Amazing Fruit Salad

I have a confession.

I am writing a proposal for a cookbook.

Writing a book is something I have daydreamed about for years but never really thought would transition into reality. Then I received an email in April from a literary agent, Juliet Pickering at A P Watt, saying how much she liked the blog and asking if I had any book ideas. We sent emails back and forth and she tried a recipe of mine. Literally two hours before I went to the Guild awards ceremony, we finally met.

And so - I signed. I have an agent. (I keep on having to repeat that one back to myself to believe it). I'm even on the website! You can find me by looking in authors (!), then G for Gardner, Emma.

Around the time of the awards, several editors and other agents approached me. I have to admit that at the time I found it all hilarious. Ridiculously, they-must-be-joking, absurdly hilarious. Now I've spent a lot of time working on an idea, it doesn't feel so funny.

It feels absolutely terrifying.

The only experience I can vaguely equate it to is falling in love. The excitement and thrill firmly streaked with the terror of loss and rejection. The all-encompassing nature that means you can't think about anything else. The excitement itself is scary - the more you want it and believe it will work, the harder it is to think of it failing.

Having said that, there are differences. I don't remember falling in love being so stressful... or such hard work.

For some reason I haven't quite pinned down, I really want to share this with you now. Not later, when I've avoided public failure. Now, when I am at the beginning.

Yesterday, Tara posted a quote on twitter from an interview with Cheryl Strayed:

"I find the most important thing for aspiring writers is for them to give themselves permission to be brave on the page, to write in the presence of fear".

I am definitely in the presence of fear, both on my proposal document and right here, sharing this with you. I can't decide if this is brave or foolish (or, for that matter, boring - so many bloggers are writing books).

The end that is a beginning does seem to be in sight - my proposal is nearly finished. I sent a partial first draft to Juliet today.

I've thrown out huge chunks of work, reinvented and edited on repeat. I'm on my third chapter of sample recipes, having binned the others for various reasons. There have been three, four, five, six batches of testing a day in the past weeks. Mum had her holiday time in California filled with testing and writing.

As you might have noticed, there is one teeny little problem - I'm signed up to do a masters at Oxford this autumn. If this does all happen, I'm hoping to defer or re-apply for next year. I've spent a lot of time agonizing over what to do. It will only be worth it if I can create something I'm really proud of.

I know this post isn't the most cheerful, it's-all-sunshine-and-happiness way to tell you, but it is the truth. I've tried to write this post differently but at the moment my excitement is too entangled with fear to unravel the two and only write about one. Besides, I want to preserve this moment - whatever comes next.

So yes. That is what I am up to. Are you excited? Would you like me to write a book? I hope so!

*

We had a dinner party a few weeks ago in California. About an hour before the guests turned up (when the main course was in the oven), I realised the pudding I'd planned wasn't nice enough to serve (this may or may not have been perfectionism on my part). This fruit salad was born.

I had to make it again the next day. The quality of the fruit in California is insane - everything is bursting with flavour. I've put a recipe below for the version we fell in love with but it's just a guideline. The figs perfume the whole bowl and the minty-lemon syrup heightens the taste of every fruit.

My pointers for fruit salads = buy the best fruit you can and use it at the peak of ripeness (it's not a place to hide furry apples and overripe bananas); have lots of colours for visual appeal; let it sit for a bit and finally use a nice sharp-sweet syrup to dress it (I like to use the syrup while it's still warm, it seems to help everything to mingle).

Amazing Fruit Salad

2 small lemons (or 1 big)
25g caster sugar
a sprig or two of fresh mint
1/4 big cantaloupe melon
1 small mango
1-2 white peaches or nectarines
big handful of blueberries
big handful of cherries
small punnet of strawberries
2-3 figs

Cut the lemons into halves and juice three of them into a small saucepan. Add the sugar, about 50ml of water and two or three mint leaves. Place over a medium-high heat until the sugar has dissolved. Pour into a bowl or glass to cool a little.

