Caketastic Conran!

Dear Readers,

Who knew that inside the Conran Shop on Marylebone High Street secret delicious cake was hiding out?! (Probably several of you but nevermind.)

Imagine my delight when, out and about in London town and desperate for a slice of cake, I discovered that nestling within the deluxe furniture, open-plan, air-conditioned Conran shop there was an equally pleasant cafe.

At the back of the shop you will find a spacious, clean, well-lit, welcoming and comfortable cafe serving the most delicious coffee in beautiful porcelain cups and saucers (with matching milk jugs, natch) with an excellent crema on top and a smooth rounded finish along with a sumptuous range of prettily decorated and divinely tasty cakes.

It appears that this cafe is yet to be discovered by freelancing Mac-addicts, so it makes the perfect place to retire with a good book and/or traditional notebook and pen for some solo reading and writing. The tables are, as you would expect at the Conran Shop, rendered to a very high standard, the chairs mismatched and well designed and the staff friendly and pleasant.

But let's admit it, it was really all about the cake. I plumped for the triple-layered Strawberry and Champagne Cake and am now trying to work out a recipe for it as it is up there with the nicest cafe-bought cakes I have had in a long while.

It's hard to capture the taste of champagne within a cake, but they have actually managed to do this! The sponge itself was super-light, almost melting (which is a hard effect to achieve) and delicately flavoured with strawberries and a dazzle of sparkling champagne pop on the tongue! Obviously, the real Champagne flavour comes from the elegant icing - marshmallow fluffy, spun-sugar soft and perfectly proportioned in relation to the cake itself - and the strawberry flavour from the sticky-coulis-style jam between the layers. Genuinely a triumph of a cake - perfect for high summer!

And just in case you are not fully sated from the cake itself, there is a wonderfully dark strawberry champagne truffle a-top the cake for a final chocolatey-flavour-bomb finish!

Delicious.

Champagne and Summer,
Silver Whimsy x

From Ruby Jewel to Ruby Violet - Tufnell Park's finest!

Dear Readers, 

I have found it! 

I have found a little corner of Portland in North London and it goes by the exquisite name of Ruby Violet... Ruby Violet is an ice cream parlour in Tufnell Park and it not only lives up to expectations, it exceeds them. 

If you haven't already been convinced by the above image featuring an exquisite example of this super-fine ice cream parlour's perfect signage, then allow the fact that at Ruby Violet you can count on the milk being organic, the eggs free range and the products as locally sourced as possible and it is impossible not to comprehend that this is quite simply the best ice cream parlour in London. 'Why,' you may well be asking yourself, 'has Silver Whimsy never been here before?' And if, indeed, you are asking this question the answer is simple: I have no idea. I have been asking myself the same question ever since the SIBF and I went earlier this week. 

Once inside the small parlour on Fortress Road, you are instantly made to feel at home by the delightful ice cream creator/server awaiting to acquaint you with the many flavours on hand. We were invited to taste the delicious, candyfloss light delicacies without needing to ask and we were given as much time as we needed to make our choice. And boy oh boy, did we need that time, because in spite of the fact that all of the flavours are bespoke and hand made in small batches, there are still rather a lot from which to choose!

The ice creams here are all made with natural ingredients, so the Kentish Town Honey ice cream has real honey running through it in mouth-watering golden ribbons and  the Mint Choc Chip (which was my final choice) is made with fresh mint from nearby. 

The thought and time that goes into the flavour combinations means that the ice creams are not too heavy. Rather, they are decidedly light and thoroughly English with a delicate flavour and a spun-sugar lightness that means you can leave the parlour after an afternoon treat without feeling too full for your tea!

The Parlour itself is light and welcoming with several super-cute details that bring yet another touch of Portland to NW3. There is a portrait of the original Ruby Jewel on the wall and a collection of magazines and fun books for you to look through as you enjoy your ice cream. Cutest of all is the fact that each ice cream is wrapped in its very own exquisitely illustrated ice cream napkin-square.

I lucked out with the Eiffel Tower, but the SIBF's Union Jack looked kinda cool wrapped around his perfectly pink Raspberry Ripple.

I thought the pastel colours of the mint green and baby pink looked utterly delightful next to each other and also genuinely reflect the delicate taste of these flavoursome and well balanced ice creams.

I was also sartorially pleased that my ice cream seemed to be an ideal colour accompaniment to my shirt. I may no longer have an American manicure, but if in doubt I can still match my ice cream colour to my top and shoes (see below).

So, Ruby Violet:
Should you go? 
YES.
Should you go even if you live in South London?
Yes.
Is it really worth the visit? 
Yes.
Will I be going again?
As soon as is possible.
Has Ruby Violet captured 'the life of Portland'?
Yes (and it didn't even need to put a bird on it to do so...although if Ruby Violet did start putting birds on their ice cream that might be even better).
(Sorry. Portlandia reference.)
Does it cater to the customer who enjoys a late night ice cream?
YES!! It is open til 10pm Tuesday to Sunday and til 7pm on a Monday!

