“All will be well and all will be well and every kind of thing shall be well.” Julian of Norwich

When we first moved up to Byron Bay eleven years ago, with our then 13-year-old son and four-year-old daughter in tow, I never imagined that there would be an annual pilgrimage to a music festival. Somehow though, come hail or shine or mud – and there’s been plenty of all those, we’ve joined that die-hard group of fanatical believers, those thousands of us that make up the religious group the ‘Bluesfesters’, and this year will be no different.

In fact, I believe there’s actually now a second generation of Byron Bay children who actually believe that Easter IS Bluesfest.

But stomping around the Festival grounds for four or five days during what is arguably the most important religious fixture of the year, at least for Christians, does beg the question of Easter’s mixed messages.

My personal pondering on the meaning of Easter started early on. For someone who’s always had a devout belief in fairies and angels I was remarkably cynical, scarring my younger sister forever – so she says – when I discovered at five, when she was only three, that Santa Claus, or Father Christmas as we called him in England, wasn’t all he was cracked up to be. Then this Easter business was just too confusing for words. In the small village where I went to church every Sunday it was hard to put chocolate eggs, hot-cross buns, Easter bunnies, Jesus dying on a cross, and Jesus coming back to life, into a parcel that made any sort of sense. My parents, who were going through an atheist phase at the time, left me to go to church with my best friend, and were no help at all in the answering questions department.

“You’ve got a chocolate Easter egg,” my father told me one year. “Stop asking questions or I’ll take it away.” Right, well that explains that then.  My mother’s complicated relationship with whisky bottles spilled over – usually literally – into a loving but incomprehensible answer to almost any question you asked.  “When you ask who Jesus was,” she might say, “you’re asking was he the son of God, was he a healer – he was a Rabbi of course…” and then she’d be quite likely to wander off leaving me none the wiser.

Later on the confusion between the Jewish faith, the Catholic faith – and our particularly boring brand of Church of England faith, versus Buddhism, Allah and all the rest, left me determined to work out my own slightly peculiar set of beliefs. But at least my exposure to religion at school and church allowed me to embrace, if not God in the patriarchal sense of the word, then the idea of a divinity at work in our lives, rich in symbolism, myth and magic.

I wish the same could be said of my teenage daughter (aka The Princess), who recently moved from her public high-school to a Catholic high-school, and after some months of sickness, finally made a languid return to school for a few hours, which prompted me to be all overcome with motherly finger wagging, which went a bit like this:

Me: “So, in the brief three hours you were at school – did you actually learn anything? Anything that perhaps you might have actually, well, retained?”
Anna: “Let me see…well, I learned that Jesus wore sandals – at least I think he did.”
Me: “That comes under ‘fashion’ not education…”
Anna: “Well it’s Easter soon…that’s something to do with him isn’t it? Like, well, when he got hung on the cross.”
Me: (Gasping for breath). “Crucified. He was crucified. It’s about the crucifixion and the resurrection.”
Anna: “What’s the res-errection? It sounds rude to me.”
Me: “Anna…honestly.”
Anna: “Anyway who knows what the dude looked like. They always give him good hair, but they didn’t have iPhones then so how do you they know? He could have been bald. Also, Mum, I have to tell you – Mary weren’t no virgin.”

To be honest you can see her point. “I’d like to have been there for that conversation,” she said as she flounced off to her room full of wet towels on the floor and mugs growing mould. “Hey, Joseph, I’ve got something to tell you. I’m pregnant. It’s not yours – but GUESS WHAT – IT’S GOD’S! Way to go Mary…”

Even the Catholic Church needs help on the idea of the Immaculate Conception apparently…

The Princess is firmly devoted to the idea of Bluesfest as her pagan Easter ritual festival. She might not have realised it, but last year when Hozier sung his anthem ‘Take me to Church’, there was a sudden and extraordinary meeting of the sacred and profane right there in a tent full of thousands of people:

Take me to church
I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life

If I’m a pagan of the good times
My lover’s the sunlight
To keep the Goddess on my side
She demands a sacrifice

