Curley's Dining Rooms, Horwich

Curley's Dining Rooms is just a few minutes from where I live, yet I had never been before this week. It sits on the site of a picturesque fishery overlooking Rivington on one side, and the Fylde Coast to the other. It's gone through an extensive transformation over the last few years, but seems to have settled nicely at its present state.

In all honesty, I presumed that it was still a bit of a fisherman's cafe like the old site was. It was my brother and sister in law who started going a while back, mainly because it was somewhere they could take their pooch, Beau. Apparently it's one of his favourite places...

The staff are quite happy for dogs to come for lunch, even cheeky little Jack Russells like our Beau! This makes it the perfect place to visit before a walk up Rivington, which is literally just on the doorstep.

We decided to go and sample the menu one night after work. It was nice and quiet so we got the chance to take in a bit of the scenery too.

The building itself in in keeping with the stone cottages on neighbouring Wallsuches, and has a similar feel to Nigel Haworth's Ribble Valley Inns. The dining room is small, yet quite smart considering it's based at the side of a fishery.

They had a fire lit and the low hanging shades made the room feel nice and cosy.

My husband was pleased to see a decent selection of real ales, including this Dark Mild from local favourite, Bank Top.

Most of the evening menu is centred around fish, which I'm not a huge fan of, however there were plenty of other options for fish-fearing folk such as I. It was absolutely brass outside, so I thought the most prudent option would be the pie of the day. This was a choice of beef or cheese and onion.

Cheese and onion pie with chips, mushy peas and gravy: If this doesn't warm you up, you are destined to freeze. A good slab of home made plate cheese pie accompanied by the type of chips my grandma makes. Absolutely delicious.

Cumberland sausage, chips, mushy peas and gravy: Comfort food at its best. This is simple food done exceedingly well.

Ginger pudding with custard: Another winter warmer. A sticky ginger pudding with lumps of sweet stem ginger, in a lake of custard and ginger sauce. 

Boltoners love their British fayre, and Curley's Dining Rooms are pitching to the perfect audience. This is the sort of food that my dad, grandad and my friend Sally (honorary 75 year old chap when it comes to food) will adore. The staff are friendly, portions are generous, pies are home made and chips come from actual potatoes, not a bag. However, the chances of me going for a hike up the hills after this? Zero.

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Rhubarb, Apple and Ginger Bundt Cake

There's no cause like a good cause, and this week my work pals and I embarked on a fundraising mission for one of our own. A friend of ours is very poorly, so we set about a team pursuit to make her smile.

One thing we are really good at is a bake sale. Between us we bake a damn fine spread! I know that anything a bit fruity or spicy goes down a treat, so I decided to transform some beautiful rhubarb, apple and ginger compote I bought a couple of weeks ago into something yummy. This makes a beautifully spiced cake with a soft, moist crumb and a decent sugar crust.

Ingredients:

• 225g butter
• 450g golden caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 350g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 tsp ground ginger
• 250ml low fat plain yogurt 
• 175g rhubarb, apple and ginger compote - any variety of compote will do, or any flavour for that matter!
• 1 tsp icing sugar for decorating

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to gas 3/160 C
2. Grease and flour a regular sized bundt tin using cake release spray - 2.4l, 10 cup, 10 inch.
3. Tip: this mix is a little lumpy if you use chunky compote like I did. This may mean your finished cake has little rough edges - this is ok... run with it!
4. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
5. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
6. Stir in the extract and zest.
7. In a separate bowl, measure out the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and spice.
8. Pour the yogurt into a jug and mix in the compote.
9. Sift in a third of the flour mix followed by half the yogurt mix. Repeat this until everything is combined. 
10. Give everything a quick mix on a low speed for about 10 seconds.
11. Pour into your prepared tin.
12. Bake in the centre of the oven for about 1 hour 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. It should be shrinking from the sides of the tin slightly.
13. Leave the cake to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin.
14. When fully cooled, dredge with icing sugar.

I can confirm that this is best enjoyed mid morning with a cup of tea, a slice of banana loaf and a piece of Aussie Crunch. And yes, I did eat all of this within a 15 minute window. It was for a good cause after all...

Bloggers: Please respect the fact I am sharing my own ideas and basic recipe. Blood, sweat and many tears have gone into getting this right, so you may enjoy a perfect bundt. If you wish to re-blog a recipe from these variations, please credit my blog and link to this original post rather than rewriting the recipe on your own page.

Please see my Creative Commons Copyright information for more details. Thank you.

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Giveaway: Renshaw Baking Goodies!

To celebrate two whole years of DollyBakes and Bolton Clandestine Cake Club, I have teamed up with my pals over at Renshaw Baking to bring you two rather wonderful prizes. They've been really supportive of all my hair-brained ideas, and been a constant source of decorative inspiration.

Winner: £50 voucher to spend on renshawbaking.com. That's the equivalent of around 30 packs of ready to roll icing, 25 packs of colour melts, 17 packs of sprinkles or 16 tubs of frosting. Whatever your preference, it will keep you out of trouble for quite some time!

Runner Up Prize: The 'Basics Ready to Roll Icing Range', ideal for all cakes and bakes, which includes:

• 500g White Ready to Roll Icing
• 500g Celebration Ready to Roll Icing
• 500g Black Ready to Roll Icing
• 500g Flower & Modelling Paste
• 500g Original White Ready to Roll Icing
• 500g Original Golden Ready to Roll Icing

How to Enter

• Simply follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter widget below.
• To be in with a chance of winning you must complete ALL the mandatory fields, and then can move onto the additional entries if you want to increase your chances of winning.
• All entries will be checked and verified before a winner is announced.
• You can increase your chances of winning by Tweeting on a daily basis.
• Rafflecopter will pick two random winners.
• The competition runs until midnight on 1st March 2014.
• Please see the Terms and Conditions on the Rafflecopter widget for the rules and more information.

Please feel free to share this giveaway!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

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