Another wedding cake and a couple of late resolutions

I have been a very bad blogger(but I resolve to do better). Mine has been a winter filled with a few too many hearty dinners and so I am looking forward to the challenge of making some healthier choices for Spring (and documenting them on here). 

I made this wedding cake for my very good friend Anne for her New Years Eve wedding to the lovely Mike. I had planned on going to town and making something really big (5 or so tiers) but the practicalities of not having a car of my own at the moment and relying on the kindness of others for transport put that idea to bed. 

From the Top - Carrot Cake with White Chocolate Buttercream, Fruit Cake (made by Anne's mam Joan) and Chocolate Cake with Chocolate/Hazelnut Buttercream.

I generally don't make New Years resolutions but this year I have two , to blog here at least weekly and to pass my driving test by the end of the Summer. There, I've put it on here now I have to do it! 

It's on! :)

The TapHouse, Ranelagh

I was blown away by my first visit to the TapHouse a few weeks ago. On the site of the former 18 year old's mecca, Russells, in Ranelagh Village, it is now a much more inviting space with a heavy emphasis on craft beers and a vastly improved menu. Had I put this review up then it would have been flawless but my second visit, just a few days later was an altogether different and very much substandard experience.

I wish I had comparison photos but I don't, only of the first visit which was really excellent. The menu is quite limited (but of course that's never an issue as long as what IS offered is good). The menu has several light bites at 6e a pop (hummus with various bits and bobs, prawns Pil Pil etc, a selection of sliders (mini burgers), a few sharing platters and a couple of desserts. And that's about it.

Service on the first day was brilliant.We were hungry (aren't we always) and chose 3 sliders each (one lamb flatbread, a bacon and quail egg version and another pulled pork effort.) We also went for 2 sides, chips and onion rings.

 The burgers on that first visit were incredible, two of them on a slightly sweet, buttered broiche bun. They came on a little wooden board which I am always slightly suspicious of hygiene-wise but were so nice I would have eaten them off almost anything! They were all uniquely sauced and flavored and each absolutely gorgeous.

The sides were also brilliant - crunchy onion rings and great chips with a very moreish malt vinegar flavoured mayonaisse - brill.We left full of the joys about this place and keen to return but what a difference a week made!

On what was bank holiday Monday the staff looked frazzled and overwhelmed. We were ignored for almost 20 minutes before we got the chance to beg for drinks, then menus and, later, cutlery). We were told they were 'out' of all of their speciality beers but 1(!) and also of onion rings (which would surely be very simple to batter up and fry?)We went for the chicken wings on this occasion which were the worst I've had -
 fatty non crispy skin dredged in salty seasoning (but after frying so there was a nasty powdered coating on them). Rank.

But the biggest disappointment of all was my beloved burgers! They had obviously ran out of the little broiche buns after the busy weekend and had instead sent someone into Lidl for a few packets of broiche finger rolls. The buns were cold and the whole thing slapdash and not a patch on the first time round.

I will return but cautiously so and really hope these are just teething problems and not complacency setting in so early.

Making a Wedding Cake

I know that my friends and family's hearts will sink to see this post appear on their social media feeds. I know they are sick to the back teeth of hearing about this cake. But I promise this is the end of the wedding cake talk, until the next one at least!

The Finished Product - slightly right of centre but standing!

I had originally been building up to making a wedding cake for my friend Anne for her NYE wedding but when the lovely Patrea asked me about 6 weeks ago to make hers for 1 November, I was certainly not going to refuse!I did have more than a few moments of panic as I remembered I had only made 1 stacked cake ever before (2 tier, this was to be 4), never mind a wedding cake. The bride was incredibly laid back which helped a lot but still, this was someone's WEDDING and I didn't want it to be a mess. So I began to do research - a lot of research!

Sugarveil Lace

One site I found to be invaluable was Cake Central, which, if you can get past the occasionally preachy tone of some contributors,  is an absolute goldmine for info;  how to dowel correctly, when to ice, what gumpaste is best, it was all there and I am honestly indebted to the community there for helping me ensure the cake wasn't a disaster!.

I knew I wanted to take this opportunity to learn as much as I could in the process and in fitting with the bride's preference so decided to make gumpaste roses, handmade pearls and also to use my great (but expensive at 100e a pop) Sugarveil kit.

Flower Detail

I had made roses before in a one day class but they certainly weren't at a standard I would have been happy to put on a cake. So I practiced - a lot. The pearls were a pretty tedious process but I discovered the best way to get them all the same size as to use marzipan spacers to make sure the paste was all the one thickness before cutting with round icing bag tips, rolling and dusting in lustre powder.

I have a loooong way to go in my cake journey and am certainly no expert but here are some things that might make a first-timer find the process that little bit more managable.


1) Let go of the search for perfection. If this is your first wedding cake, you are probably not a professional cake baker/decorator. Cut yourself some slack. That's not to say you shouldn't try your best but having a breakdown over a crack in a broken sugarflower or a crack in the icing (in my case!) won't help anyone. Remember, ribbon hides a lot.

