help me fill these

i have been asked to hold a coffee morning in three weeks.. i have done it before and have really enjoyed it...but i seem to have lost my baking mojo over the past few weeks and i really need to get it back!

i have done the usual coconut loaf and Victoria sponge on previous occasions but this time i really fancy doing new things ( but nothing to hard!!)

i tend to think of cupcake as something for children but I'm sure there are some lovely adulty ( is that a word !) versions of these as well...


- my mum bought me this cake stand the other day.. its just begging to be filled with pretty cakes isnt it !!

could you help me.. could you give me any ideas or your fave cake recipes that would enable me to fill up my cake stands and cake plates and help me on my road to becoming a domestic goddess haha!!!

MMMmmm Yummy!!

MMmm now whats in this pretty cake tin i wonder.. er could it be cake!!!..

found a great recipe before on the good food website..
chocolate and vanilla marble cake..

now bear with me on this .. my 4 year old was helping me so the marble effect is not so marbley!!.. and i think my cake tin was to large so it didn't rise as much but instead was more of a marble slab..but hey ho these things happen ..

see how its been destroyed though by the hubby and boys who say its deeeeelicious (their words not mind!) so it cant be to bad!!!

and i got to use my new oven glove that i bought from B&M's the other day its so sweet!!!

Ingredients
225 g butter, at room temperature
225 g caster sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
225 g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
50 ml milk
50 g cocoa powder, sifted
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Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4. Butter and flour the sides of a 20cm cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper.

2. Cream the butter in a large bowl or in an electric food mixer until soft. Add the sugar and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy.

3. Whisk the eggs and vanilla extract together in a small bowl. Gradually add the eggs to the butter mixture, beating all the time. Sift in the flour and baking powder and fold in gently to mix, then add the milk and mix gently to combine.

4. Tip half of the cake mixture into another large bowl and, into this bowl, fold in the sifted cocoa powder.

5. Place the cake mixtures into the prepared tin by alternating spoonfuls of the vanilla batter with the chocolate batter, then with a skewer or similar implement, gently draw swirls through the cake mixture to ‘marblise’ it. Don’t overmix or you won’t have that wonderful marble effect. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

6. Turn the cake out onto a wire rack and allow to cool before serving.

perhaps if you have a go at making this you could send me your piccies of it so I know how it is suppose to look like!!!

what we did today

we made the most easiest recipe for biscuits EVER !!!!!

4 oz 100g) butter or margarine
3 oz (75g) caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence ( or you can use lemon juice)
8 oz plain flour

Cream the butter/margarine and sugar.

Beat in the egg with the vanilla essence. Fold in the flour and form into a soft dough.

Roll out the dough

and cut into biscuit shapes. bake for 10 - 15 mins at 375F/190C/Gas mark 5. Leave until cold and then ice and decorate.

look at those gorgeous squishy hands couldn't you just eat them as well!!!



we picked out our shapes to make the biscuits


got the tins ready

we went for stars, cars and hearts shapes today..

erm...mummy kinda managed to burn some of them eeek!!!!

they don't look anything but they taste gorgeous.. Ive had a few nibbles as i am on a diet but i had to make sure they tasted OK for the baby's to eat them!!!!

cooking with mother!!!

if you go onto the "money saving expert forum" they have a recipe section on the "old style" forum.. its great..theres tons of recipes all that are pretty low cost but mostly scrummy!!

if you type in Old Style Recipe Index in the search part it should bring it up..

so me and the oldest boy thought we would make some gorgeous chocolate brownies with the base that's made from wheetabix... that's right wheetabix. it sounds a little strange doesn't it..but these are just gorgeous.. i love em.. they are so versatile as well .. you can put dried fruit in, nuts.. or just lots of different chocolate chunks.. hmmm I'm salivating as i type here!!

you will need four crushed up wheetabix.. ( get the little ones to smash them up..great fun!!)

( oldest boy is using the pestle from my pestle and mortar to smash up the wheetabix..going so fast you can hardly see him!!)

