Royal Wedding tomorrow!! (Date of the blog post is wrong...) People in London are really excited about it and so am I. I cycle into town twice a week and I pass Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and Parliament Square on both days. When I did this run this morning, there were loads of camping tents in front of Westminster Abbey with their owners clinging to the front (or second and third) row from the fence. Some people already had their face painted in Union Jack pattern.
Behind these tents and people stands a 'grandstand' for media from all over the world. It was a bit like massive staircases with each step sectioned to accommodate one media company. Lots of presenters were already practicing live broadcast to every corner of the world.
From a few weeks ago the council (I guess) started painting the flag poles along Pall Mall from Trafalgar Square all the way to Buckingham Palace. Now it's all Union Jack along the road. All the main streets in town have Union Jack proudly flapping in the spring breeze.
In contrast to these joyous scene I see a lot of police people around in town (apparently 5,000 of them tomorrow) and some of them have got submachine guns slung across their shoulders. Last week I saw some policeman flat on the floor, checking inside the gutters at the edge of the road for any sign of explosives.
These are some views from my cycle sunglasses.
Ingredients (for 24cm tart tin):
(for the pastry)
160g plain flour
80g cold and hard butter
(for the filling)
100g soft butter
100g almond powder
100g sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon plain flour
about 150g raspberries
2 tablespoon raspberry jam (only if you have a jar handy)
Preheat oven to 200C.
Make the pastry as here up to the second paragraph and keep it in the fridge.
In the meantime prepare the filling. Mix the butter, sugar, almond powder, and egg really well. I use hand-mixer. Spoon in the flour and gently mix everything with a large metal spoon.
Get the pastry from the fridge and spread the jam, if using, on the bottom of the pastry case. Fill the case with the almond mixture and tumble the raspberries on top. Bake in the oven for about half an hour until brown on the top. Eat with crème fraîche or whipped cream :)
