Our daughter and son in law decided to have their wedding in Santorini, Greece last year. They also incorporated a few Greek touches in their wedding. The reception was held at a stunning location at a beach bar overlooking a private beach on the southern coast. The wedding breakfast was a traditional Greek BBQ with souvlaki and salads and baklava for desserts. For those that don't know what baklava is - it is a a rich pastry made from layers of filo (phyllo) pastry filled with nuts, or other nut flavoured paste fillings and covered with a honey syrup. A Variety of Baklava The wedding cake was of huge interest to me. I had recently done a cake icing course and would have loved to make and ice the wedding cake. However.....this was impractical. I did ponder the option of making the decorations and somehow taking them over. But as we were travelling for two weeks prior to the wedding, this wouldn't work. Wedding cakes were traditionally made to bring luck to the bride and groom....and are steeped in many other traditions, which have changed over the years. But generally they are a centrepiece for the wedding reception, and many brides spend hours mulling over photos and sourcing the cake of their dreams. My daughter wasn't so interested in the cake. She wondered what all my fuss was about! The wedding package had said a cake was provided. It was just as well I emailed myself and queried what it was and how many it fed. It was to be the traditional Greek wedding cake. I was happy with this. This is a layered sponge cake with flavoured filling. But.....the cake provided was in fact a cutting cake for the bridal party and to feed 6 people! Whoops.....this could have been a major disaster had I not asked. We needed a cake to feed 40. I set to and scoured the web for suitable wedding cake shops on Santorini. We had decided the cake would follow the beach theme and be decorated with shells.The shop I chose had several beautiful photos of cakes decorated with shells so a decision was made with the help of the bride and groom. I found a photo of a cake that was a beautiful delicate pale cobalt blue a paler version of the colour of the bridesmaids dresses. I emailed the photo and was assured this would be doable. The English seemed to be good with the person I dealt with.( I cannot find who to attribute this photo to.If anyone can help please email me - thanks) I was very puzzled though. They kept assuring me they only needed 4 days notice. Knowing the work involved I couldn't work out how they could make the fondant shells in that time as they need several days to dry.I came to the conclusion they must have the decorations ready made for future orders. We arrived in Santorini a few days before the wedding and my husband , sister and I set off to find the shop, sample the flavours and check they knew what we were wanting. Ordering The Cake Now finding a shop when all the names were in Greek proved a mission. We were in the general vicinity, but the description - across the road from the power board, proved useless. What does a power board look like when you can't read Greek? Eventually we saw a shop set well back and I went in and yes.....this was the place we were looking for. And they had no sign......they hadn't got around to it. Maybe this is because no one has an address in Santorini. I am still not sure how the mail reaches the correct destination! I asked had they received my photo.....and yes they had.They even went and printed off a copy to show me. So now for some sampling. Flavours of rose, apricot, coffee and many more were on offer. We decided the bottom layer would be chocolate and the top two layers lemon. We also asked for a little more sponge as the filling was very rich as you can see in the photo. Traditional Greek Layered Sponge Cake The Cake Arrives Each table had a polished paua shell along with small tropical shells the children had collected when they were little when we lived in Samoa, set in sand in the glass candle holders. The cake was brought out and placed on the table just before the bridal couple arrived from having photos taken. Imagine my surprise ! It was aqua blue and far from the smooth fondant covered cake I imagined. Our Greek wedding cake was covered in more of the cream filling and done in the rough look. However.....it matched the colours of the table covering beautifully and was certainly a wedding cake like no other! It really was very charming and suited the laid back style of wedding our daughter wanted. I was actually very happy with our unique Greek wedding cake.....and it was absolutely delicious.
The wedding co ordinator who was essential in a foreign country had told our daughter and son in law they would do the traditional Greek thing of feeding each other a piece of cake. Our daughter was horrified. It was one thing she had told me she didn't like. However.....she was not let off . No...this is the Greek tradition she was told. She was delighted when they were provided with elegant long handled spoons, having only seen this done with hands, and it was a lovely moment before the cutting of the cake which was done just before the meal was served. I still look at photos of this cake and chuckle at the saga and what it was like after all my efforts and research. Life is certainly full of surprises.