Hozier at Bluesfest 2015

She.   God. Goddess. We tend to think of feminism as a recent development, or at least, those of who remember the days before iPhones do, but to put on a feminist hat for a moment, Easter is one more example of a pagan celebration that was originally connected to women, but was hijacked over the centuries by the patriarchy to the point where I think you would have a hard time finding even one child who would know that in fact Easter was originally a celebration of spring and fertility. Its name comes from the Saxon goddess of the dawn and spring – Oestre or Eastre, who was known also in Germany as Ostara, Easter connecting to the word ‘estrogen’, or oestrogen, to give it its older spelling. In Saxon times April was called ‘Ostermonud’ the month in which the cold winds of winter stopped, and the spring began.

But deep feminine wisdom goes back, as it should, to the dawn of time (as indeed, of course, does deep male wisdom). There are many female mystics who have been forgotten, or ignored, by mainstream education.

Take for instance, the wonderful Julian of Norwich. We don’t know much about Julian’s life – even her name was simply a reference to the Church of St. Julian in Norwich to which she attached herself, cloistering herself forever inside a small stone anchorage built against the outer wall of the sanctuary. By the time Julian entered her cell she had witnessed three rounds of Plague, had almost certainly lost most of her family and loved ones, and had nearly died herself.

But she even prior to the desolate landscape that may have led her towards her solitary life, when she was young she already showed signs of devotion to Christ, saying that she had been asked to bear witness to the passion of Jesus. When she was on her deathbed the visions she had were of Jesus’ crucifixion, which she felt in every cell of her own body. Other saints and mystics have reported similar experiences, but what is unusual about Julian’s story is that Jesus’ death was not distressing to her. It wasn’t, she says, that he didn’t suffer but rather despite the suffering, he also radiated warmth, sweetness, and joy.

Take ‘sin’ for instance. Sin, says Julian, turns out to be “no thing.” She is quite clear: “Nowhere in all that was revealed to me did I see a trace of sin,” she writes. “And so I stopped looking for it and moved on, placing myself in God’s hand, allowing him to show me what he wanted me to see.”  In Julian’s view, “sin has no substance, not a particle of being, and can only be detected by the pain it causes.” When we make mistakes and create suffering or suffer ourselves, we humble ourselves and God loves us even more. If your leanings are towards a more contemporary church, try substituting the word ‘sin’ for shame, or blame.

But for me what is perhaps most startling about Julian’s theology is her view of the feminine identity of God. Julian still sees the Godhead in the Christian Trinity – traditionally ‘The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit’, but with this twist: the Second Person (Christ) is actually the Mother (not the Son). In other words: ‘The Father, Mother and the Holy Spirit’.

A modern version of the pagan ‘moon’ trinity: The Maiden, the Mother and the Crone.

“As truly as God is our Father,” she says, “just as truly is God our Mother.” Who else but a mother, she asks, would break herself open and pour herself out for her children? “Only God could ever perform such duty.” Not only that, but Julian’s God-as-Mother is always available to us. She encompasses the unconditional love of Mother Mary in the Catholic tradition, the infinite compassion of Tara in the Buddhist tradition, and the holiness of the Shekhinah in the Jewish tradition. It bemuses Julian that we don’t understand this. When we get something wrong, we want to run away. But “our courteous Mother doesn’t want us to flee,” Julian says. “Nothing would distress her more. She wants us to behave as a child would when he is upset or afraid: rush with all our might into the arms of the Mother.”

For Julian, the good news is not merely the reward we will receive one day when we slough off this mortal coil and go home to God. Every moment is an opportunity to remember that we are perfectly loved and perfectly lovable, just as we are. Living ‘in the present moment’, it would appear, has been around for a while.

“And so when the final judgment comes,” Julian writes at the end of The Showings, “… we shall clearly see in God all the secrets that are hidden from us now. Then none of us will be moved in any way to say, ‘Lord, if only things had been different, all would have been well.’ Instead, we shall all proclaim in one voice, “‘Beloved One, may you be blessed, because it is so: ALL IS WELL.'”

