Not Quite Nigella

The Cotswolds and afternoon tea at Lower Slaughter Manor

There’s something grisly sounding yet utterly charming about going to a place called “Lower Slaughter” in the English countryside that is the Cotswolds. I’d only seen pictures of the Cotswolds but never been, so I was very curious to see the various little villages and towns that make up this picturesque area.

Especially something with Slaughter in the name. I recall Borat on the Ali G show meeting someone with the last name Slaughter who framed it as “Laughter with an S”. I suppose he had been asked about it so many times that he had to make a joke out of it. Lower Slaughter was also called the “Most Beautiful village in England” although I’m sure that’s up for furious debate amongst the locals of Gloucestershire.

We drive up to Lower Slaughter Manor, a very English looking manor house, built in 1658 and granted to the Whitmore family who commissioned celebrated stonemason Valentine Strong (whose son later became the chief stonemason for the reconstruction of St Paul’s Cathedral). The Whitmores lived there for 400 years, (lucky things) and now it is a small hotel with 19 rooms or suites.

The gardens are spectacularly beautiful, like something out of a movie set. I expect someone to come out wearing period costume and flounce about at any second. Instead we seat ourselves under one of the outdoor umbrella tables and order Afternoon Tea. Service is friendly and warm but still very polite and courteous, a fine balance given that it could have been stuffy.

It takes a while for everything to arrive but once it does, we gratefully tuck in. The afternoon tea, with a pot of Mokalbarie tea, described as “an extravagant tea, aromatic, full bodied, spicy and malty” has 4 scones, 2 plain with sultanas and 2 cinnamon with sultanas as well as a pot of clotted cream and a pot of raspberry jam. My husband orders a pot of coffee (£3.50).

Afternoon tea: scones and pot of tea £9.50

The scones are warm and the cinnamon ones are particularly good. The tea is delicious and my husband, ever the budget conscious individual looks like he has scored the jackpot “I can get 6 or more cups of coffee from this pot!” he exclaims with delight. Just like his mum said when I had afternoon tea with her last year.

We also visit Boughton-on-the-water, Stow-on-the-Wold and Chipping Camden, three other lovely places. Boughton-on-the-water is particularly pretty with it’s footbridges and shops and filled with many tourists and senior citizens (I presume the residents).

Boughton-on-the-Water

OK I just think they have funny names for things here

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November 12th, 2008 by Not Quite Nigella

Winnie the Pooh Hunny Cheesecake Cupcakes

I can only imagine my Mother shuddering and reaching for her red pen to correct my typo in the title. So Mummy Dearest, you’ll have to forgive me for sticking true to the story and making some Winne the Pooh Hunny Cheesecake Cupcakes.

I could have made a regular honey flavoured cupcake but I felt like something a little more rich and creamy. I decided to do a variation on the pumpkin cheesecake that I made the week previously so that the colour was true to Pooh but the sweetening was done through honey instead of sugar. The choice for a cheesecake cupcake was also due to a loathing of stale or expired food (it’s a response I think to my parents having sauces in their fridge from 1984). I had 3/4 of a packet of biscuits left from the Pumpkin cheesecake as well as some Pumpkin and neither myself or husband eat biscuits much so it seemed fitting to use these up as soon as possible before staleness set in.

Winnie the Pooh was extremely hard to do, his body was fine, but his face with the upturned nose required several attempts. Indeed I had a range of different Winnie heads, some resembling pigs or dogs before I finally settled on the real Winnie. And I know, Winnie is not that orange but I was a little too eager with the red colouring and ran out of fondant. I also know that Winnie wears a red shirt but I couldn’t muster up the energy to do a red shirt on top of his body given the struggle I had with his head I talked myself into figuring the Winnie must have had some naked moments every now and then.

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November 11th, 2008 by Not Quite Nigella

And the Winners of the Cup-a-Cake competition are…

Our recent Cup-a-Cake competition was a hard fought-out one with almost 550 entries, but we managed to find 4 winners that will each receive a set of Cup-a-Cake

And without further ado, the winners are:

Pam L. of NSW

Jessica L. of NSW

Maria T. of Victoria

Shella B. of Queensland

Thanks to Keren at The Cupcake Courier for bringing the Cup-a-Cake to us!

Love,

NQN

xxx

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November 11th, 2008 by Not Quite Nigella

Pendolino, The Strand Arcade, Sydney

Now that I no longer work in the city centre itself, I savour each chance to visit the city during the day. And in December, there’s an even better reason to visit, but more on that later. Today Darcie from Zing has asked Christie from Fig and Cherry and I to lunch at Pendolino, a very Melbourne-esque Italian Restaurant located on the 2nd floor of the Strand Arcade. Knowing that I can’t eat a large lunch, I’ve skipped breakfast so that I am suitably hungry when I arrive.

In the front there is the cafe and wine bar section and further in is the darkly lit, and I do mean darkly lit, restaurant section with the strategically and occasionally placed spotlight making up for the firmly shut blinds. All I can think of is how hard it will be to take photos in, but I’m sure everyone else is thinking how romantic it is for a dinner (however lunch with your colleagues might not be so romantic!). There are also fabulous lights and the space is warmly and chicly decorated.

We choose a range of dishes – there are entrees as well as pastas and risottos (that come in an entree and main size), meat mains and desserts as well as a fantastic sounding cheese platter with 4 different types of cheese. It’s hard to choose and made even harder when the waiter comes by and lets us know of the specials so I leave myself to Christie’s recommendations as this is her fourth visit here. Some dishes are accompanied by a particular type of olive oil, like a wine accompanies a dish. Olives and olive oil, we’re to find out, are the theme here.

Bread and olives

Speaking of the little buggers, there’s a small plate of the tiniest olives – the Piccoline olives from Victoria which are an exercise in quality over quantity. They are small but they’re absolutely delicious, probably one of the nicest olives I’ve had. The bread and olive oil are good too although we all get different types of bread (I get Olive and a white sourdough).

Olive Oil tasting room

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November 10th, 2008 by Not Quite Nigella

Heavenly Pumpkin cheesecake

Please, please don’t roll your eyes. I know cheesecake isn’t the most exciting or novel dessert, certainly not as exciting as a macaron or a Zumbo creation but allow me to plead my case. The first time I tried this was at my recent Halloween party where my guest Queen Viv, a fantastic cook, brought this cheesecake over. We were stuffed to the gills with all sorts of “horrific” foods yet someone piped up that there was a cheesecake in the kitchen and that they wanted to try a slice (ok that was me). And a few of us were cut small slender slices of this pale orange hued cheesecake and sank our teeth (or in the case of some, fangs) into this delicate and airily light cheesecake.