Chop the fruit up into fairly big chunks. Peaches need skinning, strawberries need hulling, cherries need pitting, blueberries are fine as they are and so on. Place all the fruit minus the figs (which I cut into small pieces) into the bowl as you go and toss together. Squeeze the other half of the lemon over as you add more. Finally put the figs on top.

Remove the mint leaves from the syrup and pour it over the fruit. Toss everything together, making sure the syrup comes into contact with all of the fruit. Cover with clingfilm and leave for 1-4 hours. Toss again. Finely chop 1-2 leaves of mint and sprinkle over the top, then serve.

(Serves 4-6)

Cheesecake Mousse with Summer Fruits and Almond Crumble

Last weekend I was in London. More specifically, I was at The Hempel with a big group of food bloggers for Food Blogger Connect 2011. I had a lovely weekend filled with interesting talks and classes, meeting new people and eating gorgeous food.

My favourite element of said gorgeous food was the dessert we had on Friday night. We had little white bowls of summer berries topped with an incredible cheesecake mousse flecked with vanilla and a sprinkling of sweet crumble. I loved the balance of textures and flavours.

So, in the spirit of commemoration, I decided to try and recreate it.

(Photo credit to Šárka Babická of Cook Your Dream - can you spot me?)

After a few tries, I think I've just about managed to do it justice. Though there are three components, it's a simple dessert to make and doesn't take much time - just a bit of chilling.

Have a look at the #FBC11 hashtag on twitter for sneak peaks of some of the talks and other round up posts. I don't have a list of all the great bloggers who attended and their blogs, but you can find most of them there.

Cheesecake Mousse with Summer Fruits and Almond Crumble
(crumble adapted from John Murray's recipe)

For the cheesecake mousse:
85g cream cheese
30g icing sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
seeds of 1/3 of a vanilla bean
100ml thick double cream

For the crumble:
20g whole almonds (or ground)
20g plain flour
20g cold unsalted butter, cubed
20g caster sugar

For the summer fruits:
200g assorted fruits - I used raspberries and blackberries
25g caster sugar
1 tsp lemon juice

Beat the cream cheese in a bowl until smooth. Add the icing sugar, vanilla extract and vanilla seeds and whisk in. In another bowl, whip the double cream until it holds firm peaks. Whisk 1/3 of the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture. Add the remaining 2/3 of the cream and fold in with a big spoon until uniform. Place into the fridge and chill for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 170C. Place the whole almonds and flour into a food processor and pulse until you have a fine powder. Add the sugar and pulse to combine. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles wet sand. Tip out onto a greased baking sheet and spread out with a fork, fluffing it up as you go. Bake for 5 minutes then remove and break any lumps up with a fork. Place back into the oven and bake for another 3-5 minutes until the crumbs are pale golden colour.

Wash and prepare the summer fruits as needed. Sprinkle over the sugar and lemon juice and leave to macerate for ten minutes.

To assemble divide the fruits between six ramekins or small bowls. Take the mousse out of the fridge and form into 6 or 12 balls or quenelles with spoon/two spoons/an ice cream scoop. Divide out between the portions, placing each ball carefully on top of the fruit. Sprinkle with some of the almond crumble.

(Makes six)

Sparkling Elderflower and Summer Fruit Jellies

I've been wanting to make jellies for ages. So much so that my friends bought me some jelly moulds for my birthday. My plan was to make a version of some of the champagne/white wine and fruit recipes using elderflower cordial. Term ran out before I managed to make them (and I drank all the cordial we had in the flat). 

Then we made homemade Elderflower Cordial the other day. The time had come to make my jellies!

To work out the recipe, I filled each mould with water, then poured it into a measuring jug. The capacity was 500ml. Then I tipped all my fruit into the jug and measured the water displaced - about 200ml. I therefore needed 300ml of elderflower solution to fill the moulds.  I made the elderflower solution slightly stronger than I would drink it to make sure the flavour came through, which worked. 

They didn't turn out perfectly, with some little bits sticking to the mould - any tips? I've thought about increasing the gelatine, maybe by half a leaf or so - I don't like rubbery jelly so I don't want to add too much more. 