I'm going to wait until it's super-cold to go again and therefore feel absolutely free to order 'The Hand Warmer' and a cup of coffee and try out the hot salted caramel sauce. 

Ice cream and melting hearts, 

Silver Whimsy x 

Oui Presse? Mais oui!

Dear Readers,

I have found it. I have found the ultimate Pacific North West coffee shop and it goes by the name of 'Oui Presse'.

Frequent Readers of 'Confessions' will be well aware that my top ten list of coffee shops around London fluctuates on a relatively regular basis, well, we now need to reserve the Number One Spot for Portland's 'Oui Presse' - the most perfect coffee shop I have encountered on my American Adventures so far.

I've enjoyed coffee shops in Seattle, and I've appreciated some of the coffee houses in Portland, but I have constantly been searching for something more, something with a certain je ne sais quoi, and I finally found it after a long walk through Southeast Portland's Hawthorne District.

Whilst 'Oui Presse' is slightly further away from the main strip of Hawthorne it is well worth the detour and the wait - I urge you NOT to stop at any of the other places on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard but rather to wait until you reach Hawthorne and SE 18th and visit this most delightful, super-cute and ultra-delicious of coffee shops.

I have been thinking a lot about the art of the coffee shop on this trip and, whilst I appreciate different customers want different things from a coffee shop, I am certain there are some universal truths. And they are that a most wonderful coffee shop should contain:

• a beautiful interior
• something to distinguish it from other places
• a unique sense of self (see above) 
• friendly staff 
• a calm, super clean and comfortable layout and, above all, 
• most excellent coffee

and I am pleased to say that 'Oui Presse' has all of these things. 

Beautiful Interior: 

Something to distinguish it from other coffee shops: 

It not only has an ice cream scoop collection as shown above but also curates magazines from across the world, meaning there is no shortage of reading matter if you turn up and realise yo have forgotten your book!

A unique sense of self: 

I didn't manage to take photos of the thermos collection hanging on the wall, or the bunny slippers - see the website, believe me, you're going to want some - but I think the picture above of hand-drawn cakes as a substitute for the real thing will suffice to give you a sense of the uniqueness of 'Oui Presse'...

Friendly Staff: 

You can just about make out the completely delightful, friendly lady who made our amazing coffee in the picture above.

Calm, Clean,. Comfortable: 

This image is taken from inside the shop looking out - who doesn't want to see a silhouette of a girl with a ponytail while they're drinking coffee?

And this photo is of the door to the restrooms, because who doesn't want to be reminded to 'EAT CAKE' and 'SHOP' when they're in a coffee shop?!

Most Excellent Coffee: 

But above all, the coffee was the BEST I have had in the whole of Seattle and the whole of Portland so far. And that is saying somehting. SIBF had a cappuccino pictured above, but I had the most wonderful  confection called a 'Noisette'. It was the most perfect coffee I have ever drunk. I wish I could go there every day and drink a Noisette whilst writing in the corner. I might even eat a slice of Pistachio Cake too. 

Readers: the message is simple. When in Portland, visit 'Oui Presse' and find yourself leaving with a desire for bunny slippers and wishing that you lived in Hawthorne so that you could go everyday. 

Whimsy x 

Silver in Seattle

Dear Readers,

When Whimsy goes on holiday, the sugar and sweet tweesthetic (twee aesthetic) is replaced by something more punky. Something, frankly, more akin to BEDLAM and so it is that I bring you news of a most excellent breakfast spot in the heart of Seattle's Belltown.

We stumbled on this coffee shop and for jet-lagged travellers it's opening hours of 6am to 9pm make it a very warm and welcoming place.

Not only were the two guys manning the shop kind and friendly, they were incredibly hard working and actually genuinely make the best toast ever! For this cafe sells simply: coffee, toast and desert making it my kind of establishment.

It also does a fine line in unusual interior decor and you could happily sit for hours staring at the ephemera suspended from and perched on the ceilings, walls and shelves.

I had a cafe au lait and the cinnamon swirl toast. Oh my goodness - the toast is one inch thick and thickly buttered with a velvety deep cinnamon swirled throughout the melt in your mouth brioche.

The crust was dusted in golden cinnamon sugar and they served it with a little pot of nutella on the side. My mouth is watering just thinking about it! I want to go back for more!

If I lived in Seattle I think BEDLAM would become one of my number one haunts. It's location on second avenue is super-cool. Second Avenue is one of those streets that no-one tells you about, but where you can find all of the greatest bars and local bistros and, of course as we now all know, a super-fine breakfast establishment. (There is also a kind of scary punk record shop nearby, but that's another story.)

