Exeter Food Festival April 2016

As usual this was held in the stunning Spring gardens of Northernhay and Rougemont.  I was there today (Sunday) and the sun was shining brightly.

This was the VIP area where you could get tea, coffee, cream teas and manicures....and yes, I did get a manicure and yes, because I am not used to them, I did smudge several of my fingers.

There were many interesting food producers and sellers there.  There was even a Pickled Egg stand.

I enjoyed the chance to purchase many different types of 'fast food' from the high quality vans that were around.  I could also picnic outside as the sun was shining and it felt quite warm.  Speaking to stall-holders, I think the rainy weather on Friday put off some festival-goers and the warm weather on the Saturday meant it was very crowded.

I noticed there was plenty for children to do: activity tents, facepainting, story-telling, ice-creams, petting animals - there were a couple of girls in dresses chasing each other around a tree on a grassy bank, and a serious looking little boy who was wandering onto the flower beds wearing his yellow all-in-one outfit.  This all added to the overall picturesque scene - happy faces, a wealth of local food, young animals, spring blooms and playing children.

I think the Sunday worked well for me - fewer people than Saturday and beautiful weather. This meant that it was easier to talk to food producers and there were no queues.  I also managed to park nearby, which helps.

Birthday Hedgehog Cake - Handmade by My Daughter

I asked my son what kind of cake he wanted to mark him becoming a teenager....and yet again, it was a hedgehog cake.  Luckily my daughter stepped in to make it (aged 14) and the results were impressive:

My own for comparison is here.  There is also a great Jane Asher Cabbage cake on that page - still makes me laugh.

Basically you bake 2 chocolate cakes and then loads of chocolate butter cream and sandwich them together, and use stuff to decorate it and turn it into a 'hedgehog'.

My daughter used Mint Imperials with black edible ink for the eyes, a lot of Cadbury flakes and a Chupa Chups lollipop for the nose!  I think her cake is better than mine.  Oh dear.  

Two 11 Year Olds Play with the Hummingbird Cafe Cookbook

My 11 year old daughter and her friend wanted to make something from the Hummingbird Cafe Cookbook.  We had all the ingredients for the raspberry cheesecake brownies.  Including wonderful local, Devon raspberries from our local farm, Shute Fruit.  I was getting our house ready for some guests who were coming to stay, so just let them get on with it in the kitchen.  I was rather impressed when two hours later (including a bit of refrigeration time), they presented me with the finished product:

The recipe is fairly simple, but does involve three layers so I was impressed.  The chocolate brownie and vanilla cheesecake layers are baked together in the oven and then when cool, smothered with pink creamy muck muck.

I made it again today as a treat for my daughter as she started Secondary School today.  It's simple and very fattening, but delicious.  I recommend halving the quantities if you just want to feed 4-6 people.  The original version is enormous and serves 12.  Also, where the recipe says to beat the cream, sugar and raspberries together for the wonderful pink shaving foam topping, it's best to whip the cream lightly, then add the sugar and raspberries, otherwise the mixture won't thicken.

I've never been lucky enough to visit the actual Hummingbird Cafe in London, but we've made a couple of things from the cookbook - other notable favourites are: the vanilla cupcakes, and the double chocolate chip cookies

Hotel Chocolat - Putting Myself First for a Moment...

Food PR, and fellow food blogger, Beth, from Jam and Cream PR sent me this (initally) very attractive parcel of chocolate from Hotel Chocolat to review.  It's called the Essential Easter Collection and it retails for £35.  Initial impressions were favourable although I immediately felt unhappy with the amount of packaging: the Tiddly Chicks were in a packet with in a box within a bag within a box?  A tad excessive, even for mail order protection.

I decided to hold a tasting review panel with my husband and two children, aged 9 and 11.  The kids were, of course, rather enthusiastic to have an early Easter treat.  My children totally buy into the Hotel Chocolat thing.  When we visit Exeter, it's somewhere they nag us to take them.  They claim it's their favourite chocolate and love all the cutesy shapes and packaging.  They feel they're being spoilt if they get a bar of  this stuff.  My husband is of a rather more cynical persuasion (understatement of the year) and hates the shop and product.  'It's not a hotel, and chocolate has an 'e' on the end of it' is his response to their nagging.  'Overpriced' and 'style over substance' may also have passed his lips.

We gave each item a mark out of 10 for Presentation, Taste and Easter Factor. Overall winner was the Doodle Chick bar - slab of caramely chocolate with a chick moulded on the front.  The children adored the taste of this but both adults thought it was horrible - a caramely coconut taste that was too sickly.  In last place was the Easter Expose Half Egg - the most 'traditional' of the products.  We really marked this egg down for its cheeky claim on the side, something about 'we were advised to make thin eggs to save money but look how thick we've made it' - and it was thick at the visible edges and was really thin towards the back.

