Bakchich, Liverpool

Imagine biblical scenes of driving rain... we're wet through, starving, and some terrible website has cocked up our tickets to the wrestling. It's not we had planned, not one bit. The one saving grace to the whole sodden affair, was that we had a table booked at Bakchich. I'd been to the one in Manchester a couple of months before, so was as confident as I could be, that this was the point where our day would improve.

And relax... Yes, our hoodies had made a horrible little puddle on the bench beside us, bit it was ok, as we had just clapped eyes on the menu, and realised we were but moments away from some tasty treats. Although Bakchich don't serve alcohol, they more than make up for it with their frozen yoghurt smoothies and freshly squeezed juices. We opted for apple, lime and ginger to warm us through and perk us right back up. 

Meat Mezze - Jawaneh meshawi, falafel, hommos, mixed shawarma, kibbeh shamiya and baba ghannoush, served with pickles & homemade bread: What do you do when you just can't choose? That's right, it's platter time. This is one of the joys of mezze; bits. This is by far my favourite kind of food. They even kindly substituted the standard falafel for the sweet potato type we had in Manchester.

Halloumi Meshwi - Grilled Halloumi cheese, tomatoes, olives, fresh mint with olive oil: There's one thing I definitely knew that I wanted though and this was halloumi. I love a bit of grilled squeaky cheese! The salad that came with this blew our minds; fresh mint with tangy pomegranate seeds. 

Mixed Grill Meshawi - shisk taouk, lahma meshawi, kefta meshawi and chicken kefte served with salad, Arabic rice and chips: All the meat. It doesn't look like a huge amount of food, but we didn't finish this between two of us! I'd definitely recommend getting the mixed grill so you can try a bit of everything. Their chicken is unreal. 

We've all been here, just when you've declared yourself fit to burst, you find yourself saying you'll just 'have a look' at the dessert menu, which leads to ordering sugar fuelled goodies. 

Frozen yoghurt with halve and pistachios: I'd never tried halve before. I love sampling new things, so this was all a bit exciting! Mixed with the sharp yogurt and sweet pistachios, this was strangely comforting, despite my initial mistrust of its texture. 

Baklava: These little parcels look so unassuming, don't they? They're like little power packs of sweet, nutty, loveliness! I literally managed one. Poor show. 

Once again, another lovely time was had at Bakchich. Their staff were charming, the food was fantastic, and they did indeed fix what had so far been a bit of a disastrous day. I can safely say that it significantly improved our moods enough to ensure we had a cracking little day from this point forth, despite getting caught in yet another terrible storm! Our hoodies were soaked anyway, what's a little more rain hey?

Shaky Pete Bundt Cake

So we were having a little soirée. I'd like to tell you that this was a civilised adult dinner party, but in actual fact, it was the three of us sat in our pyjamas, stuffing our faces, playing with Lady the sausage dog, and drinking gin.

My friends like a bit of gin. They like it a lot. I'd been tasked with making a bundt using our botanical fave, so I put my thinking cap on. I was pondering, if my 'thinking cap' was an actual hat, I'm fairly confident it would take the form of some sort of floppy, flowery number, which is difficult to keep on your head. I digress.

So, I decided to recreate a Shaky Pete cocktail, in cake form. This is a legendary cocktail devised by Hawksmoor legend, Pete Jeary, and is a wonderful mix of beer, gin, ginger syrup and lemon, all of which lend themselves perfectly to me shoving them in a bundt tin. The result was a very boozy cake, which was just delightful.

Ingredients

• 225g unsalted butter
• 100g of vegetable fat 
• 650g golden caster sugar
• 6 medium eggs
• 450g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 6 tsp ground ginger
• Zest of one lemon
• 200ml Fuller's London Pride beer
• 50ml nice gin (I used Tanqueray) 
• 500g icing sugar
• Juice of 1 lemon
• More gin... or water... 
• Stem ginger cookies to decorate (optional)

Method

1. Grease and flour a large sized bundt tin (15 cup). 
2. Note: This recipe quantity is for the largest of the Nordic Ware tins, the Anniversary. However, I have used the Elegant Party Tin, and popped the rest in a 1lb loaf tin. Perfect, two cakes!
3. Soften the butter and vegetable fat and then cream in the sugar in stages.
4. Add the eggs one at a time on a slow setting.
5. Add all the remaining dry ingredients to a large bowl.
6. Add the lemon zest to the beer.
7. Sift in 1/3 of the dry ingredients, followed by 1/2 of the liquid. Repeat until all the flour and liquid is used up. Fold it in gently...
8. Tip: at this stage it will look a bugger. Terrible even. Don't worry... 
9. Give the whole thing a quick mix for about 10 seconds or until well combined. It will no longer look wrong.
10. Spoon the mix into the prepared tin and give it a good whack on the worktop. Because the cake has fizzy stuff in, it will hold a lot of air bubbles. Too many may mean the tin design is lost.
11. Bake at gas 3/160 C for about 2 hours (1.5 for a regular sized bundt, and an hour for a 1lb loaf). 
12. It should be shrinking from the sides and a skewer should come out clean.
13. Let it cool in the tin for ten minutes then turn it out. 
14. Allow to cool fully.
15. To make the topping, add the lemon juice to the icing sugar, and enough gin/water to make a runny icing. I used neat gin on mine, which meant it was practically a fire hazard. 
16. Top with chunks of stem ginger cookie, and you're away.

Bloggers: Please respect the fact I am sharing my own ideas and 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 pasting the recipe on your own page. Please see my Creative Commons Copyright information for more details. Thank you.

Salted Caramel and Peanut Bundt Cake

My boss was leaving us to embark on new adventures, which made us all very sad. Mark is one of life's ace people, and there's going to be a huge, vacuous hole where his filthy laugh once sat. So, there was only one way to send him off; a massive cake. A couple of months before, he had sent me a link to this gooey salted caramel and peanut creation he had found whilst scouting the internet. It had to be recreated as a bundt!

I think this one has the new record. It was cut into at 10.30am, and I was getting complaints from other teams by about 11am that it had all gone. It's rich, gooey, and a bit like eating crack in cake form; moreish.

I made this in my beautiful Nordic Ware Elegant Party bundt tin, which captures the glaze just perfectly.

Ingredients:

• 225g butter
• 450g golden caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 350g Homepride plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 200ml caramel yoghurt (I used Muller Caramel and Peanut)
• 3 tbsp good quality crunchy peanut butter
• 1 jar of salted caramel dessert sauce (I used Tesco Finest)
• 1 bag of Butterkist Salted Caramel popcorn (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to gas 3/160 c
2. Prepare a regular sized bundt tin - 2.4l, 10 cup, 10 inch with Cake Release spray and dust with flour. 
3. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. 
5. In a separate bowl, measure out the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
6. Pour the yoghurt into a jug.
7. Sift in a third of the flour mix followed by half the yoghurt. Repeat this until everything is combined.
8. Give everything a quick mix on a low speed for about 10 seconds.
9. Remove three heaped tablespoons of batter, and pop into a small bowl. 
10. Stir the peanut butter into this smaller bowl.
11. Add half of the cake mix to your prepared tin, followed by the peanut mix.
12. Spread the peanut mix into an even layer, and cover with the remaining 'standard' batter.
13. Bake in the centre of the oven for about 1 hour 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. 
14. Leave the cake to cool for ten minutes before removing from the tin.
15. When the cake is fully cool, warm your salted caramel sauce int he microwave, and tip it over the cake. 
16. Fill the bundt hole with the popcorn, and you're ready to roll!

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 pasting the recipe on your own page.