Perfect Pistachio Cake from Etna Coffee, Sicilian Street Food. (What is street food?)

Perfect Pistachio cake from Etna Coffee on Baker Street, London, England. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

 Yes, those are pieces of pistachio on top of the cake. Crunch, crunch. Suck, suck. Lick, lick. Yum, yum.  Do you like baklava made with real nuts, not just, peanuts? Then you will probably love this crunchy, creamy cake just as much.

A few yards down Baker Street from Baker Street station is a fabulous little find. Etna coffee. I feel like Sherlock Holmes with his magnifying glass. I was given a piece of perfect pistachio cake by a relative who visited 'a Sicilian place in Baker Street'.

I said, "Go back. Get some more. Buy a case of it." 

I asked, "What is the name of the place? Do you have the receipt?"

No luck. So I looked on Google maps. I typed in Baker Street Sicilian Cafe. Up came a picture.

I found it. But could there be more than one? Could Baker Street be a Sicilian cafe centre? Could a man have opened up to spite or copy a successful rival? Could the brother or son or daughter have opened another two doors down.

He who knows looked at the picture. "yes, that's the one."

Well, I would never have guessed it was so special. Why would anybody want to call themselves street food? 

On the contrary, Indian restaurants call themselves names like big palace, Taj Mahal - palace, big  - the adjective comes after the noun.) 

Is it something to do with Baker Street?

Or Sicily? 

Or food you eat in the street?

No. Street food is ready to eat food. That suits me. I am always ready to eat. I looked them up online. The shop is run by two brothers.

On my next trip into central London I wanted to check them out. We took a bus from Baker Street station along Baker Street and passed the Etna Cafe too fast for me to photograph it. But I got to see it. A tiny place. One day I shall get back there. We took bus number 13 or 74. We took the bus towards Hard Rock Cafe and the hotels. On the way back the bus took a road parallel to Baker Street.

You may recall Mount Etna. It is an active volcano and erupts periodically on the East coast of Sicily. As a result of an eruption this century it grew 100 feet. Tourists go to see it. The area has a cable car.

You might discuss this or ponder the point while eating your cake from the Etna cafe. You might also think about Sicily as a tourist destination.

If you can't get there, you might consider tracking down the recipe. I looked at recipes for Sicilian pistachio cake, italian pistachio cake, pistachio cream cake and pistachio layer cake.

And if you are planning to go, you might check on the recipe in advance to be able to check with them on their ingredients and what makes their cake so special.

Etna Cafe

54 Baker Street

London W1U 7 BU

+44 20 7935 1600

Useful Websites

http://www.etnacoffee.net/

https://app.ckbk.com/recipe/heav81738c01s001ss003r029/sicilian-pistachio-cake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pistachio_cake.png

https://lifemadesimplebakes.com/pistachio-layer-cake/

About the Author

Angela Lansbury was born and bred in Britain, and has lived in the USA and Singapore. Her family have worked in or lived in Spain and Switzerland. She is a member of Toastmasters Clubs meeting on Zoom with visitors from the UK and USA, India, Sri Lanka, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia. Through the Toastmasters mentoring program Angela has connected with individuals in Vietnam and Romania, a different connection each month. Please come to the next BHA Toastmasters meeting on the 3rd Saturday afternoon every month. 

Green Tea and Green Cakes In Asia

Problems
The first thing I noticed when offered cakes in Singapore and Asia is that cakes are often green. My face turns green to match the cakes. What is this?

Answers
Is green such an unusual colour for sweetmeats? In the UK we have green pistachio ice cream. Fruits are coloured green: greengages, green grapes. Green on the outside apples. Nowadays we have kiwi fruit.

However most green fruit is unripe. Green strawberries? Er - no thanks.

Green Pandan
When I first tasted green pandan cake I was expecting exquisite, richly-flavoured and slightly grainy filling pistacho, with its nutty addition of protein. I was very disappointed with pandan. Like green sponge cake, but no butter nor anything rich. Like candy floss, and sponge cake, both of which disappointed me as a child, just a big piece of air-filled nothing which disappears in your mouth.

However, I later discovered that some green cakes were appealing. The Japanese like green tea and subtle flavours. Green tea is supposed to be good for you, anti-oxidants, fighting cancer? Not just food colouring but a natural colour and flavour, closer to the natural world and natural unchanged goodness, freshness.

I discovered my two favourites, bean curd paste, and sweet green paste in buns.

Green Buns

Green Cake

Photos by Angela Lansbury, copyright.

The green cake is from Yamazaki, Boulangerie Chaude.

Author
Angela Lansbury

While in London - try the Indian sweetmeats, for example Shayona

We stopped for some tea-time take away. You can see the green of the pistachio and the brown of the dates in this sweetmeat from Shayona in North Harrow on the Pinner Road leading from the Pinner area to Harrow on the Hill.

This sweetmeat above comes from their double front Pinner Road branch which has savouries on one side of the shop and the sweets on the other. Their food is vegetarian and the menu online for catering to events includes drinks such as sweet and sour lassi (yogurt mixed with milk - hm - is that vegan I wonder, I suppose it does not involve killing unlike meat) foods such as mock duck and eggless cakes. The other branch is further along the road on the opposite side (left driving north from North Harrow to Harrow on the hill) on the corner.

www.sayacaterers.com