The Sand Dollar Cafe

The Sand Dollar cafe is my absolute favourite place to eat. It opens early in the morning for breakfast, stays open all day for all day breakfast, lunch, tea and cake or ice cream to go, and on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings reinvents itself as a bistro. I have sampled all of the menus and have never had a dish I didn't enjoy. One day I'll bring you back for an evening meal, but today we'e going to talk about breakfast. Not of the early morning, straight off the 7am sleeper train variety, but the lazy Sunday brunch variety. You generally have to queue, but we only waited ten minutes or so this time, and the food is so worth it. Once you get yourself seated there's plenty of newspapers to get stuck into, and of course, the menu. 

Mum plumped for an omelette on the specials board, stuffed to the brim with local, freshly caught fish. I stole a mouthful, and can fully attest to it's deliciousness. The fish melted in the mouth, and the eggs were cooked to perfection.

I went for the "Sandollar Breakfast", three light fluffy pancakes served with bacon and maple syrup. Very American, very delicious. Unbelievably, I am a very recent bacon convert. In fact this was the first time I had ever had a bacon centric meal to myself (in the past I've just stolen a bite of someone else's sandwich). I came to the conclusion that if I couldn't manage all of the bacon I'd at least be left with pancakes and maple syrup. But no fear, I finished off every morsel of bacon on the plate, and have, I think officially joined the bacon fan club. I just have to try it in a savoury meal all to myself now.

Dad happily tucked into his smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel, and Ben went for the traditional full Scottish, minus the eggs. Both agreed they were a top notch start to the day.

Bellies full we took a stroll along the beach in the glorious sunshine that had made an appearance. It's days like this that the city is at its best, and I'm not sure I'm going to like moving away from the sea in the summer, so I'm trying to make the most of it while I'm still here!

Week Eight

Another week, another host of technology issues. All of this weeks photos are taken on my phone, so the quality is shoddy. My sincere apologies. No one is sadder than me about my ongoing camera situation. I hope you all had lovely lovely weeks.

Monday - Mmm white chocolate cake anyone? Similar recipe coming soon.

Tuesday - The most miserable day in the world, wandering around a wind farm in the cold and wet talking about birds flying into the blades. 

Wednesday - My Dad is a softie and bought me some Valentines chocolates, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and significantly brightened up hump day.

Thursday - A brie and cranberry toasted sandwich for lunch at my favourite lunch spot on campus. 

Friday -  All day I wasn't going to the party. I had too much to do and I was tired and just wasn't in the mood. 8:20pm - time to party! I'm such a pushover.

Saturday - Summer holidays booked! 

Sunday - I'm spending today at my desk doing coursework, so it was a lovely surprise to find a creme egg hidden in my pen pot by Ben before he went to work this morning.

Week Seven

Oh dear. Seven weeks in and I break my Sunday rule. But life does have a habit of getting in the way, doesn't it? Well, without further ado, here is my last week.

Monday - In the middle of a three hour lecture our lecturer sent us out to the botanical garden, ostensibly so we could work out how we'd calculate bird numbers, but I think really it was because all the maths he was telling us was starting to make us nod off. Luckily it was a glorious day, so we all enjoyed the wander.

Tuesday - A glorious day for a field trip. On the bus in the morning snow was pelting down, so we were remarkably lucky that when we were actually in the field the sun came out. Wonderful.

Wednesday - It's a shocking statement, brace yourselves - I went back to the gym.

Thursday - I made a Valentines Day card for Ben based on one I saw floating round Pinterest ages ago. Biology geeks for life.

Friday - Beautiful Valentines flowers.

Saturday - Glowing sunset from the roof of a car park in town after a shopping trip with Mum and Dad.

Sunday - This breakfast. I can't even begin. A full post to come - I can't keep such a delicious meal to myself.

I hope you all had a lovely week, and that this week is going well too. I'm completely behind on my blog reading, and posting, (being back at class is much busier than I anticipated) but I look forward to catching up soon :)

Happy Valentines Day

                                 

Valentines Day is about love. I might have posted a picture of my boyfriend and I, but who you love doesn't matter. Your significant other, your parents, your extended family, your friends. Just make sure they know. It's easy to forget to tell people as often as you should. Today may be commercial and tacky, but it's a great reminder to tell people how much they mean to you. I hope you all have a lovely day with the people you love, whoever they are.

Orange Cake with Chocolate Icing

Quick and simple, this orange cake is a crowd pleaser. It's only one layer, and the fudgey chocolate icing is thick, so it's easy to pop a slice of in a lunchbox to cheer up the middle of your day, without needing to worry that you'll get icing all over the rest of your lunch. The orange gives it a nice zing, and everyone knows how well chocolate and orange go together. 

Orange Cake 

300g Plain Flour

2tsp Baking Powder

1tsp Salt

125g Unsalted Butter

200g Caster Sugar

2 Eggs

1 Average Orange (juice and zest)

1tsp Orange Essence (optional - how good is your orange?)

Chocolate Icing

200g Icing Sugar

20g Cocoa Powder

100g Unsalted Butter

1. Preheat your oven to 200°C, and grease and line your pan (shape is no matter, and size - well how deep do you want your cake?)

2. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, butter, caster sugar and eggs, either by hand or with a mixer.

3. Zest your orange as finely as possible and add to the cake mixture.

4. Squeeze as much juice as possible out of the zested orange and into the cake mixture. Here I also added the orange essence, as my orange wasn't terribly juicy and I really wanted the flavour to come through, but if your orange would win a prize in an orange competition, then you probably won't need the essence.

  

5. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 30 minutes, or until a knife comes out of the middle of the cake clean. 

6. Allow the cake to cool, and in the meantime combine the ingredients for the icing until you have a smooth buttercream. When the cake is completely cool, spread the icing over the top, and enjoy!

Check out that crumb structure! Have you been baking this week?

Valentines Truffles

Truffles are surprisingly easy to make, and make a really thoughtful tasty gift for a loved one on Valentines day (or any other day of the year!). You can add flavours, coat and sprinkle them in all sorts of fun things, and pop them in a pretty box with a ribbon wrapped round it. I apologise for the photographs, as you may already be aware from my week in photos post, I'm having camera issues...

Valentines Truffles

To make around 25 truffles you will need:

140g Good quality dark chocolate

142ml Double cream

25g Unsalted butter

Plus whatever you fancy decorating with. I used another 100g of dark chocolate, 100g of strawberry candy melts and cocoa powder.

1. Chop the dark chocolate.

2. Bring the cream and butter to the boil.

3. Pour over the chocolate and whisk. It doesn't look terribly attractive at this stage, but soon it will be smooth and shiny liquid goodness.

4. Pour said liquid goodness into a bowl and leave to set in the fridge, ideally overnight but for at least four hours.

5. Once set spoon out a little lump and roll into a ball into your hands. If you have a melon baller that would be perfect, and you won't get anywhere near as messy as I did! Don't I have giant hands?

6. Coat in your desired coating, and make them look pretty for you Valentine.

7. Don't forget quality control...