21212 - 3 Royal Terrace

How did that happen? It's been 11 days since my last post!

I have had a busy couple of weeks. T was ill, I got up at 5am to fly to Birmingham for a job interview, my mum came up to visit, and I was offered the job! It's also my birthday soon, so we had decided to go to 21212 for dinner to celebrate.

We arrived a little early, and started off with Bellinis in the upstairs drawing room. The decor was reminiscent of a neo-gothic or regency interior, and the thick fog outside made it all feel very old fashioned. As well as our drinks, we had some fat olives and some crisps - bizarrely they were cheese & onion or barbecue flavour. It wasn't clear whether they were homemade or if they'd just got a good deal on Kettle Chips.

The Dining Room (from the 21212 website.)

Moving downstairs, we we seated in the middle of the dining room, and we had a great view of the kitchen. My only knowledge of professional kitchens is from the TV. Instead of the sweary chaos that usually seems to reign, here it was quiet and controlled, although as the evening wore on we noticed the chefs crowding round the central prep table, all desperate to add the finishing touch to each dish. We were intrigued by the equipment hanging from the ceiling, as alongside the serving spoons and whisks there was a large triangle. What was it for? Some elaborate mould for plating something? It turned out to be a trivet.

21212 is so named to reflect the menu. There are 2 starters, 1 soup, 2 main courses, 1 cheeseboard and 2 desserts. As there were three of us at dinner, it was perfectly possible that we could order everything on the menu. My mum and T decided they would go for the same starters and main courses, so I was sorely tempted to order the other options just to try everything, but instead I went for what sounded tastier. We were offered some bread to nibble on while waiting for the food. It was airy and spicy, and reminiscent of savoury pannatone. The combination of spices was quite old fashioned and medieval tasting.

The first course was Xmas Best - a version of an all day breakfast. It contained black pudding, mushroom, a giant cornflake, sausage, bacon, parma ham and a porridge and butter sauce. There was also some pureed tomato at the bottom, and a weird black piece of skin on top, which turned out to be mushroom parchment. While this was an interesting dish, it wasn't as exciting as I was expecting. None of the flavours really stood out, and I did slightly regret not ordering the smoked salmon with chestnuts, prunes, asparagus and confit banana...

Next up was billed as "Traditional Winter Scottish Vegetable Soup". This was actually a celeriac puree, with an onion foam on top. In the middle there was a chunk of fig and some mange tout pieces. While I don't think mange tout or figs can even grow in Scotland, this was an absolutely stunning dish. I would happily have eaten another portion, and I would go back to 21212 for this alone.

For our main course, we all ordered the slow-cooked beef fillet with "Classic Duos". The beef was still pink, and had the smooth, soft texture of rare meat. We couldn't decide if it had been slow baked or been done sous-vide and seared. We asked the waiter who said he thought it had been baked, but he wasn't sure. Anyway, it was a really good piece of meat, and my mum and T, neither of whom like rare meat, enjoyed it too. Accompanying the beef were some cheesy onions, a lemon pancake, brazil nuts and dates, and a horseradish and watercress sauce. I really liked the dates and the horseradish sauce, but I wasn't swept away by the nuts or the pancake. There was also the slightly random addition of a lump of feta and what tasted like uncooked dough. The feta was very creamy and firm, but the saltiness overwhelmed the other ingredients. The women on the table next to us also ordered the beef, and they sent it back for being undercooked - they should have been a bit more adventurous I think. The other main course option was halibut with neeps, rice, sultanas and walnuts, with yeast cream.

Next up was the cheese course. 3 of the cheeses were nice, but the 4th one was very pungent. I've only recently started eating cheese, so although I tried the pungent one, I wasn't really a fan. There were two soft brie like cheeses (one Scottish, one French) and a hard Scottish cheese from Mull that was similar to edam. The cheese was served with some thick oatcakes, and some spicy crispbreads. There was even a little bowl of grapes.

Before pudding, there was a surprise palette cleanser course of coconut porridge milk. This was served in a paper shot glass, and poured from a jug that looked like a cow. The liquid was smooth and thin, and had just a hint of an oat taste. This was very moreish, and I was pleased that the waitress left the jug for us to finish every drop.

At dessert, we did vary things a little. Mum and I had bread and butter pudding, with cinnamon creme Anglaise. This was again very medieval tasting, with heavy spicing and lots of dried fruit. The bread pudding was delicious, but the spices were not ground down, so the sauce was a little grainy. T went for a trifle with sponge, bananas and chocolate, but again it was a little too heavy on the spices, nuts and dried fruit.

