Beagle's Blog

Grasshopper Cake

2012-01-31T21:10:00.002Z

I made a cake for my father-in-law's birthday this week - a saw the recipe in a book Leigh bought me for Christmas. This is a Grasshopper Cake - apparently named after the cocktail. It's a yummy chocolate cake filled and covered with a peppermint butter icing - very, very nice. I have to say I didn't believe the recipe when it said I would be able to cut the cake into thirds - it's only a 2 egg cake, but I guess the bicarb and lemon juice did the trick!!

It's been a productive few days!

2012-01-27T20:37:00.005Z

After a bit of a baking drought, I've managed to bake a few new (and old!) things over the last few days and I've finally finished my animal alphabet cross stitch!

First was some doughnut muffins from the Good Food magazine - very easy to make and they do seem to taste doughnutty...although that might just be because they're covered in caster sugar after baking!!! I had a little trouble dividing my mix so that the jam was properly covered (I used too much in the bottom layer), but they turned out fine. As I was typing the recipe out I also remembered that this was a recipe the boys helped me with. Leo was in charge of the dry bowl - I turned my back on him to help Zachary with the wet bowl, turned back and saw him spooning flour into his mouth! Nice.

(Good Food Jan 2012)

140g golden caster sugar, plus 200g extra for dusting
200g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
100ml natural yoghurt
2 large eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
140g butter, melted
12 tsp seedless raspberry jam

1. Heat oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5. Lightly grease a 12-hole muffin tin (or use a silicone one). Put 140g sugar, flour and bicarb in a bowl and mix to combine. In a jug, whisk together the yoghurt, eggs and vanilla. Tip the jug contents and melted butter into the dry ingredients and quickly fold with a metal spoon to combine.

2. Divide two-thirds of the mixture between muffin holes. Carefully add 1 tsp jam into the centre of each, then cover with the remaining mixture. Bake for 16-18 minutes until risen, golden and springy to the touch.

3. Leave the muffins to cool for 5 minutes before lifting out of the tin and rolling in the extra sugar.

Then this week, Leigh made some lemon marmalade from the February 2012 Good Food and I followed this up with their lemon bakewell tarts as well. The pastry was a bit of a bind to make (interesting, reverse method of making) and cracked a lot while I was trying to roll it out, but it came out of the tins beautifully and there were no soggy bottoms.

(Good Food Magazine Feb 2012)

Sweet Pastry -
85g butter at room temperature
zest 1 lemon
50g icing sugar
1 egg yolk
200g plain flour
Filling -
zest 2 lemons
100g butter at room temperature
100g caster sugar
2 large eggs
85g ground almonds
25g plain flour
6 tbsp homemade lemon marmalade (or lemon curd)
25g flaked almonds
icing sugar, for dusting

1. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. To make the pastry, place the butter and lemon zest in a food processor and blitz until soft. Sieve in the icing sugar and blitz again until light and creamy. Mix in the egg yolk with 1 tbsp water, then add in the flour until it's just combined.

2. On a lightly floured surface, bring the pastry together into a ball, then wrap in cling film and flatten lightly to form a disc. Chill in the fridge for 30 mins.
3. Roll out the pastry and use to line six 10 x 2 cm loose-bottomed tart tins, trimming off any excess. Put in the fridge while making the filling. If pastry cracks or breaks, patch up with trimmings.

4. To make the filling, beat together the lemon zest, butter and caster sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, including a spoonful of the ground almonds with each addition. When all the egg has been added, mix in the remaining ground almonds and flour.

5. Spread the marmalade or curd over the bases of the tart cases. Spoon over the filling and smooth with a palette knife or spatula. The tarts will be full to the top, which is fine. Scatter over the flaked almonds, sit tarts on a baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly golden.

Then yesterday I went a bit mad in the kitchen, making not only the bakewell tarts, but also some mini muffins and a cherry bakewell sponge. Yom.

And finally my completed cross stitch - ready for framing, great!

Outsmarted by my 3 1/2 year old...

2012-01-06T17:40:00.002Z

I am shamed. The boys had a bubble bath last night and Leigh ran the shower to rinse them down before they got out. He put the shower head back in its stand, leaving Zachary in the bath for me to get him out. I complained that as I was shorter than Leigh, I couldn't reach round the shower to turn it off without soaking my arm. Quick as a flash Zachary told me to just turn the shower off at the wall switch. Which worked. My mental faculties are dull!

Bakewell Cheesecake

2012-01-02T22:06:00.003Z

The January 2012 edition of the BBC Good Food magazine had a great set of recipes entitled "Your favourites made even better," ie "putting a fresh spin on well-loved classics." I am keen to try the doughnut muffins and the Eccles cake (a big sponge cake rather than the individual pastry ones) but yesterday I made and today we ate, Bakewell cheesecake. It was lovely, and far less rich than I had anticipated after tipping 900g Philadelphia cheese into it!

I was a good girl and followed the recipe closely as to baking and cooling instructions, however forgot to toast the flaked almonds, and didn't buy enough almond biscuits so had to use 50g malted milks to make it up to 200g! Still, turned out nicely. I don't think it will replace my love of Bakewell tarts and cakes, but lovely all the same.

(Good Food Jan 2012)

200g almond biscuits
100g toasted flaked almonds
1/2 tsp almond extract
100g butter, melted
3 x 300g packs full-fat soft cheese
250g caster sugar
4 tbsp plain flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
200ml tub soured cream
just over half a jar of cherry jam
icing sugar and cream, to serve

1. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Line the base and sides of a 23cm springform tin with baking parchment. Bash the biscuits and 75g of the flaked almonds to crumbs. Mix with the almond extract and butter, then press int the base of the prepared tin and bake for 10 mins. Set aside to cool while you make the filling.

2. In your largest bowl, whisk the cheese until creamy. Add the sugar and whisk to combine. Whisk in the flour, then the vanilla, the eggs one at a time, and finally the soured cream.

3. Dollop spoonfuls of the mixture into the tin, dotting in tbsps of jam as you go. Smooth the top as gently as you can.

4. Carefully place the tin on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Scatter the remaining almonds. Decrease oven to 110C/90C fan/gas 1/4 and bake for a further 35 mins. Turn off the oven, keep the door closed and leave the cheesecake to cool for 1 hr. Open oven door and leave it ajar for another hour. Cool for a third hour at room temp, then cover and chill overnight.

5. Remove from the tin and carefully peel off the parchment. Dust with icing sugar and serve with cream.

Pastry, schmastry

2011-12-06T20:15:00.003Z

So, following on from making some mini cupcakes for my mother-in-law's drive-in at the golf club, she asked me if I could bake 70 mini mince pies for another do there.

Leigh spotted a 24 hole mini tart tin in Lakeland, so we bought this in preparation and it also comes with a handy dibber tool to press pastry into the right shapes. I tried a sample batch last weekend and despite a bit of dibber sticking to the pastry, they actually came out okay. Not so for the real run last night.

Yesterday afternoon I put a batch of the mince pies in to try and save time in the evening - 24 spaces in the tin, 3 batches should do it. For some reason, I deviated from my previous batch and used spray oil to grease the tin and cooked the pies at a higher temp for a shorter time. They stuck. Not disasterously, but still didn't come out as cleanly as the sample batch.

Still, I thought, should have time to do another 3 batches in the evening. As the pastry was so short, I thought that this might be causing the problem. So tried another pastry recipe with half butter, half lard. Still no real success, and come 10pm I still had a third batch to prep and bake. The second batch had not come out cleanly either, and thinking it might be because I wasn't leaving them long enough to cool, I left them to the next day. Feeling a bit disappointed, I decided to leave them and the final batch to the next day.

So this morning I removed the last half of the second batch from the tin. Really stuck this time! The third batch were prepared and baked, and stuck even more! Out of the 24 little pies, only 7 were even half acceptable!!! Fed up is not the word. But, still short on mince pies, I made a final fifth batch in the afternoon and went back to my original recipe. I greased the tin with butter and used my fingers to really get the tin as covered as fully as I possibly could.

Pastry still delicate but came out much better than before. Fortunately this meant that out of my 5 batches of 24 I did in fact manage to salvage 80 mini mince pies and finish the process feeling a bit less depressed!!! They're not as good as I had hoped, but neither have I had to spend the entire evening tonight as well baking mini mince pies. Which is a relief.

The annoying thing is that all along the pies tasted great even though the pastry collapsed. I think that if they had been burnt or underdone I might not have minded redoing them so much, but I just could not work out what was going wrong! Still, hopefully this recipe will work again next time and I can try and make the pastry better again.

(Oh yes, and please ignore my incredibly rubbish dredging with icing sugar - there are certain things I really should not be allowed to do!)

Added extras

2011-12-02T21:44:00.002Z

I've added some extra detail to Leo's towel (nuts in the corners and a loop on the hood), and after a few days' trial have made the hood slightly smaller so that it fits better. It even survived its first wash in the machine. Fab.

More crafting!

2011-11-20T20:56:00.004Z

More hooded towels actually - a robot towel for Leo (still a work in progress - it needs something else on the hood and perhaps some 'hands' on the corners?)

and a Gruffalo towel for my brother-in-law's nephew

Leo is 2

2011-11-20T20:22:00.003Z

My baby boy is 2 - well...not til Tuesday really, but we had a party for him on Saturday. I can't really believe how quickly the last 2 years have gone and Leo is a tremendous little boy. He's really into robots at the moment, so our creative inputs for this year are a crocheted robot from Leigh (now named Robert!) and I tried to make his birthday cake look like Robert...mostly successful. It took a surprisingly large amount of black food colouring to even get to this shade of grey - given my propensity for heavy-handedness when it comes to somewhat delicate cooking techniques I was very cautious adding the colouring, but it turns out I could have been much more slapdash and reached my desired colour a lot quicker!!!

Crunchy Raspberry Oat Slice

2011-11-20T20:18:00.002Z

Another delicious recipe from Time to Cook Online – I think it’s quickly become one of Leigh’s favourites! I didn’t have any plain wholemeal at home and refused to buy a 1.5k bag just to try this recipe so we made it with half plain white flour and half wholemeal strong flour. Also we used pear and vanilla butter as filling the first time and damson cheese the second to use up some of our cupboard preserves. Delicious each time!

90g demerera sugar
125g wholemeal flour
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
125g rolled oats
125g butter
250g seedless raspberry jam

1. Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan.
2. Grease a 20cm square cake tin or slice tin and line with baking parchment
3. Put all the ingredients except the jam into the bowl of a food processor and blitz until the butter is incorporated and the mixture looks like rough breadcrumbs. NB it is better to use the machine in a series of short bursts rather than letting the blades run for a minute or so to avoid over-mixing – you need to keep some texture.
4. Press 2/3 of the mixture into the bottom of the cake tin.
5. Put the jam into a saucepan and warm gently. Pour the warmed jam over the base mixture and spread evenly.
6. Scatter the remaining oat mixture over the top of the jam and press lightly.
7. Bake in preheated oven for 35-40 minutes or until lightly browned.
8. Allow to cool before removing from tin and cutting into bars.

D.I.S.C.O.

2011-11-11T22:28:00.002Z

How wrong is this - I took my 3-year old son to his first school disco this week! I am getting so old!

It really took me back though and it was great. Zachary had a fab time and is quite the groover if I may say so myself - he even won a disco game they played (a bit like musical chairs but with mats). I didn't realise how competitive I was for him...it started off easily with about 40 children playing so I wasn't too bothered the first few rounds. But as the number dwindled and then became less than 10 I began thinking he might just win it and got really nervous and competitive for him. And he won it! Amazing.

What I liked most though was watching 3,4 and 5 year olds dance without a care about who was looking or how cool they danced. The main dance move seemed to be jumping up and down - on your own or holding hands with a friend, male or female, no discrimination or embarassment here. A few boys were also trying a bit of break dancing (well...bending over, touching the floor and then attempting to spin round in a circle!) and the whole thing was actually rather lovely. It did bring home to me how fast Zachary is growing up though, and while that is a little sad, it's also exciting to think about what brilliant things (staying positive here!) lie in store for him over the next few years.

Men in tights...

2011-11-11T14:13:00.003Z

Those of you with a nervous disposition (well about men in tutus anyway!) should look away now!

Leigh Mum is to be Lady Captain at her golf club for 2012 and Wednesday was her Drive-In event where she is welcomed as the Lady Captain after making a bit of an entrance and she makes the first tee-off from the first tee. Then there's general drinking, bit of golf and buffet later. Annie's chosen charity for her year in office is Breast Cancer Research and she thought that as her 'entrance' she'd do a Race for Life-type thing, running up from behind the tee with her entourage who were all to be men dressed as ladies (because Race for Life is a lady only thing). Cue much buying of pink costumes for all concerned and some rather tasty "ladies" joining in the Race. I helped out by making 100 mini muffins (to my surprise, only needed 5-egg mix to make this many!) decorated with the pink ribbon symbol. Here are some of the highlights

Kransekake

2011-11-11T13:58:00.004Z

This is one of Leigh's bakes but it's so great I had to post about it! Leigh spotted a Kransekake pan for sale in Lakeland at the bargainous price of £9.99 and the cake itself looked a bit of a challenge to make but impressive so we thought we'd have a go. Kransekake is a traditional Norwegian cake made of rings stacked in a tower.

Leigh reports that the cake itself is actually quite easy to make - you make one lot of dough and then use that to make all the layers. The pan does a lot of the work because it works out all the sizes you need for the layers! But that's not to take anything away from Leigh - it is delicious!!!

So here we have...Leigh rolling out the dough to sausage shapes and fitting them in the pan

Handy helper number 1 who was greasing and flouring (well, semolinaing) the pans

More dough in pans

Handy helper number 2 who's main contribution was sitting nice and quietly eating a biscuit while all the work went on!

Dough ready to bake

Completed Kransekake!

Recipe :
1 lb / 454g ground almonds
4 egg whites (slightly beaten)
1 lb/ 454g icing sugar
plain flour/semolina for dusting

1. Add the ground almonds to a large bowl and then add 1 egg white to form a thick dough.

2. Sift in the icing sugar and add the remaining egg whites and mix.

3. Place the mixture in a pan and using a gentle heat warm the dough. Stir continually. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and store in a fridge until the next day.

4. Pre-heat the oven to 205C/Gas 6. Roll the dough into the thickness of fingers long enough to fill the tins. Thoroughly grease the forms with cake release (we used spray oil) and dust with flour or semolina.

5. Fill the rings with the dough, then butt and pinch the edges to form a perfect circle.

6. Place the forms onto a baking try and bake for 10 minutes.

7. Allow to cool completely and then remove the Kransekake from the forms.

To build the cake :
On a platter drizzle some icing and then place the largest ring onto the icing. Pipe icing in scallops (using a small round tip) onto the ring. Place the next largest ring on top of the icing and decorate in the same way. Continue to stack the rings in this way. The icing will help to hold the rings in place but to ensure that they are thoroughly secured, slide toothpicks between the layers.

Can decorate further with more icing sugar, glitter, sprinkles...

