I’m back! With a cake I didn’t bake.

Hello lovely readers – I hope you are all well. It’s been a strange few weeks hasn’t it? I have had a little break from writing, although not a break from baking and running. I just couldn’t seem to put pen to paper (as it were). But today I am back with cake I didn’t make myself.

This is the kind of cake I wouldn’t make myself. Too much faffing involved really, and other people just do it so much better!

Very close to where I live there is a little cake shop run by a lovely man called Pan. So his shop is called Pan’s Bake Shop. Of course. At the start of lock down he shut up shop. But this week he opened, albeit with reduced hours. Pan sells classic style gateaux and custom birthday/celebration cakes. He also makes amazing what I call ‘proper’ cheesecake – i.e a baked cheesecake. As it happened to be my husband’s birthday this week we thought we would support a local business and buy his birthday cake here.

The cakes was layers of soft and light vanilla sponge, sandwiched and covered with fresh cream and decorated with fresh fruit. It wasn’t sickly and overly rich because it’s cream not icing. Perfect for a hot sunny day!

The previous picture is as pretty as a cake could possibly be, but in fact it is not a cake. And I also didn’t make it! It is a Russian salad called Herring under a Fur Coat. My son’s girlfriend’s family are Russian, and her mum very kindly made this for my husband because she knows we all love it. It is layers of potato, carrot and beetroot over the bottom layer of herring, and covered with mayonnaise. The mayo turns a beautiful pink from the beetroot. It is decorated with chopped egg and spring onion. It is really delicious and so lovely to look at too. Thank you Elena!

So what I did I do to help with the celebrations? Well, a couple of days later I made some doughnuts… More of that in another post.

Afterthought Number One: I have recently got back in to making home fermented food. In the past I have made sourdough bread, water kefir and various fermented vegetables. But I have just made my second batch of kimchi – and wow! It is so delicious! Click on this link for Felicity Cloake’s masterclass in kimchi making and give it a go.

Lots of yummy kimchi. Good to eat, and good for you too!

And Afterthought Number Two: Today on my run I listened to two episodes of Frank Skinner’s Poetry Podcast – if you like poetry, and especially if you think you don’t like poetry, it is worth a listen I think.

And finally – according to the WordPress stats this is my 100th post!! Wow! See you back soon for number 101!