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One of the interesting parts of travel is the food you eat in each country. Every country has some dishes that are special to the place and the people. Often they are dishes that are eaten to celebrate a special occasion - a festival, Saint's day, or some other festivity. Other foods are unique to a country. When we say "lasagne" we think Italy, "Moussaka" we think Greece. Many have a story behind them. So for those of us who love our food.... this is a big part of our travel experience. Before we left to visit our son and daughter in law in Japan they asked was there anything we particularly wanted to eat . My reply was "something cooked on the table top." Japan has some delicious food shared and enjoyed around a table with the pot either filled with boiling water, or sitting on a fire brazier set in the tabletop much like an indoor BBQ. They slice the meat extra thin and it just melts in your mouth. Vegetables are added to the mix and you have a delicious and very social meal.If you are cooking shabu shabu which is cooking in the boiling water.....when the meat and vegetables are almost finished, you can then drink the water with the meat and veg bits and pieces as a soup. The first time I visited Japan I was surprised at the bakeries which were full of French inspired pastries, delicious bread and other treats. I hadn't realised the Japanese had a cake culture. One of their interesting cakes found in Kyushu is the sponge cake "castella" introduced by a Portuguese missionary over 400 years ago. It is often bought to give as gifts. The Japanese tradition of Omiyagi where you take a small gift......often food, back to workmates, family and friends when you have been away, makes it a perfect gift. In England we just had to have at least one "pasty" when we were in Cornwall. Traditional to this area these meat pies have swede, potato and meat in a semicircular pastry case, with a thick rolled edge. A traditional miners meal taken underground....the thick edge made a good handle for dirty hands... thus keeping the rest of the pie free from germs. By the time we left Morocco we had sampled a whole variety of tajines. Chicken, pork, beef or meat balls with often dried fruits, preserved lemon, and tomato, are cooked in the tajine. The meal is also given the name tajine. So you eat a tajine cooked in a tajine! The tajine cooking utensil is made of thick earthenware, often plain, though some are painted. With a conical lid, the dishes are designed to capture the steam and return it to the food so little water is required in the cooking. Important for those who have very limited water supply. Traditionally cooked over a fire, they are often done on a stove or in the oven these days. The tajine dish is delicious and the preserved lemon and dried fruits such as figs, apricots, prunes, dates etc give a particular flavour that says Morocco. Couscous is often the accompanying dish. In Portugal we were keen to try their specialty.....a small custard tart. These tarts are everywhere. Any shop that sells food seems to have some in their cabinet. With a flaky pastry that was really crisp and a sweet baked custard filling... these tarts were very moreish.....although we managed to resist most of the time! Before we arrived, it was difficult to pinpoint just what were the main traditional Portuguese dishes apart from the custard tarts. Fish is a staple and served simply with boiled potatoes and salad usually. We really enjoyed a meal traditional in Madeira we didn't see anywhere else in Portugal......beef skewers. The meat was BBQed on a large skewer traditionally made from a laurel branch and with laurel leaves threaded between the meat that was presented, hanging from a metal stand and was really delicious....especially with some good Portuguese red wine! Vegetables or salad were served separately.
We were surprised in Shanghai to have some difficulty sourcing traditional Chinese food. Shanghai unlike most Chinese cities was built for a more cosmopolitan population and does not have a cuisine special to the city. There are certainly huge numbers of international franchises such as Subway! At Yu Gardens we decided against joining the queue for the famous Chinese dumplings being turned out at a great rate. The queue would have been about a kilometer long! They must be very delicious dumplings. A meal we really enjoyed was crispy duck with Chinese pancakes. These pancakes split open and you put a thick slice of duck with the hoisin sauce and vegetables between the two layers, and eat like a sandwich. Yum.....truly delicious! Generally, my impression is that many cakes are now universal in many cultures and countries We didn't come across any cakes that were unique to the countries we visited. Next post I will tell you about one! Here I am after two months travel. With the best of intentions I planned to write on this blog. But unfortunately, many sitebuilders are not ipad compatible, which is a real disappointment.