Hide and Seek

2011-11-01T10:48:00.002Z

We were planning to put Leo into a big boy bed at around his second birthday (about 3 weeks away), however due to a small incident where I witnessed him climbing successfully onto the top of his cot, we brought it forward to last weekend!

Leo is having a little difficulty adjusting to the fact that he can now wander around at night in the bedroom, but we think we're making some progress getting him settled at night.

Picture the scene this morning though. Half 5, Zachary starts calling. He's had a bit of a cough all night so I decide to give him some medicine and go into the boys' bedroom to get it. I look over to Leo's bed, it's empty. He's not in Zachary's bed and I can't see him on the floor between the beds. Stop, listen. Okay, I can hear him breathing and follow the sound to find...Leo curled up fast asleep under Zachary's bed!!! He wasn't there when Leigh checked them at 10 last night....how?....why? I think some mysteries may never be solved!!

PS

2011-10-30T22:47:00.003Z

As a PS to my last post (and with apologies it's taken me so long to do this), I soon realised why the doctor was running 35 minutes late when we got into the appointment. It's because he's one of those lovely doctors who take their time with you and you feel as though they're really taking an interest and are asking all the questions they need to and listening to your concerns. So I find it hard to be annoyed about the 35 minutes late because we had such a satisfying appointment. Bah!

Leo, the spirit of water

2011-10-27T20:04:00.002+01:00

I have long since grown accustomed to Leo's fascination with running water at home - for instance he has a penchant for flushing the toilet, whether or not anyone is presently seated! But I had a bit of an overload at the doctor's surgery this week.

The appointment was for Zachary - the doctor was running 35 minutes late (which of course you never know before you get there) so I had 35 minutes of joy trying to keep the boys entertained and out of the water dispenser. Zachary used the toilet twice - each time while Leo was either a) desperately trying to get behind Zachary to flush it, or b) running the tap as fast as he could before I got there and turned it off, sticking his hands under it and then turning to me and telling me he was wet as though he had absolutely no idea where the water had come from!!!

I also had to drag him away from the water dispenser several times - the button was far too easily accessible - but then he changed tack. Leo then tried to get the paper cups from the top of the water dispenser, which sadly he couldn't reach while standing on the floor (okay, can you guess where this is going??!). He marches over to the table of magazines, where the surgery have also kindly provided small children chairs, picks up a chair and marches back across to the water dispenser at the far side of the waiting area to use it to help him get to the cups. Far too inventive for my liking! I honestly didn't think he'd manage it the first time he tried.. silly me.

The difficulty was that I was trying to read a story to Zachary at the same time - needless to say I got plenty of exercise running across the waiting area catching Leo before any more water was spilt!

Finally, Zachary had to provide a urine sample. So there we are, back in the toilet, me trying to help Zachary aim into the tiny specimen bottle, meanwhile Leo has spotted I'm distracted and has free rein at the sink. One. Wet. Boy.

The most cobbled together rabbit costumes ever!

2011-10-26T20:26:00.003+01:00

I've been taking Leo to a music group on Tuesday mornings since Zachary started nursery. They had a half-term Halloween fancy dress session this week which I was dubious about taking the boys to for 3 reasons - 1, the cost. One session for Leo is £4, so I was expecting £8 for the 2. 2, it's usually absolutely rammed with children so I was anticipating even more at half term and 3, I don't really do Halloween and was reluctant to buy costumes for the boys which they'd only wear once and didn't want them to be the only ones without.

I ummed and aaahed about it but finally decided we'd go and just use the rabbit ears the boys had at Easter. Then on the day I upped the ante and took my eye pencil to draw on noses and whiskers, put them in white t-shirts and made some bobtails with pairs of socks and flannels!!! It's a rough and ready costume, but the boys loved it!!!

(btw my worries were totally unfounded - it was only £1 extra for Zachary, there were actually fewer children there than normal and there were one or two children without costumes)

Two lovely things I've tried recently

2011-10-24T21:54:00.003+01:00

The first thing I tried was a recipe from Rachel Allen for a rustic (it had almost won me over already in it use of this word - rustic to me means 'doesn't need prettying or presentation skills!') cheese and bacon loaf. I found it when I was trawling her book looking for the lovely coconut macaroon recipe that Leigh's made a couple of times.

Here it is fresh from the oven

And cut open.

I wasn’t sure this would actually rise, but it did! Leigh suggested it’s probably a bit more like a savoury version of a loaf cake than proper bread (possibly because it doesn’t toast well!), but it’s still delicious and was good on the second and third day after baking.

320g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
100g Cheddar cheese, grated
100g bacon lardoons, cooked until just crisp in a little sunflower oil and cooled
200ml milk
2 eggs
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
60ml olive oil

2lb loaf tin

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4/170C ish fan. Lightly oil and line the loaf tin with parchment paper.
2. Sift all the dry ingredients into a large bowl. Add the grated cheese and the cooled bacon lardoons and mix well.
3. Pour the milk into a large measuring jug, add the eggs, mustard and olive oil and whisk to combine.
4. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and slowly pour in the liquid, stirring all the time until it is fully incorporated, to form a fairly liquid dough.
5. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 50 minutes. Remove from the tin and allow to cook for a further 10 mins on the oven shelf to crisp up the bottom.
6. When cooked, it will sound hollow when tapped on the base. Allow to cool on a wire rack before eating.

The other baking was a recipe for 'Breakfast Bars' from Nigella. Leigh has recently been on a trip to Essen for a few days and wanted a snack to take that would last longer than cake. He took some flapjack as well but had seen this recipe which I tried out. I didn’t have a tin the size of the one suggested in the recipe so I used one with slightly bigger surface area. The bars came out okay but a little on the dry side – possibly due to shape of tin? But even when just mixing the condensed milk in, there just didn’t seem to be quite enough for the amount of dry ingredients I had. It’s convenient because the recipe calls for 1 tin, but as I usually keep a squeezy bottle of condensed milk in the fridge over the winter for porridgey breakfast mornings, I could just add a squeeze or 2 more next time I make these and see if it makes any difference.

1 x 397g can condensed milk
250g rolled oats (not instant)
75g shredded coconut
100g dried cranberries
125g mixed seeds (eg pumpkin, sesame, sunflower etc)
125g natural unsalted peanuts (I thought I’d be able to get a pack of roasted, unsalted nuts fairly easily in the supermarket, but could not get any for love nor money! Settled for red skin covered unsalted, which taste fin)

1. Preheat oven to 130C/110C fan/gas ½, and oil a 23 x 33 x 4cm baking tin or use a throwaway foil one
2. Warm the condensed milk in a large pan
3. Meanwhile, mix together all the other ingredients and then add to the warmed condensed milk, using a rubber or wooden spatula to fold in and distribute
4. Spread the mixture into the tin and press down with the spatula, or better still, your hands (wearing disposable vinyl gloves to stop you sticking), to even the surface
5. Bake for 1 hour, then remove from the oven and, after about 15 minutes, cut into 4 across and 4 down to make 16 chunky bars. Let them cool completely.

3-year olds

2011-10-11T22:14:00.002+01:00

Having a 3-year old is at times incredibly infuriating but also completely amazing. Today I was overseeing Zachary and Leo painting. Zachary was painting a tiger - head done, I helped with the outline of a body which he filled with stripes, and then he added 4 legs. I tried to prompt him as to what might be missing from the tiger (how quickly can you guess what happens next??)...by using, what I now realise was a slightly inadequate (incomplete?) description; 'it's attached to its bottom.' Zachary added a willy. THEN a tail.

Just call him Houdini

2011-10-11T22:08:00.002+01:00

Leo has learned a fab new trick - how to remove his nappy. He has been putting this to particularly good use in the early morning just after he's done a poo. Great. I have now learned (the hard way) that when Leo starts calling us at around half 6, it's best that someone attends him immediately to change a dirty nappy!

So, to try and prevent this happening a third time (I know, I don't learn quickly enough!), we safety-pinned his pyjama top to the bottoms - just at the back as I was concerned that he'd play with the pins if they were in front. Come 6.30 the next morning, Leo's calling again. I go in to find him sitting in bed, in the process of undoing his nappy. Pyjama bottoms are off - although still attached to his pyjama top!

Yesterday we put him in a vest that has poppers under his bottom and pyjama trousers. Come this morning, Leo calling, but hurrah, no items of clothing had been removed.

Vest on again this evening. Leigh went to check on the boys at about 9ish and came down to report that Leo was lying in bed naked apart from his nappy. When we tried to dress him again (whilst still asleep), we discovered that the poppers on the bottom of the vest were still done up! It would appear he had performed some kind of very effective shimmy and managed to get the vest off by sliding the whole thing down his body! Feeling slightly nervous about the morning...

Cherry Bakewell Cupcakes

2011-09-27T19:18:00.003+01:00

I'm trying to refine my cherry bakewell cupcakes and tried making them today based on my cherry bakewell big sponge. So to a 2-egg basic cupcake mix, I added about a tsp of almond extract, 50g ground almonds in 134g of self-raising flour, but no extra baking powder.

When the cakes were cooked and cooled, I took a chunk out of the top of each (with an apple corer - all very easy and neat!) and then added cherry jam to the hole, before replacing the top part of the cake removed to hide the jam. Iced with white water icing and then topped with toasted flaked almonds. Yum!

We made them for the visit of my Mum and other family today, but knowing that 2 visitors don't like almonds, Zachary helped me make a 1-egg batch of vanilla cupcakes which he then iced with lurid green icing - here he is, all proud!

(I should note that I keep typing 'cheery' instead of 'cherry,' - still very appropriate though!)

Moving up

2011-09-23T22:16:00.002+01:00

Zachary started a new nursery last week - it's a preschool nursery attached to the Infant School we hope he'll be attending next September. Apparently going to the nursery doesn't affect your chances of getting into the school, but we're in catchment so hopefully as long as I get my application in on time, we should stand a good chance of getting him in.

So the first week back after the holidays wasn't too bad - a few tears a couple of mornings, but nothing drastic and he always came home happy and full of what he had been doing.

This week has been a bit of a mixed bag though and it caught me off guard really. I was expecting problems last week so was prepared then, but I guess Zachary realised this week that this was going to happen on a more permanent basis! Monday he argued with me about going in the car and I had to half drag, half carry him to nursery because he would not walk, and then had to be peeled from me when we got there. Tuesday we got there okay (despite a tantrum at home before we left) but again had to be peeled from my leg. Not good, although he was still coming home happy.

Wednesday I changed the morning routine a bit to fit in some cartoons before we left and that did seem to settle him more. I also gave him plenty of warning that we would be walking, and had a much better drop off. Thursday too so I feel as though we've got a bit more sorted. Zachary does seem to be enjoying himself though - he's brought home some paintings already, and is always very chatty about what he has been playing with. I think he might also be making some friends.

Other than nursery, the week has been generally good but with a few pockets of crapness. Zachary has had some major tantrums this week over seemingly nothing, and has a couple of odd nights, but I'm really hoping that it's all part of the settling in process at nursery and that things will quieten down once he gets more used to the new routine, and feels more confident about what's happening. But I'm really good at trying to assign reasons for his and Leo's behaviours and a lot of the time it's just them being boys and trying to cope with growing up. We'll see how it goes!

Sticky Toffee Pudding with Toffee Sauce

2011-09-23T21:48:00.003+01:00

I've been wanting to try a sticky toffee pudding for ages - we had friends over for dinner on Thursday so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I've got a recipe for this in my Great British Baking book so I had a look, but it seemed to involved a bit of faffing around with dates, boiling water and bicarbonate of soda, so I tried James Martin's Desserts book. That also involved the use of dates and bubbling up of stuff...but did also direct the pureeing of the dates which I thought might be nicer in the sponge so went for that recipe.

The sponge went well although the boys managed to have a crying/screaming episode just at the point that I was dealing with boiling water and bicarbonate of soda! Also, I was using a 20cm tin (not 23cm) and after noting a faint smell of burning at 35 minutes cooking (!), I found that it was slightly overdone on top. Not to worry, top removed, sponge tasting good, although it did look rather suspiciously as though I hadn't quite done the final stage of mixing terribly well...

Then on to the sauce. The sauce recipe in the book sounded really easy - at this stage I should have backed away! Butter and sugar (used caster sugar) melted, cream in and brought to the boil. And it boiled and boiled but didn't caramelise! About 15 minutes later it was incredibly thick, barely browner than when it had started and still tasted of cream and sugar. I poured it into a tin and it hardened into a weird chewy yet powdery substance...

With hindsight I think my mistake was to stir the mixture while it was boiling so I'll have to experiment with this next time. Yesterday though, time was short and I had all the ingredients so I just whipped up a batch of Nigella's butterscotch sauce which worked well.

On reflection, it was tasty, but quite a bit of work making the elements separately rather than a self-saucing pudding - must find new recipe to try!

75g soft butter
175g dark brown demerera sugar
200g self-raising flour
1 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp black treacle
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g pitted dried dates
1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda

For the Toffee Sauce –
100g sugar
100g butter
200ml double cream

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/400F/gas 6. Grease a 23cm tin thoroughly with 25g of the butter, then dust the inside of the tin with flour.
2. Using a food mixer, blend the remaining butter and sugar together. Slowly add the golden syrup, black treacle, eggs and vanilla extract to the butter mixture and continue mixing. Turn the mixer down to a slow speed and then add the flour. Once all the ingredients are combined, turn off the mixer.
3. Place the dates in a saucepan with 300ml water and bring to the boil. Puree the water and date mixture and add the bicarbonate of soda. While it is still hot, quickly add this mixture to the egg mix. Once the mix is combined, pour into the prepared tin and bake for 40-45 minutes until the top is just firm to the touch.
4. Remove the pudding from the oven and allow to cool, then turn out of the tin and cut into squares.
5. To make the sauce, melt the butter and sugar together in a small pan, add the cream and bring to the boil. Simmer for a few minutes until the sauce reaches the desired consistency.
6. The sponge and sauce can be made in advance and the sponge can even be frozen. Both can be plated up and reheated in the oven.

Photo of the Melting Moments

2011-09-20T20:08:00.001+01:00

As promised!

Mary Anne's Melting Moments

2011-09-18T13:05:00.002+01:00

I have been avidly following the current series of the Great British Bake Off and one of your favourites is Mary Anne. Lovely big home-style baking - the Ploughman's loaf in particular looks fab!

Mary Anne has a blog - Time to Cook - and has been posting up some of her competition recipes including the lovely looking Melting Moments from the biscuits episode.

The recipe is here so I'm not going to copy it out for the blog. I thought the biscuits came out reasonably well, although we had some interesting moments along the way. Essentially it was a two-handed experiment again - I made the biscuits and Leigh made the (quite fabulous) depression-era buttercream.

So for the biscuits, I started off on the wrong foot I think by using butter from the fridge rather than at room temperature! I microwaved it for about 10 seconds to soften and then beat it in the Kitchen Aid with the icing sugar for the full 5 minutes. It felt very soft at the end of the 5 minutes, certainly soft enough to pipe, but then I added the flour and cornflour and the whole thing ended up just far too stiff to pipe. So, note to self, start with butter at room temperature!

