St John Custard Doughnuts

Not having a particularly sweet tooth (yes, weird, I know) I don't often blog about cakes but these custard doughnuts I spotted at the St John Bakery in Druid Street yesterday are simply awesome.

Thank god I didn't try to eat them in the street. As you bite in a fountain of vanilla-flavoured custard cascades over your chin. Real vanilla of course - you can see the specks. The doughnuts are featherlight and not too sweet, freshly dusted in sugar as they should be. This has to be the most perfect doughnut ever and I've eaten some of the concoctions at New York's legendary Donut Plant. (The carrot cake doughnut is particularly fine)

I'm sure they'll serve them at the new St John Hotel which opens on April 2nd and which will reputedly be serving home-baked breakfast buns. Maybe even for elevenses or for the afternoon Little Bun Moment . . . Can't wait.

(The St John Bakery opens on Saturday mornings in Druid Street from 9-2. More about this happy hunting ground shortly.)

Tart's the place for cake

I've been meaning to go to Tart for a while, not least because of the name.

It's at the bottom end of the Gloucester Road in Bristol - not the first place you'd think of searching for a high-end café and cake shop. (It's got much more of a hippyish vibe. It's the place I go to buy cheap pulses and spices.)

Anyway Tart seems to be doing very nicely thankyou. On a Friday lunchtime it was rammed to the gills with yummy mummies and their offspring tucking into tarts (obviously) - and a fair amount of cake. There's a special atmosphere when you walk through the door that's quite out of keeping with its surroundings. It feels a bit Chocolat, if you've seen the film - not quite real.

The best thing they do is a Tart Teatime Plate, a selection from their cakes of the day. We shared one (above) which included a fabulously crumbly carrot cake (so crumbly it kept falling over inelegantly, as you can see), a spicy (cinnamon) Tunisian orange cake, a pretty good chocolate cake and a slice of one of the best Bakewell tarts I've ever eaten - all for £5.70 a head including tea. A much better deal than the champagne tea which costs a silly £17.95 a head.

Breakfast also sounds good - they do a mushroom and caramelised onion rarebit which I feel has got to be tried.

And - clever idea - they sell ready-made sweet and savoury pastry at 50p a 100g to take away and make your own tarts. As if you'd want to if you lived on their doorstep, which I'm relieved in many ways that I don't. I'd be in there all the bloody time.

I should say I ate in Tart as a guest of the restaurant but don't let that put you off. It really is good.

July’s Blogs of the Month

Blimey, how time flies! It’s July 10th already and I’ve only just got round to putting up my blogs of the month. Put it down to post-Noma excitement and frantically trying to pull together a book(ette) which I’ll be telling you more about in due course.

Gourmet Traveller
I’ve been corresponding with the anonymous Gourmet Traveller on my recent visit to Copenhagen and hadn’t realised what an inveterate traveller she (I think she’s a she) was. She eats at some good places: check out her recent review of Paris’s controversial Le Chateaubriand. A minor quibble - I'd ditch that black background. Food mags are printed on white for a reason.

Joy the Baker
I have to confess I’m not big on baking but the ideas and pictures on LA-based Joy Wilson’s baking blog could almost - almost - tempt me to take it up, if only to see what that yummy-looking avocado pound cake tastes like. She has a HUGE following: 186 comments on a wedding cake post alone. Let no-one doubt the power of the blogger.

While on the subject of cakes - and for another insight into the devotion they inspire - check out the The Cake Committee which reports on London-based get-togethers where everyone brings their own cake. It seems to have spawned several international offshoots or 'slices' as they call them, as in The Singapore Slice. Seems to be a bit of a craze in Japan too.

And don't miss a visit to Cake Wrecks, a hilarious celebration of cakemaking disasters, another site that has attracted a cult following in the US (over a million and a quarter followers on Twitter alone). Apparently all the cakes are made by professional cakemakers. Unbelievable.

A Forkful of Spaghetti
A blog which will be familiar to British food bloggers but maybe not to the rest of you and one of the first blogs I followed regularly. Helen is not afraid to speak her mind - witness this post on London’s celebrated La Fromagerie, an institution few food writers would dare to criticise. I'm personally a fan but I haven't had the experience she obviously did so good for her. Some classy photographs too.

Lancashire Eccles Cakes

I'm not a great one for pre-packed cakes and biscuits but I make an exception for Real Lancashire Eccles Cakes which I can miraculously buy in my local newsagent. It's a small pack - just 4 cakes for £1.59 - and a single one just hits the spot with an afternoon cuppa.

Looking at the list of ingredients they contain a very respectable 40% of fruit - currants and raisins - and no hydrogenated fats - so they must be good for you, right? (Except for the 9.1% butter but fortunately they don't put the calorie count on the pack).

You need to heat them to enjoy them at their crumbly best, easily accomplished in the Aga, but otherwise I'd be inclined to do that over a low heat in a covered pan rather than faff around heating up the oven.

The website reveals that the Lancashire Eccles Cake Company is a family owned firm which has been making eccles cakes since the 1930s which is rather nice. They even export to the States.