2) Think about how early you need to start your decorations etc and start a week earlier.
Even though I did 'a bit (of varying lengths) pretty much each day for 3 weeks, I was still up against it as the date apprached (not to say I didn't enjoy it but it WILL take longer than you think, especially if making anything involving gumpaste decorations.

3) Do not be afraid to freeze ahead. This was one of the many tips I got on Cake Central with many of the (American) professionals in particular saying they freeze all their cakes as a matter of course,
 not to save time/get ahead but instead to lock in moisture. I baked mine 4 days ahead and froze them wrapped well in greaseproof paper and cling film and I think they were as moist as if id baked them that morning. You can also freeze your buttercream ahead.

4) Don't scrimp on the sugarpaste. There are a lot of cheaper sugarpastes on the market at the moment (from Aldi etc) and I have used them with varying degrees of success but I'd definitely recommend buying one of the professional brands for such an important cake and definitely one which you have practiced with before. You want to give it and yourself the best possible chance of not cracking under pressure or tearing as you life the big sheet from the table.I used Regalice.

5) Use tried and tested recipes. Now is not the time to experiment! It can be tempting to try out new things but its probably best to save that for a rainy Saturday afternoon when the stakes aren't so high!

The face of relief

6) If using, lay a sheet of kitchen roll over your dried gumpaste flowers. I freaked out about a week before the wedding when I saw the fruits of all my hard work start to droop slightly as a result of the high humidity!(damn you Irish weather). I am convinced doing the above helped minimise the damage (that and placing them in a breathable cardboard box).

7) Do it for the right reasons. I took on this challenge on the first hand to fulfill a request for a friend
but also looked on it as the chance to  improve/develop some of my skills. Don't take on a request to make a cake if your heart isn't in it because the stress that WILL follow just won't be worth it and you may start to resent the whole thing!

Wedding Cake talk is OVER my friends!(now on to Anne's for NYE!;)

Review - Punjabi By Nature, Ranelagh

I adore Indian food and had paid a visit to The Punjab Balti in Ranelagh an average of about once a month since moving here almost seven years ago. It closed for several months during the summer and has reopened with a new name, new menu (complete with newly increased pricing) and a new look.I had been apprehensive about returning as, for me, it was perfect as it was but finally went for it last Sunday.

My first impression was that the actual transformation inside doesn't really seem to have justified the long closure. The chairs appear to have been coloured in jewel - tones and there is some nice mosaic detailing around but, apart from new bar area and snazzy purple exterior, it felt very much the same. As before, we were given some poppadoms on arrival.

I was very disappointed to see that the menu in the new restaurant has been shortened dramatically and a number of the old classics (including my beloved Lamb Saag) taken off or replaced with more Western/Indian fusion dishes. I chose the Goan style scallops to start and they were pretty bland, five of them on a mild sweet 'jus' and with a mint and yogurt drizzle.

It became really obvious from my main that they must have shed their old kitchen team/ head chef. The Pilau Rice was not a patch on the old recipe and the curry sauce that came with this 'Rib Eye Steak'(read 'Tough Piece of Beef)distinctly lacked the old Punjab magic.(Noo!!!)This was like something I might make on a  good day and lacking the Xfactor of old.

We finished with some Gulab Jamun which were enjoyable but we both agreed (AGAIN) not as nice as before! . This Indian used to stand head and shoulders above others in Dublin. Now it's just 'meh'.

It wasn't broke but they decided to try to fix it anyway. And it failed. And I am more than a bit sad.

Dining on P&O's Azura

I recently returned from a 7 day cruise to the Norwegian Fjords on P&O's Azura. And it was utterly amazing even if the food wasn't always.

This was my first time on one of this company's ships and I hadn't been expecting a huge deal, it's title evoking images of crammed ferries and an altogether lower grade experience. I couldn't have been more wrong.

The cabin, for a start, was by far the most spacious and comfortable of any ship I've been on (which are to date RCI's Oasis of the Seas, MSC's Splendida and Celebrity's Constellation). It's difficult to get a sense of it from this picture but it was more like standard hotel room than a ship cabin, including as it did a large walk in wardrobe area and an abundance of storage.

We made the mistake of going to ship's premium restaurant Seventeen on the second night, a mistake as it was so good the perfectly adequate dining room seemed lacking in comparison. It really was was exquisite;  a proper old world dining experience and a real treat (at a cost of £28 per head but worth every penny). However its extremely dim lighting meant that I got no pictures worth posting.We actually went twice, enjoying chateaubriand, prawn and crayfish cocktail and other classics done very very well.

The Glasshouse is all about wine but they also serve British style tapas dishes and a few mains at an extra charge (for the lunch in the picture above we picked three little dishes each at the reasonable cost of £5 a head. They included mini scotch (quails)eggs, ham terrine with toasts and other lovely things.)

