Quatre-quarts en un quart d’heure

Cold, wind, rain. It may be nearly Spring, but Edinburgh is still rather bleak this time of year. It’s no wonder I’ve been craving chocolate cake for a few days.

I follow a loose, self-imposed doctrine that means I rarely eat cakes that haven’t been home baked, preferably by me. Other people’s baked goods never taste quite right. Too much sugar. Not enough dairy fat. Oily crusts and suspiciously healthy recipes. A quarter of good quality butter is what I’ma fter.

I miss the convenience of French supermarket cakes. They may not have been home baked, but the quatre-quarts and other simple buttery loafs they have on offer always hit the spot, and always tasted right. I remember rushing home on Wednesday afternoons to catch Les Cités d’Or on Récré A2 (tum tum tum, les cités d’ooooor), while munching on a marbled slice of cake. Chocolate bit first, then the vanilla portions would get squidged between two fingers before being quickly gobbled down. These days, at the corner shop, the “Cuisine de France” stand displays ageing doughnuts and disgruntled yumyums. Scotmid ain’t no Intermarché.

Last Appetite’s post about 20 second immersion blender mayo reminded me that it only takes about 15 minutes to get a cake into the oven with minimal household disruption, even if you have a tiny and, like me, often messy kitchen.

For almost-instant chocolate gratification, you will need:

- 3 eggs

- 200 g of sugar

- 200 g of self-raising flour (or 200g of flour and a heaped teaspoon of baking powder)

- 200 g of butter

- about 200 g of melted chocolate (I used 6 heaped tablespoons of dark cocoa powder from Van Houten instead)

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius (I set my electric fan oven to 165). Melt the butter in the microwave on a low setting. Crack the eggs into a big plastic bowl, add the sugar. Using your immersion blender, cream this mixture together until it is thick and pale yellow. Add the flour and chocolate, then continue to stir the mixture as you slowly poor the butter in. Grease a loaf tin and dust it with flour before pouring in the mixture. The cake will cook for about 30 minutes, or however long it takes for a knife to come out clean.

While the cake is cooking, get your child/boyfriend/cat/random stranger to lick the bowl clean. If you have a bit of whipping cream in the fridge, some ganache wouldn’t go amiss. Putting away the scales and washing up the two bowls and the immersion blender will only take a few minutes, which leaves you plenty of time, while your kitchen is filling with the scent of rich, dark, bitter, comforting cake, to settle down with Youtube to see if you can find a clip of that time when Esteban, Tao and Zia first discovered the golden condor.

Tum, tum tum, les cités d’oooooor.

Roseleaf pub review: all day breakfasts and ginger juice

Leith. What a strange place. Rows of dull, bland, deluxe-luxury-exclusive penthouse apartments. Rotund, shrieking children giving their dishevelled mothers a hard time. Chinese supermarkets and polish “sausage cafés”. Toothless cronies, drunken neds, and a smattering of smart restaurants, pubs, and delis. The green of the Links, the smell of the sea, the smug smirk of the thirty-something professional - it’s a rather pleasant place to be living, really.

Walking along The Shore, where the Water of Leith ends its gentle stroll in the Firth of Forth, makes for a lovely Sunday afternoon. If the fresh air and full hour of actual daylight is too much for your fragile constitution at this time of year, stop off at the Roseleaf pub for an emergency snack. Battered chairs, typewriters and mismatched porcelain give it a comforting, welcoming feel, as does the almost extreme friendliness of its staff. So friendly in fact, that you may find yourself wondering whether you should be giving them a hug for making you feel so at home. But that would just be weird. Right?

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Bali Café

I can’t find much to recommend the Bali Café on Sisowath Quay. It is expensive by local standards, with little ambiance, and the service is laconic at best.

But it does have the most fascinating night show in town. Armies of lizards, curling around the balustrades, jumping across gaps to catch the many mosquitoes crowding around the lamps. Munching quietly on their feast. I watched them for what seemed like hours, remembering our first visits to Cambodia in the eighties, remembering nights when the curfew was in place. Sitting on Maman’s lap, we rode quietly through the cyclo-filled streets, our skins slick with citronella oil.

The air smelled of jasmine.

Bali Café

379 Sisowath Quay

Phnom Penh

Culture shock

When A. and I planned a trip to Singapore and Cambodia last December, we started putting together a long list of places to visit. Food courts, hawker centres, restaurants… It pays to do a bit of research when you’re travelling with a vegetarian. I read ieatishootipost from beginning to end, salivating at the many delights that would soon be at our fingertips.

One thing particularly intrigued me. Kaya. The dark brown, creamy paste rich with coconut and egg, spread on thick, generous toast. I had never heard of it, but knew I would like it.

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Nationalité

I was told to keep quiet, somebody would do the talking for me. Here, finally, was a fine display of common sense. My Cambodian vocabulary is dire at best, permitting mostly discussions about lunch, dogs, and water, so when it comes to getting a new nationality in a country known for the corruption of its officials and its obfuscatory, arcane administration… yes, I better keep quiet.

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Mummy’s kitchen

Maman’s kitchen is warm and clean and busy.

Here we sit and talk and laugh. We pick at leftovers in the fridge. We argue over nothing and everything, or mutely wash the dishes and let our thoughts wander softly.

Maman’s kitchen is welcoming and out of bounds, cheerful and empty, spicy and bland.

Maman’s kitchen is far away.