It may occur to readers to wonder where I’m going with all of this, but it’s simple really, what I found in the feminine mystics – particularly in the sacred music of Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), also known as Saint Hildegard and Sibyl of the Rhine, who was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary and the founder of scientific natural history in Germany – was the Missing Link. The Divine Feminine that allowed me to understand the depths of mysticism from which all religions springs.

In their different ways, visionaries like Richeldis de Faverches (founder of the Holy House at Walsingham, or ‘England’s Nazareth’), the learned Hildegard of Bingen, Hadewijch of Brabant (exemplary voice of the Beguine tradition of love mysticism), charismatic traveller and pilgrim Margery Kempe and anchoress Julian of Norwich all challenged traditional male scholastic theology.

So it was with delight that when I was ‘tagged’ by the photographer Juno Gemes in her extraordinary photograph of a female Christ in ‘Bush Pieta’, I found the perfect image for this piece. The powerful transformation from the traditional pieta of Mary cradling the dead body of her son, Jesus, to Joseph cradling the body of his dead daughter, holds for me the divine duality of life.

So to take this piece back to where it started, when I’m lining up for hours for a Byron Organic Doughnut, or sloshing through the almost-inevitable mud, or there for the moment when a band, or a singer, reaches the heavenly heights, Easter for me is a time to reflect on this – life, death and rebirth.

Happy Easter.

Candida Baker’s next set of Just Write courses start this week: https://www.verandahmagazine.com.au/just-write/

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The Easter long weekend is almost here we’re counting down the sleeps until Bluesfest takes over Byron, and well, it’s just one  big musical party for five days.  According to Sam Carberry, there’s plenty of local talent sprinkled in with the national and international acts as well.

The first of our locals, Ash Grunwald, is originally from Ballina and now lives in the Byron Shire. He plays tenacious Blues, often loud and bold in lyrical communication.  A social activist, he protested against the anti-mining and emissions of coal seam gas within the Northern Rivers, and his 2013 song The Last Stand was a unifying song for the public protesting against this ongoing environmental issue.

“Mass corporations of our society have one agenda and that is to make money,” says Grunwald, talking about his need to drive social change through his music.  “Fair enough, that’s business. But when that becomes the sole agenda of these corporations, it becomes inherently sociopathic.”  On a positive note, Grunwald has been elated with the progressive work in Silicon Valley. He believes there are organisations out there who care for more than just money. ‘These [corporations] are more future thinking and care for the environment and its people,” he says. I often wonder what we are doing to this world and what we are leaving for our kids.

Environmentalist and social warrior Ash Grunwald is a Ballina boy originally. He’s at Bluesfest this year.

Grunwald reveals that he is currently working on a new album, which will see him recording in the USA. His most recent album Now (2015) is a solo album which includeds popular songs such as River and Second Guess. Grunwald is currently discussing collaborations with Bonnie Raitt and Tony Joe White, both veteran Rhythm and Blues performers. ‘These guys are people I used to listen to back in the day,” he says.  “They are big influences and heroes of mine. On the old school Blues front that would be amazing.”

NSW North Coast local, Marshall Okell is a songwriter and solo artist. Growing up amongst a musical family, Okell had an early start in the music scene. His father was a Rock ’n’ Roll guitarist and ignited an early passion for Blues and Soul. Marshall Okell’s greatest musical influences were Jimi Hendrix and ACDC. During his early twenties, Okell was lead vocalist in the band Marshall and the Fro. The dirty Blues band produced two albums together before eventually parting ways in 2011. After the split, Marshall continued to perform and has toured around Australia working with some of Australia’s most recognised artists such as Xavier Rudd, Wolfmother, The Cat Empire and The Living End.

Okell’s music plays with a mixture of musical genres including Electric Blues and soft rock. One of his most popular tracks Almost Killed You (Birdy, 2013) has an edgy, body swaying and electric beat that is accompanied by iron-strong bustling vocals.  Marshall, who is currently touring Australia, is making his way through Victoria and performing at Sydney, Newcastle, Marrickville and Towradgi Beach before he takes the stage in Byron.