Leigh suggested adding some milk to the mix which I did and it did soften enough to pipe reasonably. The next hurdle was that I couldn't see any indication on the blog post as to how big the biscuits should be. So I guessed, drew round an egg cup and then when I found I was barely going to get 15 biscuits out of it rather than the 24 suggested by the recipe, that I must have been going too big! Never mind, into the oven and they looked good coming out, although on eating later we found that some of them had not cooked through completely, and that they perhaps weren't as crisp as they should have been - all probably due to the issues with the mix and that they're bigger than Mary Anne's obviously were.

But, not disasterous. Leigh made the buttercream, which to be honest looked iffy after the cooking stage, but once it had been whipped up for 10 minutes, looked fab and tasted lovely. It was left in the fridge overnight as I wasn't going to put them together til the next day.

We sandwiched with the buttercream and lemon curd (delish!), although had I been patient and waited for the buttercream to soften out of the fridge before trying to spread it on the biscuits, I could probably have got more in - as it was, at least half the mix was left (not that anyone ate any of it with a spoon from the mixing bow.l or anything...).

I have got a photo to put on, although not to hand at the mo. But I was quite pleased with the first attempt - and there's certainly lots to work on for the next batch!

Weey milk

2011-09-06T22:23:00.002+01:00

Just before dinner tonight, we put on a DVD of Leigh and I in HMS Pinafore, which we performed with the Ipswich G&S Society pre-children. Zachary and Leo seemed to quite enjoy shouting and pointing at the screen when they saw us and it led to a discussion over dinner about where Zachary was in the DVD.

Having tried to explain the concept that he was not even a baby then, that he didn't yet exist, we then got on to babies growing in mummies' tummies, not daddies' tummies and how it was the same for animals... At this point, Leigh realised that Zachary was using the whole thing as an excuse not to eat his dinner and I told him that he needed to eat up before we continued the conversation. So, at this point Zachary pipes up with something along the lines of 'and then they put a pint of milk under their bottoms and you get weey milk.' Non-sequiter, I thank you.

It was very difficult to leave the conversation at this point so after some careful questioning and some quite colourful descriptions from Zachary (which, please note, failed to include the one key word which might have explained everything), we discovered that he was talking about cows. It further transpired that while Zachary knows that milk comes from a cow's udder, he also thinks that that's their willy - hence weey milk.

We gently put him right, but it was very difficult not to laugh!

Rice Crispie cake pots filled with chocolate pudding

2011-09-03T19:54:00.003+01:00

This is a mash up of 2 separate recipes we found. I noticed a recipe for Rice Crispie cake pots on the back of a cereal box a couple of weeks ago, and Leigh was sent this recipe by a friend as it makes a very tasty ice cream with no eggs (great for pregnant friends!). If you don't freeze it, it makes chocolate pudding. Fab.

I made the pots and Leigh made the pudding. The pots are very straightforward although I was surprised at just how sticky the mixture was to handle. It was almost impossible to get it off my fingers and shape the pots, but I found that spraying my hands with the cooking spray oil worked very well and helped. The pots were quite thick and I'm not sure whether they should be a bit thinner to allow for more filling, but either way they're very tasty!

Cake pots -
45g butter
300g marshmallows
180g rice crispies
(something to fill them with and sprinkles)

- Melt the butter. Add the marshmallows and heat gently until melted.

- Stir in the rice crispies

- Coat the cups of a muffin pan with spray cooking oil then divide the mixture between them (the original recipe said it would make 16. I made 12 and then used the rest to make balls of marshmallowy rice crispies). Cool and then remove from the pan - I used a small spatula to help ease them out.

- Fill with pudding, frozen yogurt or ice cream. Top with sprinkles and/or nuts and serve.

Chocolate pudding -
450ml whole milk (we used UHT)
15g cornflour
50g cocoa
75g golden granulated or caster sugar
pinch of salt

Mix 100ml of the milk with the cornflour to make a smooth paste. Set aside. Mix together the cocoa powder, sugar and salt in a large bowl.

Heat the remaining milk to simmering point, then pour in a steady stream over the cocoa mixture whisking vigourously to prevent lumps from forming. Return the mixture to the hob, cooking over a very low heat at barely simmering point. Stir the bottom constantly to prevent scorching; it can easily catch so take care. Cook for six minutes, then add the blended cornflour, whisking again to prevent lumps. Return to a simmer and cook for 2 minutes until thickened and smooth.

Strain the mixture into a clean container and cool in an ice-water bath, stirring often to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate.

Fireman hooded towel - 2

2011-08-30T20:20:00.006+01:00

I have made another fireman hooded towel for the little boy of one of my friends. I have finally finished it and here are some piccies

Here is the finished towel from the front

and from the back. I've added a white stripe to the base as most fire uniforms now seem to have them.

The hood - I attempted to make a vague recreation of the fire brigade emblem of the county my friend lives in...

The buttons - I originally made the buttons from circles of grey flannel, but after the first wash through, discovered that I had not sewn them on properly! They frayed tremendously and were too damages to sew back on. Leigh's suggestions was to crochet buttons, and here are the results. They survived the wash too!

And my favourite addition from the original blog instructions - button and clasp.

2 gripes

2011-08-30T20:16:00.002+01:00

First - today we went somewhere new, following directions printed from an appropriate internet vehicle! However when following the directions, there is no distinction between the terms they use meaning "turn at a junction," and "continue to follow the road as it bends." The directions just use "turn left" or "turn right," which lead to some confusion on my part as navigator when we reached a series of turns into roads that did not have names or numbers. How do I know when the directions mean wait til the next junction and then "turn left," or "that last bend in the road was the turn left." Aaaargh!

Second - opened a new bottle of clothes washing liquid this evening. On the back is a helpful grid showing how much liquid should be used depending on how soiled the clothes are and whether you have hard or soft water. Note - all the measurements were in divisions of 25ml - so, 50ml, 100ml, 125ml. And what's the volume of the cap in which you can measure out the liquid? 35ml. How is that in any way helpful?!!!!!!!

My son, master of the socially inappropriate statement

2011-08-27T20:27:00.002+01:00

Zachary came out with 2 fab ones today. In the Westfield centre, we were sitting behind a man who, let's say had a bit of a builder's bum thing going. Zachary says to me in a loud voice "that man's got a red sore bum Mummy." When I tried to get him to talk in slightly less than a shout he just said "well he has." Nice.

In Asda, our checkout assistant had a slightly discoloured tooth. Zachary spots this, points to her and says "you've got a blue tooth." Nice again. Need to start on the social niceties lessons!

Postcrossing revisited

2011-08-24T19:25:00.002+01:00

I am a hoarder. Having 2 children and limited space for knick knacks and memorabilia is controlling my urges somewhat but when I was still living with my mum I basically saved anything that had even a slightly sentimental meaning for me.

This meant that when a couple of years ago my mum moved out of what had been my family home since the age of 9, I had a lot of sorting and clearing to do. A lot. I thought it had all been done, but still when I visit her now, the odd bag or 2 can still be produced for me to sort out! Last time it was a bag full of photo albums (a very cobwebby, dead spidery bag) and this time a box of postcards. There must have been at least 100 there spanning the period between high school and that start of my relationship with Leigh at the end of university.

It has been very interesting and exciting to go back and read a lot of those old cards and to remember the people I was in touch with and what was going on in my life at those times. Some of them speak very much of my age at that time, let us say!!!

There were also a large number of blank cards in the box, ones I had bought on holidays or trips, acquired in shops just because I liked them and I think there are a good few from the Showcase cinema in Nottingham too. So I was wondering what to do with the blank cards (most of them are still in good condition as I thoughtfully stored them in photo albums...) and this reminded me that one of my friends has been Postcrossing recently.

I took up Postcrossing shortly after Zachary was born in 2008, but left it alone after 7 or 8 months because it was getting a bit unmanageable. But I have reactivated my account and plan to see how many of the old postcards I can use.

So of the box of postcards, some I will be Postcrossing with, some I will still be keeping because I really can't bring myself to throw them away just yet and the rest I have no idea what to do with! I am going to scan in some of the more interesting stamps for my Flickr account (although if I then get rid of the cards, I'm starting to wonder why I need to keep a picture of the stamp...still it's not taking up physical room in my house!), but then have a pile of cards.

If I were more arty, there's probably some wonderful collage I could make from them, but I've got other crafty irons in the fire at the moment. I did see that one of my Postcrossing sendees collects stamps so I'm hoping I might be able to offload them on him for his stamp collection - or there might be someone else on Postcrossing who would just like the cards. I don't think there's anything too personal on them....!!

Okay Go

2011-08-24T19:24:00.001+01:00

I've posted some Okay Go videos in the past, and here is their most recent one together with another I think I missed off before. The first one is the older and then the Muppet one is the most recent. A bit strange, but cool.

Lemon Meringue cupcakes

2011-08-23T16:58:00.003+01:00

115g softened butter
200g caster sugar
2 eggs
115g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
grated rind of 2 lemons
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 egg whites

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/(I used 175C fan)/375F/gas 5. Arrange 18 paper cases in muffin tins (pans).

2. Put the butter in a bowl and beat until soft. Add 115g of the caster sugar and continue to beat until the mixture is light and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition, until the mixture is smooth.

3. Sift together the flour and baking powder over the creamed mixture, add half the lemon rind, all of the juice and beat well until thoroughly combined.

4. Divide the mixture between the paper cases, filling to about two-thirds full.

5. To make the meringue, whisk the egg whites until they stand in soft peaks. Stir in the remaining caster sugar and lemon rind.

6. Put a spoonful of the meringue mixture on top of each cake. Cook for 20-25 minutes (mine took 20) until the meringue is crisp and brown.

Leigh bought me a cupcake book recently and this is the first recipe I've tried from it. I keep meaning to actually take some time to sit down and look through it because it's got lots of information on ingredients, techniques and decorating, but I haven't managed to do that yet.

The cupcakes are delicious! Although the meringue didn't come out quite as expected. To be fair, as I was making them I was thinking that it seemed a slightly odd way to make the meringue - I would usually whisk the egg whites a bit, then add the sugar and whisk more to give it a chance to dissolve. Anyway, I persevered with this recipe, tried to pipe the meringue on (to give it a nicer shape), but the consistency would in no way allow this!!! Still, the cakes are tasty and nothing burned, so I can try it next time.

Also, I need to read the intro to the book to see if they give any indication about cake case sizes. I wish everyone would use the same terms for the same size cakes - the book describes using 'paper cases in muffin tins.' I would assume these to be muffin-size cases, but I only managed to get 11 cakes of that size, whereas the book seems to think I could make 18 cakes! Need to read on...

The World Is Your Stage

2011-08-14T19:02:00.002+01:00

While I was mooching around Nottingham last weekend I came across Nottingham Contemporary, which I have not visited before. It's an art gallery on High Pavement, but what drew me in was the promise of Family Fun over the summer holidays. School holidays are usually a time when all our usual playgroups stop, so I'm always looking out for things which are on!

Nottingham Contemporary have a family time session every Wednesday, Sat and Sunday (all year I think) when all ages can go and do something crafty in the Studio. As well as that over the summer, there are several interactive exhibitions planned, and the one we went back to do on Saturday is "The World is Your Stage."

Here is the link where you can read the blurb, but essentially there are some props and bits of costume provided and you create a narrative of 10 still frames. There's 5 seconds between each 'photo' being taken and when you haven't got a plan as to what you're going to do, it's not very long to say, get children into the air, or even for them to process you shouting "jump!" at them!!! There are some good sessions here though and some people clearly look as though they'd planned the whole thing!

Here is our attempt -

Nottingham Contemporary 13th August 2011, 12:13:00 from Le Cadavre Exquis on Vimeo.

Rachel's Gooseberry and Elderflower triple sponge cake

2011-08-12T19:01:00.003+01:00

My friend Rachel made a delicious gooseberry and elderflower cake ages ago, and I have finally managed to purloin the recipe from her - hurrah! So yesterday, in a 'trying to use up eggs' frenzy (only partly successful!) this was one of the things I made (despite now also having half a batch of cupcakes and the remains of a batch of diggers to eat up...).

I have reproduced the recipe as it was provided to me, although I'm afraid I chickened out and have only made a standard 2-layer sponge cake. I am seriously bad at cutting cakes horizontally and will leave that for a time when I need to make a fancy cake - this was really more of a try it session to see if I can make mine half as nice as Rachel's! I therefore, at the last minute, realised that as I would only be buttercreaming 1 layer of cake and not 3, 175g butter was going to be far too much. I used 75g butter and about 3 times as much icing sugar (although to be honest I didn't measure it precisely, just went by look and taste), and that still left me with some over and a fairly thick layer of cream. I reckon 50g butter should be about right and I'll try that next time.

We have a small amount of elderflower cordial left from this year's batch so that has gone in, although no gooseberry jam. I went to get some from Asda, but they had none, so I bought rhubarb & ginger instead which I hoped would be an okay substitute. However today, on visiting the Courtyard in Draycott (has a couple of very nice gifty shops - Vintage Bluebird and Avado - and a great cafe Pumpkinz) I found a selection of homemade preserves including gooseberry jam, so bought it feeling quite pleased! But when we visited Ikea this evening Leigh found some in their food section - £1 cheaper. Bah!

175g unsalted butter
175g golden caster sugar
3 eggs
175g self-raising flour
gooseberry jam
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp elderflower syrup
Butter icing -
175g softened butter
700g icing sugar
Topping -
6 tbsp icing sugar
2 tbsp elderflower syrup

Preheat oven to 170C/gas 3/325F. Grease and line 2 x 20cm loose-bottomed cake tins. Cream together the butter and caster sugar. Gradually add the 3 eggs, whisking all the time. Fold in the flour and baking powder, then mix in the elderflower syrup.

Divide the mixture between the tins and bake for 20-25 minutes until risen and springy to the touch. Cool on a wire rack.

Make the butter icing by creaming together the butter and icing sugar. (I also added a splash of milk) When the cakes have cooled, cut each one in half horizontally. Spread each layer with butter icing and jam, then sandwich together.

For the topping, mix together 6 tbsp icing sugar with 2 tbsp elderflower syrup and drizzle over the cake.

Nottingham in Bloom

2011-08-08T21:19:00.004+01:00

I was in Nottingham yesterday having coffee and cakes (at the lovely Divine Coffee House - yes there's a link although the website is on its way, I think there's been a recent change of ownership) with a friend who has a birthday today and spotted a couple of lovely willow sculptures with flower arrangements in the city.

I got home meaning to have a look on the net to see whether there was anything there about them and promptly forgot. However, this evening I have finally got round to tidying my desk (which was a pit) and found a leaflet describing a trail of 8 floral sculptures round Nottingham. They have been designed and created by Topiary Art Design and form part of Nottingham's entry into the East Midlands in Bloom campaign. They'll be in place until September. Clearly I picked it up thinking it might be interesting to look at with the boys - just need to find the others now!

