Created by our wonderful events assistant, Sabrina, and her love of baking which she discovered in lockdown, we have paired some of her most delicious cakes with our new spring cocktail menu.

Financiers paired with Coconut Daiquiri

• 130g of unsalted butter

• 90g of egg white

• 50g of flour

• 115g of icing sugar

• 80g of almond ground

• Small cake moulds

Brown the butter in a small sauce span on medium heat. Stir constantly, so that it doesn’t burn at the bottom. It's normal if it starts foaming up.
The butter will be ready once it is dark brown and has a lovely, nutty caramel smell. To stop the cooking process, take it straight off the fire and pour in a bowl using a sieve. Reserve in fridge to cool.

Put the flour, icing sugar and almond ground in the bowl and combine with spatula. Add the egg white and use spatula to incorporate them. Add the now cool butter to the mixture.

At this point, the financier batter is ready. You can add a shot of brandy or amaretto for flavour.

Preheat the oven at 190°C. Butter the moulds and add the batter. Put into oven for 15-20 minutes (depending on how big the financiers are). The knife blade should come out dry and the financiers be golden. Leave to cool for a few minutes.

Unmould, they’re ready to eat! Chewy inside and crispy on the outside.

Tip: You can also add coconut to the batter, it will go very well with rum (a bit of Wray and Nephews is perfect) and some lime zest.

Palmiers paired with What-A-Melon

• Puff pastry, from the shop

• 50g caster sugar

On a clean kitchen counter, spread some of the sugar. Cover it with the puff pastry, add more sugar on top of it. Using a rolling pin, gently press the sugar in the pastry. Turn the pastry on the other side and repeat until you have used up all the sugar. It is better to use caster sugar in this recipe as it has finer grains and is less likely to shred the dough. The puff pastry will need to keep its rectangle shape.

Now we will fold the dough. Facing it like an open book: you will make a small dent indicating the middle of the length. Then you will fold (or roll) each side until it reaches the centre. You should end up with a heart shaped dough.

Cut it in half, and cut that half in half and so on, until you have about half an inch thickness. This will help you keep the same size for all of them, they will cook evenly. Place on baking tray with parchment paper, leaving at least an inch and a half between them, as they will puff up a lot.

Preheat the oven at 180°C. 15 to 20 minutes on each side until they are nice and golden. Wait until it cools to eat.


Lemon Cakes paired with Upstairs Lemonade or Passionfruit Punch

• 165g unsalted butter

• 165g self raising flour

• 120g and 30g sugar

• 4 eggs

• Zest of 2 lemons

• 115ml of lemon juice

• Pinch of salt

Separate the eggs whites form the yolks.

Using a large bowl, add 120g of sugar to the egg yolks and mix with hand mixer. You should stop when the batter has become very pale with an aerated texture. 

Add the lemon zest and half of the lemon juice. Make sure that the juice is warm, so that it doesn't split with the butter. If it happens, you can fix it by putting the bowl on a heat source. Add the second half of the juice. The batter should look nice and smooth. Using a sieve, incorporate the flour with the mixer at first, then use the spatula. Put aside.

Add the pinch of salt to the egg whites and start mixing until very frothy. At that point add the 30g of sugar progressively. Don't stop mixing and increase the speed of the mixer progressively. You can stop once the egg whites are firm. 

Now we will fold in the whites in our original batter. Add 1/3 of the whites to our batter and fold them slightly energetically with the spatula to incorporate them. Add the rest and fold in gently, you want to keep the air from the egg white.
Butter the mould, add flour and pour the batter in. You can do a big cake or a several smaller ones.

Preheat the oven at 175°C, leave in for 30 minutes if you are making a big cake or 20 minutes for smaller ones and check regularly until nice and golden.
Wait until cool to unmould. You can sprinkle some icing sugar to decorate.