Jasmine Green Tea and Dime Bar Ice-cream

Location: G&Ds, Little Claredon Street, Oxford

Date: 12 December 2008

Details: Jasmine green tea and an American-sized scoop of 'Dime Bar' ice-cream.

Notes: This quirky little ice-cream parlour has a well-deserved excellent reputation. We rolled in at gone 11pm and the place was gently winding down. A few quiet clumps of students were enjoying ice-cream and hushed conversation; a few unwashed types pecked away at laptops. Great selection of products, great prices, great staff. Quirky bagel-themed Christmas decorations. Highly recommended.

Fruit Juice with Giraffe (!)

Location: Giraffe cafe, Oxford

Date: 13 December 2008

Details: Apple juice with giraffe stirrer

Notes: Our first visit to the Giraffe chain for breakfast after a long night out in Oxford. Great menu, with suitable choices for all tastes. We especially liked these giraffe stirrers which peep cutely over the rim of the fruit juice glasses. Nice touch.

Technically not a normal 'cuppa and cake' entry but I'm making an exception for such a novel piece of tableware.

Maison Blanc patisserie: Tarte fraise and Larieux

Location: Benson's Café, Bard's Walk, Stratford-upon-Avon
http://www.bensonsrestaurant.co.uk/
Date: Mon 1 Sept 2008
Details: Two cakes from Benson's range of fabulously OTT patisserie from Maison Blanc in Oxfordshire. These two creations are 'Tarte fraise' and 'Larieux'.

Notes: The cakes were sectioned into thirds by Benson's so Katy, Mat and I could share :-)

Cream Tea @ Benson's Cafe

Location: Benson's Café, Bard's Walk, Stratford-upon-Avon

Date: Mon 1 Sept 2008

Details: 'Cream tea' - a pot of Assam tea with a scone (topped with strawberry), strawberry jam and clotted cream.

Notes: Swapped the cream for butter. Is that wrong?

Cookie Cheesecake and Pot of English Breakfast Tea

Location: The Baraset Barn, Tiddington, Stratford
Date: Wed 4 June 2008
Details: Cookie cheesecake with vanilla icecream, and a pot of tea.

Note: Cheesecake perfection. Ridiculous raspberries though, had to offload those. Tea not bad either, for a pub.

Chocolate and Pecan Terrine

Location: The Warehouse Café, Birmingham
Date: Saturday 14 May 2008
Details: Chocolate and pecan 'terrine' with stewed prunes in ginger syrup and vanilla ice-cream, with a cup of hot water.

Notes: 'Terrine' seems to be a trendy word for 'chocolate fridge slab'. Very nice though, and the prunes-in-ginger-syrup was yum.

Assam Tea with Chocolate Brazil Nut Brownies

Location: 'Tea', Paternoster Square, St Paul's, London

www.wearetea.com
Date: Fri 11 April 2008 5pm
Details: Two pots of Assam, milk and a chocolate brownie

Notes: The brownie was particularly delicious - squishy to the point of being sludgy, with big chunks of brazil nuts. All shared with my lovely brother John during a long chat, catching up with each other's lives. A perfect afternoon tea.

Recipe: Honey Crunch Creams

Honey Crunch Creams

Based on a Greek recipe. Tastier and better for you than shop-bought cream cookies!

Makes 100 single cookies (or 25 double, 50 single)

Preparation Time 30 mins

Cooking Time 10 mins

Ingredients

500g self-raising flour

3 tsp baking powder

100g caster sugar

250g margarine / butter

250g honey

25g chopped nuts

For the filling:

50g butter

100g icing sugar

1 tbsp honey

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Line 3 baking sheets with baking parchment.



2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and sugar. Add the marg/butter and rub in until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.



3. Make a well and add the honey. (If you're using set honey, heat it gently in the microwave until it's runny.) Mix until it forms a firm (but sticky) dough. Separate the dough into halves.



4. Pull off blobs the size of a large marble. Roll into a ball in your palms and place on a baking sheet, spaced well apart. Flatten down with the back of a finger. If the dough is too sticky, dust your hands with flour. Bake in batches for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Leave to cool and firm up slightly on the baking sheets and then transfer to a cooling rack.



5. Spread the chopped nuts out on a small plate. Repeat step 4 with the other half of the dough but this time roll into balls and then dip into the nuts. Flatten down on the baking sheets, nut side up. Bake and cool as before.



6. To make the filling, mix the butter, icing sugar and honey and beat until fluffy. Use a knife or spoon to spread a small blob of the filling over the base of a plain cookie. Sandwich it together with the base of a nut-topped cookie.

Notes

• I use half white SR flour, half wholemeal SR flour; golden caster sugar; Stork marg instead of butter, and 'chopped mixed nuts'.
• You can use syrup instead of honey.
• You could add the finely grated rind of one orange to make these cookies more authentically 'Greek'.
• Eat the cream sandwich cookies quickly because they go soggy after a couple of days. The single plain cookies will keep well for longer so you could make them ahead and then make up the icing and sandwich together on the day you want to serve them.