I saw -

Dress - Victoria Street, on the edge of the Lace Market. The dress is apparently "floating in a bed of baby pinks and silvers, Ricinus, Cosmos, Begonia and Verbena."

Shoe - Bridlesmith Gate. The shoe is "hot and sexy with Begonia, Panorama Scarlet." (!)

As an aside, I had to upload these photos from my phone - what a palava! Seriously, I had trouble getting the back off my phone to get the SD card out (not an easy task unless I happen to have one of the boys around to drop my phone on the kitchen floor when magically the back springs open!),, fit the micro SD card into an adaptor, get it into the laptop only to realise the pictures are saved on my phone memory and not the card! Reverse all steps to this point, find out when on earth in my phone menus I can transfer files to my SD card (File Managed, unsurprisingly!), repeat all initial steps, then navigate the crap on my SD card to find the pictures! I really must spend some time one day just sorting out what I have on my phone, getting everything onto the SD and into some kind of order, and then transferring it all to the laptop for safe keeping. Like that's going to happen!!! Still I can dream...

My children clearly want to be in the movies...

2011-08-08T21:14:00.003+01:00

Here we have Leo doing his best Oliver impression at breakfast this morning (look, you can even see his lips forming the word 'more' as he holds up his bowl!)

And Zachary is sporting a great Joker look after drinking some quite red fruit juice. Nice.

Cool video

2011-08-03T19:51:00.001+01:00

One of my Facebook friends put a link to this video on their page today. It's pretty cool, but couldn't be embedded on Facebook so I've not tried here and am just including the link - http://youtu.be/EN9auBn6Jys

World of creepy crawlies

2011-08-02T19:18:00.004+01:00

I have come across 2 new creepy crawlies recently. I have taken to looking out for bugs because Zachary loves them and it's a good distraction if he's not really listening or enthused about what we're doing...

So, in a bowl of damsons which we'd been given by Leigh's dad, I spotted a new spider

This is a picture of enoplpgnatha ovata which I'm pretty sure is the one we saw. Apparently it often builds webs on plants, can be lots of different colours, but the ones with the red stripes are nicknamed 'candystripe.'

Then a couple of weekends ago we went for a geocache in Bignalls Wood. We've never been into the wood before, despite it being opposite one of our occasional haunts in Staunton Harold (it's right opposite the garden centre and Ferrers Craft Centre). Had a lovely walk there and saw tons of these little fellows (well...as with the spider, I have used random searching on Google using my remembered description of the creature to locate a likely suspect...)

This is a cinnabar moth caterpillar, which feeds almost exclusively on ragwort. Zachary was so interested in these that he got very concerned to make sure that all the ones he saw on the path were picked up and put on the grass at the side. Unfortunately there seemed to be hundreds of them!!! I think the promise of chocolate or sweets or something eventually distracted him!

Totally edible birthday card!

2011-07-31T19:40:00.006+01:00

Leigh's brother is a joint owner of a local business which is celebrating it's 1st birthday in August. To celebrate, they're running a birthday card competition for their friends and customers and here is our entry...

It was Leigh's idea to make a completely edible birthday card - and I thought about this website and its 3D gingerbread houses, so we started thinking about how to make it with gingerbread. We did a practice run, which was a good job we did as there were lots of bits and pieces we were able to refine for the finished card.

So the final effort comprises 2 pieces of gingerbread (made using this recipe - but only half the quantity and that was still enough to make a practice card [about A5 size], the real card and a ton of gingerbread biscuits), one with a car shaped hole cut out of it (the shape of the business' logo). We also made sure we cut holes into the appropriate edges of the front and back so that they could be joined together with strawberry laces.

Leigh filled the car shape with melted mint boiled sweets to make a window - he did try making his own sugar syrup to hard crack stage, but it didn't come out as clear in tests!

Here's the rehearsal card with our own boiled sugar

(actually, looking at this photo, with the table behind the card the window doesn't look too bad. Take my word for it though, you could not see through it!)

And the final version with melted down minty sweets which is very clear, as you can see in the first photo above.

I iced a message on the front, and Zachary decorated with glitter. Inside, we used edible paper to colour and cut out a heart shape and the initial letters of our names (Leo helped to press the shapes of the letters into the paper for easy cutting out!).

Now just need to wait and see how the competition goes...

It's nearly time...

2011-07-29T21:14:00.001+01:00

Woodland Fun

2011-07-29T19:43:00.002+01:00

Went back to Sudbury Hall and the Museum of Childhood today with Annie and the boys. They had a woodland craft tent up and I managed to find my way home with a squirrel and a bunny!!

Ice Cream cupcakes

2011-07-27T20:07:00.005+01:00

My sister's sister-in-law made these cakes for her little boy's birthday party and thought they looked fab so sent me the link - here. The video to help with the icing's pretty good too.

My sister's staying with me tonight, so we've had a go and they're ace. I used my own cupcake recipe and cooking times and temperatures and they seemed to come out fine - much to my surprise. Baking in cornets?? I think I need to use slightly less mix in the cornets so they don't rise quite so much, and I also needed to use a bigger piping nozzle so that the whirly topping looks more in proportion to the cornet (and so hopefully the flake stands better in the icing!) but otherwise they taste fantastic!

Coffee kisses

2011-07-27T20:04:00.007+01:00

I made these biscuits this morning. The recipe suggests sandwiching them together with buttercream, but as mine came out of the oven slightly (ahem!) different sizes and they tasted great on their own I left out the buttercream. They are quite light and deliciously chewy - although need to see what they're like tomorrow, that's usually a good test of quality in my cooking!

Anyway, my aunt visited today, tried one of the biscuits, and said 'oh, these are nice. I used to make some like this, called coffee kisses. I used to sandwich them together with buttercream!' Brilliant.

175g self-raising flour
100g caster sugar
100g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
2 teaspoons instant coffee
1 egg

(plus buttercream if needed)

Preheat oven to 170C/160C-ish fan/325F/gas 3.

To make the dough in a food processor, put the flour and sugar into the bowl and pulse a couple of times to just combine. Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Dissolve the coffee in 1 teaspoon boiling water. Beat the egg until frothy and mix in the coffee. Pour into the processor and run the machine until the dough just comes together.

Tip the dough onto a work surface and divide into 16 pieces. Flour your hands well, then shape each piece into a neat ball. Arrange them well apart on the prepared baking trays (covered with greaseproof baking paper) and bake in the heated oven for 12-15 minutes until light golden and firm to the touch.

Leave to cool for a couple of minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool completely. Use the buttercream to sandwich together in pairs.

Duh!

2011-07-27T20:02:00.001+01:00

We have a very fancy- rice cooker, that also steams, slow cooks and makes porridge. I tried to steam some fish in it tonight without putting in any water. Took an embarassingly long time to work out what the problem was....

Cherry, almond and lemon mascarpone tart

2011-07-24T21:39:00.002+01:00

Made on request for my husband's birthday this weekend in lieu of a more traditional cake. I will be making this again!

375g block dessert pastry (I made my own sweet shortcrust)
about 700g cherries, stoned (I think I only used about 500g in the end - just need enough to cover the top of the tart)

Frangipane -
100g unsalted butter, softened
100g golden caster sugar
100g ground almonds
1 egg
splash of Disaronno or Masala if you have it

Mascarpone mix -
2 x 250g tubs of mascarpone
zest and juice of 1 lemon
140g icing sugar, plus extra for dusting

1. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to just thinner than a £1 coin (I used Rachel Allen's tried and tested roll out between 2 sheets of clingfilm technique). Use to line a 22cm loose-bottomed tart tin, leaving an overhang on the sides. Leave to chill in the fridge on a baking sheet. To make the frangipane, whizz everything together in a food processor until combined.

2. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and line the tart case with baking parchment and beans. Bake for 20 mins, then remove parchment and beans, lightly prick base with a fork and continue to bake for 10 mins until pale and biscuity. Spread the frangipane over the base and return to the oven for 15 mins until cooked. Remove from the oven, trim the sides of the pastry and leave to cool completely.

3. Beat the mascarpone with the lemon zest and juice and the icing sugar. Spread over the frangipane. Arrange the cherries on top, dust heavily with icing sugar, remove from the tin and serve.

A few thoughts on the weekend

2011-07-17T20:00:00.003+01:00

Saturday afternoon - packed the boys off to Nanny and Grumps for the afternoon, evening and night. Woohoo! I practised my DIY skills by putting the blackout blind in the boys' room back up - well, I was forced to! Leigh said that as I knocked it down, I had to put it up... But he did help me with the drilling, which was much appreciated. Blind still up.

We went out for a meal to the lovely Restaurant Sat Bains in the evening - extravagant, but oh so good. Even caught a glimpse of the man himself in the kitchens as we were leaving. The best part about the evening - actually having time to spend time getting ready, rather than my usual last minute check in the mirror to make sure that none of my hair is sticking up in a strange direction. I even painted my nails, which I haven't done for ages. Not a particularly bright or noticeable shade, but somehow just having painted nails makes me feel a bit different. Like a bit better version of myself who's actually made an effort with her appearance!!

Sunday morning saw the double treat of a lie-in AND breakfast in bed. Yum. We picked up the boys and took them to the shopping centre for a bit. They got a bit overexcited in Lakeland, and a rather desperate shop assistant tried to pacify them with stickers - which read 'Buy 1 get 1 free!'

Kung Foo Panda is great. The fight animation is simply amazing.

Finally an Odd One Out competition - here are the last 4 eggs laid by the chickens...

More cupcakes

2011-07-10T19:19:00.003+01:00

After my cupcake making and decorating course, I was inspired to try a few random cupcakes, this made all the easier by one of the tips I picked up - using the same weight of ingredients as the eggs. So it is pretty straightforward to make a 1 egg batch of cupcakes, you just weigh the egg and then use that weight for everything else. I needed to remember to reduce the amount of other liquid (like flavouring) going it, as we used 3 eggs on the course, but otherwise this worked well and meant that we could produce 12 cupcakes, 4 each of 3 different flavours. Great!

Leigh, Zachary and I made a batch each - Zachary wanted chocolate cakes, I tried out my idea for an amaretto and cherry coke cake, and Leigh took charge of a margarita cake.

Here is Zachary's chocolate cake - when we got to the stage of adding the flour, we added a tablespoon of cocoa powder first to the scales, then topped up to the required weight with flour. It came out really well, and apart from a bit of mixing (and my hand in the finish on the icing), Zachary did it all himself!

The next one is my idea for a margarita cupcake, which Leigh made - lime in the base and tequila added to the icing.

The lime cake was lovely, although I only suggested using lime juice (as the limes had previously been used in some strawberry and lime margaritas...) and I think it would benefit from some zest as well. The icing - well, this might sound a little strange but I could feel the tequila more in the back of my throat than actually taste it. May need to add more if I want to keep it alcoholic, or it could just be a lime cake.

I love Amaretto and cherry coke to drink so thought I'd have a go at this combo (with apologies for the slightly wonky icing!).

The cupcake course leader mentioned that she makes Bacardi and coke cakes, and just uses a tablespoon of coke as flavouring in the cakes so I thought I'd give this one a go.

Couldn't really taste the cherry coke very much so I would be inclined to try out cherry syrup next time. The amaretto in the icing, again ended up more a suggestion than actual flavouring, so I added a little almond essence, which enhanced it.

However I think in the future, unless I needed it to be alcoholic, I could keep it just as a cherry bakewell cupcake and use essence only.

Breathless Cars

2011-07-06T20:27:00.001+01:00

Heard this on Chris Evan's breakfast show on radio 2 a few weeks ago. Really like it!

Calke Abbey

2011-07-05T20:16:00.004+01:00

We took a trip to beautiful Calke Abbey on Sunday. The estate is huge - when you arrive, you drive into the Park (which has it's own entrance fee) and then into the Stables area. In the Stables area are a children's play area, shop, restaurant, and the visitor reception, from where you go through another gate to get to the house and gardens. We have been to Calke twice before, although didn't make it past the Stables either time!

This time we got through and it was great. The information leaflet describes it like this -

"Calke Abbey is a Baroque house built on the site of a former priory and completed in 1704 for Sir John Harpur. The family name changed to Crewe and then to Harpur Crewe and the family wealth was accumulated through clever marriage and the proceeds of land ownership. Throughout the generations the family displayed a range of eccentric characteristics from being strangely reclusive to fanatical collectors. The National Trust has decided to show Calke as a graphic example of 'the decline of the great country house' that occurred during the early to mid 20th century."

This is a pic of Sir Vauncey Harpur Crewe's room - apparently the family living here before the National Trust took over hadn't been able to throw anything away!

I really enjoyed visiting the house - it seems strange but I got more of a feel for the house and what it must have been like to live there with it all decaying and in decline, than if all the rooms had been show-rooms. There were some gorgeous features (I particularly liked the fancy drain pipes!) and the family were indeed fanatical collectors - glass case upon glass case of shells filled many of the rooms (like the bedroom above - all those cases on the left) The kitchen was also fab, getting a really good look at the old oven and range and the equipment. We couldn't take the pushchair in so Leo was walking, which meant that we saw a few of the rooms at a brisk trot rather than having a good wander, but it was still fun. There was an I-Spy sheet for Zachary to fill in and he loved that.

The gardens were beyond the house and although we didn't get a long look there, we could see how busy they still are, full of vegetables and flowers.

We also had a bit of fun managing Zachary's toilet requirements...2 al fresco wees! At least the people who saw him seemed to find it funny rather than slightly offensive! But a great day out.

It all started so innocently...

2011-07-04T22:10:00.003+01:00

I thought the boys might like to do some handpainting this morning. Got them aproned and wellied up (note, all activity to take place in the safety of the garden), spread out wallpaper for them to use. Lovely.

Then I thought it would be a good idea to bring out a bucket of soapy water so that they could wash hands before going back into the house. As soon as I brought it out, Leo had his hands in it. Lovely. Then he had his hands in his hair. So Zachary, not wishing to be outdone, screamed with delight and leapt over to the bucket to copy his brother. chaos ensued!!

To be honest, after Leo had done the first set of hair handprints, I just let them get on with it because, let's face it, he was going to need a shower anyway!!! And after carrying him up to the bathroom so that he didn't touch anything, I needed one too!

Cupcakes

2011-07-02T20:39:00.003+01:00

For my birthday earlier in the year, Leigh paid for me to go to a half-day cupcake making and decorating course. It was today and it was great! Run by the lovely Strawberry Cupcakes.

There was about 15 of us, and we started the day by making the cupcake mix and then these were baked for us while we had a play with sugar paste and making fancies for the tops of the cakes. Now, while I can manage colouring sugar paste and cutting out shapes, when it comes to sugar roses I am completely inept. I understand the theory perfectly, but it's all a bit delicate for my sausage fingers! So I'll stick to the butterfly stamper.

Once the cupcakes were ready, we made butter icing and then piped onto the top of the cakes, finally decorating them with the flowers and butterflies we made earlier.

It was really good and I picked up a few tips. Now I usually make my cakes with butter, but we used margarine today and to be honest I haven't been able to tell the difference taste-wise. It might be noticable if I tasted a butter one and a margarine one side by side. We also added a flavour to the cupcake mix - about a tablespoon of one of the syrups you use to flavour coffee! I didn't realise you could use those in baking, but they came out really well.