The Tiddly Chicks scored badly for their packaging but were cute and lovely if you like plain choc shaped little chicks (I do).

The Egglets (caramel eggs in a cardboard basket) were probably my favourite although they had been bashed around a bit in the post and weren't in perfect condition. 9 year old son really hated these and actually spat it out.

The Tiddly Pot - an Easter decorated cardboard cup filled with rabbit and chick shaped chocolates was a hit with the children but husband declared it looked like a cheap cup of carry-out tea.  He's harsh.

We enjoyed them, but didn't love them.  Huge divisions between which things the children liked compared to the adults.  Not an all round hit, but we all liked something.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to mention the wording on the packaging.  It's becoming a bit of a geeky pet hate of mine that I have to read all the packaging and I get quite wound up when it's spelt wrongly (my current bottle of Original Source Shower Gel has two spelling mistakes) and Innocent Smoothie cartons (yes, I found them refreshingly cute a few years ago, now I wish they'd bland themselves out a bit and just provide basic info).  So the offending words from Hotel Choc?

 'And with the absolute minimum of recyclable packaging, putting yourself first for a moment won't cost the earth.'

Firstly, there's a double meaning there - 'the minimum of recyclable packaging'  - so they've used as little recyclable packaging as possible?  Great, chuck it all in landfill then.  They need to lose the word 'recyclable' rather than putting it in as a soundbite.

Secondly, the idea of 'putting yourself first for a moment' - i.e. being selfish, having your little chocolatey moment and buying stuff with lots of packaging isn't that endearing to me.

Also the bag says British Cocoa Growers and Chocolatier.  Presumably this is trying to position themselves in a niche that Cadbury has vacated.  I've looked at their website and they explain their rationale for not being Fairtrade, as they have their own plantations in Ghana and St Lucia and work / trade ethically there.  OK, I was going to ask where they grow cocoa in UK as I would think that's impossible.  So is that moniker also a tad misleading?  They grow cocoa abroad.

Aha!  I've found it!  There actually is a Hotel Chocolat - it's in St Lucia and opened at the end of Feb 2011 and it's all part and parcel of their brand.  I'm off to tell husband that actually they ARE a hotel.  And I would really like to go there if my eco-conscience and money would allow.

A Child's Food Blog from Giggling Wombat

A food blog from a child's perspective.  What a great idea.

Giggling Wombat promises to provide honest opinions on food, drink and cafes and this week she provides details of her 'top five fave foods':

 http://gigglingwombat.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-top-five-fave-foods.html

I am slightly worried as I think someone's about to get their own back and start reviewing the food I serve for dinner....Quick, I'd better start thinking about wiping clean those sauce-splattered plates, adding garnishes, getting in some forgiving light sources, and making my food look a little less rustic-homemade i.e. thrown-on-the-plate than usual!

Gingerbread House - From Flat Pack to Luxury Home

We bought a 'flat-pack' gingerbread house from Lori at Shute Fruit (appearing at a Farmers' Market in Devon near you) for a very reasonable £4.  This included a recipe for Royal Icing and a few guidance tips on assembly. This was far easier (and less swearing) than IKEA furniture.  We made sure the icing was pretty sticky and not too drippy and held each wall in place for a few minutes, even though we were extremely eager to get on with the sweet decoration.

We were pretty pleased with the results - this was a joint effort with my 9 and 11 year old kids.

 This one was from 2007, and although adorable, you can see that we weren't master builders at that stage:

I can't resist one more picture of the 2010 effort.  11 year old daughter made the additional gingerbread tree and reindeer.  Sweets from various sweet shops - wish we still had Woolworths Pick and Mix!

Chocolate Profiteroles - So Easy a Child Could Make Them...?

My children surprised me the other day by announcing they were going to make profiteroles.  I've never made them before and have always regarded choux pastry as 'too tricky'.  Plus, I was busying myself with other things, so I agreed, but told them that I wouldn't be able to help.

Surprisingly rapidly, they had summoned up these with the help of the River Cottage Family Cookbook:

They weren't prepared for how much they expand during cooking and the little lumps of pastry mostly merged into one big choux bun.  The pasty doesn't have that much sugar in and when we tasted it, a bit warm from the oven, we all agreed it tasted (and looked) like Yorkshire Pudding - obviously, as the recipe is very similar.  The four profiteroles around the edges of the tin were perfect.

The children still weren't convinced.  

"We've just made Yorkshire Pudding and it's rubbish," they sighed, ready to chuck them away.

After dinner,  I convinced them to make a chocolate sauce regardless and that we could fill the profiteroles and the big blobby one with vanilla ice cream instead of whipped cream.  The results were delicious.  Yorkshire Pud with chocolate sauce and ice cream perhaps, but delicious nevertheless.