Cakes and more cakes...

I was going to name this post 'problems with silicon' but thought I'd get some dodgy readers with that one.

Had an interesting weekend baking cakes, namely a cake for Ma Bucket for her 70th. It was suggested to me by Pa Bucket but thought it would make a good present. So I set to work.

Three cakes later I decided that I hated silicon 'tins' and I'm going back to using my old ones again. I thought the point of the silicon ones is that things don't stick? I had a complete nightmare.

I also decided to use fondant icing (I usually use nice, messy buttercream) for a good finish. Several attempts later I finally got some on a cake...note to self:- use LOTS of icing sugar under the fondant icing, not a light amount that the packets suggest. Also, I need loads more practice with this type of icing - I needed to patch up some holes and then it didn't look neat enough for me.

Finally went to bed about 1am, totally fed up with the cake. So the next morning I made another one just in case I really did not like the first one.  But after putting the decorations on and placing a huge ribbon around the cake to hide the imperfections it didn't look too bad. Although Mr Bucket had to keep reminding me that "it is homemade and if they wanted a shop perfect one then they would have bought one".

Ma Bucket loved it and it tasted good so that's the main thing.

 One of the spare cakes that we'll have today

 But I learned a couple of new things doing this:

* Instead of using icing sugar to attach a ribbon to a cake, measure and then wet the ribbon (gently squeezing off excess water), then wrap around cake. Press and hold for a few seconds and then presto, the water and sugar bind together and the ribbon is held onto cake.

* To cut a big cake in half evenly, lightly score around the cake; wrap cotton thread around and cross over then pull slowly. This works, I tried it and the cake was cut really well.

I don't know if everyone knows these things but it was news, to the few people that I spoke to, about the ribbon trick.

Hope everyone's having a good weekend. Sam xx

Pruning & Baking...

Today started off pretty well - the kids weren't arguing, which was a start.

There's meant to be colder weather (frost probably) coming our way this weekend so I thought that I'd give the roses outside our house a haircut. Out I went, all prepared in coat and wellies into a misty, damp day.

 

 getting the tools ready

I have a bit of love/hate thing with trimming the roses as during the summer they look gorgeous and we've had a few people say that they look great. But when this time of year comes around I have to be fairly vicious with them and they always look a bit sad and pathetic when I've finished. They are normally the main flowers at the front of our house and it makes everything look a bit derelict and abandoned once they're cut down. Plus I'm always worried that I've cut them too much and they won't grow back.

the ones on the left done, now to start on the right

At this time in the month, money can be a bit tight so I said to the kids that I would bake some cakes. Now this is something that I've done many a time before - I'd even go so far as to say I'm rather good at it.

Well today I took my eye off the ball....all looked good when I took them out of the oven and set them aside to cool. A few minutes later when I turned around.......... THEY HAD SUNK!! 

WHAT???!!!

This has NEVER happened to me before, and I mean never, ever, ever.

I tried one (ok, a couple) to taste them and they seem fine, so I looked online to see what went wrong and I think it might have been because I put them on gas mark 6 and not 4. I did briefly wonder why they cooked faster than normal but it was only a fleeting thought so I didn't take too much notice of myself.

Some of them look really sunken but I suppose if I shove enough buttercream on top then no one will notice. It's not as if they last that long anyway once the gannets get their hands on them. Sam xx

p.s. definitely the temperature - had a little bit of cake mixture left for a couple more and they look perfect if I do say so myself.

Happy Birthday...

...to Mr Bucket.

It was actually his birthday yesterday but I didn't want to embarrass him on his special day - I have plenty of other days to do that (only joking).

I won't let on how old, let's just see if you can guess.

His only request was that I made a HUGE coffee cake and here it is. It's a bit plain but he doesn't really care for all the extras that the kids like on their cakes.

This is the reason that we haven't completely finished off our chocolate fudge cake yet. Sam

Cakes for Charity...

A few weeks ago Miss Bucket helped two sisters, who live a couple of doors away and who she goes to school with, sell toys and teddies to raise some money for Cancer.