Also the tops of the baked cupcakes were lovely and flat - I can never manage this at home! The course leader said she thinks it's because she cooks the cakes for longer at a lower temperature - 150C for a fan oven, and 25 minutes baking. I'm going to try it for my next batch.

I was hoping to get a good reliable recipe for a frosting too as mine never seems to quite come out right. Again, we used margarine rather than butter, but otherwise the recipe was the same as I use at home. It must just be a practise thing - getting used to when the mixture looks right for piping. The piping was fun though - and I must remember to use bigger nozzles because the piping looks much better, and the disposable icing bags were very handy!

We were also talking about interesting flavour combinations for cupcakes and I've a few ideas to try out now...

Leo's Flirtation Technique

2011-07-02T20:30:00.002+01:00

As successfully deployed at least 3 times at Dylan's birthday party this afternoon.

Approach target (ahem), lady, and give winning smile. On receipt of return smile, pull slightly at t-shirt in what would appear to a casual observer to be a slightly distracted manner, but is in fact a cunning and subtle way to show off a very cute tummy. Wait for appreciative response, then wander off with a wave and a bye bye. Maintains air of mystery until the next meeting...

Baked Alaska

2011-07-01T20:58:00.004+01:00

Rah! Baked on Tuesday and came out a success! Leigh's homemade ice-cream was ace (vanilla and strawberry), the meringue was gorgeous and it was accompanied by Nigella's butterscotch sauce. Was very nerve wracking watching it in the oven trying to work out if I could see ice-cream seeping out of the bottom, but was all fine. We served it to table on the baking tray it had been cooked on but it would probably have been better if it had been transferred to a plate first. As soon as the first slice was taken, the rest slid slightly and came into contact with the hot baking tray causing the ice-cream to start melting and the meringue to lose some air. Not disasterously, but it would have kept a bit longer had we transferred it immediately.

It was totally yum! Best part is that it won't keep, so we (sadly!) had to eat the whole lot in one go. Shame.

Here's the ice-cream on biscuit base

Covered with meringue pre-cooking

On leaving the oven

And a slice of loveliness!

I'm going to set out the recipe as I made it, so there are slightly different instructions to Rachel's.

Baked Alaska (Rachel Allen)

1 litre home-made ice-cream

For the biscuit base -
25g butter at room temperature
25g caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1/8tsp vanilla essence (we've got a jar of vanilla sugar at home [caster sugar with some left-over vanilla pods in it], so I just used that instead of adding the vanilla essence.)
60g plain flour
Pinch of baking powder

For the meringue -
3 egg whites
Pinch of cream of tartar
200g caster sugar

1 litre round heatproof pudding basin

When Leigh made the ice-cream, he lined the pudding basin with clingfilm, and then set the ice-cream (after churning) into the bowl, wrapped the cling film over the top and then put the whole thing into the freezer to set. This meant that when I came to put the pudding together, I didn't need to mash the ice-cream into shape and leave it to re-freeze. Also the ice-cream came out of the bowl easily later, without messing about waiting for it to thaw slightly, using hot water to help ease it out etc.

Making the biscuit base - need to do this ahead of time as it has to cool completely before you put the pudding together.

Cream the butter until soft. Add the sugar and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the egg yolk (and vanilla essence) and beat until combined. Sift in the flour and baking powder and mix until all the flour is incorporated. Bring the dough together in a ball, slightly flatten it with the palm of your hand and place in a plastic bag or wrap in clingfilm. Allow to chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

When the dough is ready to roll, preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4/165ish fan. Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface, sprinkle on a bit more flour and roll out keeping it round and giving the dough a quarter turn each roll to prevent it from sticking to the surface. Roll out the dough to a thickness of 1cm.

Measure the diameter of the pudding basin and cut out your dough 3cm wider than the basin. (see my careful cutting on the photos! Not.) Carefully lift the dough onto a large baking tray lined with parchment paper and bake in the oven for about 8-10 minutes or until pale golden. Allow to cool, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. When cold, return it to the baking tray.

Before you prepare the meringue, preheat the oven to 220C/gas 7. In a large, spotlessly clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form. Add half the caster sugar and the cream of tartar and whisk until stiff peaks form and the meringue is satiny and glossy. Fold in the remaining sugar with a metal spoon.

Ease the ice-cream onto the biscuit base. Quickly spoon the meringue thickly and in peaks over the ice-cream, spreading it down to the base and covering the edge. Place immediately in the centre of the hot oven for 3-4 minutes or until the meringue is set and pale gold in colour. Serve straight away!

Rabbit towel

2011-07-01T20:46:00.003+01:00

It is finished and I'm really pleased with the result. I added ears, a nose and whiskers to the hood, 4 paws and a tail to the main towel. As I mentioned in a previous post, I did have some trouble appliquing the paws, but found the answer was just to decrease the thread tension further. Down at 1, the stitches came out much more evenly, and although it was still difficult to feed through the needle, I used some curtain lining material to back them behind the main towel and this seemed to provide a smoother surface for feeding through the machine. I have since discovered there is such a thing as stabilising fabric which actually washes out and is useful for appliquing towel as you can get an even smoother surface.

I found out a lot of this in stages as I was attaching the paws - so the first one is a bit dodgy, and the last one is pretty good!

I've also attached a button and loop to this towel, which I found in the latest issue of Making magazine - they've got a hooded towel 'make' in there and the button is great. Zachary likes it so much he's ordered one for his bear towel. I also think that using the button may help me make a better fireman towel, because I'll have something more resembling a coat for buttons without having to attempt another poncho towel and get myself wound up with the double bias binding and making sure the head hole is the right size!

Here's a photo of the towel laid out

And modelled by Zachary

And Obi-Wan Kenobi!

Toilet Tales

2011-07-01T20:37:00.002+01:00

Now that Zachary is au fait with the whole toilet-using thing, I thought I might share some of our recent experiences.

The first thing to say is that if there is ever going to be an awkward time to be needing the toilet, Zachary will undoubtedly need it, and not be able to hold on. On the hard shoulder of the motorway in teeming rain (thank you Leigh for sorting that one out). At the supermarket when you've just reached the point in the store which is furthest from the toilets. Or in a cafe, just as you've all sat down, removed coats, got Leo in a highchair teas have arrived - this usually necessitates removing Leo from highchair, asking waitress to watch the table and not clear it, gathering valuable belongings and making a dash for the loo!

I also have fun choosing whether to try the cubicles or a disabled loo. Now the cubicles have the advantage that I'm not blocking the disabled loo, but if Leo is out of the pushchair, they're a bit tight on space for all 3 of us. Often what happens is that as I turn to help Zachary, Leo runs amok in the rest of the toilets. Today, I caught him running past our cubicle holding a toilet roll which looked suspiciously soaked through. We left hurriedly!

Cubicles are fine if I'm on my own with Zachary, but are a fairly public arena for those times when he asks "what are you going to do Mummy? A wee or a poo?" My changing to subject skills are being rapidly and finely honed.

The disabled loos are usually bigger and better if we're all three, and if I need the loo as well. Unfortunately, Leo is now tall enough to reach most locks and handles on the disabled toilet doors. Which are unreachable when you're sitting on the toilet. Today as I sat, Leo unlocked the door. I asked Zachary to lock it again - Zachary looked on and laughed! After a bit of shouting he did eventually re-lock the door, and then it was a battle of wills between the 2 of them who would win. Fortunately Zachary won! This time.

Au Revoirs

2011-07-01T20:36:00.002+01:00

My mummy lifeline for the last 2 years is moving to Cardiff today. So I am quite sad about that. But trying not to be - looking forward to visits to Torchwood land hopefully!!

Homemade toffee sauce

2011-06-25T22:16:00.003+01:00

We have a meeting of Pudding Club on Tuesday with 2 extras. In a change to the norm, we're providing the dessert and I'm hoping to produce a Baked Alaska - Rachel Allen's recipe suggests that this might need to be practised a couple of times, but I'm not wasting a litre of ice-cream for each practise/horrible ice-cream mess in the oven! Leigh's assured me that as long as the meringue covers all the ice-cream, I'll be fine.

Anyhoo, to accompany this, I thought I might make a toffee sauce. Our usual go-to recipe is one of Nigella's, but I came across this one recently and it looked worth a try. Partly because it looked dead easy and partly because it would mean I don't have to go and buy any cream. Hee hee. I tried it this evening and it was a good job I did.

Attempt 1 went in the microwave, timer set for 4 minutes. After 3 and a half minutes I realised that what I thought was steam gently rising from the remains of the roast chicken we'd had for dinner and which was standing by the microwave, was in fact acrid smoke billowing from the microwave resulting from boiling, burning sauce. I think our microwave must be more powerful than Wartime Housewife's but there's no indication in the recipe. Lingering smell from burnt sauce.

I was ready to give up but Leigh persuaded me to have another go and it went better this time. I checked the sauce every 30 seconds and after about 2 and a half minutes it seemed done. Tasted okay and the boys certainly liked it! On reflection though I probably should use unsalted butter next time and it could have done with maybe a few more seconds. It may have been easier to just do it in a saucepan after all. Going to go with Nigella for the dinner. Safer. And nicer!

The internet isn't always cheaper

2011-06-24T19:08:00.002+01:00

I've made a list of 'house' bits and pieces (mainly fripperies it has to be said, like replacing missing door handles and sorting out the hole in the pantry door!) which I'd like to get sorted over the summer. One of which was to get some canvas prints made of 2 or 3 photos from our garden to hang in a lovely big blank space in the kitchen. Did a bit of flapping on the internet and it appeared that for a 12" x 12" canvas, most internet places (including the supermarkets) were charging around £30. And then postage. So I was going to put it on the backburner, but there's a chap who advertised in our local Post Office that he would put photos onto canvas and the examples up in the PO looked all right.

Rang him - £18. Yes, £18. Ordered them. Delivered today and they look great. Now to hang them...fortunately Leigh has offered to do this!

More crafting

2011-06-23T21:39:00.002+01:00

Having a go at another hooded towel for one of Zachary's friends. This time it's a rabbit and I'm trying to keep it simple! Have attached a white hood to white towel, and this evening I made 2 ears (pink and white) and appliqued a pick nose to the hood. Just need to add a tail, some paws and perhaps some whiskers.

I think it looks okay so far - definitely easier than trying a tabard one again, although applique on towels, even with a sewing machine is a bit tough! I was also going to try to be really thorough and overcast the edges of all the towel sections to try and prevent too much fraying but had to give up on that. Overcasting round curves was very tricky and I gave up in the end.

Overcasting uses the same stitch as applique (a satin stitch) so I thought I'd be okay, but I have to use a different presser foot in the machine to make sure the stitching stays as close to the edge of the material as it should be, and that foot has a central couple of bars, which the stitches are stitched over. Normally when appliqueing round curves, you lift the presser foot as the material starts to curve and adjust the material to keep everything going neatly. With the stitches running over the central section on the overcasting foot, I found that I couldn't turn the material. I'm sure there must be a way to achieve this - perhaps just trying to use a 'normal' presser foot, but I just left it as the edges were going to be hidden inside the ears. Fingers crossed!!

Chocolate Cake

2011-06-22T18:50:00.003+01:00

I came across this post by Wartime Housewife and thought I just need an excuse to have a try. My Dad's birthday this week seemed ideal! So cake made this afternoon - I was very good and followed the recipe to the letter, right down to the rubbing in. It seems to have come out a bit overcooked at the edges but I'm hoping that when we sample it tomorrow, the middle will be okay.

I used the mock cream she suggests to fill it and then had a go at icing 'happy birthday' on the top. Hmmm, maybe a candidate for Cake Wrecks??? Anyway, good news is, I'm booked on to a half day's course in cupcake decorating in a couple of weeks so hopefully things should get better!

Also on the subject of my Dad's birthday - got the apron done at a local printers (their price plus the price of an apron from eBay was in total half what I would have paid ordering the whole thing on the internet) and it looks great.

Train nut

2011-06-22T12:08:00.003+01:00

When Zachary was small, we bought him a wooden train set, and then thanks to generous relatives (most notably Uncle Jamie), the set has grown and we now have quite a few bits and pieces for it - trains, track and lots of buildings, people and animals. Zachary however has never really been the sort of boy who sits and plays with trains or cars for a long time. Don't get me wrong, he loves the train set and when we get it out will play with it, but only for a short while.

Leo is a different story and seems much more keen on pushing cars and trains around with accompanying noises! So we got the set out a couple of days ago, and with the help of both my boys, we built the longest track we could!! It stretched the entire length of our front room. Marvellous.

But we had no way for the train to be turned round at the end of the track, other than picking it up and turning it ourselves. That got me thinking it might be nice to get a turntable. For Leo to use with the track. Of course.

So yesterday, I headed out for a walk with Leo and we made it to the wooden toy shop round the corner, where conveniently I wanted to buy a birthday present for one of Zachary's friends. The toy shop stocks a lot of parts and accessories for wooden train sets... As we were there, my eye just happened to spot a 4-way turntable, not too expensive, and also a couple of splitter tracks in a packet. Hmmmm.

So, those bought, came home with Leo and built mega-track! It was brilliant, and Leo had a good time. Which is of course why I bought the pieces. Not for me to play with at all. Honest!

My Little Helper

2011-06-17T15:57:00.003+01:00

I made a cake this afternoon and gave Leo some things to play with while I made it - a bowl, a spoon, about a tablespoon each of flour, sugar and ground almonds. Sadly I was too slow to get the money shot of him with the bowl actually on his head...

Gladly, I had not put any wet ingredients in for him to mix!!! But, cake made with no complaints from Leo and a quick Dyson all over soon sorted it out...

Creamy Vanilla Rice Pudding

2011-06-13T19:01:00.003+01:00

Easy peasy yum yum yum! Chosen because we have a glut of milk after being away at the weekend and only drinking 1 and a bit of the 4 delivered on Friday, with 2 more delivered this morning! I did ask Leigh to make smoothies, but as the day began miserably and cold, rice pudding seemed a better idea. Day warmed up, rice pudding still made.

Shown here served with Leigh's strawberry conserve, which he describes as "strawberry conserve disaster (candied fruit plus syrup instead of jam) . But it's perfect for mixing with yoghurt, rice pudding, making strawberry milkshakes...nothing wrong there!

One note to make - don't expect the liquid to go thick like Ambrosia's rice pud, it doesn't. But that didn't in anyway stop it being delicious.

(Rachel Allen - Bake)
Serves 4-6 (2 if you have no will-power!)
75g short-grain rice
2 tbsp caster sugar
700ml milk
150ml double cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
soft dark brown sugar for sprinkling - optional

1 litre pie dish

Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/I used 160ish for my fan oven.

Place the rise and sugar in the pie dish, mixing together and spreading evenly over the base.

In a large saucepan, bring the milk and cream to the boil. Add the vanilla extract and carefully pour over the rice and sugar (the author says she usually does this while the dish is sitting on the rack in the oven).

