coast collectibles

 

october crafts

Apart from a scrumptious scone – eggy on top – which is a perfect bite to have in autumn (a rather perfect bite to have pretty much all seasons!) my early-autumn cake to make is definitely the Lemon Dotted Cake with almonds and all those tiny dots made of poppy seeds.

 

This cake is a very old-fashioned one even though it might look quite modern somehow. We often find this dough in muffins at some cafés, but the original shape is a big flat and soft cake. Of course I won't post the recipe cause it's easy to find it around the web, but let me put down some guidelines.

The dough is simple to prepare and it sticks to a basic cake recipe (butter, sugar and eggs plus yeast and flour) but then you add quite a lot of almond flour (ground almonds), poppy seeds and a couple of lemons (zest and juice).

 

Here comes the fun part: the syrup. The syrup is prepared using sugar and lemon juice and then is poured on the cake – that has been pierced all over with a stick – till the cake has absorbed all the syrup.

 

Final touch: icing on the cake. The icing is a syrup at its previous stage cause the sugar doesn't have to dissolve. You can even add some zest to the glaze as it adds a scented twist. Remember to let it cool off a bit before pouring it on the cake top, otherwise it will be too runny.

4 days - 3 nations

It often happens that I catch myself thinking about any feasible trip in the following couple of days. This time more than others I made it without that long notice: you know, when it comes to flights a bargain is a bargain and one cannot just ignore it! So, in the span of 4 days I've kind of strolled around France, Italy and then UK. These things – that I'm sure some fashion bloggers do everyday – on my physical person do encourage a state of alienation. That was basically the feeling when every different morning I found myself in a bed at a different latitude. But, yeah, I guess I can put up with this if it's all about going around and seeing friends.

After a quick overview at luxury packaging fair in Montecarlo I popped into a local supermarket and got some salted butter to eat the morning after on my special fruit bread biscottes. The rest as follows:

 

I threw away my high heels and replaced them with flat shoes, as soon as I got on the train

 

once in Italy, an instant coffee to go helped me to figure out some travel issues while I was sitting at the harbour

 

after a long cartoonful night at the airport (thanks God I had that Adventure Time folder in my laptop) I guzzled down a pint of milk and hopped on the 6.40 plane to Notts where I met a friend of mine that surely had slept more than me

 

on the following day I rolled down the M1 to London, surrounded by a clutch of radical motorcyclists and once there I've waited inside a car for an hour with the view on West End Lane – my top place to hang around where I used to live in the area – while outside was raining hard and my friend was wandering looking for a pair of tights

 

before heading off at night, we spent a couple of hours in a lovely café (Chinwag) in New Cross and read menus hidden inside old books 

we passed by the one I call “my university I didn't attend” and listened to the students' music festival that was happening outside the building right in that moment

back to Notts I went to a friend's to properly wash my hair and before reaching her place I came across the Goose Fair – probably the best funfair around the UK – walking through the backstage where all the caravans rest.