Birthday Baking Day

The weekend just gone saw me in a baking frenzy, bread rolls, a Chocolate cake and a Treacle and Ginger Cake all produced on Sunday morning. Sunday was my mum's birthday so my family had a very impromptu get together to celebrate. An article in the Sainsbury's magazine by Mary Berry on tray bakes had caught my eye earlier in the week and given the number of people turning up it was the ideal thing. I like the recipe's as they are an all in one method, just whizz it up in the food processor and pour it into the tray, 40 odd minutes later it was all done. they both turned out really well, the Chocolate one was scoffed in minutes, the Treacle & Ginger one lasted for another day as it was for a birthday being celebrated on Monday. Both cakes not helping my diet one bit.

Forgotten Cake

I forgot about this one, it was a Halloween cake, I got the recipe off the BBC good food guide. It was fun to make and didn't turn out quite the way I'd planned but I'm told it was delicious, there was so much of it people were taking it home.

Graveyard Chocolate Cake

Sunday Baking Day

I finally managed to get a Sunday where I was not rushing around or doing any decorating, I still have plenty to do but my next project hasn't kicked off yet, so I decided to do some baking. Surprise, surprise it was baking bread, my first loaf was a disaster, some beer bread that failed to rise when proving. Okay it did rise but not very much, I baked it anyway and used it for toast. It still had a really good flavour so was not a complete loss. The next loaf was an ordinary white that turned out rather well and the third was a 50/50 (white/wholemeal) that was the best of all, probably the best loaf I've ever baked, perfect rise, nice crust and lovely soft crumb. The taste was excellent , my only problem will be to try and equal it and if ever exceed it.
   Also on the agenda were some coconut macaroons, well I would call them pyramids but that was the title given in the cooking book (The Great British Bake off) they turned out okay, if a little well toasted. I can never fathom out how they make them into such perfect shape, do you think they used some special mould to shape them? Maybe it's just years of practice, all I know is that I had dessicated coconut stuck everywhere.  They did taste pretty good despite being in the oven a little longer than recommended.

New Year, New Start....Well sort of

A belated Happy New Year to anybody reading this, as per normal I'm way behind in posting anything to this blog. I did make my self a promise that I would start the year by trying to keep this up to date and it's the 7th of January already so as resolution's go this is a bit of a failure. I had intended to catch up on all the items I've been baking and making over the last few months but haven't managed to post, numerous loaves of bread, cakes and even a gingerbread house, if I can find the photo's I'll attach them at the end of this. With all my decorating complete just in time for New Year's eve I can now relax and start to concentrate on my baking efforts, part of the decorating was installing a bookcase to house the large number of cook book's I seem to have acquired over the last year, having them all in one place is going to help as it will save me time trying to remember where I've seen that elusive recipe I want to bake.
       I'm planning on baking and making a lot more this year so the I promise I'll try to spread my efforts to as many as possible so as not to inflict too much bad baking on anyone. At the moment I am making some beer bread and have a Herman friendship cake given to me by the gorgeous Jenna, it seems to be a sweet sourdough that has been passed on for over a hundred years, all I have to do now is find five friends to pass it on to. I will try to be better about posting stuff on here and if I don't feel free to give me a slap and post something.