Little Lady Bakes

As I've mentioned previously, Little Lady is well able to whip up a sponge from scratch by herself. Such was an occasion yesterday.  After tea had been eaten the ringing call for pudding was made by my two Littlies (who are currently eating through a growth spurt).  Yoghurt? Or an apple?  came my reply.  Their faces told of their disgust at this idea three nights in a row...

CAKE came the reply in chorus.  I'm not making a cake this late in the day I said (around 6pm).  Oh I'll do it Mummy and the boys can have it for supper when they get back from footy.  With this, I could not argue and so sat at the kitchen table supping a cuppa whilst the Little Lady measured, poured, cracked and whisked.  I step in at the oven stage and a little over half an hour later we have two beautiful sponges cooling on a rack.

A thin spreading of Nutella sandwiched the two halves together and I melted some chocolate for the topping.  At this stage LL took control again, pouring all the chocolate on and spreading liberally with a spatula and then going all out with my copious jars of sprinkles.  I do think there is joy in these little jars - even looking at them makes me happy.

The outcome was artistically described by LL

"A night sky picture of the universe with stars (silver stars and balls), planets (coloured disks arranged in circular shapes) and comet tails (extreme use of tiny sprinkles) emerging from the planets".  

It was a very creative concept if a little excessive in reality.  Which begs the question, is there such a thing as excessive sprinkles?  I'll let you decide.  Gladly cake is not baked or eaten daily in this house - and on this occasion it was a delightful treat.

I hope you are enjoying a little sweet something in your part of the world.

J9 x

Oddie - A Moshi Monster Birthday Cake

With the start of September came the ninth birthday of our firstborn.  Our gorgeous girl celebrated at home in the morning and then went to a friend's birthday party in the afternoon!!  It was a little strange for us grown ups to join someone else's birthday on her actual day but it was her choice to go and the kiddies had great fun!

Regular readers of this blog will know that birthdays in this household are celebrated with homemade cakes.  With the absence of her own party tea (food was eaten at her friend's party!) we had a small celebratory lunch completed by our traditional rendition of Happy Birthday and blowing out of candles.

Little Lady is an avid collector / fan of Moshi Monsters.  Lots of our play is centred around them whether it is pretend play or craft.  So the request for the birthday cake could only be one such character!  The Moshling of choice was Oddie (a donut shaped monster with big eyes and little legs).  Mmmm I thought, not too tricky... so ta dah!!

I made a double batch of sponge batter, divided it into two and added cocoa powder to one of the mixes.  When spooning it in I alternated the different batters and then smoothed it to create a 'marble' cake.  I didn't have a special tin with a hole in the middle so simply put an empty washed tin in the centre of a round tin and voila - it did the job tremendously!

Once covered with butter icing I simply mixed the colours of fondant icing and Oddie came to life quite quickly.  I was a little disappointed with his eyes as they cracked as they dried but the overall look was quite effective and Little Lady was delighted.  Add a little edible glitter and all was well with the world!

It was eaten ridiculously quickly and was much enjoyed!  Little Lady has a couple of friends over at the end of October to celebrate her special day - there's been so much ill health in this household we needed a few quiet weekends to restore some energy before and thus we hope to be thoroughly regenerated for her celebrations when they do eventually happen!

The cake hit the spot though!

J9 x

The Glorious Bake

No... I'm not talking about the wonderful weeks of sunshine we've been experiencing in many parts of the UK at present!  I'm talking about baking cakes, bread, puddings... opportunities for yumminess.

I thought I'd share some of the naughty bakes created and eaten in our home over the past month.  I try to use half fat butter / margarine to try to reduce the calory content but a little bit of what you fancy and all that!

Quite often my bakes are spontaneous.  We have a larder cupboard which is stocked with essentials meaning I can bake on a whim.  Lately this has been pudding requests...  more commonly at present these are being eaten later in the evening as supper.  This trend has started due to requests for specific 'fancies' during an evening family meal or because bruised fruit has been brought home uneaten in a lunch box - and I do so hate waste.

We've had upside down pineapple sponge - delicious while warm with either ice cream or custard.

This is simply made: sliced ripe pineapple laid out in a single layer covering the bottom of a shallow sponge tin and then covered in plain sponge batter.  This took literally 15 minutes to bake from start to finish - 10 minutes of which was cooking time.

