Fridges

Massive thanks to the lovely man at Aire Serve who has just repaired our fridges again. Great service and highly recommended!

Food

Some of our lovely food from the last few days:

We're on Trip Advisor!

If you get the time, pop on over to our page on Trip Advisor and leave us some feedback. Thanks!

Teaspot Cafe in St John's

Not actually Parkview, but anyway: a slideshow of some wonderful pictures taken by Zdena Zvadova of one of our other cafes in St John's church in the Hayes in the centre of Cardiff. Proper hi res versions here on our Flickr page.

Easter Opening Times

The Park View Cafe will be closed over Easter. We are closed from Good Friday 'til Tuesday, April 2. We reopen our doors to all our loyal customers on Wednesday, April 3.
We wish everyone a good Easter break and we look forward to seeing you all again next week, when we will once again be serving our fantastic breakfast, wonderful lunches and a range of splendid cakes.
Hwyl  y Pasg I pawb.

A St David's Day tea time treat

Bara Birth - a St David’s Day teatime treat.

Everyone has a bars brith recipe, here's ours. It always goes down a treat, and is a fantastic way to celebrate St David's Day. It goes really well with a slice or two of Caerphilly cheese. I wholeheartedly recommend Gorwydd Caerphilly cheese.

1. 2-3 tea bags of your choice. If you like Earl Grey, use Earl Grey.
2. 330 ml (11 fl oz) boiling water
3. 225 g (8 oz) mixed dried fruit
4. 170 g (6 oz) self-raising white flour
5. 170 g (6 oz) self-raising wholemeal flour
6. 1 tsp baking powder
7. 1 tsp ground mixed spice
8. 55 g (2 oz) light muscovado sugar
9. 1 egg, beaten

Preparation method

Prep: 5 hours 10 mins. Depending on how long you want to soak the fruit. 

Cook: 1 hour 15 mins

Make a pot of tea using the 330ml of boiling water. Stir, then leave to infuse for 3–4 minutes. Put the dried fruit in a bowl. Pour the tea over the fruit. Cover and set aside to soak for at least 5 hours or overnight. If pushed for time, steep until the fruit is nice and plump.

Preheat the oven to 160ºC (325ºF, gas mark 3). Grease and line a 900 g (2 lb) loaf tin. Sift the white and wholemeal flours, baking powder and spice into a bowl, tipping in any bran left in the sieve. Stir in the sugar.

Pour in the soaked dried fruit, scraping in all the liquid from the bowl, and add the beaten egg. Lightly mix the egg and fruit together, then stir in the dry ingredients until thoroughly combined. The mixture should be soft enough to drop easily off the spoon. Add 2–3 tsp more hot water if needed.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and spread it out evenly. Bake for about 1hr 15min or until the loaf is well risen and firm, cracked along the middle and browned on top. Cover loosely with foil for the last 20 minutes of baking if it is becoming too brown.

Leave to cool in the tin for about five minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Bara birth matures nicely if it is left for a day or two before eating. Good on you if you can resist eating straight away. It can be kept, in a polythene bag in a cool place, for about five days.

Cranberry Upside Down Cake

This recipe was accidentally removed from the blog, but due to popular demand, and with fresh cranberries appearing in the shops, we felt we should re post it. Laura’s on Cowbridge Road have been stocking fresh cranberries on a regular basis in recent weeks.

Cranberry Upside Down Cake. Serve with Christmas pudding ice cream

• 150g of butter, unsalted
• 100g brown sugar
• 225g fresh cranberries 
• 50ml fresh orange juice
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 100ml whole milk, at room temperature
• 170g plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ¼  tsp salt
• 100g granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• You will need  20cm cake tin, too.

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2.  Put 50g of butter and the brown sugar into a frying pan or saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until melted and bubbly andyou have a caramel.  Pour into a cake tin and spread evenly.

3.  Cook together the cranberries and orange juice on medium heat until the cranberries begin to pop.  Remove from heat and pour evenly over the cooled caramel.

4.  Separate the egg yolks from the whites.  Set aside.  Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt in a small mixing bowl.

5.  In a large mixing bowl beat  100g of softened butter to lighten.  Add the sugar and cream until light and fluffy.  Beat in the egg yolks one at a time.  Stir in vanilla extract.  Mix well.

6.  Add flour and milk, alternating and adding only ⅓  of each at a time starting and ending with the flour (like this, ⅓ of the flour, ½  the milk, ⅓  flour, ½  milk, ⅓  flour).  Stir until combined, but don’t overmix.

7.  In another bowl beat the egg whites until they hold soft peaks.  Fold in ⅓ of the egg whites into the batter then gently fold in the rest until all egg white is incorporated.  Pour the batter into the pan on top of the cranberries and caramel.  Smooth the top with a spatula.

8.  Bake for 30-35 minutes or until the top is golden brown (really golden, not light golden) and the cake pulls away from the edge of the pan.  If you still are not sure then make sure that a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes.  Run a knife around the edges to loosen then place a plate right side down on top of the pan and flip the pan over to release the cake onto the plate.