I'm putting him to work early!

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

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

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

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

All wrapped and ready to go!

POP Cakes The Third

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

Strange injuries

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

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

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

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

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!

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...

...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

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

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!

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...

...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

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!

We're sticking with it this time...

Having another go at potty training with Zachary. I've had a few attempts since our first blast last November, but not really stuck at it. This time however, Zachary's move to the big boys and girls' room at nursery after Easter is (almost) imminent and nursery seem keen for him to be potty trained by then. To be honest, so am I!

So we started off again at the weekend, had a couple of accidents, but then Leigh and I cottoned onto Zachary's pattern of behaviour immediately pre-wee. He either does an increasingly energetic little dance (especially if he's in the middle of something he doesn't want to be disturbed from), or he goes into the corner of the room, or somewhere away from the rest of us. That realised, we managed the rest of the weekend getting his wees into the potty. Hurrah! He seems quite keen to wee on the potty which is good, although not quite ready for poos yet (a shiny gold chocolate coin has been promised for the first poo in potty). And yesterday he even announced he needed a wee, followed by actually producing a wee! Up til then, Leigh and I had been initiating everything and suggesting he sits on the potty for a try.

So we are making small steps, but positive ones and I feel encouraged. I'm going to stick with it now until Zachary's happy with it all. I'm tending to fill the morning with activities outside the house (and he wears pull-ups for these) and then spending the afternoon in the house with Zachary just in pants. This works well because Leo now only seems to need one nap a day and is generally taking it just after lunch for 1-2 hours, so I can concentrate on Zachary for a bit. We have guests tomorrow afternoon, which usually causes a bit of excitement...we'll see how it goes!

In other news, Leigh has found possibly the most invaluable piece of advice ever on the internet ...