European Day!

Olá


So tomorrow is European Day at school and Year 4 is studying Portugal. Red, green and yellow attire for myself and Freya in the morning, well definitely for Freya and whatever I can find!

I found out this morning we are going to be baking "Pasta del Nata". This is an egg custard tart and something I've never made before so I copied the recipe and gave it a try this evening... and I have to say they didn't turn out too bad. They tasted OK too!

Then as is my want I decided to have a quick look at the internet and see what other Portuguese baking recipes were around. I found quite a few and settled on making some "Lavadores" which are a type of lemon cookie and a Portuguese Sweet Bread. The cookies turned out beautifully and I am still waiting to see if the bread is going to rise before I put it in the oven. 

Freya came downstairs just as I was making the cookies and wanted to help and she did a very good job too!


Hopefully the children will enjoy tasting them tomorrow along with the ones they will be making themselves. Fingers crossed the sweet bread turns out ok too!


Boa noite!

Pizza!! Hardly Cakes !!

Hmm! Hardly cakes is it, but fun never the less.

Today we had friends coming over for lunch so after cycling to the gym and back this morning it was time for some baking. A quick batch of my fail safe brownies to start with followed by Megan and Freya assisting me in making some Rock Cakes. I'd not had them for years! and they were just as I remembered. They smelled delicious while they were baking too - nutmeg and cinnamon! Megan was especially pleased when she tried them only to discover that they didn't feel or taste like rocks at all!!

Then we met up with our friends down the skate park for Freya to show off her moves on her skate board before coming back to make our own pizzas for tea. As you can see our little visitor was a complete natural and has a vocation at Dominos should he require it!!

We followed up the pizzas with a sticky toffee pudding that I had been wanting to try from Nigella for some time, and although it tasted very nice I have to say it wasn't exactly what I was expecting! Definitely some more searching required to find one I really like.

Different!

Well I'm not giving up the day job but have spent most of the day up on the scaffolding helping Pops fit new fascias to our house! I'm not sure how many times I have been up and down the ladder today but I have to say it is nice to sit down! And guess what more of the same for tomorrow and my days off this week.

In between, however, I did manage to bake a carrot cake and get it iced and a mars bar cake for the girls lunch boxes next week.

I'm looking forward to sampling the carrot cake later I've not made it for a while, and I definitely feel like I deserve it today!

Just Desserts!

An afternoon away from work and spent sitting in front of my laptop trying to remember details of my Just Desserts business from over 4 years ago to include in the Just Desserts section of my book! A little bit of the first draft follows:-

In July 2004 after making delicious desserts for dinner parties, families and friends I thought it would be a good idea to sell my desserts to others who might be having a dinner party or gathering. After plenty of research, a course in food hygiene and lots of preparation I was ready to start my own business from home and called it Just Desserts.

I started by inviting all my girls, neighbours and their friends to my house for an introduction to Just Desserts and a tasting evening. My kitchen was quite bijou then so I set up at least 20 desserts on two dining tables in my lounge. It looked fabulous and I felt very proud if a little nervous as everyone began to arrive. How had I managed to pull it all together?

There were at least thirty ladies salivating around the table when I started by giving a very short speech and then proceeded to describe my way through all the desserts, dishing out tasters as I went. The fantastic feedback was more than I could have imagined and hoped for and by the end of the evening I had the first orders confirmed in my diary. Everyone left feeling replete and most took doggy bags home for husbands and partners to sample too.

The business started and continued to do well, with Christmas being a particularly busy time, one Christmas Eve I had to complete and deliver over 20 desserts! It was then that I felt my children were missing out as I had less time to spend with them, weekends being when most of my baking would need to be done. So after over two years and pleasingly in profit I decided to close Just Desserts and to revert to baking just for family and friends.

So there we have it, it still needs work but I'll slowly getting there. I wanted to include a photo of all the desserts for you to see but Ian is away and I have no idea how to retrieve it from an older storage file! Another time!

Tina's Birthday Barbeque!

Many thanks for a lovely relaxing barbeque Tina and Graeme, and the rain managed to hold off until after we had finished dessert just!!!

So easy chocolate crispy cakes with marshmallows devoured by 10 children!

Lemon meringue pie, which Keira said was the

best she has ever tasted which is great, thank

you!.

White chocolate and strawberry cupcakes and chocolate and raspberry cupcakes for the grown ups. I think I have finally found a way to keep a chocolate sponge nice and moist, so often they are just a little too dry from the cocoa powder.

So I need to get these typed up in my book and then start thinking about what I'm going to bake next!

The Summer Holidays are over!

Well after a fantastic summer holiday, where Megan & Freya fitted in Summer School, we all went to Devon to see the grandparents, Megan went away on a Chinese Course with some of her year at school and we all finished off with a holiday in France, it was time to return to school today for Freya, Megan and me! And... we all enjoyed it, the girl's were especially pleased to catch up with all their friends and settled in well to their new classes.

In France I managed to type up three more recipes for my book, chocolate caramel shortbread, apricot and white chocolate flapjack and pecan pie, along with the introduction and some other waffle, Ian even had time to begin mocking me up a front cover so its beginning to take shape nicely.

Now I am back in my own kitchen and ready to get on with some more recipes. To get myself in the swing of things I whipped up a batch of brownies for Megan and Freya to have as a snack after school this morning before we set off. Then my good friend, Tina, is having a birthday barbeque on Sunday (yes we have some more sun predicted!) and I have offered to bring a selection of desserts with me so that should keep me busy for a couple of days!! And will hopefully result in some positive feedback for my book!