Bake in the oven for 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 hours or until the rice is soft. Serve.

A present for Dad

2011-06-12T19:04:00.003+01:00

This is about a present for my Dad's birthday, so if my dad is reading this (although very unlikely) - STOP NOW!!!

I was a bit stuck for ideas. My Dad enjoys cooking and my sister suggested getting an apron with a photo of the boys on the front. Great idea I thought, so this afternoon I set about trying to get a photo.

I got them both into aprons, Zachary has a matching chef's hat so that was donned too and I got out some mixing bowls and plastic spoons and whisks to set the scene. I explained that they're doing some pretend baking so that I can get a picture for Grandad's birthday. I start to take one or two pictures, quickly realising that both boys have ants in their pants and aren't going to sit still for anyone! Blurry photos coming out.

Then Zachary decides that he needs to know where the pretend eggs are for the pretend baking. Specifically where they are. 'They're pretend, they can be anywhere,' won't cut it! So I tell him the eggs are on the table by the bowl and we continue. Then I decide the boys are too far apart so try to move them closer together. Zachary then won't smile and pulls mardy face

and also at this point, now that he's within range, Leo decides that actually, Zachary's baking bowl and spoon selection is far better than his. Cue stealing of bowl and fighting between them over who gets to use which utensils. Nice.

I still wasn't totally happy with the pictures I had so tried again from another angle, by which time...well you can see!

Gave up, although found this picture in the results

It'll be fine!

Double whammy!

2011-06-06T20:08:00.002+01:00

Look at the size of the egg I found in the chickens' nesting box this morning!!! (the photo shows it next to one of a normal size)

Huage!!!
And it was a double-yolker. Yummy!

Chocolate Banana Bread

2011-06-06T20:00:00.003+01:00

I asked Leigh what sort of cake he would like this week and his only stipulation was that it had to use a loaf tin liner. I came across this in my Great British Baking book. Delicious sample slice eaten today - preparing to eat it with custard tomorrow!!

250g self-raising flour
a good pinch of salt
150g caster sugar
100g unsalted butter, melted and then cooled
2 medium eggs, beaten
250g peeled ripe bananas - I used 2 and a half
75g dark chocolate, chopped
100g walnut pieces

2lb loaf tin

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4. Now I usually assume in recipe books that unless stated, the oven temperature is for a non-fan oven. I therefore reduced the temperature to about 160C but found I had to cook it for 10 minutes longer than stated before the skewer came out clean. I shall wait to see whether this makes the cake slightly dry tomorrow, but if I bake it again (very likely!), I shall use the stated temperature and see what happens.

Mix the flour with the salt and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add the melted, cooled butter and the beaten eggs. Roughly mash the bananas with a fork - there should still be some lumpy bits - and add to the bowl. Add the chocolate and walnut pieces and mix all the ingredients together with a wooden spoon until thoroughly combined.

Transfer the mixture to the prepared tin and spread evenly. Bake in the preheated oven for 55 minutes, until the loaf is a good golden brown and a cocktail stick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Leave to cool for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool before slicing. Store in an airtight container.

Baking eggstravaganza!

2011-06-04T19:03:00.004+01:00

Prompted by the arrival of some clotted cream through the post (a holiday present from my Dad), and the discovery that we have 16 eggs waiting to be eaten (the hens have been very busy!) it was time for a bit of a bake today.

Started off with some devonshire scones curtesy of Mary Berry - delicious with the clotted cream, and using 2 eggs. We were hoping to have them with some of Leigh's freshly made apple and strawberry jam, but it wasn't quite ready.

Unfortunately, our fridge is far too good and the clotted cream was unspreadable!!!

Then I got the big guns out - Rachel Allen's ham and egg pie. 1 egg in the pastry, 6 in the filling (2 beaten with the cream and ham, 4 resting on top).

Finally, I made Nigella's chicken and bacon pies for dinner - 1 final egg for glazing the pastry top. 10 down, 6 to go and more eggspected tomorrow (hee hee!). More cakes anyone?

The Glorious 4th

2011-06-04T18:54:00.003+01:00

Get out your maslin pans and muslin bags - it's jam making time again! Our local PYO (Scaddows Farm) opened its doors today to the strawberry-picking public and we were there nice and early for a good rummage in the plants.

To be fair, Leigh has already made a start on his preserves this year, knocking out a couple of batches of elderflower cordial, some pear and walnut chutney, apple and elderflower jelly, and pear and vanilla butter already! But it was strawberries today. We went to Scaddows last year and got a bumper load of strawberries, and then later in the season they also have raspberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries. So we knew we were onto a good thing. Of course we had our little helpers

although strangely as you can see, Leo's punnet looks rather empty. We soon discovered why

perhaps they should have been weighing children in and out rather than the punnets!

Had a great time and there's now 4 jars of apple and strawberry jam sitting on the side, with another lot of strawberries in the freezer for more jam when more fruits are available, and still more for cooking with and making smoothies. Wonderful.

New places, new adventures

2011-06-03T22:21:00.005+01:00

A couple of weeks ago we had a great weekend going out and about. On Saturday we visited Bluebells Dairy in Spondon. I've been wanting to go there for a while as it keeps popping up in local magaziney things, and we had an afternoon to fill...

It wasn't as big as I was expecting, but still very very good. They have their own dairy herd there (obviously...!) and make their own ice cream. So there's a small farm shop and cafe, a great children's play area (slides galore and even a trampoline) and an area where you can feed goats, sheep, rabbits, chickens and other small farm animals. Brilliant.

On the Sunday we travelled out to Staunton Harold. We've been to the Ferrers Centre there before, which is a great craft centre, but this time we also made it to the reservoir (I can't find a specific website for the reservoir, but there are lots of images on Google which link to walking websites and other similar ones).

The reservoir is a beautiful area, there are a few woodland walks nearby, again an ace play area, and some picnic tables. No cafe, but great for a visit.

The Ferrers Centre is a courtyard which is populated with craft studios and shops. It is very lovely and there's a great range on offer, including a chap who specialises in making Victorian-style mechanical models. There was lots I wanted to buy including some great pottery decorated with seaside scenes (here it is on the maker's website)

....managed to exercise a little more restraint this time! There is also a fab toy shop there which is run by volunteers and parents from one of the local schools, to which all the profits go. It has a slightly eclectic range but that is because it's chosen by about 5 of the volunteers, each of them choosing things they like. Including lots of board games - we came home with 2!!! And they served ice cream from the Bluebell Dairy. Fab.

Boys will be boys

2011-05-22T22:09:00.002+01:00

Zachary has now reached the age where the funniest thing he can say to anyone (or anyone can say to him) is "so and so SMELLS!" He finds this absolutely hilarious and it's brilliant - we've been leaving him messages round Animal Crossing on the Wii, and he's been returning the favour (with our help!). I think Uncle Jamie started this off, although he was trying to get Zachary to say "Daddy smells of bums" but luckily for nursery and the public in general, we've managed to get it down to just "Daddy smells!" Today, Leigh was telling Zachary he'd caught a smelly bug from him, and that smelly bugs were only found on smelly boys - Zachary loved this and laughed a lot...although some of the laughing did sound a bit nervous, as though he's pretty sure Leigh was joking, but not quite 100%. Zachary has also been watching 'Ginger Warrior' (that's Ninja Warrior to the uninitiated), and telling us we're going to Bourbon at the weekend - if only...it's Bournemouth!

Leo seems to be unstoppable in the food department, and there have been 3 similar incidents over the weekend. On Saturday morning, Leigh got up with the boys and got some shreddies in a bowl for Leo to snack on before breakfast to keep him occupied, and stave off those hunger pangs. When Leo had finished the bowl, he got himself into the kitchen, up to the table and when Leigh turned round, had got his arm shoulder-deep in the shreddies box! Then this morning, after we'd all had breakfast, cleaned teeth etc, I was washing up in the kitchen, and Leo was up on the chair again, pulled over the leftover pancakes and snaffled one (just like he snaffled the chicken for the pizza topping mid-week). And finally, we were at a garden centre today - I was helping Zachary choose some pick 'n' mix sweets, trying desperately to both fill the bag and at the same time stop Leo reaching into the containers, taking out sweets and simply popping them in his mouth! I missed a raspberry jelly thing that way, but managed to catch a couple of toffees he was parading around. Surely we're feeding him enough???!

Bought on a whim

2011-05-08T19:25:00.006+01:00

I'm not a very spontaneous person, and having 2 children has quashed most of what little spontaneity I had - the constant need to know where we are going and what we're doing so that I can be properly prepared has seen an end to that!!!! So I very rarely buy things on a whim (except clothes for the boys!), especially anything arty or for the house. Anyway, one of the first trips I made with the boys after they'd both had chicken pox was to Attenborough Nature Reserve which is close to us, and in the cafe there they were displaying the work of a local artist, who uses pyrography to etch pictures onto wood pieces.

Most of the items weren't really my taste (or superb examples of the pyrography technique...), but I saw one I really liked and just bought it! I never do that! Maybe I was heady with the first taste of freedom in ages and the thought that I hadn't really spent any money over the last few weeks went to my head! Here it is

it's finally been hung up, and what I liked about it was the relative simplicity of the burned picture and more than that, the grain of the wood. It hasn't come out brilliantly in the photo (and the photo appears to have been taken at a particularly strange angle), but the swirls and patterns reminded me of this painting, which is beautiful

I'm still really pleased with my purchase. Which is a relief!

Vegetables as bribery??

2011-05-08T19:16:00.003+01:00

Zachary was a great eater when we were first weaning him and would try almost anything. Then at about 13 months, he suddenly stopped wanting to try new foods and stuck to a pretty tight range of food he would eat. Now this wasn't as bad as it sounds as he has always been a great eater of bread, cereal, yoghurts and fruit, the biggest issue was with main meals and we ended up limited to beans on toast, homemade chicken burgers, homemade fishcakes, peas and sweetcorn. So he was getting all his food groups, but after about a year and a half of this, I was starting to get a bit fed up of constantly making the chicken burgers and fishcakes, and it was difficult eating with him at friends' houses or out at pubs (pubs not so bad as chips and beans were always on the menu!).

As he approached 3, we decided to try a crack down on the eating thing and be more firm in encouraging him to try new foods...just as we decided this, Zachary - on his own - decided he was going to be more open to trying new things. Great! This is going pretty well - we now have pasta, carrots, chicken and chicken nuggets, fish fingers, sometimes rice and cous cous, and pork well in hand. The next issue we've run up against though is that although Zachary will try things more readily, actually getting him to finish a meal proves very difficult some days and he will take an absolute age to eat his dinner. Yes, we've resorted to bribery and the promise of computer time with Leigh, and/or pudding has worked reasonably well in the past. Today however...

Zachary tried green beans for the first time and loved them, they were the first thing eaten from his plate. Then we almost got away with using the promise of more beans as his reward for eating the rest of his dinner! (this worked for a while until he decided he really didn't want to finish the rest) Vegetables as bribery - ace!

I'm putting him to work early!

2011-05-08T19:14:00.001+01:00

Funnier still was Leo attempting to mop the kitchen using a mop which is nearly twice as big as him...but I didn't get the camera in time and he'd given up by the time I got back with it!!!

Garden 2011

2011-04-30T12:28:00.003+01:00

The weather's picked up over the last couple of weeks (mostly!) so there's been a flurry of activity in the garden - mostly from Leigh. He's been tidying, mowing, edging and weeding and doing lots of sowing again. Hopefully we should see lots of fruit and veg this year and Zachary has been planting lots of sunflower seeds, so we have those to look forward to as well.

Of the more established plants, our magnolia has flowered for the first time this year - we've had it about 3/4 years

And the wisteria we planted 2 years ago is also flowering for the first time

the clematis is blooming well

and Leigh's new fruit trees are blossoming so hopefully we'll get some fruit from those too.

The garden is looking fab. We had the chickens running over the whole garden last year, which led to decimation of the lawn, no blueberries and lots of bulbs being dug up. However, we've shut them into the bottom third of the garden this year so hopefully, things can grow a bit more freely, and the boys will have a safer time in the garden. Here's to a good summer!

The Royal Wedding - William and Catherine

2011-04-29T19:07:00.007+01:00

We were out for the day today with Leigh's parents so missed the TV coverage live, but fortunately were travelling in the car at the time of the service (and I remembered to set the Vision box for it as was so that I can gape with awe at the dress) so heard William and Catherine make their vows. It was lovely and I don't know whether it was just this occasion, or remembering my own wedding, but it brought a tear to my eye. Just that very intense emotion of promising yourself to another person for your lifetime. I have now cheated a bit and watched a clip on the Royal Channel (I never knew there was such a thing!) on You Tube of Catherine arriving at Westminster - she looked wonderful and the dress was magnificent. Really understated but incredibly beautiful. I'm looking forward to seeing the trees in the Abbey now!

We went to Sudbury Hall and The Museum of Childhood today, which is National Trust property about half an hour from us. I'd been before, with the boys and Leigh's mum last summer, and knew it was well worth another visit. The Museum was great again - what I really enjoy about it is that there are toys for children to play with in all the exhibit rooms, and there are demonstrations and things for them to see, which makes the whole experience a bit more interesting for them, and a bit less of a rush round for us trying to leave before they get bored! We managed to get Zachary to go through the Victorian chimney exhibit (yes he was far braver than all the girls and led the way!) - see his soot mark of honour

and we sat in on the Victorian school lesson which was really well done. See the naughty boys at the back of the class

and Leigh's tasty new hat!

Also, Leo found himself a new vocation at one of the exhibits

and who thought ice creams could be quite so hilarious!

Better still, after lunch we discovered that the gardens are also pretty great - Annie and I didn't get that far last year, but beyond the hedge is a wonderful lawn for picnics, a lake with geese to feed, a lovely shady wooded area with great play equipment and some rather nice topiary too. Still haven't made it into Sudbury Hall itself but next visit hopefully...

Zachary

2011-04-28T19:04:00.004+01:00

We went swimming today with the boys and Zachary discovered he could swim on his own with his armbands on! This is great. I think that previously he's been a bit nervous of trying on his own (that is, with noone holding him under his shoulders for support) but found out quite by accident today that he could float in the pool with his armbands on. So he tried this a few times, just lifting his feet from the floor and floating, and then was encouraged to have a go at kicking his feet and moving his arms...and then no stopping him! It was brilliant. Just now need to try and repeat this in a swimming lesson and we could move towards him having a go without the bands on at some point.

And he's also had a haircut. It's much much shorter and he almost looks like a different boy but after a couple of days bedding in, I think it looks fab and has considerably cut down the time spent washing and drying it at bedtime!!!!

Here it is 'before' on Easter Sunday

and 'after'

POP Cakes Go Forth

2011-04-25T19:00:00.002+01:00

All wrapped and ready to go!

