Royal Wedding Cake

A friend of mine suggested that the image of the royal family is being made over from a traditional aristocratic one (reserved, mad, kill things) towards that of the wealthy middle class. Perhaps nothing supports that idea more eloquently than the specially-created Middleton family crest, which contains white mountain-like chevrons, "to symbolise the family's love of skiing."

My own love of an occasion is symbolised on my family crest by a stylised firework, a giant asterisk that also symbolises my love of a qualifier. And that I'm not out.

So, I went to a friend's house to watch the wedding and offered to bring dessert. If only it were that simple. The act of offering to bring dessert nudges a little mental snowball off a hill in my head that gathers size, momentum and an assortment of debris. The question of the Right Dessert.

"Victoria sponge", I think, and I don't know I would have thought of that if there hadn't been a poll on the Taste.com.au site asking whether fruitcake, chocolate mudcake or Victoria sponge would be best for the big day. Chocolate mudcake was the front runner, which sort of horrified me, though it does turn out that alongside the traditional multi-tiered fruitcake, Prince William requested a "chocolate biscuit cake". I thought that might be something like a chocolate ripple cake, which would have been awesome, so 70s, like if he'd asked for French Onion Dip at the canapés do. Instead it's this.

Anyway, I decided a Victoria sponge would be the go, and then had to find out what a Victoria sponge is. Not much of a sponge as it turns out. Same proportions as a pound cake (ie equal weights flour, sugar, eggs and butter) and doesn't involve beaten egg whites. Traditionally filled with jam and cream.

I had everything in the house except jam, so I was going to have to make a trip to the shops, and if I was going to go to the shops anyway maybe it wouldn't have to be for jam? That makes no sense, but it's the way I thought. Indeed, I thought, since this is not Victoria getting married but the dawn of a new etc. etc., surely it should be something less traditional than jam and cream. Something like... (several mental steps edited out here) ... rhubarb-and-strawberry compote and custard.*

Which is what happened, and it went down well, though if I did it again I would keep the rhubarb and the custard apart. I didn't actually mean to mix them as much as I did, I got distracted. The rhubarb flavour overwhelmed the custard so there weren't two flavours in the middle, just a one-note "rhubarb creme". It also produced a very flat, retro shade of pink, but I guess you could say this is consistent with the slightly artificial allure of other "commemorative" dishes (have you seen the colour of Coronation Chicken?) and, I see now, the background of this blog.

It still looks like a good time, I think. And the tartness of the rhubarb made it acceptable as a breakfast dish as well.

* A fair few of my mental trains of thought end in rhubarb-and-strawberry-compote and custard. And what do you know, a "rhubarb crème brulée tartlet" was served at the Lunchtime Reception.

In other news...

On the Easter weekend I decided to make "healthy hot cross buns", a recipe that contained wholegrain flour, walnuts, dates... very worthy. I thought they might also be nice but they turned out so worthy you could stone people with them.

Australia Day Breakfast K.O.

Sometimes I plate something up, as they say, and knock myself out. Just look at this. Delicious colourful Opera House goodness. Yellow-crested cockatoo on toast without harming animals. Red sails in the sunset, without the apocalyse! Is that toast shaped like Uluru?

Like my mother before me (and many others? most people? I lead an insular life) I am very fond of stone fruit on toast for breakfast: these are apricots. Buttered toast, wedges of fruit and an optional squeeze of lemon and sprinkling of sugar on top.

The toast under the egg is also, of course, spread with Vegemite, which is pretty much the only way I eat boiled eggs (apart from SCG Egg Sandwiches, of course).

And I choose to interpret the slight burning of the toast as a reference to the traditional charring of the Australian barbecued sausage.

SCG Egg Sandwiches

Completed Egg Sandwich, in kitchen (you make them before you get to the ground).

The saving grace of any day at the cricket, however dismal in other respects, is egg sandwiches. Egg sandwiches can raise doubts in the mind of some, especially as a packed lunch - "who opened their lunchbox?", I hear you say.

It's a reasonable objection. The keys to countering it are: plenty of mayonnaise and, I cannot stress this enough, lots of parsley. There are a few other pointers.

1. Fluffy white bread. This is not the time for your sourdough, your ciabatta, your multi-grain, or any other "good" bread. Go for the softest and fluffiest loaf from the supermarket (the most "whitebread" white bread, as it were), but not one where the slices are too small or thin, you need it to stand up to plenty of filling. Important note: do not allow the fluffy loaf to be squashed by the big bottles of lemonade and water you also bought for the cricket in your bag on the way home. A squashed fluffy loaf can never be re-fluffed and then where will you be?

2. This is however the time to go for a good mayonnaise. I like BestFoods, but any of those posh "whole-egg" ones would no doubt work.

3. Parsley: I think the old-style curly-leaf parsley is best suited to this dish and it is easier to chop up fine than flat-leaf parsley, which we also want. Personally I think curly-leaf parsley gets a bit of a bad rap.

4. The rest: hard-boiled eggs (look it up), butter (spreadable), salt and pepper and a little curry powder (Keens - naturally).

Making the filling

Chop up the parsley reasonably fine, like I said, so it's something that will really go all through the mixture and not be something you have to chew too much and get stuck in your teeth. Amount: I used about a third of a large bunch of parsley for 4 sandwiches. I don't know how big your bunches of parsley are, just grab a hunk and go. The main thing to keep in mind is that parsley is not just a garnish here, but an important flavouring and counter-egginess agent. Parsley, the "fresh-maker".

Mash the hard-boiled eggs (1 per sandwich) well with a fork with some salt and pepper and a bit of butter (1/2-1 teaspoon per egg). It helps to chop the eggs up a bit with a knife first.

Add the parsley and lots of mayonnaise to the mashed eggs. "Lots" probably means a dollop almost the size of an egg for each egg.

Add a little curry powder. Not a lot, these are not Curried Egg Sandwiches (unless you want them to be), but about a pinch per egg just gives a nice savoury undertone.

Taste and add more salt, pepper, curry powder, parsley etc if necessary.

I usually make this mixture ahead of time and keep it overnight in the fridge.


Making the sandwiches

Spread the slices of bread with a quite thin, even layer of butter, going right to the edge of the slice. This is not just an excuse to have more butter, it will help prevent the bread from going either soggy or dry (magic!). Even if you are using spreadable butter, it helps to take it out of the fridge a little ahead of time to soften it some more so you can do this easily without tearing the bread.

Spread half the slices with a thick, even layer of egg filling, again going right to the edge of the slice.

Place the other slices on top. Cut sandwiches in two.

Packaging the sandwiches

I usually stack each cut sandwich on top of each other in stacks of 2 or 3, alternating the direction of the slice in each sandwich (if that makes sense) for more structural integrity, then wrap them in one or two layers of plastic wrap. The important thing once again is that they not squash, so find a way once again to protect them from those bottles of lemonade. If you have a plastic container that will fit them, perfect. But they will still taste OK even if they are squashed.

To drink with the sandwiches

The SCG now only sells swill in beer-form. We take "special lemonade" which is a lemonade bottle filled with gin and tonic. It will not occur to the security guards checking your bags that someone carrying such beautifully-prepared egg sandwiches could also be - in SCG parlance - a "lout".