Michelin chef Atul Kochhar's Indian restaurant Sindhu was what we had been looking forward to the most but actually turned out to be the main let down of the week. There were never more than 9 tables occupied in this huge room any time we passed and it is clear why.

This was a spiced beef salad which was ok( if a bit fatty.)

My main was lobster with 'kedgeree' and a sauce that tasted strangely old and stale, like it had been made with out of date spices (perhaps not so unthinkable when you consider the incredibly slow trade they seem to do). This restaurant tries to deliver a British -Indian fusion. I say 'tries to' because curried mushy peas are not something that should ever be served anywhere!Awful! They were one of the sides we got together with some naan bread which seemed to be from a packet (strangely sweet and hard and definitely not authentic). Apparently the main man himself was due on board for the next cruise so perhaps he whipped them into shape....

In addition, the main dining room was way more hit than miss and the buffet was consistently good - so much so that I found it very hard to break my newly acquired four meal a day habit on my return home. P & O is now right up there with Celebrity as one of my favourite cruise companies. I loved it.

(And PS Norway, I had absolutely no idea how beautiful you really are!.)

Making Gumpaste Baby Shoes

I had never used a paper cake decorating template from the internet before but when I saw this one for life-sized little girls' Mary Jane style shoes on the brilliant Cake Central site I knew I had to try it out for a special Christening cake I was making.

 I already have the Jem bootees cutter which gives a pretty good result but I think these take cuteness to a new level. The template is available here

The base - this was cut out with a craft knife and left to harden slightly whilst the other pieces were cut. It is then flipped over to make the other shoe. 

The other segments must be kept covered though as I have discovered to my detriment that gum-paste hardens - fast!

The various pieces were fixed together with edible glue but most of the work went into ensuring there was a solid join and that the edges were tucked and curved under the sole and not too 'blunt'. 

I then used a stitching wheel to create a criss-cross effect.

A little white button finished them off.

 All in all I was really happy with the results and chose to use these on the cake over the Jem bootees I had also made. Here they are on the cake - daisies for a little Daisy.

Pre Theatre@ Chapter One

Photographing my food in restaurants these days is making me increasingly self conscious. Of course, I am not inconsiderate enough to use the flash but what seems to be the decreasing proximity between tables (or is that just me?) means that I'm often left with just one very hurried snap per course as was the case during my recent visit to the jewel in the crown of north-side dining, Chapter One.

I had been to Chapter one on two previous occasions but never for the Pre-Theatre and had really excellent experiences. And so,my friend Jenny and I looked forward to our visit on a recent Friday just after they reopened following their annual summer break. The Pre-Theatre menu is €36.50 for three courses and is thankfully free of the supplement charges on some of the more expensive dishes which can really push a bill out of 'bargain' territory (with the exception of what is now a pretty standard charge of €2.50 for the cheese plate).

                                      

After a very warm and theatrical welcome from the Maitre D, we were shown to our table, which was one of just a few occupied for the duration of our meal. For me, the bread basket is an integral part of a special meal out but I was disappointed with this particular selection which was very ordinary for a Michelin starred restaurant. They were stone-cold for a start and just not very exciting - a plain, slightly dry seeded loaf, a standard cob-style white and a regular wholemeal. I couldn't help but wonder if they had dropped their standards and that those visiting later would do better (that's not to say we didn't eat the lot - this is me and my Number One Partner in Eating we are talking about).

We both chose the same starter - Black Pudding with Braised Peas, Wilted Celery, Burnt Onions and a Duck Egg Cream and agreed it was easily the best course of the evening - a huge round of lightly spiced black pudding sitting on a chunky pea puree with a gorgeous light as air eggy cream. We cleared our plates in record time and looked forward to our main, Braised Shoulder of Spring Lamb with Roasted Summer Carrots and White Onion, Fried Sweetbreads and Pickled Garlic Sauce with Buttermilk Potato.

Unfortunately, we didn't enjoy this course to the same degree at all. It was just way too much - too caramelized, too buttery and too sweet and that is coming from someone who loves rich food. (In fact, I don't know if I have I have ever deemed something to be too rich before). It cried out for something fresh or sharp, maybe a green vegetable, to balance things out a bit. My piece of lamb was also very fatty, though Jenny fared much better with hers. Putting a sweetbread in my mouth is also something I will not be doing again any time soon.

Dessert was better. My Raspberries Compressed in Elderflower with Jasmine Tea Pannacotta and Lime Meringue, Créme Fraiche and Elderflower Bombe with Raspberry Sorbet (phew!) was refreshing and light but strangely bland and certainly not memorable. (In fact I had forgotten what I had until I uploaded my photos).  Jenny had a chocolate pot with some bells and whistles which was eaten but certainly not raved about. 

All in all, we had a nice visit to Chapter One but it seems to me that chance to enjoy the full experience of The Pride of Parnell Square for €36.50 might just be too good to be true.