POP Cakes The Third

2011-04-25T18:48:00.005+01:00

So, day 3 and we now decorate the chocolate cakey balls of yumminess. The recipe uses candy melts (which I managed to get from Hobbycraft) for the coating of the cakes. I wondered why they didn't just use chocolate, but I think the melts are a bit cheaper, they come in lots of different colours and seem to behave better than chocolate - they melt more smoothly, and dry out quicker. So, melt the candy melts, then dip about 1cm of the lollipop stick you're using into the liquid and push it into one of the cake balls. Then using the stick, dip the ball into the melted candy until it's covered, using a spoon to help.

Gently shake off any excess, then stand the lollipop while you decorate it. I used playdough and polystyrene to support the lollipops - both worked reasonably well.

Leave to dry and then store. The recipe suggests that they will last about 2 days normally, or about a week in the fridge, but if they're in the fridge, they need to be covered. I bought some candy bags and ties in the same pack as my lollipop sticks. Hurrah!

Here's my handy helper!

and my 'decorating station'.

I think next time, I need to try and get my balls a more even and smooth shape, possibly heat the candy melts a bit more as towards the end it was not covering as evenly as at the start, and invest in some posher decorations. Leigh has suggesting crystallising flowers - nice!

POP cakes II

2011-04-24T19:51:00.003+01:00

Then crumb the chocolate sponge when it's cool

Beat together some cream cheese and icing sugar

Combine the 2 mixtures to make a sticky mess! Using 30g at a time, form into 20 balls and leave for a few hours in the fridge to harden (I am going to have to leave them overnight, as a few hours from now will be bedtime!!)

Easter cake 2011

2011-04-23T20:18:00.004+01:00

No Simnel cake for us this year - I'm cracking out a lemon and coconut cake courtesy of the Easter Asda magazine. Pretty tasty too, although as with my last 3-layer cake, the sponges seem to be slightly undercooked. I put them in for the time suggested, a skewer came out clean, but still when I got the cakes out of the tins, they were a bit undercooked underneath. Need to work on that!

I have also found a recipe for POP cakes - they're little round cakey, lollipopy things. I'm going to put them together tomorrow but first you start with a chocolate sponge (fortunately this appeared to bake properly!)...

The lemon coconut cake :

225ml milk
5tbsp lemon juice
350g caster sugar
finely grated zest of 2 large unwaxed lemons (my 2 lemons provided me with all the lemon juice I needed)
100g dessicated coconut
300g plain flour
1 1/2tsp baking powder
1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
225g butter
4 eggs
Filling :
100g unsalted butter, softened
100g icing sugar
300g soft cheese
1/4tsp vanilla extract
1tbsp lemon juice
150g lemon curd

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease and line 3 20cm shallow cake tins. Put the milk and tbsp lemon juice in a jug. Stir and leave to stand for at least 5 minutes.

Put the rest of the lemon juice in a pan with 75g sugar and heat gently until all the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon zest and coconut. Set aside.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.

Cream the butter and the rest of the sugar. Beat in the eggs, 1 at a time.

Fold in the flour, milk and coconut mix. Transfer to the tins, level the tops and bake for 25 minutes or until the tops spring back when lightly pressed. Cool on a wire rack.

For the filling, cream the butter and icing sugar (although I thought I had creamed well, I was still left with some lumps of butter in the final filling. I suspect it was not softened as much as it should have been), then beat in the soft cheese, vanilla and lemon juice.

Sandwich the cakes with the lemon curd and two-thirds of the filling. Spread the rest on the top and decorate, if desired.

Mummy mistake no. 104

2011-04-21T11:23:00.002+01:00

Leo and I were waiting in the changing rooms for his swimming lesson a couple of weeks ago when he started to climb into the lockers. He was enjoying this and we started playing a bit of peepbo opening and shutting the door. Then he went a bit quiet and I suddenly realised that he didn't had an absorbent swim nappy on and that he could just be sitting quietly in the locker weeing on the floor...hurriedly removed my child and went for a swim. Ooooops!

Nigella's cakes

2011-04-19T11:07:00.003+01:00

I tried Nigella's Soot's Flapjack this week as I need to find a 'regular' flapjack recipe (Rachel Allen's has too many bits and seeds in for L's liking!) and my sister swears by this one. It came out okay...but too dry - basically just crumbled into nothing!!! We think it might be because I used porridge oats instead of rolled oats and they sucked up too much of the liquid. So I'll buy some more this week and give it another go.

Meanwhile, the Madeira cake came out ace.

240g softened unsalted butter
200g caster sugar, plus an extra 2 tbspn for sprinkling
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
3 large eggs
210g self-raising flour
90g plain flour

2lb loaf tin

Preheat the oven to 170C (I used 160ish for my fan oven)/gas 3.

Cream the butter and sugar, and add the lemon zest. Add the eggs one at a time with a tbspn of flour with each. Then gently mix in the rest of the flour and finally, the lemon juice. Sprinkle with caster sugar as it goes into the oven, and bake for 1 hour or until a cake-tester comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack and let it cool in the tin before turning out.

Birthday cakes

2011-04-15T22:27:00.001+01:00

Leigh bought an android phone recently and Zachary's been quite taken with Angry Birds - I'm hoping he doesn't see this video otherwise I might have a job on my hands for next year's birthday cake!!!

Birthday lemon fondant cake

2011-04-07T19:10:00.004+01:00

I have recently seen two lemon cake recipes which have caught my eye. The first was a lemon fondant cake in the April Good Food magazine, and the other was a lemon coconut cake in the latest Asda magazine. My brother-in-law has a birthday tomorrow and I thought this would be a good opportunity to try out one of the cakes...saving the other as an Easter cake!

Now, I made the cake as per the recipe, but have decorated it differently, so have not included their description of decoration in the recipe below. The recipe as printed had a marzipan layer directly on the cake (held on with more lemon curd), then the fondant icing, which is coloured yellow and has coloured marzipan roses and leaves on the top. My cake is for a boy. I went for very simple - white fondant icing with his name piped on! I think I did not make the icing quite thick enough though as most of it seemed to drip off the bottom of the cake - however a change of plate when the icing had mostly set, has made everything look much better! My only issue with making the icing thicker is whether I would then have had a problem getting it spread over the cake. Maybe, although there was a lot of icing. As you might guess, my problem with icing is usually one of finesse - slightly too heavy-handed and I just end up pulling up the edges of the cake and having icing spotted with cake crumbs!

Also, the cakes were pretty moist after the drizzling of the lemon mixture and it was pretty hairy transferring them to a plate and then again to another plate, especially as it's a triple layer cake. I was convinced I was going to leave half the cake behind. At least it's all ready now.

(I will post a picture of the cake cut open when it's ready)

350g very soft butter
350g caster sugar, plus 1 tbspn
250g self-raising flour
3 eggs
100g ground almonds
150ml pot natural yoghurt
2 lemons, zest and juice

8 tbspn lemon curd

For the icing - fondant icing sugar and some blue food colouring

Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease and line the bases of 3 x 20cm sandwich tins. Beat the butter, sugar, flour, eggs, almonds, yoghurt, all the zest and half the lemon juice together. Divide between the tins and bake for 20-25 mins until a skewer poked in the centre comes out clean (you may want to change the shelves around after 20 minutes to ensure the cakes cook evenly). (the cakes came out much paler than I was expecting but the skewer came out clean so I trusted that. Haven't tried the cake yet to check it's cooked - I'm hoping it's the use of the yoghurt which affected the colour). Mix the juice of the second lemon with 1 tbspn sugar, poke the cakes a few times with a skewer and drizzle over. Cool in the tins on wire racks.

Sandwich the 3 sponges together with the lemon curd and decorate as you wish!

Lemon meringue tart

2011-04-05T19:24:00.003+01:00

Delicious!!! Yum, yum yum. Took a while to put together, but well worth it - I made the pastry base when both boys were out, and then made the lemon filling and meringue topping when they were both around. I needed Leigh's extra pair of hands for the last 2 stages to help manage the children (!) but it wasn't too complex, just lots of little stages.

Only 2 notes to make - I misread the ingredients for the pastry and mixed together a whole egg with 2 tbspns water, rather than just the yolk. So there I was feeling all superior that although the recipe appeared to instruct the use of all the liquid in the pastry mix, I had realised this would be far too much and used just under half, when Leigh came along and burst my bubble, pointing out the actual listed ingredient! Ooops.

And I also had a bit of an issue with leaking after it came out of the oven (no,not me personally - the pie!). As the pie was cooling, a clear syrupy liquid started leaking out from the base of the tin. Leigh had a look on Nigella.com which suggested that this can happen with meringues on lemon meringue pie (here), although when we cut the pie open, it looked more as though it was the lemon filling which was weeping sugar syrup. Not sure why this happened - my tin was slightly larger than described in the recipe, although it's not very deep, so I thought the 2 would compensate for each other. I shall have to investigate...

Here we are going into the oven

out of the oven

and a cut slice - I was convinced it wasn't going to set properly, but it came out really well and the filling was lovely and smooth - fortunately no scrambled eggs!

(the Great British Book of Baking)

Pastry :
175g plain flour
a good pinch of salt
1 tbspn caster sugar
115g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
1 medium egg yolk mixed with 2 tbspn ice-cold water

Lemon Filling :
3 medium unwaxed lemons
40g cornflour
300ml water
3 medium egg yolks
85g caster sugar
50g unsalted butter, diced

Meringue Topping :
4 medium egg whites
200g caster sugar

22cm loose-based deep flan tin and a baking tray (I greased my tin)

To make the pastry in food processor, put the flour, salt and sugar into the processor bowl and pulse until just combined. Add the butter and process until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. With the machine running, add the yolk mixture (yep, you would have thought that this sentence would have given the game away, but still I didn't realise!) and process until the dough comes together. If there are dry crumbs, add some water a tspn at a time until you have a slightly firm dough.

Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill for 20 mins, then roll out on a lightly floured surface (or using the double clingfilm technique!) to a circle about 28cm across and use to line the flan tin. Prick the base with a fork then chill for 15 minutes (this allows the dough to relax after it has been handled and reduces the risk of shrinking in the oven). Heat the oven to 190C (I set my fan oven to 175C)/375F/gas 5. Line the pastry case with greaseproof paper, fill with baking beans and bake blind for about 15 minutes until lightly golden and just firm. Remove the paper and beans, lower the oven temperature to 180C (160C fan)/350F/gas 4 and bake for a further 5 minutes, or until the base is crisp and lightly golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool while making the filling. Leave the oven on and put the baking tray in to heat.

Rinse the lemons, then grate the zest into a heatproof bowl. Add the juice and cornflour and stir to make a smooth paste (mine was still quite liquid at this stage and I thought I'd have trouble later, but it thickened up perfectly). Bring the water to a boil in a medium pan and pour it on to the lemon mixture, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. When thoroughly combined, pour the mixture back into the pan and cook, stirring continuously until it boils and thickens (I don't know whether I had the hob too high, but it thickened REALLY quickly after I put it back in the pan and almost took me by surprise). Reduce the heat and simmer gently, stirring, for a minute. Remove the pan from the heat and beat in the egg yolks, quickly followed by the butter and sugar. Spoon the filling into the pastry case and spread evenly.

Put the 4 egg whites into a large bowl and whisk until they stand in soft peaks. Gradually whisk in the sugar to make a stiff glossy meringue. Pile the meringue on top of the lemon filling so it is totally covered. Stand the tart on the hot baking tray and bake for 20 minutes, until the meringue is a golden brown. Leave to cool, then unmould and serve at room temperature.

Rustic courgette, pine nut and ricotta tart

2011-04-03T20:13:00.003+01:00

I would here point out that the word "rustic" does appear in the title of the recipe as printed in Good Food - it is not something I added based on the way it looked when it came out of the oven (although of course it did!).

Very tasty, shame Leigh's not big on ricotta, but at least I've tried it out now. I halved the quantities and it came out quite well.

2 tbsp olive oil
4 courgettes, thinly sliced
2 x 250g tubs ricotta
4 eggs
large handful basil leaves, shredded
grating of nutmeg
50g Parmesan, grated
1 large garlic clove, crushed
500g block puff pastry
dash of flour, for dusting
large handful pine nuts

1. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Heat half the olive oil in a frying pan. Sizzle the courgettes for 5 mins until golden around the edges, then set aside. In a bowl, beat the ricotta with the eggs, basil, nutmeg, half the Parmesan and the garlic. Set aside.

2. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to a rough round about 40cm wide, then transfer to a baking tray. Spread the pastry with the ricotta mix, leaving a 4cm border. Press the courgette slices into the ricotta, then scatter over the pine nuts and remaining Parmesan. Bring the sides up over the edge of the ricotta, pinch to encase the filling, then bake for 30 mins until the filling is puffed up and golden.

Battenberg Cake

2011-04-02T19:21:00.005+01:00

So my next challenge from the Great British Book of Baking is Battenberg Cake. Now I love marzipan and love Battenberg and thought I would give this a go.

The cake was named in honour of the marriage in 1884 of Queen Victoria’s Granddaughter, Princess Victoria of Heese-Darnstadt, to Prince Louis of Battenberg (they later changed their name to the more English-sounding Mountbatten). It is thought to represent either traditional German two-tone cakes, or the four Battenberg princes (Louis, Alexander, Henry and Joseph).

My interesting moments for this cake started with trying to work out how to divide my 18cm square tin into 2 halves with foil. I had absolutely no idea how the book envisaged this happening and you tube was no help either. Anyway I bodged something which worked reasonably well (would have worked better if I had actually placed it in the centre of the tin!), but think next time I might try card wrapped in foil as it should give a more sturdy wall. Also I was surprised at how small the cake was - although typing that now I don't think it was any smaller than the cakes you buy in the shops, just that compared to say a Victoria sponge, it does seem smaller... or maybe we're just greedy and eat huge slices of cake!!!

The cakes rose too much in the middle so I need to remember next time to try and put a depression in each rather than just levelling off. When I was preparing the cakes to put them together, it felt as though I was almost cutting off more than I was leaving! And my marzipan stuck to the table. All was going well until I tried to lift the cake from preparation area onto a plate and left half the bottom of the marzipan behind. Errrr - see photo. Also I might try more marzipan next time for a sightly thicker layer as I love the stuff. Had to throw my apricot-smeared off-cuts away quickly, otherwise there was the distinct possibility of me rolling them into a ball and eating like an apple... I’m not kidding.

Here is my divided tin on leaving the oven

The finished product showing the 'good' side

and the not so good side!

The sponge came out really well though and it all tasted great.

Sponge :
175g unsalted butter, softened
175g caster sugar
3 medium eggs, beaten
½ tsp vanilla extract
175g self-raising flour
1 tbsp milk
a few drops of red or pink food colouring

to finish :
350g white marzipan
8 tbspn good quality apricot jam

Also need a 20 x 15cm Battenberg tin or an 18cm-square cake tin, greased with butter and the base lined with greaseproof paper, and divided into 2 halves with tin foil.

