Cake obsessed?

Let's re-enact a lunch scenario which happened a couple of weeks ago:

Friend: Where should we go for lunch in town?

Me: Well suchandsuch a place does really good raspberry and chocolate tarts, soandso does lovely fresh cakes although I wasn't so keen on their brownies, whatyoucall'em has good rockyroad, haven't gone to thingymabob again because the banana muffin I had was a bit rubbish.

Friend: ummm, do you only go to places for cake?

Me: .............yeah. I have no idea about sandwiches.

I then discovered that pretty much all the photos on my phone this year were of cakes. Therefore this post is a yearly round up of cakes and fancies I have eaten at cafes. Enjoy!

 

A disappointingly bland vanilla cupcake. Great tea though, I think it was vanilla based too.

A generous slice of Victoria sponge.

A passion cake with amazing cream cheese icing.

Raspberry and almond tart, blogged here.

Coconut and lemon square (it was massive!)

Cinnamon swirl pastry.

Brownie (I was having a chocolate day it seems!)

Lovely lemon cake. A special mention goes to the cafe, Cushion and Cake in Glasgow. I would live in the shop if she'd let me (oh dear, sounding like a creepy stalker now). Beautiful homebakes, decor, china, utility china.... so go there if you're in Glasgow!

The most massive slice of Mars Bar cheesecake to grace the earth. Even I was defeated by this one.

How cute is this gingerbread man I had last week? His expression is priceless. 

Does any one else choose cafes by their homebake selection? Which homebake tempts you the most out of these?

Pudding glorious pudding!

At Christmas my family usually makes sticky toffee pudding and trifle (we're greedy). Some people prefer the one pudding over the other so it keeps everybody happy. I eat both though (told you, GREEDY!) Occasionally we shake it up some years and make a Christmas pudding instead, but usually we find it a bit heavy and rich on the stomach after a rich dinner.

Words cannot describe how amazing homemade sticky toffee pudding is. I've tried a few in different restaurants but I think ours has the edge. The toffee sauce tastes sooo good.

Despite burning the sponges for the trifle (oops!) it tastes great too. I had some for lunch today.

I thought I'd include the recipe for the sticky toffee puddings in this post. It's definitely a recipe worth sharing, everybody should try this! Although please don't blame me if you gain an extra few pounds because of it.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

Recipe from a family friend. Sorry all the measurements are in ounces. They can be converted easily in an online weight converter though.

For the date sponge

4oz marg.

4oz caster sugar

2 eggs (mine were large)

8 oz chopped dates

80z self raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate soda

1/2 pint boiling water

Chop the dates into a bowl then add the bicarbonate soda and boiling water. I then left it to sit for 20-30 mins. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. Grease and line a 30 x 23cm (12 x 9 inch) traybake tin. Cream the marg and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs and flour, then the date mixture. Mix until combined and pour into the tin. Bake on the middle shelf for approx. 20mins or until well risen/firm to touch.

For the toffee sauce

8oz butter

8oz dark brown soft sugar

1/2 pt double cream

Melt the butter and sugar together and add the cream (although my mum says you can throw it all together). Gently boil together for a few minutes then try not to drink it all before the traybake is ready!

Last minute festive baking

Christmas Eve was spent giggling and baking with my best friends. This is the latest I've left making mincemeat pies but I got there in the end. We just used ready roll pastry and shop bought mincemeat (I know there will be an audible intake of breath, but it just takes too long to make it all!)

Usually we like to make gingerbread men and dinosaurs (it has become a tradition) but this year we decided to make gingerbread cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days book. They have a lovely flavour but I find them a bit stodgy in texture. The cream cheese icing really pulls it all together. I'm definitely finding Hummingbird Bakery recipes a bit hit or miss, and it's difficult to tell whether I'm at fault with my mixing (beating air out) or perhaps it's just the recipe.

Edible glitter and festive cases make everything better.

Merry Christmas to everybody in blogland, hope you all have a lovely day tomorrow!

Homemade festive decorations

I decided to make a couple of presents this year, little extras for family gifts and easy to post away to uni friends.

It soon became apparent that knitting is not my forte, in fact I'm pretty cack handed. If I make a mistake I have no idea how to correct it and inevitably shout "MUM!" and thrust it in her face. Crocheting, on the other hand, I can manage. There's only one needle/hook so if I drop a stitch it automatically goes back to the previous step. Easy. 

