Blog at the Beach and Flaó d'Eivissa

Earlier this month I was thrilled to attend Icelolly's highly anticipated Blog At The Beach event. There can't be many better ways to spend a Saturday afternoon that talking holidays with some of my favourite bloggers, sangria in hand! 

I managed to pick up some great tips from guest speakers Rhianna, Jen and Jess - and though I'm yet to put any of their great suggestions into practice yet, I haven't forgotten them! (I'm biding my time, like a ninja,.. and then when you least expect it BOOM - I'll remember to put proper hashtags on my instagram posts.)

As well as being educational it was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with some familiar faces, meet some new ones and generally relax and enjoy the summery island vibes of the Ibiza themed event.

I'll be honest, I don't really know that much about Ibiza as a holiday destination. I'm of course aware of it's reputation as the clubbing capital of the world. I remember that my mum went on holiday there when I was a youngster and remained completely unaware of aforementioned reputation. And I hear the island is pretty as all get out..

In order to really get into the spirit of the event and appreciate the summery Ibizan vibe of the afternoon (well it was very hot in the venue!) I thought a bit more research was necessary. And much as I want to know about the beautiful beaches, the surprising culture spots and the glorious weather the main thing I want to know about a place is - 'what's the cake like?'

It didn't take long to stumble across flaó d'Eivissa - a kind of cheesecakey-flan thing (can you see why I'm not a proper food blogger?) made with fresh mint and aniseed that hails from the White Isle. I figured I was unlikely to find this in the local supermarket so if I wanted to try it I better have a go at making my own. Here's how I did it...

Pastry

125g plain flour

75g butter

15g ground almonds 

50g icing sugar

1/2 egg

zest of 1/2 lemon

tsp aniseed 

Filling 

250g cottage cheese

2 large eggs

75g sugar 

10 fresh mint leaves (finely chopped)

Mix together the butter, almonds, sugar, egg, lemon zest, and aniseed. Add in the flour and mix well. Form the dough into a ball, wrap in cling film and chill for half an hour. 

Roll the pastry out to fully line a round baking tin, and chill for another half an hour. 

Blind bake the pastry case for around 20 minutes in a preheated 170 degree oven. Remove whatever you've used as weights and bake on its own for another 10 minutes.

Let the pastry case cool completely on a wire rack.

Whisk together all the of the ingredients until smooth. Pour into the pastry shell bake for 25 minutes at 170 degrees. 

Once cool, dust with icing sugar to serve. 

Now, this is just what I managed to smoosh together by patching bits of different recipes based on most readily available ingredients (hence it probably isn't at all authentic and I should probably make sure I go to Ibiza for the real thing) but it still tasted pretty good actually! 

If you know of any great reasons to visit Ibiza other than cake I'd love to hear them (though you know I don't need any more excused to want to book a holiday!)