2012 Bluesfest Busking Competition Winner, Hussy Hicks are a two-woman band from the Gold Coast, Queensland. Julz Parker and Leesa Gentz create a beat with fiery finesse and soul that has you tapping your feet and swaying to the melody.  After almost ten years working together, Hussy Hicks continue to take their music to new levels. Most recently, the duo are wrapping up a seven show tour, performing in Western Australia.

Hussy Hicks (Leesa Gentz – left – and Julz Parker)  the Gold Coast duo were 2012 Bluesfest Busking Competition winners…

Hussy Hicks cannot be categorised under one particular genre of music. Their style incorporates blues, country and folk, all with one guitar. Hussy Hicks have a six edition discography, with notable mention going to tracks such as People of Passion (The London Sessions, 2013) and Happy (Live at the Soundstage, 2009). Every song has a message or a story to tell and there is a vibrant recurring message that resonates within Hussy Hicks’ lyrics – namely that loving life and each other is worth more than materialistic possessions and past regrets.

In the lead up to the Easter long weekend, Byron Bay has another tradition that accompanies the musical Festival: the Bluesfest Busking Competition. This is an unmissable opportunity for local talent and the competition has become a platform for artists to be recognised and received amongst national and international artists. The Bluesfest Busking Competition has released its 40 Semi-finalists who will battle it out to win the ultimate chance to take the Delta Stage Easter Monday. The competition concludes on Good Friday, March 25; after which six chosen finalists will perform at The Beach Hotel in Byron Bay. The event kicks off at midday.

Ash Grunwald will be performing twice at the festival. You can catch his first appearance on Sunday March 27, at 2:30pm at the Jambalaya tent. His second show is at the Crossroads tent at 1:15pm on Easter Monday.

Marshall Okell will be performing on Thursday at 4.00pm at the Juke Joint tent. If you miss Okell on his first performance or want to hear that deep, dirt Blues a second time, make sure to be at the Jambalaya tent, midday on Easter Monday.

You can catch Hussy Hicks performing at Bluesfest on Easter Sunday, at the Delta tent from 12.00pm.

For more information go to: bluesfest

Ticket prices begin at $159 per adult and $45 for a child for a one day pass.

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The Goddess Ostara by Johannes Gehrts, 1884.

Verandah Magazine publisher Candida Baker ponders the many meanings of Easter, and tries to unravel a myth that can include the resurrection of Jesus, chocolate eggs and an Easter Bunny.

A few years ago, around this time of year, one of my friends, who’s from a good Catholic family, decided it was time she and her non-Catholic husband took their children to Italy to see Rome in all its pomp and circumstance. She knew, she said, that she’d rather let the religious educational side of things down when her eight-year-old son said to her, “Mum, who’s this bearded dude, and why’s he hanging up on a cross?”

She was so shocked she sat him down then and there and gave him a potted history of Christianity, the crucifixion and the resurrection. He thought about it for a minute. “It’s quite a good story,” he said, “but I think I prefer the Easter Bunny.”

Of all the festive occasions we celebrate in a year it would have to be said that Easter is perhaps the most confusing. I mean, when you think about it, how on earth do you actually put rabbits, chocolate, eggs, the crucifixion and the resurrection into three short days?

To put on a feminist hat for a moment, Easter is one more example of a pagan celebration that was originally connected to women, but was hijacked over the centuries by the patriarchy to the point where I think you would have a hard time finding even one child who would know that in fact Easter was originally a celebration of spring and fertility. Its name comes from the Saxon goddess of the dawn and spring – Oestre or Eastre, who was known also in Germany as Ostara, Easter connecting to the word ‘estrogen’, or oestrogen, to give it its older spelling – a word given to the group of hormones that regulate women’s menstrual cycle. In Saxon times April was called ‘Ostermonud’ the month in which the cold winds of winter stopped, and the spring began.

Spring Equinox, Ostara, by Amanda Clark.

