Sour Cherries and Sunflowers - Anastasia Zolotarev

I bought this cookbook when I was in Edinburgh back in May, it looks beautiful and it passed the flick test (where the first few recipes you see are instantly appealing). Despite that I haven't cooked from it much yet - I haven't really been cooking very much at all this summer, husband has taken much of that side of our domestic lives over, and whilst he's away sailing, it's been too hot to view anything beyond chips and dips with much enthusiasm. 

Sour Cherries and Sunflowers has turned out to be mildly life changing in an unexpected way though, in an attempt to source some sour cherries for a Chocolate Buckwheat cake with sour cherry sauce, I asked my workmate with Polish family if they had any ideas where I could find some. She suggested an excellent Polish deli/supermarket conveniently close to work. They don't sell sour cherries fresh or frozen, though they did have heads of sunflowers full of seeds ready to eat when I popped in there on Saturday.

This shop (excellent air conditioning) has become something of an obsession in the last few weeks. Amazing filled rolls, excellent bread and pastries, beetroot in every iteration you could imagine, plus a few that I hadn't, and a ton of other tempting things. I keep trying to get the ladies to tell me what all the poppyseed cookies are called in Polish; they keep telling me poppyseed cookie, but I will learn. 

Despite the lack of sour cherries to make a sauce I made the chocolate part of the cake - the buckwheat makes it a very useful gluten free option to have. I tried using a jam instead which lead me to the conclusion that the cake works better without a topping.Certainly without a mix of sour cherry jam and sour cream, or yoghurt and sour cherry jam. Whipped cream with tart fresh fruit would be my preference for a topping if I wanted to make this something really special. 

Anastasia suggests this cake serves 6 to 8 - those would be extremely generous portions (I like her style), it will definitely go further, has the rich, damp loveliness of a good brownie whilst definitely being lighter, gluten free is a bonus, and there's all sorts of ways to dress it up so an all round winner in my opinion. 

You need 200g  of unslated butter, 200g of dark chocolate chopped into small chunks, 2 tbsp of espresso, 1 tsp of vanilla extract, and 1/4 of a teaspoon of salt. Melt these together in a heavy based saucepan or in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Stir occasionally.

Meanwhile take 5 eggs and 250g of brown sugar and whisk together (ideally in a stand mixer on a medium speed) for around 7 minutes until light and fluffy. Line and grease a 23 cm spring form tin. preheat a fan oven to 180 degrees. 

Now sieve 100g of buckwheat flour into the melted chocolate mixture, whisk in until thoroughly combined, and then stir in 125ml of soured cream. Blitz a 100g of walnuts in a food processor (or finely chop them).

Now fold the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture trying to keep as much air as possible into it, and finally add the walnuts and fold those through too. Then into the oven for 30-40 minutes or until cooked all the way through. Leave in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out to cool. This cake keeps well for several days. 

Forgotten Churches - Luke Sherlock and Holy Trinity Church Rothwell, Northamptonshire

I have a bit of a mystery on my hands tonight. I got Forgotten Churches a month or two back, it's a charming book (with one really annoying typo in a small index that suggests Hexham is in Northamtonshire rather than Northumberland). I was certain it was where I read about Holy Trinity in Rothwell, but now I find it's not in there, although it seems to me it should be.

Forgotten Churches is a beautifully illustrated guide to Britains architectural history through a small collection of not particularly well known churches - though I have been to a handful of them in the past. A perk of having a partner who's an architectural historian is that we both really enjoy a good church and will stop at any we see even if access is impossible. There are a few in this book that aren't too far away that we'll make a point of going to.

So where did I read about Holy Trinity? It was reasonably recently, and then I saw a picture on either Blue Sky or Instagram that reminded me again about it. Rothwell is roughly 25 miles from Leicester, a charming town not far from Rushton Trianguler lodge - the whole area is associated with the Tresham family. Rothwell has a curious building adjacent to Holy Trinity called the Market House which was begun by Thomas Tresham and is as codedly catholic as Rushton, his son, Francis, was involved in the gunpowder plot.

Tresham seems to have run out of funds and left the market house without a roof - it was finally finished in the 1890s. Holy Trinity is one of only two churches that I can find in the UK that have ossuaries - the other is St Leanoard's in Hythe. You can book to go and see it on a Sunday afternoon through the summer months - admission is limited to around 6 people at a time and there are only 4 sessions per Sunday so booking is advised. I booked.

We weren't sure what to expect - I did wonder if it would be morbid, there are apparently the remains of over two thousand people in that small crypt, but whilst no, I wouldn't want to go down there on my own particularly, it was neither morbid nor especially creepy. It was surprisingly emotional, but the predominant emotion was one of calm in the face of so much mortality. It's likely it was a stopping point for pilgrims and may always have been intended to have visitors. 

The rest of the church is stunning with some fine 15th century misericords to look at along with the medieval stonework and later additions. It was an interesting day out, I'll go back to Rothwell to see more first opportunity I get, though perhaps not back to the crypt, a second visit might be morbid now I've seen it.