All things grow (go): Buttermilk Pancakes with Nectarines and Rhubarb Compote

I have one specific strategy for getting myself back on track when things aren't going to plan. I'm not talking about the kind of difficulties that a series of red lights or an absence of your favorite ice cream flavor at Gino' brings. I'm focusing more on those moments where anxiety rules and you have no idea how this all happened and how you suddenly got stuck in the middle of it type of moments. You know the ones. They keep you distracted, awake at night and stuck to the bed first thing in the morning. They distract you, keep your mind fuzzy and your appetite weak. You know the ones.

We all have our little tricks but sometimes those gremlin-like moments seem to last for an incredibly long time and they require an extra form of ammunition to rid them from our lives. My secret weapon is the movie Little Miss Sunshine and more importantly, Sufjan Steven's song 'Chicago' from the movie. If you haven't seen it yet, get watching. It's essentially about a messed up family of oddball individuals who hate that they're even remotely related to each other and therefore, expected to at least acknowledge each others' presence. But it's also about how these socially failing misfits risk everything to help each other out. In this movie, listening is loving, provoking is loving, sometimes calling each other assholes is loving but most importantly, banding together is loving, making the oftentimes bumpy road ahead more fun and manageable together. 

Little Miss Sunshine reminds me that we're all a little messed up, that we spend most of our time not knowing what we're doing, that what we're experiencing now in our lives is not at all what we expected, even though we're not exactly sure what we expected. Just not this. There are positives and negatives to this viewpoint. I didn't expect to love my job so much, have such fantastic friends, my own place or so much travelling under my belt. I also didn't expect to be single, to be living in a city or to have a Mamma who is sick so young. This is the joy of Little Miss Sunshine. It drags me out of my world and into theirs and I feel like I'm on their journey in the bright yellow Combi, on a mission to make everything alright again. Every single time Sufjan Steven's song come on, I cry and it's just a relief. It wasn't until I listened to it recently again, though, that I realized that I had gotten the key lyrics wrong all along. 

Among the many beautifully articulate words that exist in Chicago, two lines stand out the most and have the greatest impact for me: "I made a lot of mistakes, in my mind, in my mind" and "all things go, all things go". We've all made mistakes in our lives but his line somehow forgives them all, like because we're all guilty of committing mistakes,  and then it's normalized because we are all culpable. It also reminds me that so many of my mistakes never actually existed. They were just trapped in my over-thinking mind and once I stepped back from them, they didn't exist at all, like turning on the lights before checking for the monster under your bed.

"All things go" shook me when I realized that the words were not "all things grow" like I had originally thought. When I would sing along to the song, I would belt out 'all things grow' to remind me that everything started from a seed, from a beginning and some plants struggle to grow tall, others bear bountiful fruit, others provide shade, a home or shelter, others die quickly but nourish the soil. All things grow made me realize that nothing stays the same and that everything will pass, confusion, anxiety and shitty situations pass, you just have to weather it out sometimes. When I first read 'all things go', I immediately thought of death and endings but when I think about it, it still feels the same; the only constant is change and growth, going, leaving, living are all around. Sometimes that is very uncomfortable because if you want to take the good with the bad, you have to sit with the awkwardness, the difficult times, those gremlin-like moments until they're finished, until new moments take their place. 

It's a tough lesson. To sit with it, the situation, yourself and all your reactions whizzing around. I've been trying to sit with all the uncontrollable change going on in my life lately and have been longing for a break from all the unease, the hassle, the shit. It turns out, I just needed to give myself a break. For me, taking breaks, being kind and pancakes are synonymous. This situation called for full on, fluffy, American style drop pancakes. It called for thick slabs of buttermilk heaven and lots of honey.

I write to get it all out. I write to free my head and my heart. I write to force myself to sit with the good and the bad and embrace them. I hope my writing can help you do the same, if even to eat buttermilk pancakes for fifteen minutes solid and breathe.
Enjoy.

Ingredients: Makes 10

1 cup all purpose flour (buckwheat is also perfect for gluten free lovelies)
1 level tsp baking soda
1 level tsp baking powder
1 pinch of salt
2 eggs 
1 cup buttermilk*
coconut oil for frying

1 nectarine per person
Large spoon of honey or maple syrup
1 tsp chia seeds

Optional rhubarb compote
3 sticks of fresh rhubarb
1 tsp vanilla
1 tablspoon raw muscovado sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
4 Tbsp cold water

*If you're vegan or not so keen on dairy, a nut milk based yogurt like coconut yogurt will work just as well.

