Upside down cakes

There is something about the smell of simmering brown sugar and butter. I used to opt for the quick method, using the microwave for about 20 seconds to zap the mixure. But you don't get that fudgy aroma. Now that I've invested in some heavy duty baking tins, I simmer the sugar and butter together on top of the hob, stirring with my oldest wooden spoon until treacly and smooth. Therapeutic. Truly.

Then all you have to do is add your seasonal fruit, sliced, into the sugary buttery syrup and top with your sponge mixture and bake. Adding a winter spice - like cinnamon, or nutmeg - intensifies the flavour of the cake. This time of year, pears and bananas feature regularly on our upside down cakes and the trick is to bake them just long enough for a wooden skewer to come out clean and not so long that the syrup bakes hard. 

When you turn the cake out of the tin, and the sticky fruit now snuggles at the top, the syrup should still be slightly soft and sticky so that when you add a dollop of creme fraiche the two kind of ooze together.

One of my favourite favourite winter cakes. It's a pear one today. 

Enjoy one of our loose leaf teas to go with - maybe the spiced apple one.

Enjoy! And remember that you can find out some more of our insider baking tips on Wednesday night at our baking class. We throw in a free glass of fizz. Well, the festivities don't end just because Christmas is over!

Baby, it's cold outside...

...but we're really cosy here at The Hidden Lane Tearoom. So happy new one's to you all!

I enjoyed a short festive break and if you think there was a lot of snow here, you should have seen Berlin. Toe-nipping cold, but the most amazing vintage warehouses and markets which took your mind off the icy air. Beautiful city, great food, but I missed Glasgow!

Now that we're back and open, please do pop by. Our new year kicks off with some brilliant cakes and nibbles including sweet cranberry and almond frangipane tart, walnut and coconut slices, deeply dark chocolate brownies, upside down pear cake and sticky toffee pudding with to-die-for butterscotch sauce.

So if you're feeling the chill and want to come inside for a blether, a browse or a baked delight, we're open. And warm. And full of cheer and good music!

Learn the taste of Christmas

There is something about the SMELL of Christmas - cinnamon and nutmeg; warm chocolate; sage and cranberry. Maybe it's because you know that all of these translate into the most delicious tastes across all kinds of foods.

So, I'd like to share some of my favourite things with The Hidden Lane Tearoom CHRISTMAS BAKING CLASSES. Running over the next 2 Wednesday evenings we'll be making festive brownies and Christmas cupcakes and other edible seasonal delights. We're offering fizz and nibbles (Some stilton and pear pate with home-made cranberry jelly - one of my favourite savoury treats) to keep your energy levels high and you get to take what you bake!

Email to book a space. Bring some friends. Step into Christmas!!

thehiddenlanetearoom@hotmail.com

China cup cakes and other loveliness

We've taken cup cakes up A LEVEL. You can now buy them individually in lovely little china teacups and gift them to someone with taste.

Even better. Buy one for yourself and eat while watching a soppy Christmas film. YULE love it. Promise.

How to: German spiced Christmas biscuits.

300g plain flour

pinch salt

1 tsp baking powder

11/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1tsp black pepper

100g soft brown sugar

100g soft butter

2 large eggs mixed with 4 tbsp of runny honey.

Mix all the dry goods together in a food processor. Blitz, with the butter and then pour in the honey/egg mixture - only use enough for the mixture to come together in a ball in the processor. Once it has, you don't need any more egg/honey. (This bit always affected by the size of the eggs, and chickens being chickens - free range of course - you never know what's inside the shell until you crack it!)

Roll out the dough quite thinly and stamp out biscuits with Christmas cutters. Put them on a baking tray lined with baking parchment, make a hole in each biscuit so that you can hang it (use the thick end of a wooden skewer ideally, and wiggle it about.)

Put the biscuits in the fridge for half an hour.

Bake at 150 degrees (fan oven) for 20 mins.

Decorate however you fancy - either with rolled out royal icing or with sprinkles or icing sugar and lemon juice mix.

Dry. Hang. Eat. Enjoy.

snow, snow, snow, snow, SNOOOOOOW! And fat shortbread.

I've been busy making some food gifts that will be for sale shortly in the Tearoom. I really enjoy being able to play like this and love the whole Christmas, food, flavours and smells thing.

Frustratingly this morning, my shortbread tree decorations just kept swelling in the oven until they looked like very fat versions of what they were supposed to be. After shouting at the oven for a bit (I find this usually works) I popped the shortbread shapes into my very cold fridge and left them for an hour before baking them and this time, oh yes, they stayed the shape they should be and I am congratulating myself at having invented this little piece of baking wisdom.

Haven't iced them yet, so no photos. But on this first day of Christmas forget the partridge and the pear tree. I've got hand sculpted starry shaped shortbreads just begging to be hung. Or eaten.

Christmas is coming.........

...and we're getting into the festive spirit here at The Hidden Lane Tearoom!


I love the snow. It comes from having a mum called Carol(e) who once even put our Christmas tree up in the middle of November, so keen was she to start the celebrations. (I should add that all the needles feel off and we were the only family IN THE WORLD to have a discarded Xmas tree waiting for the bin men the first week of December. Oh, the remembered embarrassment!) 


Anyway, childish nightmares aside, Christmas and snowtime is my favourite time of year and we've started decorating and hotting up the menu as the temperature hits zero and below. So, delicious wintery soups and a special winter high tea designed to share with friends as an alternative Christmas day/night out.

Yule love our Yule logs and our orange and nutmeg spiced mincepies. Our edible Christmas gifts. Our festive cheer. And you're very welcome to bring your own miniature of Baileys to spice up our delicious hot chocolate, or bring a bottle of wine to get you in the mood. (My own current favourite is Crabbies Green Ginger wine with lots of ice.)