Not only is there free wi-fi, there is also a host of paperbacks for you to borrow on the stairs and an upstairs snug with comfy chairs and lots of space to hang out.

In a city famous for its coffee, maybe it's best not to stress over where you can get the most amazing super-fine aeropressed cuppa, but rather stumble on a genuine neighbourhood favourite and let your jetlag pass as you gaze at punky art and write your postcards.

Caffeinated love from,
Whimsy x

The Elephant House

Dear Readers, 

I am writing this post LIVE through the medium of Web 2.0 and modern technology aboard the East Coast train service on my way back from Edinburgh - that finest of Scottish cities - where I have been enjoying the festival with SIBF and had the pleasure of bumping into my FSAF who can be seen in THIS play til the end of August. 

I adore Edinburgh and was thrilled to discover there are more amazing cafes there than ever before, but seeing as we were only in town for TWENTY-NINE hours - yes - TWENTY-NINE - I thought I would write to you about my ultimate fail safe Edinburgh cafe - The Elephant House. 

I first set foot in this cafe in the summer of 1998 when I was performing in the festival. It was a sort of hallowed ground for me - a secret, warm, dry spot away from the exhaustion of the twisting cobbled roads and underways. (It was very wet throughout the whole of that August, and I only had one pair of shoes with me that I was wearing for both performance and normal life. My feet suffered, Dear Reader, oh how they suffered!) Turns out 'twas also a special place for JK Rowling who wrote most of Harry Potter there. 

As the name might suggest, The Elephant House is filled with elephants. I don't know why, I've never asked, nor do I particularly wish to know. Normally, I might find that type of interior decor irritating, but here it is perfect.

This is a completely unpretentious cafe. It doesn't use an 'aeropress' for your coffee, it doesn't sell amazing organic cakes, but it also doesn't matter. This is the place to come after a hard day on the fringe. Order a cafetiere for two and a piece of hot chocolate fudge cake with vanilla ice cream.

This is old-skool chocolate fudge cake. Squishy, chewy, thick and gooey. The vanilla ice cream tastes like something you used to have round your best friend's house for a treat on a Saturday afternoon and when it's combined with a rainy, cold Edinburgh evening it is heavenly.

What's more, The Elephant House epitomises that most wonderfully dazzling - almost impossible - dizzying sense of Geography that comes form spending any amount of time in Edinburgh, even TWENTY-NINE hours: look out of one window and you'll see a castle on a hill, look out of another and you'll see Arthur's Seat. The whole city is straight out of a fantasy landscape.

So whilst you may well find a more modern / hipster vibe in some of Edinburgh's other coffee shops (I really wanted to go into the coffee shop inside Avalanche records on the Grassmarket, but what with our TWENTY-NINE hours only we didn't have time) if you're looking for something oddly comforting and nostalgic (at least through my eyes anyway) then The Elephant House it is. 

And if you're looking for something completely different, why not go to the caff down the road and have a deep fried mars bar instead? 

Silver Whimsy x

Brazil Nut Espresso Cake

Dear Readers, 

I had promised you a complex Saturday Brazil nut extravaganza grace a Dan Lepard, however, I changed my mind! I *am* still delivering a coffee cake with brazil nuts, but I have decided to forego the Lepard inclusion of wholemeal flour and actual ground roasted coffee beans and have created my own version. This is a Brazil Nut Espresso Cake that can be made in an express Saturday fashion! 

 Follow the basic ingredients for a Victoria Sponge - ie weigh three (or four if you're after a super-huge cake) eggs in their shells and use that measurement to weigh out the same weight of butter, caster sugar and self raising flour. Then make an espresso and have your roughly chopped brazil nuts and vanilla extract at the ready! (I held four brazil nuts back for decoration and used 75g of nuts in total!)

Beat the butter til its pale, then add the sugar and cream together. Crack in the eggs one by one and beat in thoroughly (add a tablespoon of self raising flour if the mix looks as if it's going to curdle).

Make your espresso and beat it in along with a teaspoon or so of vanilla. Then fold in your self raising flour with a large silver spoon, followed by the roughly chopped brazil nuts, and put into two greased and lined Victoria Sponge tins. Bake in the oven at 170 fan assisted for about thirty minutes - top should be golden and springy when it's ready and the cake should be moving away from the sides of the tin. Or insert a skewer and it should come out with a few crumbs stuck to it if the cake's ready. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Meanwhile, make the coffee flavoured buttercream icing! I swear by the ratio of 100g butter to 300g golden icing sugar, about one tablespoon or so of espresso and a dash of vanilla. Beat the butter in a bowl then add the icing sugar, begin to beat in (reserving a little icing sugar in the bowl) before adding the espresso and vanilla. The liquid makes it much easier to beat together, but keep testing as you beat more icing sugar in as you should make the icing to your own taste.