We went back to the drawing room for chocolate truffles with tea and coffee. While the tea came in an enormous tea pot, the coffee came in paper cups, supposedly as they keep the coffee warmer than ceramics. I'm in two minds about this. Part of me thinks it is a bit petty, but on the other hand, the whole point of 21212 is that you submit to the chef's whims rather than vice versa.

Overall, I really enjoyed the evening. The food was generally very good, and the staff were very friendly, although they could have been a bit more knowledgeable about the food. However, the concept is king (Raymond Blanc would bloody love it), so it wasn't the most accommodating of experiences. Certainly I wouldn't attempt to go there with anyone fussy or with multiple food allergies. For that reason, I don't know if I'd go back in a hurry. It was an academic meal, one to be pondered, with every detail mattering. Even the cutlery had been specially chosen for each course. It was fun, but heavy going. You couldn't take people who aren't interested - it would be like making them sit through an OU documentary on particle physics.

How to Make a "2" Shaped Cake, OR, My Very Own Cake Wreck

Soooo, I think I might have created a cake wreck.

My friend Anna turned 21, and went home for a big family party. At the big family party, a cake in the shape of a 2 and a 1 was produced. However, the family party was not very cake orientated, so only the 2 got eaten. Since the cake had been professionally made, it was encased in a thick layer of royal icing, so Anna brought the 1 back to Edinburgh for a second birthday party.

I had offered to bake her a fairy castle cake, like this one, but now as we had a 1 already, it seemed more sensible to bake another 2. (While on the phone to my mother, she told me that she had once attempted a fairy castle cake for my 5th birthday. Apparently it was less than successful and instead resembled the Hagia Sophia.)

I haven't really done much with fondant, and wasn't in the mood to try royal icing either. As the cakes weren't going to even vaguely match, I came up with the idea of combining the 21 with the fairy castle. It was very late at night and I wasn't in my right mind. The idea was that the 2 would form a path to the castle, which would be formed from the 1 cake.

I didn't have a two shaped pan, so we had to improvise. There wasn't a big enough mixing bowl, so we used a punch bowl instead. We made a basic chocolate sponge, involving 450g butter, 450g sugar, 8 eggs, 400g of flour, 50g cocoa, some baking powder and salt. From this, we made a circular cake, a loaf cake and a square cake. It took the best part of 5 hours as the oven in Anna's flat was tiny and could only fit one tin at a time.

After the cakes cooled, and we'd covered some chopping boards in tin foil (classy), we set about building and decorating out 2. The loaf cakes was sliced horizontally to be the same height as the circle and square cake. We cut these two in half vertically so that we had a semi-circle, a short rectangle, and a long rectangle.

The semi-circle formed the top of the 2, and the long loaf rectangle the main cross of the 2. Finally the rectangle made from the square cake made the bottom of the 2. We cut of the corners of the loaf cake and trimmed the semi-circle to make it all fit together better. The layers were sandwiched together with chocolate buttercream, and also given a thin crumb coating to make the spreading of the rest of the buttercream easier.

All was well so far. However, I'd forgotten to bring gel food colouring, so we had to use some liquid stuff procured from a nearby Tesco Metro. We forgot to get any more icing sugar to make up for it, so the buttercream was ridiculously soft, and we couldn't get it as dark as I wanted. I should have chilled it for a bit, but the bowl wouldn't fit in the fridge! Instead of looking like lush grass, it looked like the weird pastel green you get in hospitals. I also tried to spike the icing up so it looked grassy rather than smooth, but again it was too soft to work with properly.

Next I decided to ice the path to the castle in pink, like the icing on the other cake. Again it was hard to get the consistency right, and the colour was too weak. Plus as it was so soft it was impossible to pipe neatly.

Next we made a cobblestone path out of chocolate raisins. Again, the image I had in my head was far far above what actually occurred on the cake.

Finally, we topped it off with a cardboard cut out of a knight on horseback and a turret for the castle.

Behold the wreckage...!

Structurally sound, tasty inside, wrecky design

At the party, everyone thought it tasted great. I even overheard someone saying "The green cake tastes far better than it looks!" which I think is a sort of compliment. I thought it was a bit dry and dense compared to my normal baking style, but passable. I'm scheduled in for another "official" cake next week so we shall see how that one goes. I might attempt a buttercream plaque/transfer.