Almond & Pear Cake | The Landlady

“‘Good gracious me,’ he said. ‘How absolutely fascinating.’ He turned away from the dog and stared with deep admiration at the little woman beside him on the sofa. ‘It must be the most awfully difficult to do a thing like that.’

‘Not in the least,’ she said. ‘I stuff all my little pets myself when they pass away. All you have another cup of tea?’

‘No, thank you,’ Billy said. The tea tasted faintly of bitter almonds, and he didn’t much care for it.”
The Landlady
Roald Dahl

The days are slowly warming, the scent of Australian pollen is beginning to fill the parks of Melbourne and the urge to run away to the countryside is coming in full. I would argue that there is no better place to experience Spring within Australia than Victoria - the brisk edge of chillness still lingers throughout but the days seem to stretch longer.

I took a trip to Daylesford to celebrate the warming weather, spending a weekend tucked away in a tiny studio airbnb, following random bush walks that seemed to stretch for hours, and lounging the afternoons away in a hot chocolate apothecary with numerous books. The town was delightfully quaint and brought about a few moments of reminiscing about my own childhood in a similar setting.

As most children, I adored Roald Dahl - I’ve gone on about my love for Matilda before (and assumption that I should probably have developed telekinetic powers since I also read a lot as a child). But, his short stories are oddly what remains firmly etched within my brain. I think I likely picked up a copy of his short stories from my parents bookshelf when I was around 14, expecting something similar to the children’s tales that I had devoured before, and was shocked to encounter stories of murder, horror and general…weirdness.

Picking up a book that contained the completed short stories of Roald Dahl was something special, and a recent reread has left me remembering the delights of his writing. Despite reading it previously, it seems that every short story’s end comes as a complete surprise, much like when I first read them.

While I promise this cake contains no secret ingredients that a particular character from one of his short stories is fond of - it is instead delicious. Moist, crumbly and perfect with a cup of tea and a good book on a spring afternoon.

Almond and Pear Cake
Makes one 8” cake
Ingredients
100g plain flour
125g butter
125g caster sugar
90ml milk
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
100g almond meal
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bi-carb
3 pears, peeled, cored and cut in half and thinly sliced
50g flaked almonds
1/2 tsp cinnamon

1. Grease an 8” cake tin, lining the bottom with a circle of baking paper.

2. Combine the apple cider vinegar and milk - leave to sit for five minutes, or until it begins to curdle.

3. Combine butter and sugar in the bowl of a mixer, and cream together until pale and fluffy. Slowly add in the prepared milk mixture while beating.

4. Remove the sugar mix from the mixer and fold in the flour, bi-carb, baking powder, almond meal and cinnamon. Mix until combined.

5. Pour the cake mixture into your prepared tin and arrange the slices of pear on top neatly (or messily - it’s your cake).

6. Place into the oven and bake for 25 minutes before removing it to scatter the flaked almonds over the top. Return the cake to the oven and cook for another 10 - 15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Though do be careful not to poke the skewer into one of the pear slices.

7. Leave to cool for at least 30 minutes before removing from tin. It is particularly good with a cup of tea and some coconut yoghurt. Enjoy!

Cocoa Sour Cream Cake | Matilda

The cook disappeared. Almost at once she was back again staggering under the weight of an enormous round chocolate cake on a china platter. The cake was fully eighteen inches in diameter and it was covered with dark-brown chocolate icing.
Matilda
Roald Dahl

I think for any young girl that was a big reader, there is no character more-so than Matilda that was easy to identify with. I would re-read Matilda over and over - along with adoring the movie version (which was honestly so perfect). A few years back even, I had the chance to go see the stage production of Matilda also, which was slightly disappointing - you don't think you'll see yourself cheering for the sort of awful parents quite so much.

This cake isn't quite the monstrosity that Bruce Bogtrotter is forced to eat within the story - I do not own cake tins of that size, and my salary won't quite support the cost of making a cake that big - but three layers of chocolate cake with the tang of sour cream to bring it all together, is a good enough representation for me. Also - just cover it all with chocolate flakes if you're really craving that insane chocolate hit.

Note: I used Tofutti sour cream for this! Worked super well.

Cocoa Sour Cream Cake
Ingredients
Cake
1 cup sour cream *see note
2 1/3 cups plain flour
2 cups golden caster sugar
180 ml non-dairy milk (it’s fine to substitute dairy milk if needed)
1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 tbsp oil
2/3 cup good quality cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bi-carb soda
400g butter, softened
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
¼ tsp salt
Frosting
100g vegetable shortening, softened
90g dark chocolate
90g butter
1/3 cup sour cream
1tsp vanilla
4 cups icing sugar
Dark chocolate flakes for decoration, optional

Cake

1. Preheat oven to 180C and prepare three 8” round cake pans by greasing and line with baking paper.

2. Combine the milk and apple cider vinegar together to form buttermilk and leave to the side until curdled.

3. Add in the oil and vanilla to the buttermilk mix and leave to the side.

4. In the bowl of a stand mixer (can be done by hand, just a bit harder), combine all the dry ingredients and the butter, mixing until it is crumbly and resembles damp sand.

