I keep meaning to establish an international code to communicate with other kiteboarders as to the nature of the marine wildlife that you’ve just encountered. The wind and the distance you have to keep away to not get the kites tangled up mean that handsignals are the only option, but we really need to set up some kind of international working group to tackle the issue. It worked for scubadiving, after all.
I would have loved to have known how to say “Come and see this cute little stingray that wants to be friends” the other day. Or, in Miami, to be warned “Don’t go over there, those jellyfish sting like mothers”. That would have been very useful.
So far, Mr. R&R and I have established just one signal which you do by putting the base of one vertically-aligned hand on the crown of the head and rotating it about its vertical axis. Like a fin. It means “Fuck, it’s a bit sharky today” but we have normally been too involved in getting the crap outta there to employ it to useful effect. We are not looking forward to Discovery’s Shark Week.
That has absolutely nothing to do with this recipe, except that you will probably feel like a nice cup of tea and a sit down, with a piece of this cake, if its been a bit sharky – literally or metaphorically – where you are.
Lime and pistachio swiss roll
Adapted from Rachel Allen’s Bake show
Serves 4 or 8 at teatime
For the cake:
- melted butter, for greasing
- 65g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
- 2 eggs
- 65g caster sugar
- 1 tbsp warm water
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- a handful of unsalted, shelled pistachios
Preheat the oven to 190˚C. Find a swiss roll tin (just a tin with sides about 2cm high) that’s about 14x25cm. (They more usually come in 30×25 which is fine – just double the recipe above.) Line the bottom neatly with baking parchment or greaseproof. Use the melted butter and a pastry brush to grease the sides and bottom again.
Whisk the eggs and sugar together in a large bowl with an electric whisk or beater until light and fluffy and tripled in volume – this will take at least 6 minutes so crank up the Archers podcast. Add the water and vanilla extract. Sift the flour into the bowl a third at a time and fold in gently with a metal spoon. Again gently (keep all that lovely air you’ve just beaten in) pour the mixture into the prepared tin and put straight in the oven for 12-15 minutes. The centre of the cake should be “springy” and the sides will just be coming away from the edges of the tin.
Remove the swiss roll from the oven – don’t turn the oven off just yet though. Put the pistachios on a baking tray and toast in the oven for about eight minutes (put the timer on).
Meanwhile, put a sheet of greaseproof paper on the countertop and sprinkle generously with caster sugar, to stop the roll sticking. Ease the edges of the roll away from the baking tray with a finger. Now turn the tin over onto the greaseproof and extract the swiss roll – you may need to tap, rap or (in my case) repeatedly bang it down on the worktop to get it out (in the last scenario, your carefully sprinkled sugar will now be distributed over your kitchen floor. Such is life.)
With the swiss roll now extricated from the tin, carefully peel off its paper lining, and now cover with a dampened tea towel until cool, about half an hour. This, says Rachel Allen, will stop it drying out and cracking when you roll it up.
(Remove the nuts from the oven now, if you have forgotten about them.) Chop the nuts when cool enough.
Once the roll, nuts and curd are all cool, spread the lime curd over the top and sprinkle with about half the nuts. Now, very carefully, roll it up, using the base of greaseproof to help you If you are using a 14x25cm tin, do this short side to short side. If using the larger 30×25 tin, then roll long side to long side. Rachel Allen said, in her breezy Irish encouraging voice, that it would be dead easy. It wasn’t.
If the cake splits, cracks or oozes curd, do not panic: it will still taste lovely – this is where a judicious application of leftover curd, the reserved nuts and a generous sprinkling of icing sugar will help (see picture above). No-one will care after the first bite, or at least no-one who likes either you or food.
Serve as a roll, in slices, or as a slightly Picasso-esque layer cake.
For the lime curd:
From Nigella’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess
- zest of 2 limes
- 125ml lime juice (four limes)
- 75g unsalted butter
- 75g caster sugar
- 3 eggs
The work of a moment: melt the butter in a small saucepan, then whisk in everything else. Keep stirring over a low to medium heat until it thickens up. Strain through a sieve into your container of choice and leave to cool before storing in the fridge. It gets a lot better if you can leave for a day to mellow the flavours.