These days hotels and accommodation don,t seem to provide computers for guests, as it is largely unnecessary. Many have iphones which they can use to update their websites, or notebooks which are too heavy for the kind of travel we like to do. Free wifi is largely the norm in most countries which is wonderful....just a pity the ipad is not a tool to use to work on my websites, as that is all I had. We visited countries as varied as Japan, where our son and daughter in law live, England where our daughter and son in law live at the moment, Morocco, Madeira, mainland Portugal and Shanghai which made a good stopover on the way home... although the heat and humidity made sightseeing very uncomfortable. Funnily.... we had had similar or hotter temperatures for several weeks but the drier climate made it all quite comfortable. There were only two places where we had no wifi connections. It certainly makes travelling a whole different scenario to even 5 years ago. Booking ahead for accommodation was easy. Wanting to know where to eat in Shanghai .....out came the ipad to browse the forums for recommendations. Emails to family and friends or comments on Facebook are a far cry from the days when you had letters sent to a Post Restante address where your mail was held for a length of time for you to collect. If you were late it could well have been returned to sender by the time you reached your destination. Many people use their ipads for a camera and storage of phjotos Tomorrow I will talk a little about the food and baking we encountered. It is nice to be back! I have been a little quiet here recently for a few reasons, Not least because we have been away quite a lot enjoying wine tasting, and cycling as we travel around the country in our campervan. It has been a glorious summer....that is still lingering in amongst the rainy days, which the farmers will be very grateful for after a drought through January and February. I did feel a little guilty for being so happy at so many weeks with no rain and clear, blue cloudless skies! New Zealand has some amazing wine areas and we love nothing more than to call in at the various cellar doors, do some tasting and hear the fascinating stories the winery owners have to tell. I have decided I want to come back in my next life as a wine maker. They are such interesting people. I know it is hard work and no where near as glamorous as it seems.....but they all have such wonderful adventures as they get their vineyards up and running. The art of deciding which grapes to use for their new wine is intriguing. The wine makers have to take into consideration the soil type, sun, flavour, type of grape and it seems in their head come up with a recipe that will produce a certain wine by mixing different quantities of each grape variety. Each year is different as the weather has a big part to play in what the grapes will produce. The hot dry summer is promising to make 2013 one of the best grape vintages ever in New Zealand. Winemakers have so many decisions to make as they go along, but can't taste the finished product for months, and as we all know, some wines keep evolving for many years.How long the wine is left in the barrels.....and even which barrels.....or any barrels...sometimes they leave it in stainless steel vats, will have an impact on the end result. Not to mention the very tricky process of when exactly the fruit is ready to be picked. It is a fine balance it seems between being exactly ready with sugar levels at a certain place and dealing with the weather.The winemakers in Blenheim were generally happy as they mostly managed to get all the grapes in before the rain set in. Wine making really is an art as well as a science. Cake making is a lot easier. And a disaster can be more easily rectified! Maybe I should stick to making cakes and wine tasting. Their enthusiasm even after many years in the game, suggests it would be a lifestyle I could take to. Meanwhile on the home front I have been trying to get a few more recipes onto the site so I can get it better organised. The beginnings of a website can be frustrating until you have enough pages to do something with. I am still far from where I hope to be as my site progresses, but I am getting some semblance of order. Most of my cakes are straightforward recipes which are good for beginning bakers to try. I really enjoy icing cakes .....but I am finding people seem to like plainer baking. So many of the recipes can be served with out having to ice them first. A sprinkle of icing sugar, a syrup that soaks through or served with a good dollop of Greek Yoghurt maybe topped with fruit can look good on the table, and be delicious to eat. I am wondering how to label the cake recipes that actually have vegetables in them. I already have a courgette or zucchini cake, carrot cake and pumpkin cake. Will people be put off if I have a Vegetable section?
