Hello Sunshine!

The sun is out, the city is much greener and the jacarandas are in full bloom...Buenos Aires is at its most beautiful right now.

I am a lot busier with work which takes me out and about discovering an increasing variety of produce on offer. Each time I discover something which couldn't be found this time last year, the same thoughts spring to mind – the economy must be benefiting some sectors here, what is driving it? Would this new flush of wealth take roots? Are we in for a better long haul this time?

Wealth, more precisely perceived relative wealth, can trigger different reactions in different people. A lot of times such reaction says more about the person reacting than the innocent one triggering it...

If I have to rank them, the most valuable advice my learned husband has given me since starting this blog would be that I should believe in myself, my integrity and not sweat the rest. He has always said that it is evitable that someone would disagree with me, even aggressively or irrationally at times; I should just let them be.

I am posting a photo of jacaranda trees (these are located in Sydney though) as a gesture of support to this fellow blogger in Buenos Aires.

Enough musing. Today, I want to get back to the basics, and nothing is more so than a good old fashion pound cake (budin). As in all things simple, the quality of ingredients becomes paramount – like integrity of a person.

This Rosemary White Chocolate Pound Cake is my own invention (I have never come across it anywhere yet). It is the product of a half empty pantry and my opportunism – I had intended to make a dark chocolate & cardamom cake (I think a Peter Gordon recipe from his Sugar Club days), I had no cardamom but some very fresh rosemary and a slab of white chocolate. The end result is one of the best "plain" cakes I have ever tasted; the fragrant herbal note is rounded by the smooth vanilla sweetness of the white chocolate.

150g soft butter
100g caster sugar (you may want to cut sugar to 75g if your white chocolate is very sweet)
needles from 2 stalks of fresh rosemary, chopped
300g SR flour
3 eggs
3 tbsp milk
100g white chocolate, chopped

Preheat oven to 180C.

Cream the butter and sugar, then add the chopped rosemary. Add eggs one at a time with a tbsp of flour for each. Then gently mix in the rest of the flour. Thin the batter with milk until it reaches a soft, dropping consistence. Fold in the chocolate chunks. Bake in a lined loaf tin for 50min.