Bettys Café Tearooms

Last week I popped home, sadly to see attend the last mass at my parish church before it shut down. It was't the nicest reason to be going home, and although the mass was really a wonderful celebration of what had been it was also helpful in providing positive thoughts the for future and it did mean I was home for the last day of my mum's holiday! So my Dad took the day off too and we went on a rare family trip out.

We're not always the most organised family, so it was nearly lunchtime before we decided to drive over to Harrogate to have some lunch at the famous Bettys Tearooms (they spell it without an apostrophe. It makes me nervous) and a wander around the Botanical Gardens (handily, there is a Bettys at the gardens, and we are all garden and cake lovers).

When we arrived we were greeted by this wonderful window display of some of the most beautifully decorated chocolate eggs I have ever seen. It's just a shame it was a very bright day, so the reflection is pretty terrible. I think you can see the big egg in the middle well enough though.

We tucked into a delicious lunch, and if I'm honest I think we were surprised at how good it was, for a place renowned for it's afternoon tea and sweet treats rather than it's food. My Mum went for a prawn omelette, which when cut open was the thickest, fluffiest omelette I've ever seen, and she was very impressed.  I had the open steak sandwich, and my Dad had the eggs florentine. We also had a salad between us, which had beetroot and blood orange in, which was an absolutely delicious combination, and has triggered a bit of a cake thought in my head. More on that in a few weeks hopefully. 

Regardless of how good the mains were, the sweets rightly took centre stage. We had a choux pastry heart filled with fresh cream and berries, a bakewell slice and a treacle tart. The pastry on all three was absolutely perfect, and I love how pretty the heart is - I wish I could be that precise with a tiny piping tip! 

Unable to resist, we also took a box of treats away with us, and guys. The fondant fancies were just something else. Sponge with a layer of jam and icing, and then, unusually, a thin layer of marzipan on top before the fondant icing. Truly spectacular.

Finally, a little disclaimer. We spent so long in Bettys we didn't actually make it into the gardens before last entrance. We had a lovely, lovely day but we effectively drove for two hours in each directin for cake. Don't tell me that isn't dedication. 

Red Velvet Valentine's Cookies

Yeah Valentine's Day is over commercialised, slightly sickening and eye wateringly expensive if you really buy into it. But it's also an excellent excuse to bake some treats for you, your significant other, your friends - anyone really. Last year I shared some baking inspiration but this year I've got my very own recipe to share with you - Red Velvet Cookies!

 
The traditional red velvet cake is rich and dense, so to me that translates perfectly into a cookie. Of course, red velvet wouldn't be red velvet without tangy cream cheese frosting, and is there anything more decadent than an iced cookie? I think not. So the cookies are topped with beautiful layer of icing, and there's also some white chocolate chips hidden within the cookie. Because a cookie isn't a cookie without some chocolate chips.

Red Velvet Cookies

Cookies

290g Plain Flour

45g Icing Sugar

2tsp Corn Flour

170g Butter

200g Caster Sugar

1 Egg + 1 Egg White

1tsp Lemon Juice

Red Food Colouring

100g White Chocolate (chopped)

Cream Cheese Icing

60g Butter

115g Cream Cheese

320g Icing Sugar

1tsp Vanilla Extract

1. Beat the butter and the sugar together (on high if you're using a mixer) until light and fluffy

2. Whilst beating (on medium), add the egg, egg white, lemon juice and food colouring

3. Turn the mixer down to slow and add the flour and corn flour

4. Finally mix in the chopped white chocolate

5. Wrap in cling film and chill for at least two hours (this really matters!!)

6. Preheat the oven to 180oC and grease and line a tray

7. Place your heart shaped cookie cutter on the tray and press a ball of cookie dough into the shape

8. When it's flattened, press it out and flip it over, so the flat side is on top

9.  Alternatively, you can just put little mounds of the cookie dough on the tray

10. Bake for 9 minutes, leave to cool on the tray for a minute and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely

11. For the icing, whip the butter and cream cheese together until light and fluffy

12. Add the icing sugar and the vanilla extract and mix until smooth.

13. Pipe the icing onto the cookies once they are completely cool

Cake Trails #3: Ginger and Rose Cake

Last week Eve and I visited Lovecrumbs, which markets itself as Edinburgh's only cake-only cake shop. You can read all about our visit here and if you look carefully in one of the pictures you can see on the menu the inspiration for this cake, "Rose and Ginger Cake, £3.20" (you can also see me standing awkwardly in the mirror). I think you can see their version in one of the snaps too, with pink icing and crystallised ginger on top.

Inspired by their menu, I decided to make use of the jar of edible rose petals that have been loitering in the kitchen cupboard for a while and whip up my own Ginger and Rose Cake. This bake coincided nicely with my Mum's birthday, and she was delighted to be presented with such a pretty cake.

Ginger and Rose Cake

Cake
225g Unsalted Butter
50g Soft Light Brown Sugar175g Caster Sugar4 Eggs285g Self-raising Flour3tbsp Stem Ginger Syrup3tsp Ground Ginger

Icing
300g Icing Sugar
90g Butter
3tbsp Rose Syrup
Edible Rose Petals (to decorate, optional)

1. Grease and line two 10" cake tins and preheat the oven to Gas Mark 5
2. Mix the butter until light and fluffy (as an aside, this is hard without a mixer and a crushed right hand - so the mixer I used for this cake is more commonly known as Dad!)
3. Mix in the sugar and then add the eggs one at a time, alternating with the flour and the ginger.
4. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden on top and a knife comes out clean.
5. Leave it out to cool, and then mix all the icing ingredients together. Pipe half the icing on top of one of the cakes and then put the other cake on top, then top with the rest of the icing. When I'm piping in the middle, I like to do a circle around the outer edge of the cake and then fill the middle in. It makes it nice and neat to look at from the outside.
6. Position the rose petals however you fancy.

Nobody Likes You When You're 23

Yesterday I turned 23. I baked myself a pink ombre layer cake and covered it in sprinkles - because who doesn't want pink and sprinkles on their birthday? Nobody, that's who. I sat in bed and sleepily opened presents and then wandered down to the West End to tuck into some sushi from Sushiya - somewhere I highly recommend if you get that sort of craving whilst in Edinburgh. 

I decorated my flat with paper pompoms and filled it with tasty treats for all of my friends. In return, they topped my cake with candles and sang to me. Some of them went to the enormous effort of making me a cake too, and I will be forever grateful for the effort - they are not kitchen types usually! They also put up with my project for the evening, which was snapping a photo of everyone with the Polaroid camera Ben got me for Christmas that I hadn't had chance to use yet. I now have a pleasing pile of polaroids waiting to find a home. It's such a change to have physical photographs.

 

It was a wonderful evening after a really lovely day, and I really wanted to write a quick post about it to give me a chance to reflect on how lucky I am. (I'm fairly sure despite the warning from Blink-182 my friends do still like me now I'm 23.) Do you sometimes find that when you sit down to blog about something it gives you reflection time that you wouldn't otherwise take?