All in all, though, I was very pleased with these. They tasted great and lasted for several days in the fridge without the fruit going off.  Mum even reckoned they were better on the second day. They have a light sparkle of bubbles - not as many as with champagne jellies, but it gives the jelly some life.  As a dessert for a hot summer day that's not frozen, they're perfect - light, refreshing and delicious. 

Sparkling Elderflower and Summer Fruit Jellies

Edit: I've removed the recipe as I'm not happy with it and don't want you to try it and be disappointed.

Summer Fruit and White Chocolate Layer Cake

Last week my mum's friend, Alice, celebrated her 40th birthday. She had a lovely party at a nearby village pub, especially as we could spill out into the sunshine to catch the last rays on the village green to the beat of her bongo-drumming friends with a pint of cider. It was really rather idyllic.

A few weeks ago I heard that she wasn't going to have a cake, so I jumped at the opportunity and offered my services. I wanted to branch out from my normal chocolate birthday cake and make a summery, light version. In the end I created this, a mish-mash of various recipes and luck - but it came out beautifully. I tried a new buttermilk sponge recipe, which I ended up not overly happy with as it ended up a bit heavy, but that's easily rectified by reverting to my trustworthy old recipe, which I've put below. The recipe seemed to overcomplicate everything yet not improve upon a simple recipe.

I bought myself some beautiful new square cake tins, in 6" and 9", when I was in London and I couldn't wait to try them out. They're amazing - though I think I overfilled them and so the mix didn't rise evenly - or maybe I'll just blame it on the recipe! Still, the square is great - it's really fun to work with a new shape.

I played with the white chocolate ganache mixture I used for mum's birthday cake, upping the white chocolate in the ratio to thicken it. I was intending to use that as the icing, but it ended up so yellow from the lovely white chocolate and I didn't have enough, so I decided to improvise a buttercream. I didn't really have a recipe, as the two books I have with me don't really have one, and I didn't have internet access. Luckily it came out nicely, though I still stand by my feeling that buttercream is too sweet. I think it might be rather weird to have chucked in lime juice, vanilla and the ganache, but it felt right at the time and seemed to work! As a result of it all being rather hurried and adding icing sugar etc till I felt it was right/tasted good, I don't think the recipe below is exactly what I used - you would have to go on your own instincts there.

I froze the cake layers for a few hours while I made the icings, which made them much easier to deal with. When it came to assembling it, I smeared a little ganache onto the middle of the cake board to help secure it, then placed strips of baking parchment around the edges to keep it free from icing. I used a big serrated knife to cut the frozen layers in half, then proceeded to sandwich it all together.

For the fillings between layers I first spread a thick layer of the white chocolate ganache, then arranged the strawberry slices and blueberries on top, before spreading a layer of whipped cream on top. Between the two halves I just used the ganache, and then used the ganache again to fill in the gaps and give a first crumb coat - see below. I then properly crumb coated and topped the whole thing with the buttercream and more fruit.

Summer Fruit and White Chocolate Layer Cake

For the cakes (6"/9"):

110g/275g butter

110g/275g caster sugar

2/5 eggs

110g/275g flour

1/2.5 heaped tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 170C. Line/grease and flour tins. Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, then add eggs one at a time with a tablespoonful of flour, beating well between each addition. Fold in the rest of the flour and baking powder until combined. If needed, add a little hot water. Pour into the tin and spread out evenly. Bake for about 25-30 mins, though the 9" may need longer, or until they are golden and a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool for five minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.

For the ganache:

300g (best quality) white chocolate

150ml double cream

150ml creme fraiche

Heat the cream and creme fraiche in a saucepan until nearly boiling. Meanwhile break the chocolate into a bowl. Take the cream mix off the heat and pour onto the chocolate. Make sure all the chocolate is submerged then leave for a few minutes before stirring until thickened and smooth. Leave to thicken in the fridge.

For the buttercream:

250g unsalted butter

500g icing sugar

2 tbsp white chocolate ganache, above

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 tbsp lime juice

Beat butter in mixer until paler, then add the icing sugar and beat until fluffy. Add in the ganache and beat well, followed by the lime juice and vanilla. Leave to set slightly in the fridge before using.