Elevenses

Elevenses. It’s a good word, and not used often enough in my opinion. I think it might be one of those very British words, although I’m sure the practice is common to all civilised countries – if you’re not certain, my dictionary describes it as ‘a short break for light refreshments, usually with tea or coffee, taken at about eleven o’clock in the morning.’

I should point out that I don’t have elevenses every day – or at least, it often consists of some fruit or toast rather than cake (although in my mind that doesn’t really justify the use of the word!) but sometimes, it’s exactly what you need. Today, for example, someone seems to have selected the ‘miscellaneous’ option for the weather – it’s simultaneously sunny and snowing, which doesn’t sound too bad until you add in the gales, thundery black clouds and ice. I’m working on a job application, but my work rate can only be improved by a slice of sticky lemon semolina cake, a pot of earl grey and a flick through the second edition of Simply Crochet. Although that’s probably not something I’ll be mentioning on the application.

This cake is a Dan Lepard recipe and well worth a try. The syrup recipe makes what looks like a ridiculous amount and you will think there’s been a misprint – it doesn’t seem possible that you can pour that much liquid over a cake and not end up with a soggy mess. I took my time with the first half of the syrup, spooning it onto the cake and letting that soak in before I added any more, until I took a deep breath and poured the rest of the panful on top. The cake ended up sitting with about a centimetre of liquid on top which made me positive that hadn’t been the right thing to do – but it was. Trust the genius that is Dan Lepard!

(Oh – I cut the amount of sugar in the recipe; I tend to do this as standard in cake recipes, for personal taste as much as anything. From experience I can say that you can cut the sugar in a cake recipe by as much as a third before it makes a significant difference to the cake – although this depends on the recipe – and certainly a quarter less doesn’t do any harm. In this case, I like my lemon cakes to be ultra lemony, and even with my fiddling the cake is definitely sweet still!)

As for the magazine – I would say there’s a bit more in it that I’m likely to make than in the first edition, but I’m still glad I got the first three on such a good offer!

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