Method:
Sieve the flour, baking soda and baking powder and salt into a bowl. In a seperate, smaller bowl, whisk the eggs and buttermilk (or yogurt) together. Add the egg and milk mix to the flour mix and beat well. Allow to rest for 5-10 minutes (in the fridge is even better), to let the buttermilk and soda react. Using a large non-stick frying pan, add a teaspoon of coconut oil to the pan on a medium to high heat. Drop a ladle of the pancake batter onto the pan (I fried 3 at a time). Fry for 2 minutes on each side (or until golden brown)** To serve, plate up the pancakes, top with honey, slices of fresh nectarine and a generous sprinkle of chia seeds.

To make the compote. Wash and slice the rhubarb into 1 inch thick slices. Place in a pot with the other ingredients. Put the lid on and bring to the boil then simmer for 10 minutes until the rhubarb is just soft. Drizzle rhubarb and the syrup over the pancakes. This compote also keeps for up to a week in the fridge in a sealed container and is a perfect yogurt topper for breakfast.

** This batter is perfect to multiply for extra hungry

numbers. I recommend putting the oven onto 80°C to keep each batch warm until they're all cooked, then sit down for your feast.

Chocoholics and sisterhood: Dark chocolate and date slices

The Brady women are chocoholics. We always have been. Step between us and a bar of Lindt or question our authority when it comes to how to make the best chocolate cake and we'll cut you with a look and a raised eyebrow that will make you wish you had never been born. We are loving women but don't get in the way of our chocolate.

Since we're not in the least bit religious, lent doesn't exactly factor in our lives but the chocolate easter eggs at the end of the whole fourty days do. As a household, if you haven't figured it out already, we are big into our food and any excuse to celebrate food together and combine our food skills to create an enormous meal at key times of the year have become a tradition in our family, with the same fervour that others might reserve for religious events. Easter is one of my favourite times to celebrate time together and the dauning of Spring together. Before you go thinking that we are some magical non religious version of the Flanders family, let me assure you that we are just as crazy and irritating as any other family aroun, it's just that for some reason, food brings us together. Even though I've had shouting matches with my Dad for hovering over my space in the kitchen or gotten impatient with something my sisters or mam were doing, sitting down and looking at the collective dishes of deliciousness always makes me happy and proud that I have such a weird, irritating but loving family.

Within this family, I have two beautiful sisters. I'm the oddball that's stuck in the middle. When I think of the relationship I have with both of them, several memories, both rocky and loving come to mind. As part of growing up and figuring myself out, my relationship with them has grown. Especially within the last three years, I've come to love them not just as sisters but as the amazing women they are.

The little sister is about a kajillion lightyears ahead of me in the maturity game. We have polar views on success and stability and general life outlook but she has been there for me in ways unimaginable to me a few years previous. She has the ability to swan and glide so gracefully through life, to instill serene calm in those around her while simultaneously paddling like shit under the surface. She is honest and caring and has the driest sense of humour I know of. She has sat and listened to me three times in the last few years when others would have left out of sheer discomfort when I was at my lowest and most ashamed of my depressive state. She is, quite simply, the most generous person I know.

The eldest sister is nine years older than me so while she was going to nightclubs, I was making mud pies in the forest next to our house. Not a whole lot in common there. She was loving and motherly back then in ways that defied her adolescence. It wasn't until I got to college that the wonders of going to parties with your older sister became something I was familiar with. We got to know each other, even if we did disagree about so much and I loved those years of house parties and afternoons watching movies on the couch together. In the last few years I've seen her marry a man with a heart of gold, give birth to and raise two beautiful, creative, luminescent daughters and move to Spain to set up a life for herself and her family. She's like another mother, stubborn and opinionated, a thoughtful second mother who's fiercely protective nature towards me makes me feel absolutely wrapped up in love, even if it occassionally drives me mad at the same time. Her sturdiness and caring nature make me incredibly proud to call her my sister.

In the first time in 6 years, since the birth of her first daughter, the elder sister flew over to spend the weekend with us. There were six places set at the easter dinner table, just like it was before we all grew up and started having our own adult lives, plus one for the little sister's lovely man. It was just us. I could hear her footsteps in the landing, I could smell her perfume upstairs, hear her laugh in the kitchen, feel her presence in the house alongside the younger sister's calm, methodical movements around the kitchen while she cooked. It was sheer bliss having them all around.