Ostara, also known elsewhere as Ishtar, had a passion for new life, and her symbol was the rabbit, with its propensity for rapid reproduction. As for eggs – well, once you begin to see the Easter we celebrate as two separate events, (albeit curiously connected) the death and resurrection of Christ, and a celebration of spring and fertility – then eggs are an obvious symbol of fertility, and baby chicks a cheerful symbol of that new life. Always celebrated on the first full moon after March 21^st to mark the arrival of spring, brightly coloured carved eggs, chicks and bunnies all made an appearance, as well as dyed or decorated eggs. Chocolate eggs arrived on the Easter scene in the early 19^th century in Europe, and it was John Cadbury who hit on the jackpot – producing Cadbury’s first chocolate Easter eggs in 1875.

As for the Easter egg hunt, it may well have originated in Europe as the Christians began to persecute the followers of the ‘old ways’. Instead of giving the eggs as gifts to the children, the adults hid them, as they had to hide their religion, and the children had to find them.

Another forgotten Easter practice is eating ham, which we normally associate with Christmas, of course, and even then it is a strictly ‘Christian’ meat, forbidden under the religious laws of Judaism and Islam. Having butchered their meat during the previous autumn so they would have food throughout the winter months, pagans and Christians both used the Easter period as a time to eat the last of the salted, cured meats, and to celebrate the fact that hunting season had arrived. Even the Christian practice of Lent can be traced back to the pagan practice of fasting at the time of the spring equinox, clearing the body of toxins in time for spring.

Personally, I think it’s a loss to the collective imagination of the world that the wonderful myth associated with the Easter Bunny is not taught to children. According to legend, feeling guilty about the late arrival of spring, the Goddess Ostara saved the life of a bird whose wings had been frozen, and kept him as her pet, (and in some versions, her lover) and because he could no longer fly she turned him into a snow hare so he would be able to run from hunters. But in remembrance of his earlier life, she also gave him the ability to lay eggs, in all the colours of the rainbow, one day a year. When the hare angered her (and rumour has it she was quick-tempered) she cast him into the sky as the constellation Lepus (The Hare), where he remains forever at the feet of the Orion. The hare was allowed to come back to earth once a year, but only to give away his eggs to the children at the Ostara festivals. And all of that linked into how important the hare was to many ancient traditions – associated with various moon goddesses and deities of the hunt.

Somehow the innocent hare and rabbit, honoured for their fertility, came to grief under Medieval Christians who determined that witches changed into rabbits in order to suck the cows dry, and that witches could be killed by a silver crucifix, or later a bullet, when they appeared as a hare. Given hares ‘mad as a March hare’ behaviour and their ability to produce up to 42 offspring each spring, it’s understandable that they came to represent excess in general. (You could call that a bit of an ah-hare moment.) Later though, Christianity reclaimed the hare as a symbol of purity, with a white hare at the Virgin Mary’s feet, representing the triumph of virtue over lust.

The connection between Jesus and rabbits comes through the delightful Christian legend about a young rabbit, waiting for his friend Jesus to return to the Garden of Gethsemane, unaware of what has happened to him. Early on Easter morning, Jesus came back to his favourite garden and was greeted to an ecstatic welcome by his little friend. When the disciples came into the garden to pray, unaware of the resurrection, they found a clump of larkspurs, with each blossom bearing the image of a rabbit in its center as a remembrance of its hope and faith.

Old Babylonian period Queen of Night relief, which is considered to represent an aspect of Ishtar.

There’s also, of course, Eastern versions of all these stories – some of them contained in the one of the oldest stories ever discovered, the Babylonian story of Gilgamesh. Ishtar, the goddess of romance, procreation and war in ancient Babylon, was also worshipped as the Sumerian goddess Inanna, known as a ‘mother goddess’, and has the same linguistic derivation as the Northwest Semitic Aramean goddess Astarte.  Ishtar’s sister, Eresh-Kigel, was the ruler of the Underworld, and was the goddess of the opposite forces – death and infertility. Eresh-Kigel kidnapped her sister’s lover, Tammuz and forced him to live half the year in the underworld (similar, of course, to the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone). Ishtar went in search of Tammuz and had to make some pretty heavy threats to Eresh-Kigel before she was allowed into the Underworld to plead for her lover’s return. While she was away from earth, everything shriveled and died, and in various forms of the legend, either Ishtar herself died and was resurrected, or was kept captive in the Underworld for – yes, you guessed it – three days and three nights, her return marking her resurrection, and the arrival of spring.

