I'm a bit of a sucker for getting emotional over beauty (the Ginge will laugh when he reads that as he'd say I get emotional over pretty much anything and he'd be right). The natural beauty of the outdoors just does something to me. Open fields cry out to be run through, cliffs to be scrambled on, mountains to be climbed, seas to be swum in. The coast of big sur is one big heart-swelling sweet-shop of beauty. All along route 1, the road drops down on one side to the bluest of seas, cut by cliffs tumbling with bright flowers and succulents. I wish we had had time to go exploring around one of the little coves, but it was enough just to breathe it all in from the top. As they say in Local Hero 'You can't eat scenery', but it definitely makes it more delicious, so we stopped at Nepenthe - without question the most picturesque burger I have ever eaten and utterly scrumptious.
Something that you may or may not know about me is that I love bikes! I've already said that I think the best way to explore a city is on foot, but I also think it's pretty awesome on a bike. Whizzing along with the wind cooling your face whilst beautiful views arise and undulate in front of your eyes isn't half bad for a day-out. Plus, you get a nice bit of free exercise (and a sore bottom, but we'll ignore that for now). On our penultimate day in the city, we cycled all the way along the Embarcadero, along the San Francisco Bay Trail, across the Golden Gate Bridge and down to a little town called Sausalito. It was a beautiful and varied ride with wonderful views and was a lovely way to escape the bustle of the city for a change of pace. It was pretty hectic on the bridge itself, but once we arrived on the other side, things calmed down again. Aside from the cycling, a particular highlight was catching the ferry back to the city. Its slow speed allowed us to savour the glorious low evening light as we headed towards the city skyline. We packed a delicious lunch of local produce from the Ferry Building and its farmers' market, ate ice creams as big as a man's fist at Lappert's and rounded off the day with a tasty burger back at the Ferry Building. We definitely replaced any calories we burned, but it was so worth it.
Better late than never, eh? We had a lovely, if cold and wet Jubilee weekend. My sister came to stay and we are both unashamed lovers of the Royal Family, particularly the Queen, so we were virtually glued to the coverage of the celebrations. We also went to Chatsworth House for the afternoon, where we had a very British picnic outside on long tables - umbrellas and all! On Sunday afternoon, whilst watching the flotilla, we iced Jubilee-themed biscuits. I really like Nigella's recipe for iced sugar cookies and they're really easy to make, which leaves plenty of time and energy to enjoy the best part - the icing! See below for the recipe, or check Nigella's website.
Iced Sugar Cookies (Courtesy of Nigella Lawson)
Ingredients:
- Half teaspoon vanilla extract
- 200g plain flour, plus more for rolling
- Half teaspoon baking powder
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180C/ gas mark 4
- Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and as light as a mousse, then beat in the eggs and vanilla.
- In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter and eggs, and fold together. Add a little extra flour, if mixture too sticky.
- Form the dough into a fat disc, wrap in clingfilm and rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour
- Roll the dough to a thickness of about half a centimetre. Cut into shapes and place the biscuits a little apart on the baking sheet.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, by which time they will be lightly golden around the edges. Cool on a rack
- Ice once fully cooled.
You can use either fondant or royal (I quite like royal as it sets hard before you ice the details).
Happy Jubilee! We have had a wonderful weekend, despite the weather, but more on that later. Last Friday, I had a lovely treat; a box of cakes from Sheffield-based cupcake company, Fancie. Contained within the beautifully-wrapped box was a perfect selection of cakes; a whoopie pie, two macarons and a Jubilee-themed cupcake. Each of them was utterly delicious; crisp macaroons with gooey middles and a summery strawberry cupcake with champagne icing. My personal favourite was the lemon and white chocolate whoopie pie, which was a gorgeous combination of light sponge, rich and sweet white chocolate buttercream and tart lemon curd. Yum! I have lovely memories of eating Fancie cakes; discovering them as a welcome treat whilst a first-year student living off hall-of-residence food, being given a whole box of them as a birthday present from my housemates in my third year and the many times spent lying out in the sun in the botanical gardens or wandering along Sharrow Vale Road with cake and friends. Before I found Fancie, I had only ever eaten chic cupcakes in London, at the likes of the Primrose Hill and Hummingbird Bakeries, but Fancie more than competes with them for taste and atmosphere and the best thing is that it is in Sheffield. Fancie has three shops in Sheffield and apparently, they do cake decorating parties with cocktails. Now that's an idea.
