The Sneaky Magpie

I went to the farmers market this morning and they had some wonderful pears, apples and plums.

I bought a punnet of plums and made tea cakes, recipe as before. They were fantastic, I topped them with a lot of fruit which kept the cakes nice and moist.

The baking didn’t stop there. As much as I don’t like to start thinking of Christmas that early in the year unlike all the shops that are already fully stocked and prepared, I decided to make a Christmas cake which demands to be made well in advance. The cake will be fed with brandy till December. Unfortunately I cannot share the recipe – I got it from my mother in law and swore not to give it away, a family secret I suppose. So I will only post the picture of the end result.

If you fancy making one Nigel’s recipe looks very good.

Today, as planned, we went down to Northcote Road to have a proper look – the market stalls are not very exciting so I’ll stick to the farmers market.

Instead, we went to Gail’s for coffee and cake. I had cheesecake with blueberries, it looked so good I couldn’t resist but it turned out to be too rich, I should have settled on a pretty blueberry and pistachio cake or like my more sensible other half – bran muffin, much nicer. I also bought some French sourdough bread, they have a great choice of bakery goods.

Afterward we wandered down the street and came across Recipease, Jamie Oliver’s newish venture. It caught my eye because the outside is painted with horrible baby pink color. The shop sells cook books, crockery, kitchen accessories, ready made meals and some condiments. I haven’t bought any but I am tempted to go back as the jams looked delicious.

At the back of the shop there’s a cooking workshop. The recipes are really dead easy so I wouldn’t recommend going unless you wanna know how to make spaghetti with meat balls or fruit crumble. It does what it says on the tin I suppose…

Later in the afternoon I decided to do some baking (yes, I did have a savory snack in between the cheese cake and baking!) I bought some new baking accessories recently and was eager to use them. I wanted something simple and settled on tea cakes. The recipe I used is very simple and versatile – it’s also butter free:

2 eggs

100g sugar

180g natural yogurt

80ml olive oil

zest and juice of 1 lemon

40g poppy seeds

1tsp vanilla extract

205g plain flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

strawberries

Preheat oven to 180 degrees, prepare ramekins or molds.

Cream the eggs and sugar till smooth. Add lemon zest and juice, olive oil, yogurt and vanilla and whip, add sifted flour, baking powder and poppy seeds. You can exchange some of the flour for bit of ground almonds. Stir well.

Fill your containers half way as the cakes will expand in the oven. I put halves of strawberries on the top but seeing the result I would probably cover almost the whole top with them next time, they create lovely moisture that counterbalances the dry cake. You can use any fruit, seeds and nuts you desire, the basic cake recipe will work with everything.

Bake for 30 min or till golden brown. Enjoy!