Noel Coypel, The Resurrection of Christ, 1700.

So there we have it – Easter eggs, the Easter Bunny, the dawn that arrives with resurrection of life, and the celebration of spring all serve to remind us of the cycle of rebirth and the need for renewal in our lives. In the history of Easter Christian and pagan traditions have become so interwoven that it is hard to tell where one story starts and another story ends. Finally, of course there’s the ‘bearded dude’ – who calls us, whatever our faith, to think about what God means to us, and the promise of eternal life.

Easter[nb 1] (Old English usually Ēastrun, -on, or -an; also Ēastru, -o; and Ēostre),[1] also called Pasch (derived, through Latin: Pascha and Greek Πάσχα Paskha, from Aramaic: פסחא‎, cognate to Hebrew: ‫פֶּסַח‬‎ Pesaḥ),[n (source Wikipedia)

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Hmmm…Hozier, Playing for Change, Trombone Shorty…so much to choose from, so little time.

Two-year-old Jaya Phillips in his element at Bluesfest.

Colourful, cheerful and cheeky – the next generation of Bluesfesters…

Three-year-old Tahlia and two-year-old Yemaya try their first Potato Head.

Noah, 20 months, and Elias 10 months, outside the Crossroads tent.

Babies, champagne – it’s a balanced life…

They just brought me so I could carry the chairs…just kidding…

Photography:  Candida Baker

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If you want to produce a mouth-watering dessert for Easter, try making this deliciously moist flourless almond, apple and chocolate cake, writes Belinda Jeffery.

This lovely cake is a firm favourite of mine. It’s light, but richly chocolatey and very moist. I love that the recipe has no additional sugar other than that in the chocolate and apple, and that it’s dairy and wheat-free. Although I hasten to add that for the photograph I glazed the cake with ganache, which is made with butter; however, I’m just as likely to serve it with a dusting of icing sugar and couple of spoonsful of berries. The original recipe for the cake came from Dov Soconi, an exceptionally talented chef and restaurateur, and although I’ve fiddled about with it, all credit should go to him.

4 eggs, separated

120g caster sugar

120g good-quality dark chocolate, melted and cooled to room temperature

120g almond meal

1 medium-sized (approx. 170g) sweet apple (pink lady, gala or fuji, are ideal), cored and coarsely grated

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

Ganache, optional:

125g good-quality dark chocolate, in small chunks

60g unsalted butter, in chunks

Almond praline, for sprinkling, optional (recipe follows)

Softly whipped cream, for serving, optional

Preheat your oven to 170C. Lightly butter a 20cm round cake tin, line the base with buttered baking paper, dust it lightly with wheat-free cornflour or plain flour, and set it aside. (The tin I used for the cake in the photograph has a lovely fluted pattern embossed on the base, and is just a bit larger – 21 cm x 5 cm.)

Put the egg yolks and caster sugar into a medium-sized bowl, and beat them with a hand-held electric mixer for about 5 minutes, until they’re pale, thick and creamy-looking (you can do this in a stand mixer, if you prefer.)

Scrape the cooled chocolate into the yolk mixture, along with the almond meal, apple, and vanilla, and gently mix them all together.

In a clean, dry bowl, with clean, dry beaters, whip the egg whites and salt on medium speed just until they hold soft peaks. Quickly stir a third of the whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten it, then gently fold in the remaining whites in two batches. Scrape the batter into the prepared tin, shaking it gently to level it out.

