There are so many new generation restaurants spread over the city , that you are suddenly spoilt for choice. And while the city has been a major playground for cafes, multicuisine and Indian experiments, it is actually the enviable proliferation of colonial European cuisine that excites us. Add to that the newworld Mediterranean flavours and you have a definitive successful formula.
TFO or The Factory Outlet is the latest offering from the house of Ivory and Shisha. Perched on the fifth floor of the busy Camac Street mall address, it ushers us into a candy-floss world of its own.
Easter, like Christmas, has turned into a
time of sweet excess, but with decidedly fewer seasonal goods doing the rounds –
hot cross buns, Easter eggs, simnel cake – many of us have had enough of them
before Good Friday has even begun. Whether you find yourself with leftover
chocolate (“What’s that?” I hear you cry) dampened by dew from an Easter-egg
hunt, or you’re suffering from marzipan overload, try these Easter lunch hacks
to stop yourself needlessly buttering – or binning – that 21st hot cross
bun.
Sick of simnel and
bored with buns
If no one is convinced
by a kindly relative’s gift of simnel cake, peel the marzipan lid off and turn
that icing into ice-cream. A further stint under the grill (it tends to have had
a cursory one for aesthetic reasons) does something quite brilliant to this
almond paste, intensifying its flavour while transforming its texture. Crumble
it into little pieces first and watch as the heat turns malleable blobs into
crispy, caramelised nuggets – providing a welcome chew when stirred into
ice-cream before its final freeze. You may not need to use all the marzipan –
add it to taste.
The simnel’s sponge
interior makes it well qualified to form the backbone of a host of puddings,
from a trifle to the base of a queen of puddings or baked Alaska. Even a good
old bread and butter pudding would work; using cake rather than bread might
sound a little heavy, but if you were to alternate each slice with regular bread
and avoid a cream-based custard mix in favour of a milk-based one you’d be
heartily rewarded. Of course, the true star of the Easter bread and butter pud
is the humble hot cross bun, whose springy softness makes for a delightfully
pillowy version. It makes sense, then, that a hot cross bun soaked in an egg
mixture – further spiced if you will, as it is the season of sweet spice – and
turned into french toast will make for a very successful bank holiday Monday
brunch.
If you can’t be
bothered with extra cooking, blitz any buns or cakes in a food processor, toast
straight away for added flavour then freeze – panko and standard white bread
crumbs are great, but sweetened crumbs add a totally different dimension, and
can be grabbed by the handful straight from the freezer for all sorts of
recipes. You could knock up some granola and run the crumbs through it to
sweeten, or sprinkle them straight on an open apple tart. Seeing as raisins and
lemon are already present, you could pop some toasted pine nuts and a minced
anchovy into the mix and use them to stuff smaller oily fish or to top larger
meatier fillets.
Cheesed off with
chocolate eggs
Sugar-shelled
chocolate eggs can’t be resurrected, so should be chomped through as a priority,
but those made entirely of chocolate can be reincarnated as something else.
Because this chocolate has been melted and moulded in a previous life, it can be
a little unstable to work with once re-melted. It’s fine for fondue-style
dipping - knock yourself out dunking pretzels, biscuits, fruit and nuts, but
don’t use it to coat anything you’ll then cool down, because, unless you temper
it again, you’ll get white streaks appearing across your handiwork.
Chocolate eggs can be broken up and melted down as part
of salted chocolate fudge sauce. Photograph: Henrietta Clancy
Far better to use this
untempered chocolate in something cooked – cakes, biscuits or brownies. But
given that chocolate fatigue will surely have set in by this stage, I’d opt for
something with a longer shelf life, like a salted chocolate fudge sauce, ideal
for blobbing into the marzipan ice cream recipe below, or spooning on top. As
chocolate eggs (excluding high-end choices here) tend to lean towards the sickly
sweet, this recipe is heavy on the cocoa to give your resultant sauce some
chocolately depth – both in look and in flavour.
160ml double
cream 80ml golden syrup 80g dark brown sugar 60g cocoa powder 1/2
teaspoon sea salt 200g milk chocolate eggs, well crumbled 30g unsalted
butter
Place the first five
ingredients in a heavy-based saucepan and heat over a medium heat until the
sugar melts and everything comes together. As soon as it comes to the boil,
reduce the heat and cook gently for five minutes, stirring constantly.
Turn the heat off and
toss in the butter and chocolate pieces. Stir until smooth. This thick, unctuous
sauce can be cooled and dolloped into the marzipan ice cream before it freezes,
or gently heated and spooned on top. If you let it, it will last several weeks
in a jar in the fridge.
Toasted
marzipan ice-cream
300g marzipan (this
was my yield from an 8in cake) 350ml double cream 350ml milk pinch of
salt 6 egg yolks 50g caster sugar
Crumble the marzipan
into roughly pea-sized pieces, spreading two thirds on a lightly oiled baking
sheet and reserving the last third. Place the baking tray under a hot grill to
toast the marzipan nuggets, letting them darken but being careful not to let
them burn. Remove and allow to cool and harden slightly before transferring to a
bowl and reserving for later.
In a saucepan, gently
warm the cream, milk, salt, and remaining crumbed marzipan. Heat the mixture
until it almost comes to the boil, stirring to prevent the marzipan sticking to
the bottom, then remove and allow to infuse for 20 minutes.
In a large bowl, whisk
together the egg yolks and sugar until thickened and pale yellow. Returning to
the pan, whisk the milk and cream to make sure all of the marzipan pieces have
melted into the liquid, then gently reheat for a minute before pouring the
warmed liquid over the egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly until combined.
Pour the contents of the bowl back into the saucepan and return to a low heat.
Cook, stirring constantly, for between five and 10 minutes. When the custard has
thickened, leave to cool with a piece of clingfilm against its surface to stop a
skin from forming.
When cool, you can
either freeze the ice-cream in an ice-cream maker, or in a plastic container in
the freezer. If you do the latter, you should remove it from the freezer after
an hour and process it again. Repeat this several times.
When the ice-cream has
almost frozen, transfer to a tub or loaf tin, layering toasted marzipan nuggets
with the ice-cream, and gently swirling the mix. Top with more toasted marzipan
and return to the freezer. Serve alone, or with a spoonful of salted chocolate
fudge sauce.
