Tea and Sympatico

The six shortlisted entries for the new Fourth Plinth sculpture in London's Trafalguar Square have just been unveiled. Quite excitingly one of them is of a piece of cake. Specifically, this is a Battenberg cake . I've not had Battenberg cake for years. It's a sweet pink and yellow cake with the sections sandwiched together with jam and then the whole thing is wrapped in marzipan. I used to love it when I was a kid. I've had a look online for any vegan recipes. There's one on UK vegan recipe website Parsley Soup which uses a chocolate cake and a vanilla cake so it's slightly different in that there's no pink section. Apparently commercial brands of Battenberg aren't even vegetarian as they contain cochineal which is derived from beetles to colour the pink part. It would be pretty easy to make though. Hmm, I've been looking for ideas to make for the Cake Liberation Front meeting next Sunday, maybe this is the one!

This is a recipe for a really easy but impressive gift. It would be great with a box of homemade cookies. You'll need to peel the lemon about a week ahead and let the peel dry out before you chop it up. Make sure you use loose leaf tea. I tried it last time by emptying the contents of some Darjeeling tea bags and it just didn't work the same, the leaves are so much smaller in teabags. The recipe is from a little book called Gifts Homemade by Anne Chapman which I bought for a pound about 15 years ago from a discount book shop and which I've used so much. It looks like it's out of print, it's not on Amazon but there seem to be a few inexpensive copies knocking around on Ebay and used book sites. I highly recommend it. The strawberry gin recipe is from here and I'll be making my annual batch of orange chilli marmalade from it soon. Christmas Spice Tea The ideal tea to refresh your spirits on a cold winter afternoon and it smells amazing. Can be drunk with or witho...

One of my friends is coming round for a little birthday tea tonight. The temperatures have really dropped here in the last few days so a roast dinner is in order. As this is such a crazily busy week I've not been able to make a nut roast from scratch. Instead we're going to have these great little root veggie roasts from Goodlife . They're the best readymade nut roast I've tried and come with a fruity cumberland sauce to serve with them. I am a bit of a gravy fiend so they'll be a jug of gravy as well for the rosst potatoes. I did manage to make a dessert though. Inspired by the entries in my teacosy competition I looked online for a recipe for poaching pears in Earl Grey - my friend will drink nothing else. I strangely seem to have ended up with 3 Scorpio friends who only drink Earl Grey! I am also a Scorpio and it's my first choice of tea. I found this one at Epicurious which also has dried apricots and cherries in it. It's turned out brilliantly and was...

I got an email this morning from Cafe Direct letting me know that my Paddington Cake recipe is November's recipe of the month on their blog and that they are sending me a bag full of their goodies! Spurred on by this I'm going to look for more recipe competitions to enter vegan recipes in and will post on my blog if I find any. The more of us that enter the more chance we have. It's brilliant that the latest Pizza Express competition includes a vegan pizza in the short list. If you haven't voted please do . Voting closes on November 12. It was in the lead but I believe it's dropped back after lobbying from a pro-meat group! People outside of the UK, Pizza Express are a chain that have branches in most towns so it would be excellent for the falafel pizza to win and a bit of a first for us here.

Imagine a UK where you can walk into any cafe or restaurant anywhere and there's vegan options available. Vegetarians options are standard everywhere these days but that's not always been the case. Once vegetarianism was seen as a pretty alternative diet in the same way that veganism is today. The times will change and at the Cake Liberation Front we hope to be part of that change so that one day you can go anywhere safe in the knowledge that yes, there will be cake you can eat! At the Bed-In at the Bluecoat today we gave away over 200 samples of vegan muffins and the response was from the public was absolutely brilliant. Lots of people chatted and asked questions and took away leaflets. We took it in turns to be in the bed with Jimi and Beddy Bear. Muffin flavours were mocha choc chip, pumpkin and white chocolate, pumpkin spice, banana, cranberry and orange, carrot and fruit, lemon and poppyseed and gluten + sugar free blueberry. We'd expected to have a few muffins l...

The Cake Liberation Front is off and running. We have a website and our first event is happening in Liverpool tomorrow. We have been selected to have the bed for the day as part of the series of Bed-In events to celebrate John Lennon's 70th birthday. We'll be at the Bluecoat Gallery in the city centre from 11-4pm. It's being live streamed too on their website. We're inviting members of the public to sample a selection of vegan muffins. I've been busy baking all morning. My contribution is pumpkin and white chocolate chip, orange and cranberry. mocha choc chip and gluten and sugar free blueberry .

Tonight we celebrate Bonfire night. I live opposite a big central Manchester park called Platt Fields which hosts an organised council bonfire every year. In fact it's Bonfire Are Us round here at this time of year as we've just had Divali too where a 30 foot high effigy of the demon king Ravan got burnt. After the bonfire we'll be heading back to the flat for hot chocolate and the ginger cake from yesterday post. But first to get us warmed up first before the bonfire and fireworks display we'll be having this marvellous soup from a recipe I spotted in a free Tesco magazine of all places! Very quick and easy to make. Keep-Me-Warm Curry Soup Serves 6 1 tablespoon of olive oil 1 onion chopped 4 carrots diced 2 tablespoons of korma curry paste 100g red lentils 1 tin of coconut milk 1.5 litres (2.5 pints) of vegetable stock 50g basmati rice – rinsed in cold water fresh coriander mini nan breads to dip in Method Heat the oil and gently fry the...