June’s agenda is so busy: One business trip down, two more to go. Needless to say all this travelling doesn’t leave much time for baking or blogging but oh boy, does it give me what to write about! But let me not get ahead and myself and let me start with last weekend.
We haven’t been fortunate with the weather this spring (I don’t dare call it summer yet – don’t want to jinx it). Normally this time of the year is spent on endless white beaches (or at least the weekends), sleeping in a tent and generally being out and about as much as possible before summer heat arrives in full blast. So last Friday, full of enthusiasm, we packed the tent and some essentials and headed to Tarifa, where we are happiest. The sun, it appears, had other plans and it didn’t make an appearance at all. However, we were still lucky:
That weekend, Tarifa was throwing it’s 3rd annual Ruta del Atun (or the Route of the tuna). The Strait of Gibraltar is famous for it’s tuna fishing and as part of the ‘route’ 41 bars and restaurants in Tarifa had prepared their own ‘tapa’ or small dish of tuna. You were given a map of the places with a brief description of their take on tuna – to try as many as possible in a more organised way. Of course, we jumped at the opportunity to collect as many stamps as possible. Some were quite traditional, others rather exotic. I won’t describe all 15 or so tapas we tried but cannot not mention my favorite one.
The description simply read: Salmorejo de fresa con tataki de atun. Salmorejo is a summer soup (or pureee) served cold, traditionally prepared from tomato and bread with olive oil, vinegar and salt. We really didn’t know what to expect – would it be sweet or savoury? The waiter raised an eyebrow when I asked for red wine to go with it and kindly suggested I have a rose instead. I went with the flow and was really stunned: the salmorejo tasted like a strawberry mousse, had whipped cream on top and thin slices of tuna, barely cooked and sprinkled with sesame. It was the best! The light natural saltiness of the fish and it’s melt-in-your-mouth texture was complemented by the strawberry salmorejo and the cream in a fantastic way. We had left this for last seeing as it sounded like dessert, and believe me, the fact my belly was already pretty full was the only thing which stopped me of having 3 more of those. Pure heaven…
Sweet and salty at the same time. Terrific!
However, one cannot survive on tuna alone. And we were lucky again. A small caravan unlike all the others was parked close to the entrance of our camp site. And it wasn’t just any caravan. It was a little mobile bakery! Now, if you are an avid baker like me, you simply cannot walk past and not stop by. Afternoon tea it is! Ok, more like afternoon wine but with a cupcake, sitting al fresco by the caravan bakery. It was the sweetest thing ever (no, I don’t mean the cake). Of course, I was dead curious to see it all and the nice owners let me inside to have a little snoop. They had a tiny pink oven and a pink fridge, and everything was adorable. Cakes were made fresh and I must say, even though I find my cupcakes better, the one I had was good too. It was the cream cheese frosting which is the best frosting, I tell you. We spent a most enjoyable afternoon there, G. indulging in his favorite ‘palmeritas de chocolate’ and me in dreams of my own mobile bakery. One day 🙂
One word: Adorable.
For the weekend celebrations, I had to make a themed cake. As it turns out, a Game of Thrones cake is not a easy thing. I initially wanted to make
