We are back from a week on the Cornish riviera, with improbably good weather, cliffs of wild flowers, endless sands and clear blue sea. It’s the first time we’ve managed a whole week away as a trio for about three years; I barely looked at my phone (joy!) and soaked in the sunshine. It’s the first time that we’ve attempted a proper holiday during half-term week and the crowds were a shock; I’ve realised that the answer to this is to head where people are not, whether it’s our favourite beach at 8pm, a hidden creek on the Camel estuary, or a prehistoric quoit on Bodmin moor.
The days on unbroken sunshine set off the wildflowers beautifully. The colours are richer than at home – pinks, yellows, purples – with banks of grasses, spikes and umbellifers drawing in the insects. The tree echiums are particularly magnificent in June with their 10 foot spikes; a sight that will never become old to me.
In Cornwall, the wild flowers are so magnificent, it’s almost as if there is no need to garden – you simply need to head outside and be instantly surrounded by life and wildness and beauty. Here in Birmingham it’s a slightly different matter of course, and effort is required. Given the hot dry spell, I was concerned that the allotment beans, peas and greens would be all but dead through a week with no watering. Well, they’re not exactly thriving, but there is definite signs of growth and a few promising pods on the broad beans.
Veg is still thin on the ground at this time of year, but the cut flowers work to a different calendar. Tulips are over now, replaced by foxgloves and allium who take their crown as the showiest of blooms for the vase. The purple globes and pink and white spires are joined by the ‘pretties’: early sweet Williams, sweet rocket and a solitary lupin. The autumn-sown cornflowers and calendula have finally come into their own, and any doubt I had about the wisdom of growing on a windowsill over the winter have been cast away. The cornflowers in particular are magnificent, with long, straight stems and an abundance of buds.
Having said all that, the April-sown annuals are still really struggling to get going. Cosmos, scabious, more cornflower and calendula, plus other cut flowers, were all sown into peat-free compost, and whilst gemination was fine, the seedlings are still teeny-tiny. I’ve now moved them out of the sun room and onto the paving in the side-garden, where they will get more light but are at risk of slug attack. I am not 100% sure what the problem is but my instinct is the compost, which is a coir and bark-based mix (other seeds planted earlier did OK, using the Birmingham City Council compost that Matt was given last year). Perhaps I should stop all this seed-sowing angst and just buy everything as a plug plant next year; it’s more expensive, but lots more reliable.
Onto a recipe perfect for June, yoghurt pot cake. This cake is perfect foil for the abundance of strawberries and raspberries that are about to head into full production. A slice, with fruit and a dollop of cream, makes for a fine pudding, though you could do as the Italians do and eat it for breakfast. It’s a simple plain cake, scented with lemon and vanilla, and a shortness to the crumb that you find in Italian and French baking (that’s due to the cornflour). The name comes from the fact that everything can be measured using a small yoghurt pot. I am sure that I read somewhere that this is the first cake that French children are taught to make, a fact I find amusing, because although the measuring is easy, it is slightly involved to actually make – there’s egg whites to whisk and folding to be done. Either bake into a small round cake or ring, or it works well as small palm-sized fairy cakes.
Yoghurt pot cake
adapted from Nigella.com
150g plain yoghurt
150ml vegetable oil
3 large eggs
250g caster sugar
Dash vanilla extract
zest of half a lemon
175g plain flour
75g cornflour
icing sugar
Preheat the oven to 180c. Prep your cake tin – this mixture makes a 9inch round tin, a 9 inch mould or a 6inch tin with 4 fairy cakes on the side. You could also just make 12 fairy cakes.
First separate the eggs, yolks into one bowl and whites into the other. With an electric whisk, beat the whites into submission, until firm. Set them aside.
Add the yoghurt, vanilla, lemon and sugar to the egg yolks and use the electric whisk to combine them together – they will be light but not thick. With the whisk still going, trickle in the oil until thoroughly combined. Sieve in the flour and cornflour, and whisk to combine. Finally, fold the egg whites in gently but firmly, until the mixture is completely mixed and surprisingly voluminous.
Transfer gently to your tin and/or fairy cake cases, and bake until done. A large cake takes about 35 minutes, fairy cakes about 20 minutes. When done, the cake will pull in around the edges and look cracked on the top; a skewer inserted in the middle will come out clean.
Leave the cake(s) to cool and dust with icing sugar to serve. I have not tried it, but I suspect that a handful of chocolate chips and maybe orange zest would both make fine additions.
Also this week:
Harvesting: Foxgloves, alliums, first sweet williams, sweet rocket, first cornflower, first calendula, last PSB, last winter-sown rocket and spinach. One singular, magnificent strawberry.
Jobs: Took out last of last year’s kale and PSB. Strimmed, not that it makes much difference, the grass is so virile. Planted out snapdragons, cerinthe, quaking grass and amaranth. Slugs have been nibbling both allotment and house dahlias but still I am not using pellets. Moved everything out of the sun room to see if added light will make the seedlings finally grow. In the garden, the allium, roses and foxgloves are coming into their crescendo.
Cooking and eating: Porthilly mussels, crab sandwiches, Cornish yeast cake, fudge, strawberry and blackcurrant compoty-jam, English sparkling wine, nuts-and-seeds as apparently it’s good for my hormone health.
Also: Reading A Year at the Chateau by the Strawbridges, pure escapist fun.