Like an abused pet that is shown signs of kindness, I approached macaron making again with a little nervousness and trepidation. I’d had a semi successful attempt with a Nigella recipe after a few terrible attempts with a Martha one so I was given a little encouragement. Not enough to make me cocky, far from it in fact. But enough to make me give the recipes a shy, sidelong look every now and again and even think to myself “that would be wonderful in a macaron” (although I’d never say that out loud, that would err on the cocky side, or at least confident side, which I am not on).

I even stocked up on supplies to make them, purchasing a 1kg bag of almond meal. This meant that I was either thinking of making multiple batches of macarons or making friands. As I don’t have a friand tin, all evidence points to the former. So urban-cavewoman style, I brought home my big bag of almond meal like a fresh kill and set it down on the counter proudly, like I had picked the almonds and ground them myself.

This is a fiddly cupcake, I’ll make no bones about it. You need to make the macaron to top it and then make the cupcake base and the rose cream and slice up berries and lychees to fill it and top with a rose petal. But the overall effect is quite spectacular. I made the macaron top first as I knew that if I wasn’t successful at that, then I wouldn’t bother making the rest. You see, I’m still slightly scarred by my failed attempts. I also chose this cupcake recipe as it sometimes gives a macaron crust on the top of the cupcake, I say sometimes, when I make this as sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. Cakelaw found that she got the macaron crust on top here but I didn’t get it for this particular lot of cupcakes. Must be something to do with science…

I suspect that Pierre Herme, the creator of the Ispahan would be quite horrified at the idea of his lauded creation being turned into something as cute and kitsch as a cupcake, indeed I saw not a single cupcake in all of my travels in Paris. However it’s not exactly like an Ispahan in that the base is a strawberry rose cupcake and the filling is buttercream and not a buttercream and custard creme anglaise combination (I only have so much patience). Also being Mid Winter in Sydney meant that only strawberries and some blueberries make an appearance so I had to improvise and use strawberries rather than raspberries.

I hope you will find these a fitting homage to the Ispahan, the taste of these are ambrosial and well worth the effort.

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Someone stop me. Stop me from using these heart cake pans again. I am addicted to using these tins and even though the recipe below specifies to use round springforms, I took them out, then took out my heart pans and well you can see which ones I chose to use. I did warn you that I was obsessed with hearts so I feel that did pre-warn you of my sickness

They were shallower than regular springforms so I had to make sure to put some high barrier baking paper on he sides and of course, removing them was not as easy requiring a delicate touch, which I almost certainly don’t have. Strawberries and cream is a wonderful combination, I could easily every day for dessert (or lunch or afternoon tea). I confess though, that I liked the meringue, strawberries and cream best and the sponge, whilst nice and vanilla-ey, was more an easy and decorous way of transporting this combination to my hungry mouth.

Strawberry meringue layer cake

Ingredients

• 125g plain flour
• 25g cornflour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 100g very soft unsalted butter
• 300g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsps pure vanilla extract
• 2 tblspns milk
• 50g flaked almonds
• 375ml double cream (I added 2 tablespoons of sugar as sometimes strawberries aren’t as sweet as you want them to be)
• 250g strawberries

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Line, butter and flour two 22cm springform tins.|

2. Weigh out the flour, cornflour and baking powder into a bowl.

3. Cream the butter and 100g of the caster sugar in another bowl until light and fluffy.
Separate the eggs and beat the yolks into the butter and sugar, saving the whites to whisk later. Gently fold in the weighed-out dry ingredients, add the vanilla, then sir in the milk to thin the batter. Divide the mixture between the two prepared springform tins.

4. Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form, then gradually add the remaining 200g caster sugar. Spread a layer of meringue on top of the sponge batter in each tin and sprinkle the almonds evenly over.

5. Bake for 30-35 mins, by which time the top of the almond-scattered meringues will be a dark gold. (I turned down the temperate to 180C as my oven is fan forced and the top was a little too cooked so perhaps turning it down even further would be better)

6. Let the cakes cool in their tins, then spring them open at the last minute when you are ready to assemble the cake.

7. Whip the double cream, and hull and slice the strawberries; that’s to say, the bigger ones can be sliced lengthways and the smaller ones halved.

8. Invert one of the cakes on to a plate or cakestand so that the sponge is uppermost. Pile on the cream and stud with the strawberries, letting some of the berries subside into the whipped whiteness. (I should have added more strawberries as I had a lot leftover). Place the second cake on top, meringue upwards, and press down gently, just to secure it.

9. If you’ve got any more strawberries in the house, hull and halve them and serve them in a dish to eat alongside; it gives the cake a more after-lunch, less afternoon-tea kind of a feel, but it’s hardly obligatory.

Serves 8.

By Nigella Lawson from Forever Summer

I was fascinated by this recipe as I absolutely adore sun dried tomatoes. I don’t care how passé they are, there will always be one or two opened jars in my fridge and a backup jar in the cupboard just in case. And if I don’t sound passé enough, the best brand I’ve found is Aldi’s Romano sun dried tomatoes, as they’re super soft, huge and delicious.

My husband, caveman style, brought these these fabulous little grape tomatoes back home after finding them while he was doing his second favourite hobby, geo caching (treasure hunting with a GPS). I tried one and it was sweet, luscious and gorgeous. Much like a perfect organic grape tomato. And since they had just fallen off the vine, they kept for a while, unlike supermarket ones that have been picked a while back only to sit on a shelf. Not that I’m necessarily advocating finding your F&V in the wilderness but these were simply beautiful. Do stay away from unexpected mushrooms.

I served these Moonblush tomatoes with some baby spinach leaves, bacon, avocado, salt & pepper and used the herbed oil at the bottom of the tray as a dressing. A simple, colourful salad.

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