In the spirit of a child free zone and missing the little ones who I'd usually make milk chocolate rice crispie cakes with and laugh as they stuffed one cake after another into their chocolate pasted mouths, I decided to create an adults-only rice crispie slice for the chocolate loving adults we had become. When I was about nine, I fed half of the little sister's easter egg to our fat dog and there were countless times I snuck into big sister's room and snooped around it. These chocolate squares were the adult equivalent of making it up for silly childhood moments when I hadn't treated my sisters with the beauty and love they deserved and since we were now all adults, they deserved a treat no kid could have.

On Monday, I went back to Dublin and later in the week, big sis flew back to Spain and little sis carried on working. It might be another few years before we get a kid free reunion like that again where it will be just us, the original family together again but at least the dark chocolate slices recipe will last and if they read this, big sis and little sis will keel the recipe going and know that I made it for them and that all the words in the world couldn't equate to the love I have for them.

Ingredients

6 cups rice crispies or quinoa puffs
2 handfuls whole almonds
1 handful each of hazelnuts and almonds
20 dates, stones removed (they needn't be expensive medjools)
1 cup water
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tablespoons coconut oil
4 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla essence
500 grams dark chocolate, the 70% cocoa type
2 tablespoons dessicated coconut

Method

Roughly chop the nuts and add them to the rice crispies. In a small pot add the dates, roughly chopped, with the cup of water and cinnamon and simmer on a low heat until the dates soften. Stir to a paste, add the coconut oil and maple syrup, stir until it's all one paste then set aside. Fill another small pot with about 3 cups of boiling water and place a metal bowel on top on a high heat. Break the chocolate into the top metal bowl and allow the chocolate to melt. Don't stir, just give it time. Once melted, stir two thirds of the chocolate through the date mix and stir this through the rice crispies and nuts until all of it is coated. Line a large, deep baking tray with greaseproof paper and scoop the mix into the tray, pressing into all the corners and down to flatten into into one solid slice. Pour the other third of the melted chocolate ontop of the rice crispie mix and smooth over, like an icing. Sprinkle with the coconut and put it in the freezer for one hour or over night. To eat, remove from the tray and slice into squares. Consume at your leisure with not a child in sight and welcome yourself to the long established brady woman tradition of chocoholics. You're most welcome. Enjoy!

End of year thankfulness, decorations and Moorish Cinnamon Stars

It's Christmas Eve, the dogs are snoozing by the radiator in the kitchen. My Mam is having a snooze on the couch before a late dinner my Dad is working on in the kitchen. The stove is permeating heat throughout the sitting room and Daniel Craig is doing his best (and succeeding) to be broody and moody on Skyfall on the telly.

As I listen to Adele sing the theme tune, her voice ooze from the speakers in an unmistakable strength, I look back on the year that was 2014. I'm sitting in pyjama bottoms fit for an eight year old, completely relaxed now that it's Christmas Eve at the end of a long, at times interesting, at times exhilarating, confusing, painful, upsetting and just plain fun. I have recipes for decorations and cinnamon star cookies that have been slowly making their way to this blog post for the last three days but it wasn't until now, at eight o'clock on Christmas Eve, that it felt the time was right to sit down and write.

So many emotions and experiences have brought me to this blog post. I used a simple decoration recipe my German grandmother made when I was ten years old in one of the few times she was patient enough to have me in her kitchen. I still remember her papery hands, perfectly trimmed nails and the exactness with which she measured out ingredients. For years, I had imagined it was the most complicated recipe for salt dough decorations that ever existed. It turns out the recipe itself was easy but her preciseness and care that she put into making them, molding and shaping the decorations and finally changing them from dried salt dough to magical, colourful stars, hearts and various other shapes that had captivated me all along. The way she made them inspired a sense of careful, delicate creativity in me and patience that I never knew existed. The way she baked taught me that good things take time, the longer the better. Now, when I'm stressed or struggling, I bake or cook and take my time. Creating with food slows everything down, grounds me. I have Nana Dittman to thank.