Green Tea with Honey Crunch Creams

Location: Home, Stratford-upon-Avon
Date: Wed 9 April 2008
Details: Pot of green tea with homemade honey crunch cream biscuits.

Notes: For recipe, see separate post: "Honey Crunch Creams" And please no sniggering at my teacosy - my late grandmother made it and I love it.

Amaretto Milk with Apple Pudding

Location: Queen Square Bar & Restaurant
www.queen-square.com
Date: Saturday 22 March, 2008, 10pm
Details: Apple cake with vanilla ice-cream; steamed milk with a shot of Amaretto

Notes: Queen Square is a warm and welcoming bar on the corner of a revamped park in the centre of Bristol, near my friend Duska's flat. We decamped here after dinner at a noisy tapas bar, for a more mellow pudding and coffee. My apple cake was good but more cake than apple. Steamed milk with a shot of Amaretto was a new idea but it's delicious! Highly recommended after-dinner drink.

Cup of hot chocolate with a raisin whirl

Location: YHA, Quayside, Bristol
www.yha.org.uk
Date: Sun 23 March, 2008, 8.30am
Details: Cup of hot chocolate with a raisin whirl

Notes: This breakfast was accompanied by reading The Observer and writing postcards, while waiting for my companions to get out of bed in the building around the corner.

Please admire the beautifully-stencilled heart on the hot choc. The pastry was bought in a Co-op and surrepticiously munched in the Youth Hostel. The cafe is a rustic-style cheap place inside the Bristol city centre Hostel, opposite lots of much more expensive bars. Free wifi. The cafe did become a bit overcrowded with schoolboy rugby tours but otherwise it was very nice!

Pot of hot chocolate with complementary cookies

Location: Welcombe Hotel, Stratford-upon-Avon
Date: Sun 9 March, 2008
Details: Hot chocolate with a selection of cookies

Notes: Hot choc in a pot! Very unusual. Cookies an unexpected bonus - they come free-of-charge, like peanuts on a bar. Sadly they were disappointing - dry, unexpected nasty coconut and blatantly out of a packet. Perhaps a Welcombe chef could knock up some simple biscuits in a quiet time? A great place for a quiet Sunday afternoon cuppa though - we had the whole lounge to ourselves with a view across the hills.

Assam tea with birthday cake

Location: Othello's, Stratford-upon-Avon

http://www.othellosbrasserie.co.uk/

Date: Sun 9 March, 2008

Details: Pot of Assam tea with a slice of Kiz's birthday cake

Notes: The cake is not Othello's produce, I'm sure they'd be horrified if anyone thought it was... It's a made-in-a-hurry effort by Sooze: Vic sponge with Kiz's homemade blackcurrant jam and buttercream, with icing and chocolate dot decoration on top. Light and fluffy cake with surprising filling. Tea: average and overpriced, but acceptable.

Tea and Victoria Sponge Cake

Location: Cox's Yard, Stratford

http://www.coxsyard.co.uk/

Date: Sat 16 Feb, 2008

Details: Tea and Victoria sponge

Notes: Once again, horrible Cox's Yard tea. But the Vic sponge was great - fresh and squishy.

Olde-worlde tea and chocolate slab

Location: Cox's Yard, Stratford http://www.coxsyard.co.uk/

Date: Sat 16 Feb, 2008

Details: Tea and chocolate slab

Notes: This was a truly awful pot of tea - possibly due to incorrect/inadequate teapot cleaning. Yuk. The choc slab was rather boring, not a patch on version sold in Chadds in Union Street, Stratford. The new decor in the Cox's Yard cafe is particularly naff 'olde-worlde' rose-covered tat. Yuk again. Squarely aimed at the tourists. Like the rose-bowl though, nice twee touch.

Assam tea with a heart-shaped cookie

Location: McKechnie's, Stratford-upon-Avon
Date: Thurs 14 Feb, 2008
Details: Assam tea and a ginger heart+arrow cookie, made by Kiz.

Notes: A heart-shaped cookie for Valentines' Day! Kiz has since bought me this cookie cutter. :-) I've gone off the Assam tea at McKechnie's though - it has a slightly weird chemical finish. Back to the English Breakfast!

Tea with Chocolate and Mint Cake

Direccion: La cafeteria Dos Mil en Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote

Fecha: Enero, 2008

Notas: Una taza de té y torta de chocolate y menta.

Coffee and Carrot Cake

Direccion: La cafeteria Dos Mil en Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote

Fecha: Enero, 2008

Notas: Un café solo y torta de la zanahoria

Chocolate de Otoño y Ensaimada

Location: 'Los classicos de café', Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote
Date: February 2008

Notes: A very boozy hot chocolate ('otoño' - chocolate, crema catalana y nata) and ensaimada - a simple flakey sweet pastry rolled into a curl.

Peppermint tea with posh amaretti biscuits

Location: Honeybourne, Worcestershire

Date: January 2008

Notes: Peppermint tea with posh amaretti biscuits at Kiz and Neil's house after the Ramsay Cookalong. The stars on the table hint at the five-star quality of the food!