Another 'after main meal make' was this ripe banana chocolate sponge - made with two rather battered bananas and an all in one chocolate sponge mix.

On Father's Day I made some rather lovely balsamic vinegar and sweet tomato bread rolls...

...and some delicious lemon drizzle cake! These were presented on Father's Day over lunch when we had 'high tea' - with tea pot and posh plates!!

I do love it how the children are picking up on the experience of having afternoon tea.  It's not a hurried rush at the table but a slower paced munch and chat... and with family, tea and cake - in my view these are the best times!

Little Lady can weigh / measure, mix and bake a cake independently now.  This week over tea the request for chocolate cake was made and I had to say 'no' and explained it was to do with my pain levels but I would make one the next day.  Little Lady promptly volunteered her services and rather than quash her enthusiasm I showed her the cupboard and sat watching her from the kitchen table.  Awesome.

Once cooled we melted some chocolate and sprinkled some edible silver stars on top.  A very tasty, freshly made pudding.

I bought some marvelous silicone guards for the racks in the oven (because I was constantly burning my fore arms as I put cakes in and out of the oven on the metal racks and the addition of these guards has markedly improved my pleasure (and safety) in baking as I don't have blistered burns any more!  If you are a little rushed or a clumsy cook I would highly recommend them.

I'm trying hard to reduce my weight and have been attending Slimming World for 6 months or so.  I struggle with maintaining a lower weight with limited exercise but I have to admit that fresh cake doesn't help!  I can mainly resist but I did participate fully in Little Lady's chocolate cake and in our Father's Day celebration.  Ooops.  I'm in it for the long haul this time though - I've accepted that I do comfort eat and attending a group where I have to weigh is the way I can control these tendencies.  

Although these 'ad hoc' cakes often don't look too pretty - and they are NEVER complicated recipes (I prefer the 'shove it all in a bowl and mix' effort) I always like to present them on nice china.  I get real pleasure from using my charity shop finds in our everyday life rather than saving for best.  It definitely adds to the experience for me - and as the children are now reaching for certain plates when laying up it seems to add to it for them too.

Please don't think that cake is all we eat ;0)  Overall we have a healthy diet with an occasional homemade treat at tea time.  The added bonus being homemade of course is that the cakes have no preservatives in!

I've taken the odd shot of home cooked evening meals but food is really hard to photograph with a point and shoot camera.  I really have a desire for a new camera...  hey ho.  I'll make do with a cup of tea and very small slice of cake for now!!

Until next time,

J9 x

A Beanie Baby Birthday Cake

Last week my first born turned 8. Just where has that time gone?

I'm immensely proud of this little lady.  She's full of life - sensitive, caring and a wonderfully feisty redhead.  Our family is all about letting our children be children.  To encourage them to enjoy the outdoors, to play and to relish everything that childhood should encompass.  We aren't currently very technological and I definitely like it that way but accept that this will likely change in future years - for now we're completely enjoying Lego of all varieties!  In fact, the majority of the day was spent putting different Lego sets together that she'd been gifted - lucky girl.

 

Anyhow, the past six months have seen my little lady being literally crazy about Beanie Babies (or Beanie Boo's).  Both of my kiddies have favoured cuddly toys over dolls etc. and I think the Beanie Babies are equivalent to the Ty Beanies that were prevalent in my childhood.  This interest translated into a request for a birthday cake of a particular character 'Bubblegum', which was in fact the first in her collection and remains a firm favourite in her gradually growing brood.








I started looking for ideas using search engines and Pinterest and starting putting together some ideas on my new board.  This was a real inspiration for the birthday cake.  What an amazing effort that cake was!  And here's my make!










 I used a 6inch tin for the base and then made 3x 3.5 inch cakes in some cute tins my mum had kindly given to me for making small Christmas cakes to gift when I put my Christmas hampers together later this year.  Once cooked, the 6inch chocolate cake became the flowery garden.  I interlaced chocolate and plain sponge layers all sandwiched together with a very thin covering of butter icing.  The body of the beanie baby was then sculpted with a knife, covered in a thin layer of butter icing before being decorated.  I mixed the icing colours myself using Wilton Icing Colouring Gel and white icing (as I usually do).  Bubblegum really came to 'life' by piping pink icing on (for a furry effect) and rolled out regal icing for the tummy, eyes and other details - some bits like the ears and hands were moulded and held in place with cocktail sticks.  The tail was an extra curve of cake covered in darker pink and grey bands of longer piped strips of butter icing to give the effect of the lemurs more bushy tail!

