dark intent

What would you use this implement for? 

You can guess, no doubt, where my imagination swings, except this particular post is just about cake. The dense and sticky sort of cake that fills your mouth with chocolate, yet also a sweetly burnt caramel sweetness that almost could be honey yet stronger. It is the quantity of muscovado sugar with a deep musky toffee flavour that makes the cake so unctuous. And gluten-free, but of course. Adapted from Nigella Lawson's Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake. 

225g soft unsalted butter

375g dark muscovado sugar

2 large eggs, beaten

i teaspoon vanilla extract

100g best chocolate melted

200g plain gluten-free flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

250ml boiling water

square 21cm tin

Preheat the oven to 190ºC, grease and line the tin. 

Cream the butter and sugar until well blended - tough going without an electric beater, but possible. 

Add the eggs and vanilla, beating in well. Next fold in the melted and slightly cooled chocolate, careful not to overbeat. Then fold in the flour and bicarb, one spoon at a time, alternating with a spoonful of boiling water until you have a smooth and fairly liquid batter. Pour into the tin and bake for 30 minutes. Turn down the oven to 170ºC and continue to cook for another 15 minutes. A skewer inserted into the middle of the cake won't come out clean .. it should hopefully still be damp and sticky. 

Cool completely in the tin, and even better left a day or so. 

cheek

Disappearing into the bathroom with just a loosely held towel in hand I heard a child behind me, click, click, clicking paparazzi noises with his tongue.

"Great photo of your bottom, Mum" he says, flying by.

I am still smiling at the thought of those many, many images of my arse on the 'net, somewhere to be found.

nimble

"It is not possible" I say, as he disappears into the furthest, darkest and most awkward kitchen cupboard, screwdriver clenched between his teeth.

He is out, 4 minutes later, satisfied and victorious.

"I'm tenacious" he says, not a boast but a statement.

Later in the evening, sinking into sleep with my head tucked into his left shoulder, I dreamily realise that, in the few months since we have become lovers, I orgasm faster and with less effort on his fingers than my own.

post-

The pinnacle of eroticism for me is, and has always been, the aftermath.

He, lying on me, belly to belly, faces almost touching, begins to soften. His weight on me increases, a ship in harbour. His eyes less steely, the lust smudged away for now, the intimacy heightened by the messy heat of effort spent and desire satisfied.

We smile, and study each other intensely. There is no mystery at this point, just a shared wonder at the rush from furious lust to gentle love. Sometimes we even greet each other as if it were the first time we have come up for air since he walked through my door. Hello, he says, and I blush a deeper red at the ridiculous notion that we are compromised strangers.

We kiss, a different sort of kiss. The metallic taste of arousal lingers, but his lips are kinder and the friction from minutes ago becomes a fusion that begins in our throats but culminates in the warm wet that seeps from between our fetted thighs.

one by one

He has a grin on his face that proclaims devilment.

"Were you counting?" I demand, through indignation and breathlessness.

"Yes" he said, with cool satisfaction.

"It officially takes 200 strokes to bring you off."

textures of baking

I'm drunk on pimms, needing to be stirred. 

essentials

I roasted a huge piece of beef rump last week, with the absolute intention of keeping back vast leftovers. We eat cold, faintly-rare slices of beef in sandwiches for a day or so, and then the reminder was chopped small and turned into a cottage pie.

Asides the usual happy trilogy of carrot, onion and garlic (and/or celery if you can be bothered) I like to add cumin seed and green leaf (chard today) to my pie, with the carefully reserved juices and gravy from the original roast, and swede added to the potato hat. Otherwise it isn't really a recipe, more of a pattern. The only suggestion i make is that it is worth letting the meat cool slightly before adding the potato - it stops the potato sinking. Oh, and a little worcestershire sauce and ketchup for seasoning. Bake in a hot oven until it bubbles and browns satisfactorily.

My boyfriend is on holiday. I went shopping for underwear at the weekend and in the over-bright changing room i take photos to send him to tease, and find that i enjoy the exhibitionism once more. It has been a long time since i joined in HNT or such. I think my breasts have grown.

trophy

I am a pale butterfly spread beside him; on my back, cupped in his embrace, one bent knee trapped between his thighs which he is keeping resolutely pressed together. He has an arm lying heavily on my twisted hip, another hand cradling my neck.

We slide from talking into kissing, and his hand moves inwards.

My body unfolds as far as possible, testing the restraint, relishing the increased pinch along my flank as he responds. The other leg reaching across the bed feels curiously light and free in contrast to the acute angle of the restricted thigh, one arm flung outwards while the other is lost somewhere between our naked bodies.

I have the sensation of having being caught with intent and i suspect i am about to be toyed with.

holiday leftovers

Intense vanilla sugar

Oh the food, the food...

Two 4-day weekends back-to-back and i am spooned out. Saucepanned. Dished. No tea-towels left unsullied, no pantry drawer left unruffled. Vanilla sugar plundered to the depths, not a stick of butter remaining.

Pot-roast chicken, Rose Prince style. My new favourite way with the bird. It made sense to cook two at at time, for holiday emergencies (chicken pot pie, perhaps?). The stock from two roasted carcasses was a flavour bonus, one portion in the freezer, another used for lentil & mushroom soup last night as an antidote to meat protein. 

2 free-range Chicken

2 sprigs of thyme

2 bay leaf

2 tbsp butter

2 small shallots, peeled and left whole

2 fennel bulbs, sliced into quarters

1 litre chicken stock or water

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Pull out any fat on the opening of the chicken cavity and discard. Split the herbs between the birds and insert inside the cavities, truss the chickens with string and rub with butter.

Put the birds in a roasting tin, tucking the shallots and fennel around it. Season and pour round the stock. Cover with a foil lid and roast for 45 minutes.

Remove the lid and cook for a further 20 minutes. Taste the juices and adjust seasoning if necessary. 

Chicken pot pie with buttermilk dumplings