For the love of cake continued...

We demolished the Birthday cake. As always it took a lot less time than it took to make.





It was pretty yummy. The beauty of this fruit cake recipe is that it doesn't have to be made months in advance to mature. Here's the recipe if you fancy making it yourself:

350g plain flour
250g butter
350g soft brown sugar
40g whitefat
5 eggs
350g currants
350g sultanas
75g ground almonds
110g cherries
110g candied peel
Small tablespoon treacle
Brandy
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ cinnamon

Rub in the fats to the flour and sugar. Add the fruits, spices, bicarb, treacle, almonds, eggs and brandy. Mix well.

Prepare a tin carefully with one or two layers of greaseproof paper inside the tin and brown paper or folded layers of tin foil ted round the outside and standing higher than the cake-tin top. Spoon in the mixture. Cover the top of the cake with a piece of tin foil for the first 3 half hours of cooking. Bake slowly at 140 degrees celcius for four and half hours, or until ready - the cake should look firm, and when a knife is inserted it should come out clean.

Loving the Gilmore Girls on E4

I have just discovered 'Gilmore Girls' on E4. I love the colours, the houses, the home interiors, the perfectly pretty town of Stars Hollow. I love how all the characters talk way too fast, how conversations flow seamlessly, are all witty and sharp but sharp in a round cornered non-aggressive way. I also love, love, love the fact that my little girl naps during this time and I can sit still for one moment and eat my lunch and become absorbed in a very pretty, harmless world.

I found the Gilmore Girls right in the middle of season 3 so I seem to have missed a bit and apparently the US are on season 7. I just hope E4 has them all.

The Wonder of Wales

My family, Mum, Dad and brother have recently spent a week in Wales celebrating my Dad's 65th. The 6 of us stayed in a really comfortable cottage called Mayberry Cottage set high on the hillside in with views of the Black Mountain's over looking a village called Crickhowell. The views from the cottage were stunning and seemed to change every minute.

Breakfast is always somewhat of a feast when we all get together. Mum brought 5 different types of her own homemade marmalade!!!!

It meant that there was enough so we could spread it thickly onto fresh, soft white loaf from the local(ish) bakery.

Why does food always taste so much better on holiday?

For the love of cake

Over the last couple of days I have been working on my Dad's 65 birthday cake. I always like the decorated cakes I make for family and friends to really relate to the person it is for. My Dad loves cars and has a particular love of VW Beetle cars so it seemed an obvious choice to have him and my mum driving off into retirement in an open top classic beetle car.

He also loves his newspaper so I have made a Telegraph newspaper out of rice paper and used an edible pen for the printing. He is an electrician so I added a real of electrical wire around the base of the cake.

Its probably taken me about 10 hours to decorate. Which I have generally done in the evenings when our little girl had gone to bed.

I'm pretty pleased with the result. I just hope he likes it too.

Excuses, Excuses

Time to write a post which (from what I understand) is pretty familiar in blog land. The post where I apologise for not posting recently. Ooops. I wish I had a fabulously exciting excuse. One which would make you gasp, raise your hands to your mouth and exclaim "well who can blame her for not posting".

But alas there isn't a fabulous excuse. All I have to offer is busy, busy, Christmas, colds, flu, family life, sleepless nights, stomach bugs, bills to pay, blah, blah.... snore, snore.

But I'm back now and I wish to achieve the following during the rest of the year

• Learn more about my camera in order to take better photographs


• Make at least one item of clothing for my daughter


• Finish my daughters quilt which I started in August 08


• Try to make a regular income from home


• Post on this blog at least once a week

So watch this space....

Sew comforting

Life around here after the birth of our daughter is, dare I say it, starting to fall into some form of routine. Our almost 9 months old daughter is doing really well and has learnt to put herself to sleep and now manages to go from 6.30pm to 6am. This means that after dinner I can sit down and do something for me, something creative such as post on my blog or do some work on my new sewing project.


The sewing project I have decided to embark on is my very first patchwork quilt. I previously been a bit nervous of making a quilt. They always looked a bit complicated however after some patient guidance from my Mum who has been attending patchwork classes I have undertaken a random quilt of pink and aqua blue. I am hoping that, once finished, it will be used to keep our daughters legs warm in her buggy come the colder autumn/winter months.


I'm not following any strict patchwork pattern so each 2.5 inch square is placed randomly. I am just enjoying the process of piecing the bright, splashy colours together.

I get a great deal of comfort from sitting absorbed by the careful cutting of the fabric and listening to the gentle hum of the sewing machine. It is really helping me to relax. I can feel my brain letting go of all of the 24/7 mummy worries. Is she eating enough? Is she eating too much? Is she too hot? Is she too cold? For a few precious hours I immerse myself in the sea of patchwork patterns and colours. When I finally emerge from the patchwork waters I feel refreshed and I feel I once again able to give my all to being a Mum. There is also something incredibly satisfying to know that I am making something that will bring comfort to our daughter. I like to think about her all bundled up in it on one of our walks down the lane with our hairy gentle dog.


I had better get a move on as those autumn days are nearer than I would care to admit.

Blackberry jewels

Now I have given up work to look after our 8 month old the only type of blackberry I am interested in are these beauties. They are far better for you than its electronic name sake and far more conduciveto family life.

These juicy black jewels tumble over the wall into our garden. I managed to pick a good bowl full and made a delicious crumble which I served to my visiting in-laws with vanilla ice-cream. Oh it was heaven in a dish! I just wish I had taken a picture of the finished crumble. As it is a bit early for them there are still quite a few little green blackberries-in-waiting. There should be enough for the blackbirds and us as long as the rain doesn't wash them away.

When I had finished I looked down at my hands and was reminded of my maternal grandmother. A country woman through and through. Who often had fruit stained hands from making the best fruit pies and crumbles. She was rarely out of her wellies and was always sending us home with bowls and bags of something she had grown in her garden.