I hope you are all enjoying some baking from scratch and sharing with family and friends. Let Us All Eat Cake, Gail With April fast disappearing, Mother's Day will soon be here for those of us who celebrate this day on the second Sunday of May! That will be the 12th May for 2013.
There is nothing that says "I love you....thanks for all you do for me" quite like a home made bit of baking. So start choosing the cake you want to make for your Mum or Mom. It depends whether you plan to eat it on Mother's Day or whether you are giving it as a gift in a pretty cake tin or container, which recipe will be the most suitable. A fruitcake will be best for keeping if Mom just likes to cut a piece off each day to have with her tea or coffee. This does not need to be the very rich Christmas cake fruitcake. A sultana cake or the delicious Favourite Fruit Cake last really well. The Favourite Fruit Cake is also excellent for Mom's who have allergies to eggs. If Mum loves chocolate cake I recommend the Chocolate Custard Cake. This is such a moist, yummy treat and a bit of a surprise with the cream cheese filling. It doesn't need icing, but you could make it really special by using a stencil and scattering a fine sprinkling of icing sugar. Or why not make it really decadent with a chocolate cream cheese icing! Carrot Cake with a cream cheese icing is always a winner too. Decorate the top with a mix of chopped dried apricots,dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds, a few chopped walnuts and/or sliced toasted almonds and Mum will be thrilled. You may want to have a trial run if you are not confident with recipes you haven't tried first. So give it a go this weekend! Happy Baking! Gail I am trying a few variations in sizes for my photos and wondering what people like best. Do you like the progressive display throughout the instructions, showing you the different stages as you make your cake like I have done for the Easy Banana Cake .....or do you prefer just a photo of the cake, baked and ready to eat? I did feel this cake lent itself to the series of photos because it is a good recipe for beginner cooks or children to use.
I have also been wondering how best to overcome the latest Google practice with our images where they now open full size on THEIR page, rather than them sending visitors to have a look on our websites. So while it does look a little ugly I will be including website details and an invitation to go to my site and have a look. I will also be reminding people that my images are covered by copyright. If I am happy to have them pinned I will include a PinIt button. Otherwise, you should only ever see them on my website. I am also experimenting a bit with image sizes. So I will have a few variations until I develop a format I feel is right. If you have any comments do let me know. Happy Baking! Gail I love to have a few recipes I can rely on when I need to make something in a hurry. A baked cheesecake is one of my standbys.......and everyone thinks I have been slaving all day.
I am working on bringing you my truly easy baked cheesecake recipe which is quick to prepare and you can serve it with so many variations it need never taste exactly the same! Because most people love cheese cake it is an excellent choice to take as a contribution to a shared meal. Every country seems to have a different variation on their traditional cheesecake. Some are baked, others unbaked.They use a wide variety of cheeses from cream cheese, ricotta,quark, marscapone, cottage cheese, and other traditional cheeses, while in Sweden they use rennet Some cheese cakes are very light in texture, while others are denser. This is usually to do with the cheese used and an unbaked cheesecake it totally different in flavour, texture Then there are variations in the base. A crushed biscuit base is great and you can vary the flavours merely by using different biscuits. In winter I sometimes line a dish with pastry and with added berries this makes a nice winter dessert Personally I much prefer the rich flavours of a baked cheese cake which goes so well with berries and fresh fruit, or is equally delicious with just plain vanilla or lemon flavours. You can decorate a cheesecake with beautifully arranged fruit or berries......serve with cream or yoghurt and can't go wrong when you want a decadent cake or dessert to please family and friends. I'll let you know when I have posted. After a wonderful summer holiday I am ready to start working on my CakeFare website more consistently. I will be hoping to add some more delicious recipes from my tattered exercise book I
