Every year when Great British Bake Off comes back to my screen I spend my Wednesday nights salivating and battling the urge to eat 5 cakes. But I also spend some time each episode complaining about the contestant’s obsession with putting herbs and spices into their bakes. I can handle ginger and cinnamon but that’s about as exotic as I get. Maybe I’m a purist, maybe I’m too old fashioned… maybe I just don’t like changing things up! For me, a cake is a cake. It should have chocolate, or nuts, or fruit, or caramel…. not fennel seeds or caraway seeds! Keep your herbs for your focaccia or your soups! Or so I believed. Today, I might have changed my mind. Yes, I think I’m admitting maybe I was wrong…
After spending last night’s Bake Off messaging my sister, both of us yet again bemoaning the use of herbs in sweet dishes I decided this morning that I should try something for myself, so I could fully cement my ‘herbs are for savoury’ belief. Rosemary seemed the obvious way to go seeing as I have a garden full of it (It’s taken over. The rosemary owns the garden. ) Now I am a rosemary fan – but I reserve its use for sprinkling on my potatoes before chucking them in the oven to roast for our Sunday dinner…
I delved into my personal recipe book library and after browsing a few books I decided on a Nigella recipe from her classic ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess’. It’s the third recipe in the book and is based around a Madeira cake. I waited for a break in the storm to run out to the rosemary and pinch a bit of a branch off, then pulled all the leaves off and chopped them up fairly finely, shoving them to one side until I needed them.
The recipe itself was easy enough – cream 250g butter until super soft, then chuck in 200g golden caster sugar and cream until its light and fluffy. Measure 210g self raising flour and 90g plain flour into a bowl. Add in 3 eggs to the butter mix, one by one, and a tablespoon of flour with each one to prevent the curdling issue, then chuck a bit of vanilla extract in. Fold in the rest of the flour mix and then it’s time. I stifled a sob as I tossed in the chopped rosemary – a beautiful cake, I thought, ruined! I dolloped the mix into a loaf tin and put it in the oven, 150 fan and timed an hour. In hindsight I might have overfilled my loaf tin as I did have a bit of an overhang, but personally I quite like a bit of an overhang… Then I went and sat in the living room and pondered the meaning of life, and herbs.
I baked for a total of 75 minutes, then got it out, let it cool in the tin for a bit, then turned it out onto a wire rack to chill out. I didn’t wait for it to cool, I nabbed a bit of the overhang and had a munch. Then I ate my words. Because it was bloody scrummy. The rosemary, like Nigella suggests, bounces perfectly off the vanilla and produces just a rosemary aroma taste, if that makes any sense at all.
The whole herb/cake thing works! Don’t get me wrong, I’d still take a big old chocolate fudge cake with chocolate buttercream and chocolate shavings and topped with Aero bubbles (or something similar, I’m not that fussy) over this, but it makes a nice change. I’ve spent the afternoon having little slithers with my Earl Grey tea with my candles lit while its poured with rain outside, pretending to be more posh that I am. I reckon Nigella kind of nailed ‘the art of comfort cooking’ promised on the front cover with this one :)