I was really pleased with the finished cake - as was my little lady.  The look on her face is always worth the time and effort I put in.  The birthday cake in our house is something of a tradition that is chosen and re-chosen months in advance by the birthday girl or boy. 

Candles get lit and blown out 5 or 6 times each - including the sibling whose birthday it is not!  Of course the birthday girl or boy always gets more turns!!

I think this is the best birthday cake I've put together so far.  It is interesting to see how this skill gradually improves over time.  I'm not good at intricate details or fine icing but the last cake - little man's dinosaur cake also made this year was my best cake before this one- so hopefully I'll carry on improving.  I'm by no means a professional and certainly wouldn't feel confident making decorative cakes outside the family but I do get such satisfaction from crafting the kiddies cake of choice.

And they get such satisfaction from eating it!!  I will bake a second simpler cake for her Beanie Baby themed tea party this Saturday and will share some of the activities I have planned in a different post next week.  Fingers crossed it goes well!

Happy Birthday Little Lady.
Always & Forever,
Mummy x

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Tasty Tuesday

Goodness.  It's been too long.  I'm still adjusting to being home alone and the pain from my disability has left me avoiding communication with the world!  I'm currently trialling different pills for pain relief and it always has a bit of a knock on on the things that I can get up to - hopefully it'll be worth it in the long run. 

Having said that though, I have been busy on the 'Pretty Filter' front.  I will endeavour to show you my crochet ta dah's and updates on my 'Pretty Filter' during May.  Promise.

Today, I wanted to share with you an idea that's been brewing for a while.  As a stay at home mum, one of the regular parts of my daily routine is cooking the evening meal.  I've become bored with the routine meals I've been cooking.  R has quite a sensitive palette and likes more traditional plainer food, which does restrict us a little.  I cook from scratch most nights but the regular favourites (spaghetti bolognese, risotto, jacket potatoes, roast chicken, fish pie etc) have become both boring to eat AND boring to cook!

I'd began to dread cooking.  And that's just not me.  I LoVE to cook -I like to bake even more. I  love the fact I can put healthy, nutritious meals together for our family to eat - and all on a tight budget.  But that feeling has been getting jaded.  Tired even.

So, I've set myself a challenge.  On Tuesdays each week I will commit to cook a 'new' meal and bring it to our family tea time.  This will include a main and a pudding (oooh naughty) and hopefully over time I shall increase the range of things R will eat and the range of meals I can add to our rotating repertoire!

So I've decided to launch this idea with Cornish Pasties (as a Cornish girl, I'm sure I can call them Cornish pasties even though I've made them in Somerset!!). 

I made a cheese, potato and onion one for R and the traditional pork, potato, swede (which Cornish people call turnips - yet the rest of the country calls each vegetable the opposite) onion, a small knob of butter to help make nice juicy gravy and a few twists of ground pepper.

 

Once you've added the ingredients you crimp the edges together.  This originated in Cornwall down the mines and was a regular part of the miners' meals.  Often stewed apple would fill up the bottom half of the pasty and the miner would throw away the generous pastry crimpings as they often had dirty or arsenic laden residue on their hands. 

 

 

You do have to add some fork holes for the steam to escape and then they don't usually laugh (split open) although you can use egg wash if needed to patch holes or bind the pastry edges together.

 

 

I haven't made pasties in a good few years so I was very pleased with how these turned out.  It was definately a positive start to adding homemade variety to our mealtime. 

 

For afters I've made a pineapple upside down cake.  I didn't look at a recipe - just made up a basic sponge mixture and put cut up fresh pineapple in the bottom of a pyrex dish.

Once I'd added a decent layer of the fresh pineapple I poured over the sponge mixture and baked.  We had it with custard and was lovely while warm.  I can tell you it definately tasted better than it looked!!

Tea time is a really lovely time in our family and I hope to add a bit more excitement to our Tuesday nights!  We've discussed it as a family and we're all 'on board' with the plan.  Hopefully Tasty Tuesdays will bring a bit of variety to our tea time and at the very least will get me reading through some recipe books that sit forever on the shelves in our kitchen.

Here's to planning our new meal for next week's Tasty Tuesday!!

Pop back later this week and I'll share little lady's bedroom Ta Dah!  Thanks for reading,
J9 x

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