started way back in 1971 when I was travelling. Some of the first recipes were from flatmates in London. Roman Chicken is the very first recipe, created by my flatmate Leonie. We are still in contact, although she lives in Australia. Then there are several recipes from my few months in Philadelphia, where I looked after a small boy. His grandmother, of Italian descent, was an amazing cook and spent each Sunday cooking. Homemade Italian bread, homemade pasta and her lasagne which I have in my recipe book, is still the best I have ever tasted! Next came some recipes devised with what we could find on a camping trip overland through Africa. We had to make do with what was in the "coffin" as we called the big locker at the front of the truck, and what we could buy in local markets.... which sometimes was not a lot. We had to cook creatively...and I recorded I enjoyed. One I didn't record was a stew I cooked. I had never seen real chillies and thought the lovely shiny red things were capsicums. As everyone dug in with great anticipation....we only had meat every few days, there was much gasping and fanning of mouths. Eyes watered and much water was drunk. That stew lasted several meals. I don't recall if it was all eaten.....but it was not the most popular meal on that trip! Many cake and biscuit recipes were made regularly when my children were young, and we often had visitors. I recently recalled one I hadn't made for many years but used to be a good standby. It has proved as popular now as it was then.I have made it several times in the last few weeks. It is a caramel square rather than a cake. But I will share the recipe with you soon. The Chocolate Custard Cake was a recipe my now ex sister-in-law gave me. I always think of her when I make it. I love looking at my old Recipe Book and remembering who gave me the recipe, and where I first tasted it. Do you have a book of memories like that? Hi there
As I am on holiday I won't be adding too much to my site....but it is a good time to plan for the future, and have time to think about my site. I will also be deciding what I want to do for my birthday. I don't usually have parties but this time I have a Methuselah of Chianti I won.....so feel it is a good reason to share with friends and family. A Methuselah is about 5 litres, so huge! Firstly I will have to work out how to pour from it. I am told I should use a hose which I suck to get going.....but I feel that won't give me much room for any mistakes. Red wine and carpet don't mix! So hopefully the weather will be perfect and I can do the pouring outside. I am also thinking about what cake I should bake for my birthday and would love to do a red velvet cake because it would go well with the Chianti.....colourwise at least! I also want to have a go at icing it . I will let you know how it goes. Many of my recipes I will be sharing don't have icing as while it looks nice, I feel it adds to the calories and time needed to make from baking to ready to eat. Many cakes don't need icing which makes them great for lunch boxes. But there are some cakes that just "must" have icing......a carrot cake without cream cheese icing is not quite the same. I love lemon icing using fresh lemon juice on a banana cake, but don't personally like banana cake with chocolate icing.Watch for my really quick banana cake recipe I will be posting soon. Butter Cream icing made from scratch is the nicest for icing special cakes so I will use that for my Red Velvet Cake. I'll be back with further news on this and how my pouring from the Methuselah goes later.I have .several weeks to plan. I am very happy to be making good progress with all the finer details of setting up a website. There is so much to think about when all I really want is to get down to adding more lovely recipes and photos.
But....I have done some of the less creative but necessary things, like verifying at Google Webmasters Tools and opened a CakeFare Twitter account, you can follow me if you would like. Check out the Footer. I am still working on the Footer. I will remove the buttons and just have a list of links I think. I added a FaceBook button but I will need to do another one as it didn't seem right. I have also added details of the site at LInkedIn and will join a couple of groups for baking. Next I must submit my sitemap to Google and Bing. But I am coming to the end of the tedious stuff, so am really looking forward to adding more recipes very soon. I took a break and went to my weekly wine tasting tonight. One or two of the rieslings would have been delicious with a slice of my Chocolate Custard Cake. This is a fabulous cake for special occasions like Valentines Day, Mothers Day , birthdays or any special day really. It is also a lovely dessert.....especially with cream and berries. You don't need to ice it as the filling makes it a real treat and well worth the fiddly recipe |
Gail Gillespie
Brought up baking from a young age I love to make delicious cakes to share with family and friends. Much like my mother, I can be one of those cooks who measure by "eye" rather than with a measure, and invariably add in or take out ingredients depending on what is in my cupboard. However, I do also appreciate the need to follow a recipe exactly for best results, as the "pour it in" method is really for those who have done a lot of baking over many years. I use this method for new recipes. So come share my recipes and learn some baking skills if you are not confident. Archives
February 2014
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