In case my silence (and instagram) didn't give it away, I ended up spending most of last week in Mexico City. I'm currently back in the UK briefly before I return to Mexico at the weekend for a couple of weeks. As is always the way, the anticipation is always the worst part and I actually found myself liking Mexico City rather more than I was expecting.
So much, in fact, that I've managed to convince my parents, currently enjoying an extended holiday in LA, to come and visit for the weekend that I'm there. If I have to spend the weekend away from home, at least spending it sightseeing with my parents will make it feel a little bit less like an extension of the working week. Plus I might actually get to eat some food which isn't room service and take some pictures which aren't from the window of the office.
Whilst I knew that Mexico City is the largest metropolitan area in the Western Hemisphere (because my only preparation for my trip was looking at the wikipedia page), I wasn't really prepared for the size and scale of what unfolded beneath me as we flew in last Monday.
It was a public holiday in Mexico; roads were lit in the colours of the Mexican flag and fireworks exploded at regular intervals. Even from several thousand feet in the air, I could see millions of cars, six lanes deep, snaking through the city.
The feeling of vastness, of people and energy, of being a very tiny part of a seething mass, never really dissipated.
While we were there, Mexico City caught the tail end of Hurricane Manuel, the storm which killed 57 people in Acapulo and left thousands stranded. It hit on the Tuesday evening as one of my colleagues was giving me a lift back from the office to my hotel. Visibility reduced to pretty much zero (not that anyone drove any slower) and, within minutes, the streets were flooded with the sheer volume of water that was falling. I am no stranger to rain (absolutely everyone I met asked me if it really did rain all the time in London) but we rarely get any particularly extreme weather. I've never experienced anything quite like it and I've never felt quite so small.
There's not really anything in particular to link these crumble bars to Mexico City although I have realised that I was woefully negligent of my dessert intake when I was there. Incidentally, if you are ordering room service, do you order dessert? I can't work out whether it's best to order it with my main course and therefore risk having to eat it cold/melted/whatever or order it later and pay the cover charge twice. I've still not come up with a suitable answer to this dilemma.
Blackberry and oat crumble cake
Very, very loosely adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe
Makes: 16 squares
By the time I'd finished, this recipe bore very little resemblance to my starting point but I ended up with something much more to my tastes. A nice little cake, gently sweetened with honey, a layer of tangy fruit and an oaty, buttery, crumbly topping. You could add a touch of ginger or cinnamon to any of the constituent parts for something even more autumnal.
For the topping:
225g (8 oz) blackberries, fresh or frozen
A splash of balsamic vinegar
½ teaspoon cornflour
45g (3 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cold
45g (1 1/2 tablespons) demerara sugar
60g (a little under 1/2 a cup) white spelt flour
50g (1/2 cup) jumbo oats
For the cake:
115g (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2 medium eggs
160ml (2/3 cup) honey
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
95g (2/3 cup) white spelt flour
25g (1/4 cup) jumbo oats, ground in a food processor until it resembles flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
A pinch of salt
First of all, mix together the blackberries, balsamic vinegar and cornflour and set aside. To make the crumble topping, rub together the flour, sugar, flour and oats until you have something that resembles breadcrumbs. Chill in the fridge until needed.
Preheat the oven to 160C. Line a 20cm square baking tin with parchment paper overhanging the side and butter well.
To make the cake, beat the butter with an electric whisk until smooth. Add a spoonful of flour and the eggs, one by one, continuing to beat until they are incorporated. If the mixture starts to curdle, add a little more of the flour. Add the vanilla and honey and beat until combined. Finally, sift together the remaining flour, the ground oats, the baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt and fold the dry ingredients into the wet.
Spoon the cake mixture into the tin, smooth and top with the blackberries. Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the top and bake for 35 – 40 minutes until the topping is golden and the cake is cooked all the way through.
Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before using the parchment paper to pull the cake out of the tin. When cool, slice into squares.
This recipe first appeared on the Secret Sales blog.