Her First Commission

 Middlest is always saying she wants to be a baker. Well this weekend she got her first taste of it. She had a commission to make a birthday cake for a friend of hers. 

they requested a chocolate cake with chocolate butter icing on top. Butter icing in the middle and homemade jam. 

Fair play to her as she baked it after spending the day with me at the craft fair and decorated it that evening. She was super pleased to be asked to make it though and you could tell she was proud as she dropped it off on Sunday morning (where they were having a D&D party with a professional dungeon master! 

Another Birthday Cake...

 The years seem to slip past. My Middlest turns nine. I can hardly believe it. 

She wanted to bake her own birthday cake this year. So she baked the three cakes I needed and I decorated them when she was out. 

It's not my finest work, but it's also no Peppa Pig...

valentines Upside-down cake

My wife and I don't "do" valentines but today our middlest child made us a lovely valentines pineapple upside-down cake. 

 It was lovely! She even tried to trick me into thinking it was just a sponge before it was put out! 

Young Baker

I'm obviously  proud of my kids, like every parent. But one thing I'm particularly proud of is their love of food. Inherited from both my wife and from me - we're both seriously into our food and love cooking and feeding other people.

The children have taken this as normal. They love helping us cook and having people round for food. They really like it when they can cook something with little or no help, something that has been happening more and more.

Our eldest managed to cook a peach and chickpea curry from scratch (a meal that has become a staple in our house) a few weeks back. sorting out all the ingredients, and cooking them herself, the only thing I had to do was turn on our technical induction hob, something I feel like I need help with at times!

Then last night our middle child decided she wanted to do some baking. I told her that she could but would need to write out the recipe into our family cook books first. She chose pineapple upside down cake, a family favourite, she did everything herself, the only thing I did was put it into the oven and take it out again. She even tested the cake to see if it was done by putting a knife in and seeing if it came out clean.

She was so proud when they had a friend round tonight and she could offer him a piece of cake that she had made herself! The other lovely part was that while she did this we were all in the kitchen doing other things and preparing a huge tea for when my wife came back from work, extra large as my parents were coming over as well!

They're finally starting to earn their keep!

Just wondering what I should get her to make me next...

What was the first cake you made by yourself?

Another Birthday - Children Are Now 3, 6 & 7!

I honestly can't believe that our children are now three, six and seven! It's gone so fast but it's been amazing!

A bridesmaid dress she got form the jumble sale that she wore the whole day. 

This one turned six this week. She an incredible young lady, full of fun, , humour, intelligence, mischief and fiestiness, and she certainly knows how to keep us on our toes!

Banana & Chocolate Fairy Cakes

Each week we buy a lot of bananas and normally the kids fire through them like they're the last ones on earth. 

But sometimes they get pushed to the back of the bowl and forgotten or I buy too many (the children are as unpredictable as me!) 

So when that happens we turn to baking!

Cooking On Wood - Burnt Cake

Last week I started to experiment with cooking on our new wood stove. 

I love it already, even though we're not in the new kitchen yet I've been keen to use it, mainly for heat but having the oven right there has meant I've wanted to try it. 

Raspberry Slice

So many raspberries at the moment it's almost becoming hard to know what to do with them!

But I'm loving my latest recipe I've been messing around with - Raspberry slice! 

Our raspberry patch is about 25ft long and 6ft deep so as you can imagine it produces a fair few raspberries each day at this time of year. I can normally pick a couple of large punnets full every couple of days. I've frozen loads, dehydrated them, made jam, cooked crumbles and I wanted to bake with them more, but not just chucking them in a sponge, that's gets old fast.

So I decided to have a look around the internet and then alter a recipe to suit what I have to hand! 

This turned out really good, everyone loved it and it's got so many raspberries in it it almost has to be healthy!

70g of almond flour,
250g self raising flour,
280g of brown sugar,
200g of butterTwo eggs 500g of raspberries (I used fresh but I think it would work with frozen ones as well)

Mix the flour, almond flour, sugar and melted butter together (I melt the butter just to make it easier to mix together). 
Get about 100g of this mixture and keep to one side.
Then mix in the eggs and pour onto a tray.
Lay half the raspberries all over it and sprinkle on the mixture you held back.
Bake for 45 minutes at 180.
Then get out and add the other half of the raspberries and cook for another 15 minutes.

This tastes amazing!

Great cold or with custard whilst it's still warm. I imagine it would work well with other fruit as well.

Let me know if you give it a try.

Anyone else got a good baking recipe using raspberries?

Strawberry Cake

I use this blog as a diary of things I've done here, amongst other things.

Also as a record of all the birthdays cakes I've made over the years!

My daughter was five over the weekend and when I asked her what she wanted she said a cake in the shape of a strawberry. 

I didn't try to discourage her as I thought I might be able to pull this one off! A random request though but still easier than if she'd have asked for a raspberry! I think I've got to make another one for her party at the weekend now!

Dinosaur Cake

After a few less successful birthday cakes, a few of my friends cruelly wait with baited breath to see what I'll "create" for the next birthday.

My little boy loves Dinosaurs or anything that goes "raaa!!" 

So I made a dinosaur cake for him. 

I'm certainly not going to give up my day job (if I had one) but he and the girls loved it and it has a certain homemade charm to it. He did try and rip his eyes off when he got near to it though!

I've got to make another cake for my eldest who turns five at the weekend - any ideas? She keeps changing her mind on what she wants (last request was a cake shaped like a strawberry)!

Leftover Porridge Cake

And I give you "leftover porridge cake"

It's impossible to predict how much breakfast my three are going to eat, some days they eat the lot, others they barely touch it. 

Today they just weren't interested but I decided not to waste it. I invented a very stodgy cake instead. 

I mixed up half a cup of butter, a cup of sugar, a cup and bit of self raising flour (I'm really that precise!) a teaspoon of cinnamon, 2 eggs and the left over porridge (and out 2 cups worth i think. Oh and a good handful of currents (they're called yeah yeahs in this house for some reason). Mixed it all up and then split it between two 8 inch cake tins. 

Cooked at 180 until done (about 20 minutes or so) not forgetting to turn your cakes round if your stupid oven cooks more one side than the other like ours does.

Then got them out the oven, put a bit of golden syrup on the bottom one and spread it round before plonking the other on top. 

Tastes pretty good to me!

For bonus points, if you want to up the difficulty level of this cake, try doing it with a ten month old child clinging to your leg and using your trousers to wipe his snotty nose on. Makes it far more fun I can assure you. ..