Friday 8 June 2012



If you read lots of food blogs, you might think that the last thing the world needs is another glowing review of Kim Boyce's book, Good to the Grain. But I'm afraid I'd have to disagree with you.


I've had this book for a little while now and had, until a couple of weeks ago, only made the now-famous whole wheat choc chip cookies. I didn't tell you about them because it seemed thateveryone else was telling you about them. But holy heavens, if you haven't made them yet, jump to it: they are good. They've come to be known in these here parts as the cookies by neighbours, friends and family. Can you see why?

But just the other week I realised my fridge had been overtaken by carrots. Does that ever happen to you? I remembered a spelt flour and carrot muffin I'd seen in the book, so got to work one evening preparing all the ingredients so I could whip up the muffins before work in the morning. And holy moly, they were incredible. Moist, wholesome and sweetened not just by the combination of brown and white sugars but by the grated carrots and the spelt flour too. They're topped with an oat bran-fortified streusel topping, which turns them into a textural delight. See?


After the success of these muffins, I decided I really need to bunker down and get cooking. Well, baking, more specifically. I need make everything in this book, ASAP. But then I realised that if I really jumped into the task with the gusto I'd summoned après muffin, it wouldn't be long before I found my velour leisure suit becoming uncomfortably snug (yep, velour). So I decided that I'd let myself make a treat a week from this gorgeous selection - and that I'd give at least half of what I made away.



So this week I made Kim's olive oil, chocolate and rosemary cake. And oh... yes baby. Most people think they've misheard when you first say 'rosemary' followed by the word 'cake'. Unless they're Italian. Rosemary is one of the key ingredients in castagnaccio, the Tuscan chestnut flour cake that also contains raisins and pine nuts. I've been eating the castagnaccio made by Lisa Costa atCoffea Torrefazione Bottega pretty much for years now (and yes - she still makes it, so go try a slice!), so I jumped to try a cake recipe that included both rosemary and chocolate. 

Boyce is right when she writes of the magic that happens between the oil, the smoky chocolate and the pungent herb; the flavours of each are heightened, complemented and yet balanced by each other. It's pretty spectacular. The mix of white and spelt flour generates a toothsome crumb, soft but robust enough to suspend the broken shards of dark chocolate that are scattered through the batter. It is one of the most exciting cakes I've had in a long time: beautiful with coffee in the afternoon, but elegant and surprising enough to be part of a casual dinner. 


As you'll see below, it's also a sublimely quick and easy cake to whip up. Of course you don't have to use a tart pan, but there's a certain genius in the idea: the olive oil in the batter means that the edges of the cake make love to the corrugated edges of the pan while it's in the oven, resulting in the most deliciously crispy and fragrant crust. Dirty, but deliciously true, my friends. 

Olive oil, chocolate and rosemary cake

oil for the cake pan
3/4 cup spelt flour
1 1/2 cups plain flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp kosher salt, or 2/3 tsp flaked sea salt (like Maldon)
3 eggs
1 cup olive oil
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 tblsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
140g dark chocolate, chopped roughly (Boyce says 1/2-inch pieces)

1. Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. With a pastry brush or paper towel, grease the pan with olive oil. 

2. Sift the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. 

3. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs until combined, then add the oil, milk and rosemary. Whisk again until all ingredients are well combined. 

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix in gently with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until well combined. Fold in the chocolate and pour the batter into the prepared pan. 

5. Bake for around 40 minutes, or until the edges are deep golden and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean (Do check at 35 minutes, as my oven seemed faster and the cake was done a little earlier).