Preheat the oven to 180C/170C ish fan/350F/gas 4. Put the butter and sugar into a bowl and beat until light in colour and very creamy in texture. Mix the eggs and vanilla, then gradually add to the butter mixture, beating well after each addition. Sift the flour into the bowl, add the milk and gently fold the ingredients together using a large metal spoon. Divide the mixture in half. Spoon one half into 2 sections of the Battenberg tin, or into half the divided square tin (make sure the foil divider is folded over the side of the tin so it is well secured), and spread evenly. Add the food colouring (no Zachary, adding food colouring is not something you can help with!!) a few drops at a time to the second portion of the mixture, mixing it in well so there are no streaks; the colour will tend to darken on baking so don’t overdo it. Spoon this pink mixture into the remaining sections of the Battenberg tin or the other side of the divided tin. Spread evenly, then bake for 25-30 minutes (28), until firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and run a round bladed knife around the inside of the tin and the dividers to loosen the sponge, but do not unmould. Stand the tin on a wire rack and cool completely.

Carefully, turn out the sponge and remove the lining paper. If the cakes have risen unevenly in the oven, trim them with a long sharp knife so that the short sides are exactly square. If using the square tin, cut each sponge in half length-ways. Roll out the marzipan on a work surface lightly dusted with cornflour or icing sugar to a rectangle measuring 20cm x 30cm. Heat the apricot jam with a tablespoon of water, then push through a sieve to make a smooth puree. Brush one long side of one strip of pink cake with jam and set it jam side down on the marzipan so that it is lined up along one short side. Brush the 3 other long sides of this strip with jam and set a yellow-coloured strip, lightly brushed on the long sides with jam, next to it and another one, also brushed with jam on top of it. Lightly brush jam on the last pink strip and place it on top of the yellow one to make a 2-layered chequerboard pattern (can split the 4 pieces again to make a 4-layered pattern). Wrap the marzipan neatly over and around the whole cake, leaving the ends visible. Trim off the excess marzipan and slice off the ends to neaten. The top can be left plain or pinched along the edges decoratively.

It's coming...

2011-04-02T19:21:00.001+01:00

Strange injuries

2011-03-16T16:22:00.002Z

I have almost got used to the boys managing to injure each other. To start with, it was nearly always Zachary being slightly overzealous with Leo, although Recently Leo has begun to get his own back. I left the room the other day to go to the kitchen and whilst my back was turned, heard Zachary start to cry.

When I asked him what hurt, he said Leo had hurt his tongue. I then started my usual talk about Zachary not putting his head/hands/other body part in Leo's way as Leo tends to grab and squeeze. Zachary told me Leo hadn't grabbed his tongue. Oh. When I asked how it had been hurt, it turned out Leo had bitten Zachary's tongue. Least said and all that!

The inevitable has occurred

2011-03-16T14:47:00.010Z

Leo has the pox. Almost 2 weeks to the day that Zachary started to get spots, Leo has come out in them too and is really feeling it today. Fortunately Leigh's taken the day off work so I can tend to the sick one, and he's taken Zachary out to the shops this afternoon. Oh well, another 2 weeks of quarantine, but then we should be ready for our hols!!!

Leo's asleep at the moment (he did not sleep at all...well last night!) so I'm taking the opportunity to start scanning in some old family photos. My Mum is 65 next year and my sister told me of a great family photo book/tree(?) thing that her sister-in-law put together for one of her relatives. I need to get hold of some much older photos and am hoping that my aunt can help out as apparently she put together our family tree a while back and that might be helpful. I'm going to wait though til I've seen an example of what we're putting together so that I have some idea of what exactly I need to ask for, rather than 'your entire collection of photos please!'

But on scanning in the photos I have of me and my sister as children I noticed a worrying penchant for dressing up. I now know where my enthusiasm for G&S productions, and our new year's eve murder mystery dinners (at which we are required to dress the part of our suspect) has come from...

I'm little red riding hood and my sister is the doctor in the middle

For the Royal Wedding in 1981

I think this was for an international evening at Brownies

My sister as Miss A-Tissue at a school fancy dress parade

Helpful and friendly nurses

I'm in the middle as Mrs Knitwit, and I'm pretty sure that's my sister under the big floppy hat to my left as you look at the photo - another school event.

I'm sure there was a photo of me dressed up as a 'leap year frog' somewhere as well...but perhaps that's best left to the imagination only!

I think however the main comment I must make is 'go dressmaker!' I know that my nan had a lot of involvement in some of the costumes (my sister's Miss A-Tissue is one of them) but I suspect that my mum was pretty handy too.

Mr Asda and Mr Tesco

2011-03-10T19:35:00.003Z

Noticing a few spots on Zachary's face and body last Tuesday, I took him to the doctor and ... it's chicken pox! We were told that he would be infectious for a week after the last spot appeared, and that the incubation period is 14-18 days for watching out for spots on Leo. So that last 2 weeks has seen me and the boys quarantined in the house trying desperately to not go completely potty. Fortunately the weather has been reasonable so we've been able to get out in the garden every day, and this morning we went to the park - although 'officially' Zachary won't be non-infectious til probably Saturday, he's back to his normal self and we thought the park would be reasonably safe. As it turned out, there were no other children there so it was fine and all 3 of us enjoyed the trip out.

No sign of spots on Leo yet...

But the chicken pox has meant that I have not been able to go out to do my usual weekly shop, so we have relied on Mr Tesco and Mr Asda to bring our shopping to the house. It's been ages since I did any online shopping (we flirted with it for a short while in Ipswich, but didn't stick to it) and I have realised that I am rubbish at it! There really is nothing that compares with walking up and down the supermarket aisles, looking at the products and using them as an aide memoir for things I've forgotten to put on the list. Also, I don't always look at the product description with the care and attention I should.

This morning, Mr Asda brought us 8 cans of chopped tomatoes (I'm sure I only ordered 4...), and three bags of granny smith apples (I only wanted 3 apples) and I totally forgot to order Shreddies. We get through about a box of Shreddies (or supermarket own brand equivalent) a week and because I didn't have it on the list, we now don't have any. Oh well, on to cornflakes and weetabix for a few days! Also, I ordered some Hovis digestive biscuits (because Zachary likes 'toast' biscuits). Presumably Asda didn't have any in because they substituted ginger nuts for them. What? Ginger nuts? Why not just regular digestives? So they got returned. Hmmmm, hopefully a regular shop next week!

It's not deep, it's too lemony, and it has a strange, dry, crusty top

2011-02-25T20:09:00.005Z

What is it? My treacle tart, sadly.

Yep, it looks like no treacle tart I've ever seen either. Unfortunately it was a recipe from my Great British Baking book, and their photo looks so appetising, so I'm wondering if it was me. I've not made one before, so had no real idea what the filling consistency should be like before it goes into the oven - the recipe didn't give any indication of what it should be like, but just said "if it's too runny, add more breadcrumbs..." How will I know if it's too runny??? My filling seemed very moist and lovely going into the oven, but came out very dry and crusty. Underneath the crust it was a bit more as I had expected, but the whole thing looked nothing like the sumptuous looking tart in the book.

I think the problem was that there was just not enough filling. I'll put the GBB recipe at the end, but it suggests using a 26cm deep ovenproof pie plate. Now I do not have one of these, but was thinking that 26cm sounded quite big (my usual cake tins are 8", which is 20cm, so I a vague idea of 26cm being a bit bigger), so decided to use my heart pie plate. However, on mixing up the filling - 6 heaped tablespoons of syrup plus 75g breadcrumbs - it became apparent that there was nowhere near enough. So, transferred pastry across to another, smaller pie plate, which it turns out is 23cm. Filling still doesn't seem to be enough. Had a look in Delia's Complete Cookery Course - she uses 6 tbspn syrup, 100g breadcrumbs, but only a 20cm pie plate. Aha. The treacle tart recipe I looked at on Nibblous has a filling comprising 225g golden syrup, 50g dark treacle, 220ml double cream, 75g breadcrumbs, lemon juice AND 2 eggs. For a 20-22cm tart. So surely the pie plate measurement in GBB is wrong? Did it mean 20cm and someone's handwriting got misread as 26cm???? Perhaps we shall never know...

The question now is...am I brave enough to try again tomorrow as this pudding was to be for a dinner party. Alex? any suggestions???

Pastry :
220g plain flour
pinch of salt
1 tsp caster sugar
160g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
2-3 tbsn ice cold water

Filling :
6 rounded tbspn golden syrup
75g fresh white breadcrumbs
grated zest and juice of a large lemon

a 26cm deep ovenproof pie plate

Put the flour, salt and sugar into the bowl of a food processor and pulse for a couple of seconds until just combined. Add the pieces of butter and process until the mixture looks like fine crumbs. With the machine running, add 2 tbspn ice-cold water through the feed tube - the mixture should come together to make a ball of firm dough. If the mixture seems dry and crumbly and won't bind, add more water 1 tsp at a time.

Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill for 20 minutes. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured work surface (I used Rachel Allen's roll out between 2 pieces of clingfilm method - genius!) to a circle 3cm larger than your pie plate. Wrap the pastry around the rolling pin, drape it over the plate, then gently unroll it so it covers the plate. Press the pastry on to the base, pressing out any pockets of air. Trim off the excess with a sharp knife and chill while you make the filling.

Heat the oven to 190C/375F/gas 5 (I went for 175C for my fan oven). Gently warm the syrup in a small pan until it becomes runny, then remove from the heat and stir in the breadcrumbs, lemon zest and juice. Leave to stand for 10 minutes; if the mixture seems very sloppy, add another spoonful of crumbs, but if it seems stiff and dry, add another spoonful of syrup. Spoon the filling into the pastry case without pressing down or compacting the mixture. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes or until the pastry is golden.

Climbatron

2011-02-25T20:08:00.001Z

Had to confiscate the Fisher Price garage this afternoon after Leo climbed it and stood on top doing a great impersonation of King Kong. He won't walk on his own, but he's climbing everything he can get his hands on!

Fantastic choc chip cookie recipe!

2011-02-18T19:45:00.003Z

Leigh dug this recipe out for me. The link is here - I'm not going to type it out again because it's quite long and their commentary is great as well. The cookies are lovely - chewy and crispy and a great flavour. Will definitely be making these again.

I did the first 8 or so cookies using the ball method, straight onto the cookie sheet. Here they are going in...

and coming out.

The rest of the dough I rolled into a very rough "log"

and this was chilled for a couple of hours before Leigh cut it into 'discs' (I use that word carefully - my log was artistically rustic!) and baked.

Going in...

and out.

Both sets came out really well, although I overcooked some of the disc cookies. I was expecting them to be slightly browner than perhaps they needed to be, so slightly less chewy in the centre than they might have been. But still gorgeous. Definitely using this again!

One day I will stop boring you with tales of potty training...

2011-02-17T21:05:00.003Z

...but until then!

Today we had some friends over in the afternoon to play. A short while in I realised Zachary had gone to the utility room at the back of the kitchen. There is also a toilet there, and his usual reason for going into that room is nefarious. However today when I went to investigate, I found Zachary sitting on the toilet (having moved the little step to get up there), pants and trousers round his ankles announcing that he'd done a wee all on his own and didn't need my help. He did this all a further 3 times in the afternoon - brilliant progress. He hasn't fallen down the toilet yet, although he has joked about it! And slight setback on the poos today - 2 in pants. Never mind, maybe next time.

Wee wee wee all the way home

2011-02-16T18:52:00.003Z

Potty training is going well. Wees still getting in the potty - numbers 2's still a bit more (s)hit and miss. One in, one in pants today, which actually isn't too bad going.
Zachary does seem to wee an awful lot though - perhaps I'm just giving him too much to drink!

Today - I put him in pull-ups and pants just in case there was a poo issue when we were out. We went to see Leigh's dad at work, leaving home about half 9 and got there about 10. Zachary did a wee there. We left around half 10, drove 10 mins or so down the road and stopped at a pet store for some chicken feed. As we chose our feed, Zachary announced he needed another wee. Fortunately he was able to hold it while I paid and we raced to McDonalds. Weed. We stopped for a drink there, leaving about 10 past 11. As I got Leo out of the pushchair and into the car, Zachary said he needed another wee. Struggled with not telling him to just go in his pull-up, got Leo back out of the car and we hightailed it back to McDonalds. Another wee. Drove into Derby, met my friend for lunch at the Cathedral cafe and Zachary did another wee immediately on arrival. That's 4 in the space of just over 2 hours. Perhaps he's not properly emptying his bladder, or drinks just go straight through him.

Less wees, this afternoon, but the pull-up was wet when we got home from town. Unable to determine at which point this had occurred but we had been in the car for a while, having dropped off a birthday present before leaving for home.

We have a 3-hour car trip ahead of us on Saturday morning. Potty and laybys at the ready!

Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-15T12:10:00.004Z

For dinner last night we had...

chicken and leek pie in my new brilliant heart-shaped Le Creuset pie dish (which as ie dishes goes is actually quite large...fortunately Leigh saved my pie filling from looking inadequate with a healthy injection of peas!)

individual chocolate cakes with homemade coffee ice cream (Leigh made the ice cream, I provided the cakes)

and for snacking later, choccie biccies! Mmmmmmm.

(you can't really tell, but they've got the words 'sweet heart' stamped into the top)

The towel fits!

2011-02-15T12:09:00.000Z

Hurrah - towel fits Zachary nicely so should be good for his friend too...and it survived a wash this morning! Nothing has dropped off, all the stitching still appears to be intact, and the dark blue towel didn't run and make the yellow towel a nice muddy colour. Phew.

It's finished...

2011-02-12T20:53:00.003Z

...bar a check for size on Zachary tomorrow. Shoulders sewn up, hood sewn on, buttons sewn on, insignia made and sewn on, fire engine sewn on. Done. Hopefully won't fall apart on first wash!

Queen of ever so slightly dodgy craft

2011-02-11T20:44:00.003Z

I love crafty things and making bits and pieces - where I can! Last year, Zachary received a brilliant homemade hooded towel from one of our friends. She took her inspiration from this blog, and made a fantastic bear towel - here I am modelling it

So, with one of Zachary's friends having a birthday coming up, I thought I'd make him a hooded towel like Fireman Sam as the little boy is completely Fireman Sam mad. For those of you who don't know the erstwhile hero of Pontypandy, here he is

Initially I looked for a navy big towel for the wrap around part of the towel, with a yellow towel to go on top like a helmet. Don't get me started on where to get a yellow towel from - certainly none of the usual places! I found one on Ebay, but with an estimated delivery time of 8-10 working days, I had a look in Long Eaton too and found one in a very quaint shop which sells all sorts of random linens and clothing. On looking closer at Fireman Sam and thinking I wanted to try and make the towel look as much like him as I could (I think this is my failing with a lot of crafty things - too much detail!), I decided to try making a tabard style towel rather than wrap around because it would be easier to show the buttons... Yes, I know, don't laugh.

Anyway, sewing machine in hand I started tonight. Cut out head hole, stitched round it with bias tape to prevent fraying - with no swearing thanks to this little video

(I love the 'oh no!' face)

, cut yellow towel, stitched top of hood and pinned to bottom towel. Discovered I have made the head hole far to wide and the towel is just going to slip right over this little boy's shoulders. Blast. Never mind, Leigh had a good idea and it should be savable - watch this space!