When the cakes are cool, use about half the buttercream to sandwich them together and the other half to ice the top of the cake. ICING TIP: I always start by dolloping small amounts of icing around the circumference of the 'base cake' so that you have the illusion of extremely thick icing and then use a spatula to spread it across the rest of the cake base. When icing the 'top cake', follow the same idea but in reverse ie work from the inside of the cake outwards. Does that make any sense??

Et voila! A Brazil Nut Espresso Cake in express time! To decorate, I shaved the held-back brazil nuts and scattered them around the edge along with some shaved dark chocolate to give the look of the crema on top of an espresso!

One more day to go!!
Silver Whimsy x

Dream Bars for World Cat Day - they're purrrfect (maybe).

Dear Readers,
I have managed to keep to my Sinitta-esque daily blog-a-thon and here I am with a new recipe for Nigella's 'Dream Bars'on this most feline of days.

Gratuitous Photo of Tildred Enjoying World Cat Day

When choosing a recipe, I have found that I am more likely to go for something with a picture rather than without. Today, I decided to choose a recipe based on the inclusion of Brazil Nuts rather than an enticing visual aid. Those of you reading yesterday will recall the thrill with which I re-told the events relating to the creation of BRAZIL NUT TOFFEE. Well, today I realised that I had 175g of Brazil nuts remaining meaning that I could attempt another Brazil Nut based recipe. (And, indeed, the super-saving will continue on Saturday when I bring you a Double Espresso Brazil Nut Cake.) Brazil nuts are quite expensive - my organic ones cost £3.65 for 250g BUT if this equates to three separate recipes then I think they become quite financially viable. I was also convinced by Nigella's recipe based on it containing several different types of sugar. If, like me, you have a tendency to hoard different varieties of muscavado sugar bought during a reckless baking shopping-spree, then this is the recipe in which you can use up ALL of those sugars. However, if I'm honest, as I type I think I know the real reason why Nigella's publishers chose not to include a picture of the 'Dream Bar' and that is that whilst your kitchen does smell truly dreamy whilst you're making them, they are not remotely dreamy to look at. In fact they are decidedly un-dreamy (especially if, like mine, they have managed to burn) and they also look *shock* *horror* healthy which is ridiculous because whilst a bar with nuts and coconuts and no chocolate at all might *sound* like a healthy option, bear in mind this is Nigella's recipe and it is not healthy. No. There is no remote healthiness in this here 'Dream Bar'. The simplified version of the recipe would read:
Take some sugar. Add more sugar. Mix in lots of butter. Add more sugar. The end.
The actual recipe is as follows:

For the base:
200g unsalted butter
4 tablespoons light muscavado sugar
4 tablespoons caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
250g plain flour
For the topping:
3 large free range eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
125g muscavado sugar
3 tablespoons self raising flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
100g shredded coconut
75g roughly chopped brazil nuts
75g raw unsalted cashews
Oven at 180 - I forgot to adjust for my fan assisted oven so my bars burnt - I'd suggest 170 fan and 180 conventional.

 The base (as you will have gathered from the ingredients) is basically a very rich shortbread. Cream the butter and sugars together until they are perfectly light, fluffy and creamy.

 Add the flour and vanilla and stir to form a shortbread base.

Use your fingertips to press the shortbread base into the tin and then part-bake it for ten minutes.
Allow it to cool a little as you begin making the topping.
Beat the eggs together with the vanilla and then continue beating as you add in the muscavado sugar. It's a very dark colour as below:

Stir the flour and baking powder together and then fold it into the mix followed by the other dry ingredients. This is quite fun because the baking powder immediately begins to react to the eggs and flour and it all starts to bubble. Although this is also the stage where you understand why Nigella's publishers left out the 'Dream Bar' photographic entry...

 Pour the sticky mixture onto the pre-baked shortbread and spread it out evenly gazing in awe at the ugliness of your creation and the fact that it clearly looks *healthy* when it so clearly isn't.

Pop in the oven and bake for thirty minutes. At this point you can erase the image of the uncooked 'Dream Bar' from your mind and feast on the amazing scents of it instead.
To be fair to this 'chewy, fudgy, nutty, crisp tray bake' (Nigella Lawson, 'How to be a Domestic Goddess') it looks a lot better when you cut it up and it *is* true to its creator's description.

Chewy and nutty and I think it will last well in a sealed container. The shortbread base would be worth making by itself and would be the perfect Millionaire's Shortbread base. In fact, the shortbread is very dangerous as it makes the bars exceptionally more-ish and because they *look* healthy it feels completely possible to keep going back for more.

Will I be making 'Dream Bars' again? Probably not. Am I glad I tried them out? Yes, definitely.

Until tomorrow,
Silver Whimsy x

PS Serving Suggestion: best served with a magical pot of coffee.