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!

Sunday Lunch

Today we had family over for Sunday lunch and unsure of the weather we had decided on Roast Pork with all the trimmings, stuffing, roast potatoes, parsnips and sweet potatoes, carrots, broccoli, Brussel sprouts and gravy! 

To follow that I thought I would do something quite light and refreshing and had settled on a Key Lime Pie which  I made yesterday and just needed to finish this morning. A baked biscuit shell filled with a smooth, creamy, lime middle and topped with lightly whipped double cream. However, Megan had an urge for my triple chocolate cheesecake so I decided to make that too. Although on checking my cupboards for the ingredients I discovered we were out of white chocolate so opted for a Double Chocolate Cheesecake instead! Just as yummy! 

They were much appreciated the only problem being there were only 8 of us to eat dessert and I have enough left to last for breakfast, lunch and tea until next Sunday lunch! Think I may have to share some of it with my friends at work tomorrow, not that they'll complain.


Our guests also had a chance to look through the first pages of my book and they said it was looking good, and said they would be more than happy to buy it once it was published!

Year 4 Cake Crumbly

So it's my first Cake Crumbly of the school year tomorrow. At lunch today in the staff room I was kindly advised that it had been announced in the staff meeting this morning that I would be baking for this weeks cake crumbly - no pressure then!!

Hmm! What to bake? I wanted to kill two birds with one stone so to speak and bake for the cake crumbly while still assisting myself in the book writing process. At Freya's request brownies were once again at the forefront and whipped up this morning while getting ready for school. Nothing like the smell of fresh brownies first thing in the morning. Mmm!

Then after tea we multitasked, testing Megan and Freya ready for their weekly spelling tests. Freya reading the recipes for me and for her reading diary and both girls doing a bit of baking along with me ready for cake crumbly, and as I was reminded by them for their lunch boxes.

I decided that I would go for Apricot and White Chocolate Chewy Bars and Lemon Drizzle Cake initially as they are both easy and quick to do. Followed by Gingerbread People which all (well nearly all!) children love! As you may have guessed this is the one the girls wanted to assist with, so I cut out the people for the cake crumbly and they were let loose with the left over dough. We have ended up with lots of tiny flowers, leaves and butterflies which Megan thinks are the perfect size for her lunch box tomorrow.

With bedtime approaching it was time for milk and for Megan to have a taster of the Gingerbread leaves. Then once peace had descended on the kitchen it was time for me to decorate my people, very relaxing. Now I hope that the children will enjoy eating them tomorrow as much as I enjoyed making them.