There’s a time for drama, anger,
deafening rants, unkindness, hacking (or murder); for making soap-opera
scenes on a busy street at lunch time in the presence of a coachload of elderly
tourists from Shropshire; for judging books by their cover, being scared and
selecting your new self-destruction method of choice.
But I want this to be that time when the sky splits and rain pours down on one side of the office only; a time for looking out for bells
when they ring, for having no direction and following your own feet, for
finding strength, for tattoos you can’t hide, for trying, for acceptance,
for more or less feeling less incomplete; and for all those things that come about that spiral and twist and swirl and make your head spin but then one day just surpisingly fall into place.
Vanilla dough:
75g (1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons) plain flour
75g (1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons) wholegrain
spelt flour
1 tablespoon cornflour
60g (1/4 cup) unrefined golden caster sugar
1/8 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
80ml (1/3 cup) vanilla flavoured soya milk or other non-dairy milk
2 tablespoons sunflower oil or other
vegetable oil
Coffee dough:
75g (1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons) plain flour
75g (1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons) wholegrain
spelt flour
1 tablespoon cornflour
60g (1/4 cup) unrefined golden caster sugar
1/8 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
3 tablespoons vanilla flavoured soya milk or other non-dairy milk
2 tablespoons sunflower oil or other
vegetable oil
1 ½ tablespoon strong coffee, room
temperature
1 teaspoon coffee extract
To make the vanilla dough, combine flours,
cornflour, sugar and bicarbonate of soda. In a separate bowl, mix together oil
and milk. Combine wet and dry ingredients until you get a smooth dough then
place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
For the coffee dough, combine flours,
cornflour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda and cocoa powder. In a separate bowl, mix
together oil, milk, coffee and coffee extract. Again combine wet and dry
ingredients until you get a smooth dough and place in the fridge for 30
minutes.
After 30 minutes roll out both vanilla and
coffee dough into a thin rectangle a couple of millimetres thick. Place the
coffee dough on top of the vanilla dough, then starting from the long end, roll
up into a log. Place in the freezer for an hour.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (360°F) and line a
baking tray with parchment paper.
Cut the frozen dough into slices about half
a centimetre thick then place on the prepared tray and bake for 15 minutes. Leave on a cooling rack to cool, serve
with a cup of coffee, and make a toast to the cursed and blessed swirliness of
life.