The Moorish Cinnamon Stars were made out of a mixture of love and necessity. My little sis is gluten intolerant but a keen cookie monster. Since I've almost removed gluten from my diet too, I thought I would make a recipe that mixed my Mam's cinnamon star German cookie recipe with rice flour and ground almonds to make a not too sweet treat for all of us but little sis in particular. The first batch were a plainer form, taste tested on the amazing people I work with. The second was a Christmas treat for the taste testers take two. This time with dark chocolate. These Moorish Stars are take three and I'm content. I hope these are the cookies I make for friends, family and kids for a long time. I knew I was on to a winner when little sis opened the cookie tin and inhaled deeply to announce afterwards that "it smells like Christmas!", a blissed, contented smile gathering across her face.

The Cinnamon Stars were inspired by my Mam. Last Christmas, through some miracle of love, my Mam, only a year clear of breast cancer, spent weeks baking every German cookie known to man to raise money for the local cancer support centre, LARCC. She was so inspiring. After so many years of only seeing tiny hints of German in her mannerisms, accent and interests, it was as if, by some magic, I had a German speaking, cookie making, glowing, Christmas-spirited mother. Since then, I lovingly tease her as she becomes more and more German. This morning, in her colorful cardigan, Nordic dress, color-rimmed glasses and rosy cheeks, I watched as she scattered seeds for the songbirds in the back garden and momentarily mistook her for some Norwegian grandmother. I'm thankful that the German in my Mam is coming out, how she's not sick this year, how I'm around to make her tea and chat to her as I light the fire each evening, how I didn't have to fly from Perth to be here, how after years of warring with each other, we've made peace. I'm thankful that when we hug, we truly mean it.

My beautiful, talented and creative friend Eadaoin told me recently that our friend Maria is using 2014 as an adjective to describe this crazy year that anyone who is remotely aware of their existence will have noticed rocked people's lives for the better or the worse. All around me, 2014 was the year that led to people finding true love, marrying or fulfilling their dreams. 2014 was also, on the flip side of all that love and luck, the year that led to a rash of breakups, heartbreak, debt, despair and all out bad luck. There was no grey area.

For me, 2014 was an emotional challenge of epic proportions. They were high highs and low lows but it was also the turning point in my life. 2014, for me, will always be the year where I learned to love and accept myself for who I am; good, bad, ugly and everything in between. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be loved and accepted and I exhausted myself, pushed and pushed to remove the pain that comes with the absence of love from another. For the first time in my life, I loved this Winter because it was just as darkness prevailed more and more that I reached an epiphany. I no longer love or am in love with a man that was my entire world for three years. Instead of feeling rejected and unloved by one man, I've embraced the sheer awesomeness of the people that have gathered around me, friends and family, in the last few years and I realised something incredibly life-changing (a term I don't use lightly). I am loved just as I am by an amazing bunch of individuals and instead of looking at myself through the eyes of a man that doesn't care, I looked at me through their eyes. Suddenly I wasn't boring or unlovable or confusing or complicated. I was caring and strongly loving, funny and loyal.

As I look back on the differences between this Christmas and last Christmas, the differences are phenomenal. Last year, I felt alone, miserable, rejected, unloved, confused and eager to get out of this country and my job and my whole state of being as quickly as possible. This year, I feel thankful, loved, content, loving, hopeful, calm and appreciative of the beautiful year I've had, the lessons I've learnt (though they were demanding and debilitating at times) and the open-minded, freer, more optimistic way that I'm learning to view the world and my place in it.

I realize Thanksgiving is technically the time to give thanks and take a moment to stop and take note but given my 2014 and the stark contrast between the dark loneliness and confusion of last year and the loving, optimistic and appreciative view I have of things now, I can't help but express my appreciation for the changes that have happened in the last year.

I'm thankful that my family are still together, safe, healthy, warm and (though we regularly want to strangle each other) are all making an effort to be thoughtful and caring towards one another. I'm thankful for a fridge full of food and a mind full of recipes. I'm thankful for parents who learnt to let their idea of my future go and let me get on with it, while still standing on the sidelines, supportive to the full. I'm thankful for a job I love, students who constantly challenge me and co-workers who are also the best friends in the world. I'm thankful that there are other amazing friends I've met the last few years who are celebrating Christmas already in New Zealand and Australia. I'm thankful that I learnt to finally see all the good that has come into my life in the form of experiences, people, places, food, emotions and challenges. I'm thankful that I feel like a different person this year, closer to the real me than I've ever been before.

Have a beautiful Christmas and take the time to notice all around you.
See you in the New Year!