I thought this was brilliant and tried to encourage her in this new enterprise.  They went from door to door distributing handmade leaflets and I think they raised approx £50.

Last weekend they sold cakes to raise even more money and I helped a little (more were in the oven).

 The other girls' mum made a load too and other mums donated some more.

It's a good cause, one close to my heart as the disease took my mum when I was 20, so I think we were all happy to help them any way we could.

Update

The sun was shining and the girls spent all morning getting things ready. The stall looked lovely and the cakes went quickly, loads of people came to the stall and donated generously - an overall success.

I think the total came to £340. I couldn't have been more pleased, well done girls. Sam xx

Some cooking...

Source: Good Food  

This week has had a couple of firsts, cooking-wise, and it's amazing I haven't made them before.

The other day I did my first ever Paella and I must say it tasted delicious although it stunk out our kitchen for the next few days and if/when I make it again I'll probably make half the amount, as we had loads left over. I would have used the leftovers up but after reading lots of advice on the internet, most erred on the side of caution because of the rice and seafood. 

There were only a couple of problems; I bought some frozen fish mix and in my bags I had huge prawns but they had shells on. Now most people would know what to do but I had no clue whether to take the shells off or leave them on.  We left them on but would take them off next time as it was such a FAFF and really messy when all you want to do is eat your tea.

The second problem was that the kids had different tastes - Miss Bucket liked the seafood but didn't like the chorizo sausage and Bucket jnr loved the sausage but wasn't a fan of the mussels, although he loved the prawns and I had to sit there and peel loads for him (he was like a hoover).

But definitely easy to do and if anyone's interested, I got my recipe from the BBC Good Food site and it is called 'Easy Paella'.

Sorry about the picture but completely forgot to take one of my paella.

Today as I looked out onto the frozen street, I promised the kids that I would make brownies for them for after school - I've made flapjacks (a first last week - sorry forgot to mention, they tasted gorgeous), cakes, cupcakes, fairy cakes, big cakes, small cakes and even some cakes that came out looking sorry for themselves but tasted great.

I looked in a favourite book "BBC Good Food - 52 Cakes, Bakes and Chocolate" - yep, a really healthy book then. And there is a recipe for Toffee Brownies which sounded yummy, although mine won't necessarily taste of toffee as you're meant to use dark muscovado sugar and I only had light brown sugar, nevermind.

Toffee Brownies

350g/12oz dark chocolate
250g/9oz unsalted butter
3 large eggs
250g/9oz dark muscovado sugar
85g/3oz plain flour
1 tsp baking powder

1. Heat oven to 160C/fan 140C/gas 3. Butter and line the base of a shallow square cake tin. Melt the chocolate and butter together, then stir well and cool.

2. Whisk the eggs until pale, then whisk in the sugar until thick and glossy and well combined. Gently fold in the melted chocolate mixture, then sift in the flour and baking powder and gently stir until smooth.

looks lovely - forget the brownies and get my spoon

3. Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for 30-35 mins or until firm to the touch. Test by inserting a wooden cocktail stick into the middle - there should be a few moist crumbs sticking to it. The mixture will still be soft in the centre but will firm up on cooling.

4. Cool in the tin for at least 1 hr then cut into 16 squares and finish cooling on a wire rack.

5. Try and eat one before the gannets pile in and demolish the lot.

And the result.......an almost failure.  I have a feeling that my tray might have been a bit small so my brownies had a thick middle (a bit like me, hey ho) and that's why I had to cook it for an extra 15 mins. When I took it out, the middle then sunk down and it's a bit too gooey inside.

 Bucket jnr and I tried some and it tastes delicious so maybe add it to a dollop of ice cream instead. Not a complete failure then. Sam xx

Just chilling...for the moment

Hi, I'm still here just as the title says.

The kids broke up for the Christmas holidays and as you expect are really excited and counting the sleeps until the big day (2 more mummy).

