Year 6 Christmas Cake Crumbly

It's the last cake crumbly before Christmas today and it's Year 6's turn. I wonder how many cakes they'll get to sell?
Anyway after a relaxing birthday yesterday, the cakes were demolished in the staff room, it was time to get baking again. The classic brownies and mars bar cakes were whipped up in a flash. Then to make it a bit more Christmassy I thought I would make white chocolate crispy cakes (think snowballs - well sort of!) and snowmen biscuits. Baking them was the quick part decorating 50 snowmen took slightly longer but I'm sure they will sell fast!

My Birthday!

OK! So it's my birthday tomorrow and I'm the one who has to bring cakes into work for everyone else - bizarre! I must have had the best boss ever in my previous job, he bought cakes for everyone in the office whenever it was someone's birthday. Now that makes much more sense.

Anyway to take into the staff room tomorrow I have made a chocolate gateau and a mixed fruit pavlova.  There should be plenty to go round and I hope everyone enjoys them.  Happy Birthday to me!

Ian's Birthday!

Ian's birthday and as we had friends coming over I thought I should make the effort and make him a birthday cake. While he was out at golf yesterday with his mates I made a red velvet cake, then sent him out later in the day shopping with Freya and managed to get it iced and decorated. The girls made daddy out of lego and the rest of the accessories.

As well as the birthday cake I spent the rest of the day yesterday making soup and baking sausage rolls, pasties, cheese muffins and brownies so we had some home comforts to eat after a cold morning at Blenheim Palace today with friends. It was lovely to catch up with them all and the next time we will see them there will be a new addition! I hope it all goes well, good luck!

Happy Birthday Ian, hope you had a lovely day! xx

Break Time!

After break time yesterday, when everyone was coming in to the staff room hoping for a biscuit to go with their tea or coffee and there were none, I thought I would bake some treats to take in for today. What with the rain and the weather getting colder a sweet treat is definitely needed sometimes.

Yesterday I made Stem Ginger Crunch, Date and Walnut Flapjack and Chocolate Refrigerator Cake. To make sure no one feels guilty about having more than one piece I have cut them all into bite size chunks. I'm sure this will put a smile on people's faces come 10.55am!

Baking Blip Over!

After a good few weeks off from home baking both my girls and I are glad that I am back on the case. I had an extra day off yesterday and after a lovely morning of shopping (new dress and shoes!) I thought I would hit the kitchen.
Megan had been asking me to make some cookies, however, was more than pleased to come home from school to discover that I had made chocolate caramel shortbread (one of the girls' favourites). We also have a Year 4 meeting at school on a Thursday morning so I thought I would make some individual carrot cakes to take in for that. Well I actually ended up making 30 and there are only 5 of us in the meeting so I'm sure the rest of the staff will appreciate them too!

Time to load up the car (it's raining again!!) and off we go.

Year 6 Cake Crumbly

So it was the last cake crumbly before half term today and I think we are all in need of a week off! A time to relax, catch up with family and friends, I'm really looking forward to it.

Anyway back to cake crumbly, Megan's last year at the school and Year 6 are trying to raise lots of money so I thought I would rise to the challenge and bake plenty of cakes to take in. 

Think I was in a bit of a chocolate mood when I started and I ended up making Chocolate and Marshmallow Crispy cakes, Chocolate Brownies, Blondies (white chocolate brownies to most people) and Chocolate Butterfly cakes with Lemon Icing. Then to redress the chocolate balance I thought I would make Iced Butterfly Biscuits only to discover once I had made the biscuits I didn't have enough icing sugar to make the icing with. So my lovely husband, Ian, was in the supermarket at 7 o'clock this morning buying some so I could decorate the biscuits before school. What a star!

Iced Butterfly Biscuits

Blondies & Chocolate and Marshmallow Crispy Cakes

Chocolate Butterfly Cakes with Lemon Icing
and Brownies

The cake crumbly was huge with most of the year bringing in cakes to sell, so much so that they need to have another one tomorrow to sell the rest. Fantastic! I hope they do well and raise lots of money.

What with baking for the cake crumbly and finding the time to bake three Christmas cakes I think I've had a very productive week in the kitchen. I think I might even make my own Christmas pudding being as we are at home for Christmas this year.

Cards & Cake!

Thank you to all of you who came to my card party last night, I enjoyed myself and I hope you did too. I bought my first Christmas cards as did a lot of others, just need to get my Christmas cake made now and I will be making that move towards Christmas preparations!

Back to last night I thought that I would make all mini morsels, easy to eat and far less washing up! Scones with strawberry jam and Devonshire clotted cream, of course. Mini chocolate and raspberry pavlovas, just big enough to fit one raspberry on the top. Chocolate refrigerator cake made to my own yummy recipe. Mini velvet blush cupcakes, these taste like no other, delicious! Finally, homemade shortbread for those with a less sweet tooth! The cakes were devoured with pleasure and many returned for seconds, thirds, fourths,fifths and more - the advantage of them being bitesize is you don't even have to feel too guilty!! Luckily there's not too many left for me to work my way through on my day off!