5. Gradually add in the milk mixture and combine thoroughly.

6. Pour the cake mix evenly into the three prepared pans and bake for 25- 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

7. Leave cakes in the pans to cool for about five minutes before removing them from the pans and leaving them on a cake rack to cool completely. They will need to be completely cooled before you can frost them.

Frosting

1. Heat a saucepan of water until boiling; place a metal or glass bowl on top with the chocolate in it until melted and smooth.

2. In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the shortening and butter and mix until light and fluffy.

3. Add in the sour cream and vanilla and melted chocolate and combine.

4. Add in the icing sugar one cup at a time, mixing until the chocolate butter cream is smooth and creamy.

5. Sandwich the layers of cake together with the frosting and then cover the outside as best you can. I tend to use a flat spatula and pop the cake plate on top of an empty bowl so it’s easier to turn and get a good covering.

6. Enjoy large slices with a scoop of ice-cream or Bruce style – eat the entire thing in one go with your hands.

Blueberry Pie | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

"'Blueberry pie and cream!' shouted Violet. 'Here it comes! Oh my, it's perfect! It's beautiful! It's...it's exactly as though I'm chewing and swallowing great big spoonfuls of the most marvellous blueberry pie in the world!"

- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the first book that ever scared me - mainly because I knew that if I had the opportunity to go to a chocolate factory in my younger years, I would most likely have no control over myself and end up weirdly deformed like the children within the book, sans Charlie, find themselves. I do love Roald Dahl’s writing though, and recall reading this book countless times in order to fully submerse myself into the magical world of Wonka. There are so many fantastical treats that lie waiting within the pages, a lot that I’m hoping to attempt to make at some stage (once I master using agar agar for marshmallows that is) - so I started with the easiest. Also I was really craving some sort of pie so this worked quite complimentary.

As many probably remember Violet Beauregarde, the driven, ambitious young girl with a chewing gum record, finds herself blown up like a blueberry when consuming one fo Wonka’s not-quite-ready creations. A stick of gum that gives the chewer the experience of a three course meal. A starter of tomato soup, a main of roast beed with roast potatoes, and a dessert of blueberry pie with cream. While there have been some amazing attempts and successes at creating the stick of chewing gum with all those flavours within it, I wanted to make something a little more simple.

Blueberry Pie
Crust
2 1/2 cups plain flour
Pinch salt
2 teaspoons sugar
220g of very cold butter (I measured mine out and popped it in the freezer for about ten minutes before using)
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
4 - 8 tablespoons of ice water
1 tablespoon milk + 1 teaspoon maple syrup (for glazing)
1 teaspoon sugar (for sprinkling on top)
Filling
4 cups of blueberries (fresh or frozen is fine - just be aware frozen will definitely leak more juices at it bakes and possibly cause a little sogginess)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Squeeze of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. To make your crust, combine the flour and salt together and cut through the butter (I used a food processor for this - but it can be done by hand, just avoid using your hands too much as it will very quickly warm the butter).

2. Combine the apple cider vinegar and water together and mix with the flour until it resembles a crumble texture (again, I used a food processor for this step, if doing by hand use a butter knife to combine to avoid warming the mix too much).

3. When dough is combined, wrap in cling wrap and pop in the fridge for at least half an hour before using - you can easily make this dough a few days in advance and even freeze it if necessary.

4. While the dough is chilling is a good time to prepare the blueberry filling. Mix all the filling ingredients together until the blueberries are nicely coated. Prepare a pie dish in the meantime by greasing the bottom.

5. Preheat your oven to 190C.

6. Break your chilled dough into two equal parts. Lightly coat a surface with a sprinkling of flour and roll out one part of the dough until it it approximately half a cm thick - lay this into the prepared pie dish and leave the edges hanging over.

7. Fill with the blueberry mix. Now - you can either roll out your remaining dough and pop it on top as is or you can do whatever kind of top you prefer. Trim the edges down once done and crimp around the edge of the pan to prevent any juice spilling out. When your have the top on mix together the milk and maple syrup and brush that over the surface of the pie before sprinkling the teaspoon of sugar on top.

8. Pop the pie in the oven - I recommend putting a tray underneath to catch any wayward drippings that you don’t want to clean out later. Bake for 30 - 40 minutes or until the top of the pie is golden brown.Enjoy!