4oz caster sugar

4oz self raising flour

2tbsp cocoa powder ( i normally put more in for extra chocolaty goodness!!)

a packet of chocolate drops ( but you can just buy a big bar of chocolate and smash this up to!..Asdas own dark chocolate works very well for this!!) ...and anything else you want to add e.g fruit, walnuts, etc

mix all this up together and then take

4oz melted butter/marg

1 egg

stir both into the mixture...

pop into a baking tray .. i use a smallish raised lipped oven tray so that the mixture can rise a bit

you can use whatever really just depends how big you want it or how deep..

either stick in grease proof paper or whack a bit of butter around the dish with your pastry brush!

bake in oven for 15 mins on about gas mark 7

leave to stand for five minutes and then cut into squares and tuck in!!!!

Are these actions normal!!!???

i am on a diet.. have been for the past few weeks as i really want to feel good in the summer months

so why oh why was i desperate to bake fairy cakes first thing this morning!!

i wasn't starting work until 10.30, the hubby had taken the boys to the in laws which is were they go on a Wednesday when I'm in work and i had from 8.00 am onwards to myself..

did i lounge on the sofa watching a bit of gmtv, perhaps joining in with Mr motivator with exercise, did i go and have a nice long leisurely bath and just chill out before the madhouse of work ????

oh no.. i kept on my spider man tshirt that i wear for bed..stuck my jeans on and ran round to the shop for eggs and sugar!!!!!!

i don't know what come over me.. i just felt the need to bake cakes, cakes that i cant even eat!!!!

this was what my kitchen looked like when i should have been getting ready for work!!

i thought i would leave the icing until i finished work, as i really was running out of time this morning

i have been dying to get home, put the babies to bed and then get on with my cake decorating all day!!..

honestly do you think i have gone a little bit mad.. has all the lettuce I'm eating sent me a tad loopy.. i think so!

anyways here are the finished results... they actually look like my two year old has decorated them.. i just don't have the knack of making them look like others do..but who cares!!

there is chocolate butter cream, lemon flavoured yellow butter cream and good ol pink butter cream all decorated with chocolate chunks or hundreds and thousands!!





theres tons of them.. think hubby will have to take some into work with him and I'll dish the rest out to anyone who comes to the house.. "hello Mr postman..please eat one of my cakes!!!"

i have to admit my finger has been in the bowl a couple of times to try the butter cream..only for research reasons mind!!.. i have to make sure the butter icing tastes correct!!




I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels the need to make fairy cakes am i!

right lets move on now, as I'm starving!

i bought this lovely plant holder from the charity shop and i think it will go perfect in my living room either on my side table or on my mantelpiece, only i don't know what type of plant to put in it.. I'm thinking more of one that drapes down if you know what i mean!..



I'm rubbish at buying plants though, never know what to look for, could you give me some tips please!!

also picked up this picture at the same time.. I'm going to change the frame as this one is a bit rammy and add this to my collection of pics that I'm going to put up in the lounge once i get enough! i love the pinks and creams in it, very pretty..almost good enough to eat...oh eck theres my stomach rumbling again!!!!!!!

well I'm off to watch Big Brother.. what are your thoughts about it this year.. it does really attract the cream of the crop doesn't it !!!!

Baking Bank Holiday

well if only I could say it was the weather I was talking about and that we were in the middle of heatwave.. that would be good ey!...

sorry that I'm not though I'm just talking about how we've spent today..baking!.

it all started this morning with hubby going to the co-op and buying reduced strawberries and blueberries so he could make some jam!

I could then imagine the said jam on a lovely big ol Victoria sponge so thought I'd make one.

this then ended up with my 2yr old wanting to get in on it so we made some fairy cakes,

then I fancied making some butterfly cakes as well and I thought why not top it off with some biscuits as well..so we made double chocolate chip cookies which are gorgeous and sooo sickly!

my sister and bro in law came round to have a slice of cake and a cup of tea with us before as well.my niece and nephew weren't with them as they were at their friends so they didn't get to try the chocolate fairy cakes.. but Ive saved them some so they can have a treaty tomorrow!

then as hubby had made tons of jam we decided to give the bread maker a whirl as we still haven't used it and thought home made bread and jam would be very nice..

the bread is lovely, and because we used olive oil its got quite a sweet taste to it, so at least now we know how to use the bread maker as well!!!

wasn't this table made for baking though!?

As we had quite a lot of the Victoria sponge left the hubs has given it out to some of our neighbours! ( they'd better give me my plates back!!)

heres the last piece!!

All in all we've had a lovely day, it was nice doing somthing all together but now we all feel a little sick now and cannot face having any tea!!!