Plum & hazelnut upsidedown cake recipe

This was featured in this week's "Waitrose Weekend" guide. I was impressed that even for someone who's rubbish at baking or following recipes properly, it turned out perfectly moist and spongy. So I decided to share it here. I couldn't find the recipe on the www.waitrose.com/recipe website, so even typed up the whole thing here, happy baking!

Prepare 20minutes
Cook 45minutes
Serves 8 (or a greedy couple over the weekend :-p)

Ingredients
125g butter
50g light muscovado sugar (I accidentally used brown granulated sugar, but seems to work)
50g roasted chopped hazelnuts (couldn't find them so used flaked almonds instead)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
6 Plums, stoned and quartered (make sure they are ripen, some of mine were a bit sour...)
75g golden caster sugar
Grated zest of 1 orange
1 large free range egg, beaten
150g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
100ml Soured Cream

1. Preheat the oven to 180C, gas mark 4. Butter and base line a 20cm round deep cake tin. Melt 50g of the butter and mix with the muscovado sugar, hazelnuts and cinnamon. Scatter over the base of the cake tin and press the quartered plums into the base.

2. Beat the remaining butter with the caster sugar and orange zest until pale and creamy (is it me or should this specifically say melt the butter first?), then beat in the egg a little at a time (again, shouldn't it say beat the egg first, THEN add a bit at a time?). Sift the flour with the bicarbonate of soda and fold into the creamed mixture with the soured cream to give a soft consistency. Spoon on top of the plums and level the surface.

3. Bake for 45-50 minutes until well-risen, golden and firm to touch. Cool in the tin for 15minutes, then turn onto a wire rack. Serve warm with cream or cold. Store in an airtight container.

Nutrition: 245kcals / 4.3g protein / 35.7g carbohydrate / 21.3g sugars / 20.6g fat / 10.3g saturated fat / 1.7g fibre / 0.7g salt per serving

See what I mean by not being able to follow recipes, now?

"The barefoot investor"

I picked up a copy of The Barefoot Investor from a local library.

If you are looking for in depth investment strategies, this is not your book. But it is a really good book for finance 101 in layman's language. It covers the fundamentals like, financial goals, inflation, debts, compound interest, asset classes...etc. In my opinion, all schools should include financial education. I always think it's ironic that schools are suppose to prepare you for life - University, getting a job, ultimately becoming "rich"...but they don't think to educate kids about money and what to do with it. The book might not have taught me anything new about money but it raises a few good questions, time for a reality check!

- My financial goal is to earn as much as possible. But why?
- Does a big pay check means that you are wealthy?
- Are millionaires the happiest people on earth?
...etc.

"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very very pissed off."

- Tyler Durden from Flight Club (played by Brad Pitt)

Luxury cream tea for two

I am a Devonian, I spread on the cream (clotted cream is essential!) first then the red jam. Apparently this allows the cream to soak into the half scone. Aren't we a clever bunch.
(In case you were wondering, the Cornish style is to spread the jam first then cream. At this point, Dan saids "Just turn the scone upside down then...")

The other day we found this lovely little cafe just opposite the big Tesco in Hove. Mind you, its windows are quite dark and hard to look inside, if you are focused on the big supermarket its easy to miss the cafe. Now everyone knows that its a silly thing to do, going to a supermarket on an empty stomach. So I salute the cafe owners for picking the best location for their cakes heaven. There were easily ten different cakes to choose from (around £3 a piece) and many more cup cakes lying about. We saw a tag on top of the scones saying "Cream tea for two with a pot of tea £4.50". When the waitress came back with four warm scones, a honey pot of homemade strawberry jam, a generous cup of clotted cream and a pot of English tea, we thought "Bargain!" but of course, it turned out that the price was per head.

Another "feature" is their collection of vintage cups, saucers butter knifes with fainted yellow colour handles.


Location: Church Road, Opposite the big Tesco in Hove.