By Kerry Eustice.
My inner fashion slave couldn't wait to see The Dress, my inner romantic eagerly anticipated the first wedded kiss and my inner foodie failed to resist celebrating the entire shenanigan without a spread.
So I aimed to please all my inner selves, plus some friends, by hosting a breakfast where we could watch the wedding together.
My guests, Matthew (made in Adelaide, Australia) and Robert (made in Saigon, Vietnam) practically live on dim sum and noodles, so I wanted to do them something really British.
And, lured on the promise of homemade jam and freshly-baked scones, I managed to convince them to leave their comfy and closer to Central London confines of Kennington to join me for brunch in Croydon. A girl can't drink fizz alone at 11am, after all.
The night before
Well, I'd promised the boys jam so started the prep here. You can do it leaving just enough time for cooling; I've successfully done this with equal amounts of fruit and sugar with a splash of lemon juice for a Victoria sponge, but I was trying to make one of Fraser Doherty's Super Jams for the first time so wanted to allow for a recipe fail.
For the unfamiliar, Super Jams substitute sugar for fruit juice, usually grape. Fraser's recipe also adds additional pectin. I had neither pectin nor grape juice but I had apple juice and sugar so went for a half Super half sugar version. I just boiled it all together as usual, but I fell foul of deviating from the recipe. It tasted lovely but the consistency was a bit sloppy. Nothing a quick straining didn't sort though - and the juice is perfect for a coulis, so I'm keeping that in the fridge for later.
Just a note: Jam people often talk of the importance of sterilising your jars in a hot oven first. The rules are to transfer your jam to the jar as soon as it comes from the oven. I did this and cracked my jar :( My method is now to give it time to cool a little and eat your jam before it has time to grow fur...
Next, Bloody Mary tomatoes. The plan was to sink Bucks Fizz all morning, so to also drink Bloody Marys - a brunch staple - would have been more raucous hen do less royal wedding. Marinade soaked Piccolo cherry tomatoes seemed like a good compromise. I followed Delia's recipe for these, but soaked them for one night instead of two and swapped sherry for brandy. The flavours were still amazing - and they had a good kick. The whole bunch lasted all of five minutes, didn't they Matthew? Next time, I'd follow Delia's suggestion and serve some celery salt for dipping too - oh, and make double. You drain them before serving and I've popped another batch in the leftover marinade for Sunday lunch snacking. Don't judge me, it's a bank holiday!
To soak up the boozy tomatoes, I baked Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall's savoury feta and apricot cakes. Again, I did a bit of ingredient substitution. Hugh uses goat's cheese, but I had the too-similar-to-split-hairs feta in the fridge. Next time I'd add at least 50g extra dried apricots to the mix - they work so nicely. I also used the whole 200g of cheese and added a generous extra splash of olive oil to the batter - but they were still a tad on the dry side (I'd bake on the day next time), so you might want to have some nice butter to hand too. A few weeks ago, I made the ham and olive loaf and this was also lovely for elevenses.
The big day
All that was left to do on the morning was put the Veuve on ice, iron my nan's strawberry-print tablecloth and bake some fruit scones for cream tea. Another celeb chef helped here and I went with a recipe from Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food book. He uses morello cherries which I'd love to try but I like mixed fruit, especially the little chewy orange rind bits. With no self-raising flour in the cupboard I called my mum to check the plain flour to baking powder ratio (one teaspoon to every 100g) to get the same effect. I also had to add a good splash of extra milk to get the flour to bind.
I served these with extra thick double cream (which in hindsight could have done with some whipping to firm it up further) and my homemade raspberry jam. Matthew ate at least four! And I couldn't wait for another when I got home for our Soho street party later that evening. Good job, because they don't keep fresh for long really.
All this was plenty, of course, but no brunch is complete without scrambled eggs and smoked salmon (splished with lemon juice) so we had this too!
Thankfully the Beeb's coverage lasted an age, so we could enjoy the feast at a leisurely pace while trying to spot Elton John in the congregation and LOL about Princess Beatrice's conceptual headgear.
Oh well, only, say, 15 years to wait until Harry settles down.
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