X X X

SALT DOUGH DECORATIONS:
Preheat oven to 100 C. Measure 1 cup of ordinary table salt with 1 cup of plain flour. Gradually add just short of 1 cup of water to the flour and salt mix and stir until a smooth dough is formed.
Roll out on a floured surface and use your cookie cutters to make your hearts/stars/snowflakes etc.
Place the salt dough decorations on a non stick baking tray and using a cocktail stick (or something similar) make a small hole in the top of each decoration and leave in the oven to dry out for up to 3 hours. Allow to cool completely then paint whatever colors take your fancy. Use wool/strong string and loop through the holes. Decorate to your heart's content!

MOORISH CINNAMON STARS:

Ingredients:
1 and 1/3 cup cold pressed coconut oil/butter
1 cup soft brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 egg

1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 cup rice flour/gram flour
1 cup ground almonds
1 cup flaked almonds

Method:
In a small pot, add the coconut oil and brown sugar and heat on very low heat, stirring, until melted completely. Set aside to cool and add the vanilla essence. Once almost completely cooled, stir through the egg, whisked.

In a bowl, add all the dry ingredients. Stir through the oil mixture until a dough ball is formed. Wrap in cling film and put in fridge for 2 hours to firm (you can cheat and keep it in for less time but trust me, this works better). Preheat oven to 160 C. Remove dough from fridge and let it thaw for about 30 minutes until you can roll it out easily. Roll out on a floured surface and cut into shapes with your cookie cutters. Place on non stick or grease proof paper lined tray and bake for 10-12 minutes. These babies burn if you leave them in a minute to long so keep an eye on them. They should be golden and crunchy. Cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight lid. If the gang at work are anything to go by, they won't last that long though!

Enjoy, share and have a great holiday folks!

Friendship cakes: Rhubard, raspberry and polenta slices

Friends are awesome. Let's just be clear about that. This time last year, I was struggling in Dublin. I had moved back to find work that would make me enough money to pay off my credit union loan once and for all and to try and make a decent go of my life, my work and my then relationship. Now I can be honest and say that at the time, it all felt like an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions. I had probably, generously speaking 5% fun in the whole summer last year, the first sunny summer in years. I rarely went out at all. When I did it was five hours late with my then manfriend and his friends. I was thankful for his and their company but I understood clearly what it meant to be lonely in a crowd.

I remember one time in particular when we went to an outdoor cinema in Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin. I had wanted to go for weeks but events in the manfriend's life had always scuppered plans. We went on a whim with his housemates with blankets and beers and popcorn. It was a beautiful balmy night and technically speaking, the night had all the elements of a happy social occasion for me; friendly people, awesome man by my side, outdoor summer time event, creative film, spontaneous outing. But I was so lonely and disappointed in myself that I didn't have my own friends. I felt like a social failure. I promised myself that night that within a year, I would return to that square for an open air cinema night with my own friends, real friends, not rent a friend friends. A tribe.

Well, I found them. They were right under my nose all along. They're my workmates!
A bunch of crazy, creative, spontaneous, real, friendly, intelligent, understanding, curious, sensitive, charismatic individuals who probably don't "fit in" anywhere else and we somehow all managed to find each other. Nurturing my friendship with these individuals and seeing work as not just a place I go to work and pay bills but a place to be around, interact with and appreciate like-minded individuals is the single smartest life move I ever made.

Part of having friends is feeding them thoughtful food, in my mind at least. I meant to make these for the cinema night a few weeks ago but meeting another great friend meant I got delayed. So here I am making them now. The recipe for these delicious slices of swirly raspberry and polenta goodness are inspired by Emma Galloway's beautiful muffins here over at her website, My Darling Lemon Thyme. Caroline is dairy intolerant so no butter here. Rob gave me rhubarb that his "mammie got from a farmer down the road". Adriana lent me a muffin tray for the trial of these, which Rob, Caroline and Rob's mammie and me devoured at an earlier occasion.

Here goes:
Slices up into squares, makes 24 slices.