Pop the tin in the oven, and bake the cake for about 40 minutes, or until the centre feels slightly springy when gently pressed. Transfer the cake to a cooling rack, leave it in the tin for 5 minutes, then carefully invert the cake onto the rack, remove the tin and paper, and leave it to cool completely.

Ganache: chocolate, butter and cool water

While the cake is cooling, make the ganache. To do this, put the chocolate, butter and 25ml cool water into a small, heavy-based saucepan over low heat. Let the chocolate and butter melt, stirring them regularly, until the ganache is smooth. (I use a small, flat sauce whisk for this, as it gets right into the corners of the pan, where the chocolate tends to clump a bit.) The most important thing to keep in mind is not to let the ganache get too hot and boil; if it does, it becomes oily and grainy and there’s not much chance of salvaging it. Once it’s silky smooth, take it off the heat and leave it to cool until it’s barely warm and a thick pouring consistency.

Once the cake is cool, pour the ganache evenly over the top so it trickles down the sides. I don’t cover the sides completely as I like the look of the rivulets of chocolate running down them. Leave the ganache to set. If the weather is warm and the ganache won’t set firmly, put the cake, uncovered, in the fridge for a short time so the quick burst of chilled air sets it (it can also dull the sheen if it’s in too long so you need to keep an eye on it.)

If you’re using the praline, just before serving the cake, remove some shards from the freezer and coarsely crush or chop them. Sprinkle it over the ganache, then serve the cake as is, or with softly whipped cream.

Makes 1 slim cake (serves 8)

P.S. Store any leftover cake in the fridge. To do this, put the cake, uncovered, in the fridge until the ganache is quite firm, then cover it in plastic wrap. Before serving, remove the wrap and return the cake to cool room temperature so the ganache regains its sheen.

Almond praline

ALMOND PRALINE

You won’t actually need the full quantity of praline in this recipe, however as it’s fiddly to make smaller amounts, I always do the lot and store it in the freezer where it keeps beautifully for months ready to add it’s sparkle to all sorts of other puddings and cakes.

1 cup (220g) caster sugar

½ cup (125 ml) cold water

60g flaked almonds

Line a shallow baking tray with baking paper and sit it on a board or thick tea towel.

To make the praline, put the sugar and water into a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly until the sugar dissolves, then stop stirring, increase the heat and bring the mixture to the boil. Boil it undisturbed, washing down the sides occasionally with a brush dipped in water to dissolve any sugar crystals. The mixture will slowly change from being liquid to syrupy, with lots of lazy bubbles breaking all over the surface.

From here on in you need to watch it like a hawk as it changes colour quite rapidly. As soon as it turns light amber, add the almonds and swirl the pan to mix them in (be careful as it may froth a bit at first). Continue to cook until it’s deep golden brown, then immediately take the pan off the heat and carefully pour the mixture onto the prepared baking tray. Using an oven mitt to protect your hands, tilt the tray gently to help spread the mixture even further. (Be careful doing this, as both the praline and tray are very hot.) Leave the praline to cool and harden, then break it into shards.

To store the shards, layer them in an airtight container between sheets of baking paper or freezer wrap to stop them sticking together. Pop them in the freezer until you need them. The praline shards can be used as is, broken into smaller pieces, or crushed.

For more of Belinda Jeffery’s recipes go to: belindajeffery

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AUM PR’s Word of the Week – ‘duende’ – perfect as a Byron Bay Bluesfest teaser.  There’ll be plenty of dudes and dudesses reeking of duende any day now invading the Shire as we head towards the Northern Rivers biggest festival of the year.  Our vote for duende goes to the unbelievable Rodrigo y Gabriela playing this year’s Bluesfest at 8.30 on Easter Sunday in the Mojo tent. We’ve seen them live a few times, and if anybody embodies the essence of duende, it’s these two.  Don’t miss them.

You too, can have a WoW moment – just leave an example of great, and underused word, on Verandah Magazine’s FB page, or in the FB box below and we will pass it on to AUM.  They’re up ‘H’.  Best WoW of the month submitted wins a beautiful Samson & Bronc candle, made from recycled bottles, soy wax, and local perfumes.

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