We haven't really done anything too exciting over the past few days, just chilling out. But I do have a few jobs that I need to do and SOON. When we were off sick, the housework was shoved put aside and I really need to go around with a damp cloth as it's in that stage where you really don't want to move the ornaments out of place.

Also, all of a sudden, my kitchen floor has become an ice rink. Beware if you're just wearing socks because one foot on the floor and you are sliding past - nice pirouhette, 10/10, shame about the landing. I've got the mop out ready to give it a good scrub today. Can you imagine carrying the turkey and then 'WHOOPS'.

I've just made a load of cakes which will be iced today (although Bucket jnr has just said they are ALL FOR HIM as they are not iced) and then I'm making the mince pies and also our holiday chocolate cake. This is like a refrigerator cake, very rich and tastes really nice. I'll try and put a picture on before the mob descends on it and nothing is left.

I also need to start wrapping the presents tonight when the little'uns are in bed. I had to brave the shoppers yesterday and buy some more paper as I just knew that I didn't have enough and come Christmas Eve I'd be banging on the neighbours' doors asking 'please can I have some more'. We trudged out early and I'm glad we did because it was BUSY - I was glad to get back home.

So quite a busy cooking day for me but with a little help from the Christmas playlist on Radio 2 and a nice glass of sherry, it should go ok. Sam xx

Mince Pies

Before I start this post I just want to say a big SORRY if I'm boring anyone about my obsession with Christmas. I can't help it - it's a sparkly, tinsly (is that spelled right?) and cinnamon smelling addiction .... I LOVE CHRISTMAS.

There, it's out and I feel much better but unfortunately it won't go away until the big day gets here. So once again, I'm sorry.

Now lets get on.

I've started making mince pies, although I don't know why I bother so early as they never last for Christmas. I made quite a few yesterday, as you can see:

And now they're gone!

So I'm making some more. It's not too complicated (it can't be, for me) and doesn't take too long -thank goodness. The only hard part is keeping everyone away to give the pies enough time to cool down.

I'm sure most people have their own way of making them but I wanted to add my tuppence as well.



Mince Pies

You'll need:

8oz plain flour
4 oz butter (softened)
2oz caster sugar
pinch salt
1-2 tablespoons water
Jar of Mincemeat (I cheat)

Heat your oven to Gas Mark 8 / 230C / 450F.

Grease a bun tray. I use a shallow tray to make smaller pies so if your tray is more muffin size, you might want to double the recipe.

Put the plain flour, butter, caster sugar and salt into a bowl and, using your fingertips, rub everything together to mix the butter with the dry ingredients. It should after a few minutes look like soft breadcrumbs.

Add your water a tablespoon at a time and mix together. This will bind it but you don't want it too wet as the butter in the mixture will make it greasier the more you handle it.

Divide your mixture in two and roll out the first half quite thinly. Cut into larger rounds using a cookie cutter. If you don't have one then a cup or round lid would do.

Place the rounds into your baking tin and gently press down. Fill with a teaspoon of mincemeat. Try not to overfill as will leak out when cooking.

Lightly wet the edges of the pastry. You don't need a pastry brush, dipping your finger into water will be fine.

Roll out the second half of pastry and cut into smaller rounds for the lids. Place onto the larger halves and press gently down.

Using a sharp knife put a small hole in the top of each of your pies to let the steam escape when cooking.

Put the pies into the top half of your oven and cook for 20 minutes. I have a look at 15 minutes and because my oven can be a bit temperamental, I then turn the tray around and continue cooking for the last 5 minutes so the mince pies are evenly lightly golden.

When they have cooked leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before putting onto a wire rack or plate.

I like to dust them with icing sugar but you could also use any other sugar on top or eat them plain - I have.

I apologise to anyone reading this who thinks that this is just a little bit basic but I do not assume that everyone makes cakes/mince pies etc. And if you don't want to do it, then you don't have to do it.

But to anyone who decides to make these I can tell you that they taste great and won't last long.  
Sam xx