Return.

Hello one, hello all.

I have returned, for more adventures in vegetarian cuisine, now both my life and I have stopped going crazy. Summer has been good, I have spent most of it half-living in Bristol with Jake and Joel and generally living the dream.
The best parts of the dream included WOMAD festival, and seeing Flying Lotus in a car park off a dingy alley in London. Apart from the music being utterly SICK, Jake and I then went for a wander between the hours of five and eight am in Central London, which was slightly foggy and almost completely deserted- very 28 Days Later- a very interesting experience. We even had a cheeky spliff by the houses of Parliament. ;)

This weekend we celebrated Joel's 23rd year of life. As always, I see a birthday as an excuse to bake an extravagant and experimental cake. This time: Lime, Chocolate and Chili Cake.
In terms of flavours this cake didn't quite turn out as I had planned, I was hoping for a more emphasis on the chili while this cake was predominately lime and chocolate with a kick of chili at the end, but then again I am fond of putting enough chili in dishes to make your nose run. I love the building intensity and slight pain you get before breaking through that pain barrier and getting a massive rush of endorphins. Perhaps then, since this cake was for the general consumption of the face-painted party-goers it was better as it turned out.

Much of the inspiration for this cake was drawn from the Dark Chocolate and Ginger Cake.
The basic premise of this it to bake a basic chocolate sponge cake but with added diced fresh chili. A lime syrup is then made by using equal amounts of lime juice and brown sugar- heat it slowly over hob, don't let it boil. Add the syrup while the cake is still hot and in the tin it was baked in. Cover with a tea towel and leave overnight.
I cheated slightly with the icing, since I couldn't source any essential oil of lime I was unable to flavour some chocolate myself, so I bought two bars of Montezuma's Chili, Chocolate and Lime chocolate. I melted this down with a tablespoon of butter to make the icing. I didn't half the cake and ice the inside as the syrup makes the cake itself very moist. I think its a slight pity the chocolate used was a milk chocolate and not a dark chocolate, dark chocolate is almost always better.
Despite my reservations about the cake -which are more aspects on how I think it could be made better and less complaints about the cake as it was- it was very popular with the guests, we managed to scoff the entire cake. A certain someone was spotted standing by the cake and slicing, eating, slicing, eating. It was a real compliment. :)

We ate cake and had our faces painted and got very sideways. As I said, we lived the dream.