I found the tree pattern through Tea at Weasel's which, along with the star pattern, originally came from The Royal Sisters blog. The wool I used was a bit thinner so my trees and stars look a bit different to the tutorials. 

Despite being a complete crochet novice (well, I crocheted a beanie hat five years ago) I found her tutorials very clear to follow. So basically, if I can manage it anybody can! I really enjoyed these decorations and I've rediscovered a crochet book Mum gave me for Christmas years ago (just after I made the hat) which has sat on the bookshelf unused. Next year, I will use it!

Check out all my festive fabrics, oooooh!

I might string these stars/snowflakes together, although I don't know whether to use thread, ribbon, or wool (maybe even crochet chain them). Any suggestions?

And lastly, do you collect old Christmas and birthday wrapping paper because it's pretty but don't know what to do with them? Yes? Well turn them into Christmas decorations! Cut into festive shapes, laminate (so much fun!), string them up and you'll have your very own colourful, shiny, cheap decorations! We hung ours across the kitchen blind and it casts lovely shadows in the evening.

Has anyone else been making last minute decorations? I really need to stop crocheting and start baking mincemeat pies! Hopefully tomorrow will be a productive day in the kitchen.

Festive fudge

Fudge, candy, tablet... whatever you want to call it. Either way, it's so damn moreish it should be illegal. When I make it as a Christmas gift I have to seal it straight away or my fingers will be dipping into the jar!

I think fudge makes a lovely Christmas gift. All you need is a lot of sugar, some old coffee jars, festive tags and some twirly ribbons.

My first batch. Naturally I had to taste test a few pieces before they went into the jars.

Crumbly, melt in your mouth fudge. Some people prefer it darker and more brittle but this is how I like it :)

All scored and ready to break up.

I'm not sure whether to type up the recipe as it's pretty vague (it's a hand-me-down written recipe) and I can only ever make it correctly if Mum's in the kitchen with me as I can't tell when it's ready to set and pour into the tin. However if somebody would like to have a go at the recipe just leave me a comment and I'll try my best to write it up clearly.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Now this is a bit of a "ta-da" moment for me as I have never made a fruit cake before! When I saw the recipe for a "Victorian Christmas Cake" in Mary Berry's Baking Bible, I knew I had to give it a go. Although Christmas isn't Christmas without a dark, fruit cake, I much prefer a lighter cake like this one. 

I enjoyed making a pattern on top of the cake.

I did not enjoy the amount of time it took to chop, clean, drain, dry the fruit and nuts. Cherries are very sticky.

If you're thinking "why does the cake look slightly pink?" it's because I glazed it with strawberry jam. Ideally I would have liked apricot jam but we didn't have any in the house. I'm sure strawberry will taste fine.

We also put up our tree at the weekend! Usually we buy a 5ft-6ft tree but Mum fell in love with a 7ft tree this year which only just fits in the living room. It is a beauty though.

I've been solely in charge of decorating the tree for the past few years now which is great. I like the mixture of decorations we have on our tree: some old, some new, wooden shop bought ones and handmade pieces from family.

I made the circular decoration at the top of this photo. It's an old curtain ring wrapped with crepe paper and christmassy twirly ribbons, a cheap but cute decoration. I have another Christmassy post coming up this week with more crafty decorations along with my fudge post. Mmmm fudge.

Beryl ware and pyrex

I found four, oval Beryl ware plates at 20p each in a charity shop last week. I don't know whether they're oval dinner plates or serving plates. Either way, I enjoyed eating Heinz spaghetti and toast on them last week. Here's an up to date photo of all my Beryl ware.

Although I'm delighted with my growing Beryl and Jasmine stash, I'd really like to find some Iris. I haven't come across any so far. Does anyone else find that they end up with way more of one style/colour than the other?

I also found a little pyrex jug in another shop for 10p. At that price I couldn't leave it behind.

I can easily see myself collecting loads of pyrex too but even I recognise that I need to reign myself in somewhere!

Unfortunately I haven't baked anything since the beetroot brownies but I do have lots of baking plans for the next week or so. Fudge is at the top of my list, I fudging love fudge! Christmas is fast approaching so I need to get a wiggle on with my Christmas baking.