Ingredients: 

200 grams ground almonds
120 grams polenta
50 grams desiccated coconut
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
3 cardamom pods, crushed

2/3 bananas (depending on size) mashed
3 eggs
80 grams raw brown sugar/demerara sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 and 1/2 cups frozen or fresh rasberries

2 large rhubarbs, chopped into cubes (approx 150 grams)
1 tbs honey
1/4 cup water

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 C. In a saucepan, add rhubarb, honey and water and simmer on a low heat until rhubarb is soft. Drain with a sieve and mix until a rough pulp is formed.
Weigh out dry ingredients in one bowl. In another bowl, combine mashed bananas, eggs, vanilla essence and sugar and whisk well. Add dry ingredients to wet mix and stir through until evenly mixed. Add rhubarb mix and whole raspberries and stir through lightly so that the fruit swirls through the cake mix.
Line a rectangular cake tray with grease proof paper and poor the mix into the trays. The mix should be about 1-2 inches thick to bake into nice little slices.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown and spongy. Because this is a polenta mix, the cake will seem under-cooked after 20 minutes but take it out and set it aside with a clean tea towel over it until it has cooled and it will be perfect crumbly goodness.

Once cooled, turn out onto a bread board and slice into squares. Share with your tribe and bring raspberry smiles to their beautiful faces! :)

Inspiration: Orange, Cardamom and Polenta Cake Style

I've been thinking again. I've come up with some pretty life changing thoughts that are so simple, I don't know what took me so long. Time to yourself and cake are vital components to a happy and fulfilled life. I've spent plenty of time on my own but therein lies the key word, "own", lonely, alone. I was really lonely going to the market, taking photos, gardening. All along, all I wanted was some company, somebody around me to take that lonely feeling away. In the last two months, I've managed to get a job, find a beautiful house in a park (!!) and be more sociable than I've ever been while living in Ireland. I've gone to outdoor cinemas,  music gigs, picnics, pubs, cocktail bars and houseparties. And I've never been happier. Not because of this new found sociability but because I've taken time to put the love into not just spending time with friends but time with myself, for myself. This concept of taking the time to really enjoy my own company by doing whatever the hell I wanted, has been fantastic, liberating goodness on a grand scale because for the first time in my life, I've felt truly fulfilled and content in my own company.

What, you now ask, does this have to do with cake? Time. Time to get the right ingredients, time to balance the components of a cake recipe to make it your own. Letting the cake bake for just as long as it needs. Patience. Delicate hands. Savoring the color of the free range eggs, the buttercup yellow polenta brings to any cake mixture, the light scent of cardamom drifting through the house, the juiciness of fresh oranges. Letting everything come together in its own time. And then enjoying every last mouthful. That's what cake is all about but that is what life is all about too.

On a foodie adventure in Dublin last weekend, I went with one of my best mates Richard to 3FE coffee at the Twisted Pepper and savored the sticky goodness of mini orange and cardamon polenta cakes.
I had to make my own. I've been stalking street food and middle eastern cookbooks lately, especially Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty, which is just so beautiful to look at. Since I hadn't baked in the new house yet, I set about making my own version of a Cardamom and Orange Polenta Cake for a charity bake sale at work (perfect excuse).

Taking the time to make this cake made me eternally happy. Especially when I realized just how easy it was. The sticky orange syrup infuses the crumbly polenta texture. The natural yogurt gives it an extra flavor onto its own. Serve after dinner on a special occasion with yoghurt or creme fresh and roughly chopped pistachios for extra yumminess.

Just remember, all good things take time. Take time for yourself and practice loving it. In the end, the switch will flick on and you'll suddenly savor that quality time just for you.

Ingredients:
200 grams butter
200 grams soft brown sugar
200 grams ground almonds
100 grams polenta
1 tsp baking powder
10 cardamom pods
3 free range eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 tbs set natural yoghurt
1 handful pistachios

2 oranges
4 tbsp thick honey
2 tsp rosewater

Preheat oven to 170 C. Grease and line a spring 10" cake tin and line with grease proof paper.
In a bowl, cream butter and sugar until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, whisking until blended through. Add vanilla. Bash and grind up cardamom seeds and in a separate bowl to the butter mix, add to polenta and ground almonds, mixing thoroughly. Add polenta mix to butter and sugar and fold through. Stir yoghurt through. Scoop into the prepared tin and place in oven for 40-50 minutes until golden brown and a clean skewer shows it's baked through. Leave to rest with a tea towel over it. (This stops the top forming a crust).

In a pan, add the juice of two oranges and honey and simmer until it reduces down to a syrup. Stir rosewater through. Take tea towel off cake and with a fork, prick holes into the top of the cake. Pour 2/3 of the syrup bit by bit onto the cake, allowing it to soak through. Allow the cake to cool completely then remove from the tin. Serve with yogurt and drizzle with more syrup and chopped pistachios. Spread the love and share with friends and family and of course yourself.

To Richard: Good friends with hangovers sometimes just need coffee and cake