As from September we will meet the last Thursday of each month at 7 pm. ( September 30th, October 28th, November 25th)

Please note from 7 pm the kitchen is closed.

Hope to see you soon, Nicola

‘ Have you always said you wanted to write? Always had that niggling desire to put pen to
paper? Always felt the urge to unleash the creative beast within? Well, here’s your
chance. Come on, write, then! ‘WRITE, THEN!’ A six week course in creative writing for
the budding author. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain. ‘

Thursday May 27th- 6 week course-9.30am-11.30am £54 for the course.

Please call to reserve a place. Taught by qualified tutor.

This uncomplicated coconut bread from Bill Granger is as reliable as you need. For those of us who have affection for sameness, this trusted recipe wouldn’t let you down. This bread is coconut through and through. It has a buttery texture that is moist and toothsome but is loose and crumbly and barely holds itself together. Great for breakfast, toast until crisp at the edges or better still warm slowly under the grill and serve with lashes of butter and marmalade. Or if you have the patience save it for afternoon tea and serve it with a sprinkle of icing sugar over its crust.

Personally I love recipes that leave room for adaptation, and this one welcomes variation (whisk the zest of your choice into the wet ingredients, grapefruit or lime is especially befitting). Or add some finely chopped ginger into the batter for heartier bread.  Chocolate chips are another welcome addition, especially if you have smaller mouths to feed.

Ingredients

Feeds 4 to 8. Takes 1 hour 30 mins.

2 eggs 300ml milk

1tsp vanilla extract

280g plain flour

2tsp baking powder

2tsp ground cinnamon

180g caster sugar

150g desiccated coconut

75g unsalted butter, melted

Icing sugar for serving

Butter for serving

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas mark 4.

Lightly whisk together the eggs, milk and vanilla. 
Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl, add sugar and coconut, and stir to combine. Make a well in the centre and gradually stir in the egg mixture until just combined. Add melted butter and stir until the mixture is just smooth, being careful not to overmix. 

Pour into a greased and floured 21cm x 10cm (8½in x 4in) loaf tin and bake for one hour, or until an inserted skewer comes out dry. 

Leave in the tin to cool for five minutes, then remove to cool further on a wire rack.

It would be easy to become another ‘cafe’. But that was never my plan. I have to find ways to utilise the space, I have to  make an ordinary business different. I feel i’ve got lost in the process and now I am trying to find my way back… to myself in many ways. I need to remind myself where the dream began, and what it began with. I am struggling a little-I am getting lost in the drama of the everyday and finding it hard therefore to feel inspired and motivated to take the business to new levels.

It would be very easy to want to run away from it all, and yet the bottom line means I never will. The bottom line being that The Laden Table is my dream, it’s all I have got, and I don’t just mean financially. There are the times in the day when I have a moment-those treasures in time when your breath catches and ‘click’ it’s forever in your memory. It is those moments that make the rough worth while. Oh and it’s the comments you leave that really are making me feel so much better right now, I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to write to me. N