Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery (40 page)

Huge thanks to Rebecca Saunders, Jo Unwin, Manpreet Grewal, Hannah Green, Emma Williams, Charlie King, Jo Wickham, Victoria Gilder, David Shelley, the design team, the sales team and absolutely everyone at Little, Brown: it’s a fantastic team.

Thank you to everyone who got in touch after
Little Beach Street Bakery
, particularly Neil fans (you can speak to him on Twitter at @neilthepuffin). It is really amazing to get your messages – do get in touch if you would like at
www.facebook.com/thatwriterjennycolgan
or @jennycolgan on Twitter.

Thank you dear friends and of course Mr B and the wee bees, without whom a) nothing would be any fun at all, and b) there’d probably be fewer terrible drawings of puffins plastering every single wall in the house.

A special mention to the RNLI, an amazing organisation that remains, whatever the AA thinks, Britain’s fourth emergency service.

LEMON POSSET
 

 

 

My dad is a good cook and, in fact, every year he auctions himself off to raise funds for his rowing club. He will come round to your house and make dinner for you and your friends. Mind you, he also has a very generous pouring arm, so I’m not sure how much attention people pay to the food by the time it’s ready!

Anyway, here is my favourite pudding of his:

Pour the cream into a pan over medium heat. Stir in caster sugar and bring to boil. Simmer gently for 3 minutes, continuing to stir occasionally. Take from the heat and let it sit to cool for about a minute then stir in lemon juice.

I usually prepare a small dish like the one I served you (he means ramekins – Jen) with some small fruit pieces in the bottom.

Put them in the fridge until set. An hour is usually enough and you can prepare a whole day in advance.

To serve, sprinkle some demerara sugar over the top of the now set possets, and brûlée. Serve with fresh berries on top and to the side, and of course ‘lashings’ of ice cream!

Thanks, Dad!

WORLD’S QUICKEST TRIFLE
 

 

 

This is just in case anyone ever grabs you and points a gun at your head and shouts ‘MAKE ME A TRIFLE! STAT!!!!’ so you don’t have to explain about the custard. It’s also delicious and lovely and light.

Cover the bottom of a trifle dish in sliced bananas. Pour over a tin of dulce de leche (buy it as it is, or simmer a tin of condensed milk for three hours – remember, always make sure the tin is totally covered in water).

Add a layer of mascarpone cheese.

Put the Crunchies in a plastic bag and bang the heck out of them :) Sprinkle a thick layer of Crunchies over the trifle dish, then add the whipped cream or scoosh it out of a can if you’d rather. You can add crumbled flake to the top if they’re particularly terrifying gun-toting trifle gangsters.

CHEESE PINWHEEL
 

 

 

This is less a recipe and more of a guilty pleasure I’m afraid. I am not proud. I can’t even make this any more because I will just wolf the entire thing and probably not even tell the children. I’m sorry. I’m disappointed with myself. I bet you will be really good and generous and perhaps even store the leftovers in a Tupperware container for tomorrow! Ha, well I have no idea if it even keeps.

YUM YUM YUM. This makes a dozen or so. I am not even going to say how many that ought to serve.

Heat oven to 180°C. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface: aim for very thin and square. Spread a very thin layer of Marmite or Vegemite, or neither if you think those things are utterly foul. Or make two; one with, one without.

Sprinkle the cheese over the pastry, leaving a border at the ends. Grate pepper over the cheese and roll up very tightly.

Put in fridge for fifteen minutes or so, then cut into slices, and wash lightly with egg/milk mix.

Place the slices on tray lined with baking paper and bake for 12–15 minutes until puffy and golden and YAWRGGH COOKIE MONSTER STYLE FRENZY!

Sorry about that.

KICK ASS CHOCOLATE CAKE
 

 

 

This is a chocolate cake for Big Events :) birthdays, and so on. It is MONSTROUSLY large and needs a really big tin. Ice it how you like – I love peanut butter icing but obviously if it’s a children’s party that won’t be suitable. Cream, chocolate frosting, or lots and lots of Smarties are all good alternatives.

Heat oven to 170°C. Grease the inside of the tin REALLY REALLY THOROUGHLY with some butter. Then maybe again just to make sure.

Mix up the ingredients – just add the milk at the end if the consistency isn’t ‘dropping’. Mine never is, I blamed French flour. Then I used a hand mix.

Pour into the tin and wobble it about so it’s nice and even.

Cook for 30 minutes, then cover the top of the tin with baking paper or tin foil. It SAYS cook for a further 50 minutes or so, so check in at 80 minutes and see what you think, sometimes it’s longer.

Peanut Butter Icing
 

Whizz up the peanut butter and butter, then gradually add the icing sugar in the mixer too. Add the cream to soften until it’s the right consistency.

PULLED PORK ROLLS
 

 

 

These are perfect for picnics. There are about a million ways to make pulled pork: as long as it’s cooked long enough to be gorgeously tender, it doesn’t really matter. I just use the simplest – I buy a huge hunk of pork (cheap cuts), cover it in olive oil, salt, pepper, a little sugar, then wrap it up tightly in silver foil and cook for one hour at 200°C, then five and a half hours at 120°C, then a quick 15 minutes at 200°C again. Then if you can bear it, leave overnight.

Then pull apart with a fork and stick in a bowl. To make the sauce:

Bring all the ingredients, except soy sauce and butter, to the boil on the stove. Let it simmer for 30 minutes, then add butter and soy sauce: simmer for a further ten minutes.

Mix the sauce in with the pork. I serve in rolls with coleslaw on the side – they’re great for picnics!

Rolls
 

Make the buns too! Well, Polly totally would :) And these are super simple :)