But then I actually tried it and I was made to eat my hat. Or sandwich. Whatever,

The same applied when I first heard about peanut butter cookies. Although it seems to be another American favourite, it always seemed a little strange to me. I guess I should add here that I've never been much of a peanut fan. I only really ever came across them in packets of Bombay Mix and I always used to pick them out.

But I have slowly become quite fond of peanut butter. I like a spoonful in a hot bowl of porridge or as a dip with slices of apple sprinkled with ground cinnamon. So when I saw the great reviews of peanut butter cookies, I took it upon myself as a reformed peanut-skeptic to try it out at least once,

And what a pleasant surprise these cookies turned out to be. As you can tell from the pictures, they are crisp on the outside but super soft on the inside. I found that the actual taste of the peanut butter was quite subtle in the cookie, and it came through more in the smell rather than taste. The use of brown sugar also gave quite a nice fudgy taste too.

All in all, it was a recipe that was enjoyed both by myself and my family. And considering it took less than 1 hour to make them all, it's a pretty great recipe to try out.

Blueberry and Lemon Scones

I think of myself as a bit of a hypothetical baker. You see, in my head, I am a pro in the science of baking. I skim through recipe books and pinterest and think to myself, yeah I could totally do that.

Sadly, reality does not always meet up with our expectations, and baking can sometimes be a bit of a challenge for me. I am the type of cook that loves to feel my way through things. A pinch of this there, a dash of the other there. As such, the precision that is required in baking can sometimes escape me.

But this blog is meant to trace my culinary growth and so I am making a concentrated effort to confront my baking demons. So know that when I do post a successful baking recipe on here, it is with the assurance that if a novice like me can do it, anyone can do it.

The last time I tried to make scones, I somehow managed to produce boulders or rock buns or something like that. I distinctly remember staring at them with a furrowed brow as I tried to rack my brain on exactly what I had done so wrong.

It was only after some later research that I realised that I had committed the cardinal error of over working them. So when I tried making them this time round, I made sure I handled the mix with the utmost care. I do believe that the technical term for this handling is 'chafing'.

But humourous baking terms aside, as long as you're not kneading the mixture, scones are a pretty forgiving baking project. I was able to flavour a basic scone recipe with bluberry and lemon with relative ease. My end result were scones that looked slightly crispy on the outside but were soft and fluffy on the inside.