World Peace, Bru

Our peace windmills. Photos & styling by George Dawson

 



I would love to say that our new routine has now kicked in and everything is running smoothly: Up at 6am. Early morning run. Schooling by 8:30am. Beautific little boys, eager to learn their spelling. Healthy lunch at Noon. Piano practice everyday.

We can all dream.

The fact that I'm hurriedly doing my blog posting on a Sunday morning (whilst listening to some awesome music - John Newman, Klangarussell, Daft Punk, Rudimentals) and have not done any other work on it as I'd previously intended to -  should give one some indication that as per usual everything is taking a little longer than it should do.

Plus it's been brain-numbingly, life-sappingly hot and humid. It's bang in the middle of our summer although we only have a few weeks of this and then it cools down a degree or two.

Anyhow I promise not to turn this into a homeschooling blog - they are almost without exception  ghastly but we did have quite a good week: Bear Grylls for geograghy and spelling (I learnt a new word: paracord) and then International Peace Day on Friday/Saturday - where we did a whole lot of stuff including poetry, making windmills and baking a love cake (you can see I'm avoiding maths).

Luckily I'm friends with quite a few teachers who are incredibly generous with sharing resources and experience (much needed) and I was pointed to the TES UK website, which I literally have open all day everyday, as it guides us through the UK National Curriculum. It has the most amazing links  which constantly sparks us in new directions, but I didn't think that we would find one of the best cakes known to mankind on it, which is what we did on Friday.

Alfred Prasard, exec chef at Tamarind, London joined forces with Peace One Day and Ocado (online Waitrose. Fabulous) and made this Sri Lankan delicacy,  a legacy from the Portuguese rule in Ceylon. It is heart-breakingly gorgeous and I can only encourage you to bake it. I'd love to say that we made it in the bakery and then handed it out, whilst showering rose petals and bestowing world peace on everyone, but it didn't get any further than our kitchen - until this blog, that is. Next year.

Pic from Marie Claire

Love Cake for World Peace Day

Ingredients:

150 g unsalted butter

350 g caster sugar

6 medium eggs

3 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons rose water

Grated zest of 1 orange

Grated zest 1 lemon

1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

200g pistachio nuts, chopped coarsely [optional]

250 g coarse semolina

50 g of glacé cherries [can be replaced with wine gums of jelly babies]

25 g of mixed peel

25 g of crystallized stem ginger

Icing sugar to dust

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 150˚C/300˚F and line a 25 x 30 cm (10 x 12 in) cake tin with baking paper.

2. Dice 150g of unsalted butter and leave in a warm place to soften.

3. Once soft, cream the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

4. Add in the eggs, one at a time and beat well.

5. Add honey, rose water, zest, nutmeg, cardamom and cinnamon. Use a spatula to gently fold through

6. Next fold through the nuts, semolina, glacé cherries, mixed peel and crystallized ginger until combined. Do not over mix.

7. Turn into prepared tin and bake in the oven for 1 hour or until pale golden on top. The cake comes out best in a slow-cook process and should ideally feel chewy on top and moist in the middle.

8. Allow the cake to cool in the tin for about 20 minutes.

9. Turn out of the tin, and when completely cool dust with icing sugar.