Blogger Test


It’s my last Monday in London, so after booking a train ticket, I spend way too much time in the cafeteria trying to decide what to see and what to miss over the next few days and end up “enjoying” a breakfast of cold eggs, bacon, toast and tea. The breakfast at LSE is perfunctory at best when piping hot; when cold it’s downright mouth-torture. But at least it’s free.  I wander up to the tube and make my way to the bomb-site that is Tottenham Court Road with no particular place in mind for all my deliberating, but I figure I’ll find something.
After wasting time in a bookshop trying to find the new Paul Raymond biography - it’s in the “business biography” section, which seems an odd place to put it, and by the time I find it I’m annoyed about their stupid cataloguing system and decide to punish them by not buying it - I find a shop called Fopp. Damian had told me that Fopp was a cheap CD shop, and I’m always one for a cheap CD. Sadly, though, it becomes obvious pretty soon that a) Fopp is an offshoot of HMV, and b) Fopp is no cheaper than HMV. 
My wander continues westwards, because I realise there’s somewhere I want to visit. It’s the camera-nerd inside me, dragging me in the direction of the holiest of sites this side of Solms in German: the London Leica Store.
After the usual lunch - I’m beginning to wonder if that Pret apple juice is spiked with something highly addictive - and the usual bout of getting slightly lost for a little while, I find where I’m looking for.
My pace quickens as I see the familiar red dot logo, I get to the door, reach out and find that it’s locked. I compare the opening times on the window to the time on my phone. Yes, I’m there during opening times. There seem to be people looking at things inside. I try the door again as maybe I pushed when I should have pulled, or vice versa. No. And then, just as the mildly amused staff member comes to the door, I notice the buzzer I have to press. 
Once inside, I wander about quietly and try not to drool on the display cases. The gear on display is stunning, and, not surprisingly so are the prices. I try to keep a mental tally of the combined worth of everything I look at; I lose track around item number six, at which point I’m already well over AU$30,000. 
Aforementioned staff member lets me drool for a little while, then comes over and asks if I’d like any help. “Sure,” I want to say, “Help me out by lending me a few thousand quid.” Instead, I ask her if I can have a look at a Leica MP. 
I was expecting her to go through a complicated security routine, and to be handed a pair of white cotton gloves, but she simply opened the display case, grabbed the camera and handed it to me like it was a camera worth many thousands of pounds less. 
The camera itself is a thing of beauty. Small, weighty and solid. And oh so beautiful. I cradled it, I looked through its wonderful viewfinder, I fired the shutter and wound it on. For someone who relies on cameras from the ‘70s and earlier, it was like a whole new world. But sadly, one that I was only briefly visiting. Because, at £3,300, it was roughly the same price as the whole trip to London and Paris. 
And this trip to London was the reason I wasn’t at home in Australia holding my own MP in my hands. I’d actually decided at the start of the year that I would treat myself to a nice yet horrendously expensive camera for my 35th birthday and, about a week or so before the date I was planning to put in my order, I got the email announcing the wedding. I figured the camera could wait; weddings only (usually) happen once and instead of a camera, my 35th birthday present to me would be a holiday in London. 
But at least I got to hold one of those fantastic little machines for a few minutes. 
And then I left with the one thing I could afford. The price list. 
From there, I wandered down Berkeley Street to Piccadilly and along to Burlington Arcade, which was like an arcade full of Leica shops. In that there were a lot of shops full of things I had no chance of affording, not that they were full of cameras.
After a wander around Waterstones, something reminds me of a photography exhibition I was meaning to visit, so I head to the Atlas Gallery off Baker St (cue bad saxophone impression.) Sadly, because I’d left a notebook back at home in Australia, I’d missed the exhibition - photographs of the Rolling Stones recording Exile in France - but the lovely lass behind the counter was kind enough to let me browse through their copy of the book the exhibition was based on. It was fascinating, and I was kicking myself for having missed it, so I enquired to the price of the book. Turns out, it was a very limited edition and they go for over £1,000 on ebay. Immediately, my mind turned to everything I touched that day and I couldn’t enjoy the book without imagining that I was irreversibly damaging its precious pages. So I had a cursory flick through the rest of the book and was on my way.
The rest of the day was less than interesting. After a visit to London Bridge to pick up my train tickets, I made my way back through the rain to LSE, had a quick nap, grabbed a burrito and a beer for dinner then retired to my rooms for a cup of tea, a spot of reading and an early night.