Spring Is Upon Us
And it's making me giddy. Here's a round up of my finest recipes for early spring, plus a gorgeous, easy new recipe for lemon and blueberry birthday loaf cake
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Good day my dears. I’m a little late posting this, because my piece on our family trip to Lanzarote took much longer than I’d imagined — but you seemed to like it, so that’s good. This has been sitting in my drafts folder for a week and I have resisted the urge to move onto something else like spring is already old hat. In my world at least, the arrival of spring is a moment very much worthy of marking, and so here I am, marking it with you, and giving you a little round up of my finest early spring recipes, because spring’s spirit somehow rubs off on me and I get a little bit prolific, even before all the great things like asparagus and Jerseys are here. Please do chip in and tell me what you enjoy most about spring, I just LOVE to hear from you.
For me there is no other moment in the year that fills me with such exquisite joy, exhilaration, and creativity. I even went for a run yesterday, guys. Well, it was more of a raggedy breathed, hoppy walk, but you know, it’s a start. As I write this I’m sitting on a train, watching the gorgeously green fields of Kent pass by my window, rows of Alexanders proffering their polleny florets along every country lane. It’s a truly lush contrast to the arid, scorched landscape we found ourselves in a couple of weeks ago in Lanzarote, and it makes me deeply appreciate the very special and fleeting seasonality we have here in the UK.
The Spring Equinox announced itself with aplomb on our little stretch of the Kent coast, on the 20th March: the sea was blissfully still and sparkly and the fluffy mimosa in our yard was practically glowing. If you are in the UK and fancy a trip to the sea, specifically our gorgeous town of Deal, then come on in, the water’s lovely still freezing. Do read my recently-updated, deeply personal guide if you are planning to visit.
Over at the house, where the build is flying along thanks to the very considerately sunny weather (thank you, Universe), our climbing wisteria and magnolia tree are in bud, just ready to burst; violets have taken over the lawn like weeds; and I’m feeling surges of uncontrollable excitement and gratitude at the thought of enjoying this garden for years to come. The rather abandoned pond has suddenly bubbled with frogspawn, which is making me seriously reconsider our plan to fill it in for the time being. I mean, we just won’t do it now for the foreseeable because I have a serious soft spot for frogs. But can I handle the stress of having a deep, wide pond and two tinies? It’s a conundrum. We shall see. Stay tuned, if you’re invested in the destiny of our pond.
The persistent sunshine and sense of things bursting out of the ground made me want to jump in the car, play the Fleet Foxes (specifically Ragged Wood) at full volume and drive into the countryside for a good ol’ forage. Because it’s wild garlic time, my friends, and you know how I feel about that. I am essentially a Real Housewifes of Clapton Meme.
So we did this, we went to our patch and I’ve been working on a recipe for the next recipe drop I think you’re going to really love. It still needs a couple of tweaks, and I want to make sure it’s just perfect, and that, my dears, is time consuming stuff, but it’s coming very soon. In the meantime, if you find yourself with wild garlic on your hands and want to fashion it into something delicious, you should probably make my
Wild garlic and cheddar scones — not really sure we can be friends if you’ve never made these beauties, my DMs are filling up with pics of people making these atm
Sausage and wild garlic stuffed conchiglioni
Chicken and wild garlic puff pie — a dreamy way to celebrate the start of spring
Bavette with wild garlic butter
Cheese and wild garlic topped cottage pie
Cheesy wild garlic and bacon pastries
Chicken braised with wild garlic, lemon and peas
I’m also coming at you shortly with something rhubarby, too. But if you can’t wait — and why should you have to, because Yorkshire forced rhubarb is here, and Kent field grown rhubarb is here, and rhubarb is probably available in some form wherever you’re reading this, or if it’s not now, it will be at some point, so do make my (in no particular order because they’re all GREAT, IIDSSM)
Rhubarbmisu — the recipe that rocket launched this very newsletter
Rhubarb and White Chocolate Blondies
Rhubarb and Custard Pavlova
Rhubarb Ketchup
Rhubarb and pistachio clotted cream cake
If had I to drill down into the reason why I love spring so much, it would be to do with the promise. Perhaps it sounds cliche, but there is no other moment in the year when the promise of things to come feels so acute – everything is in bud, and everything is about to happen. For me, the passing of the seasons has also been marked by my baby boy turning one, which is obviously huge, and has provoked some mixed feelings in me. There’s joy and gratitude of course, but also, I suppose, a slight sense of grief at the end of the wildly intense ‘postpartum period’ — and the fact he’s now resembling more of a small cub who can crawl, climb, sit, clap, yell, play the bells, sit up in a swing at the playground than a squishy little shrimp who would snore on my chest all day. He is still squishy though. But so big! Such a buster. Happy birthday, my darling boy.
I wanted to mark his birthday with a cake, and in the spirit of keeping things simple for a baby’s palate but also classic and pleasing to everyone else who’d be eating it, I settled on a super easy yoghurt loaf cake flavoured with the sharp, fragrant zing of lemon and shot through with jammy baked blueberries. It’s something that I could easily rustle up with an enthusiastic helping hand from my three-year-old, but thanks to the yoghurt and ground almonds, it has the most luxuriously tender, delicate crumb.
My daughter is yet to show much interest in cooking anything savoury, but the sweet-toothed rascal’s eyes light up when it comes to pancakes or baking. This cake – based on the brilliantly easy French yoghurt cake is something you can literally mix in one bowl, pour into a lined loaf tin and job’s a goodun.
To elevate it into celebration mode – as you know I love to do – I whipped up a gorgeously light, fluffy and wonderfully sharp lemon mascarpone icing which was piped between the layers of the cake and then decorated with mimosa from the garden. I also had a jar of bee pollen I’d picked up in a French farmer’s market, and this made for the most visually stunning and delicious sprinkles. If there isn’t a French farmer’s market in your near future you can get some here, it has the most wonderful, honeyed, polleny, amazingly fragrant flavour without being actually sweet at all. Or just use normal sprinkles, I don’t mind.