A baking day

My hens are all a-laying like gooduns now! One of the "babies" that I got last August, (the very expensive pedigree Welsummers!) has finally started to lay and I was very excited to find a beautiful, chocolate brown egg nestling on a pile of fertiliser sacks in the garden.

What's a girl supposed to do with 25 eggs and 12 bananas? Bake of course....

Beat up those golden eggs with sugar and butter before adding mashed bananas, flour and spices.

Pop them in the oven...yes I am a messy baker...

20 minutes later, delicious, soft banana cupcakes.

Quickly beat up butter and icing sugar and cocoa powder...

....to turn them into banana and chocolate cupcakes!

Delicious!!!
I then made a banana loaf but that just isn't so photogenic! If there's any left tomorrow I'll bring you one Burnice!!!

A birthday cake...

My daughter was 17 yesterday and she wanted a car......so she got one!

I didn't even have a picture to copy!

That dreaded "C" word...

I took a break from finishing off bits this week and have tried to get organised for Christmas. I have started my shopping and also some making AND made my cakes.

All ready to go in the oven. I say "cakes" because I decided to make one for Jess to take back to Uni with her after Christmas!

 

And all cooked! On Monday I went to see Burn and Linda at the cabin and we made christmassy paper so I decided to start making my cards using that....

I'm not going to show you any closer otherwise they won't be a surprise when you get one will they? I still have to make a few more however so that is todays job.

Baking again!

I am really into my sour dough now! A week or two ago I set up a starter from a Herman cake I was given and I have been experimenting with various recipes ever since! I found a fabby recipe for sourdough cinnamon swirls. I made them on Sunday and they were DELICIOUS!!! All gone now though.

Creations of an edible kind!

April is a month of birthdays and celebrations for me. On the 3rd Jess was 19, and on the 4th Ken was 45, then Easter and on 28th it will be our 22nd wedding anniversary. So the begining of the month is just full of cakes! Eliza made Jess's; a three tier lemon cake which we ate before I took a pic.

For Ken, who rarely gets his own cake, I decided to make a cake from the rather luscious Hummingbird Bakery book. I came out HUGE, it is three layers of cake which is a bit like carrot cake only with banana, pineapple and walnuts in.

The icing is a cream cheese frosting and not only does it go all over the outside, it "glues" it all together too!
Sadly with six of us in the house these things do not last long so this is just a memory now and we are onto the Simnel Cake!!

Zucchini, chocolate and orange cake

Well ok they are courgettes but zucchini doesn't sound quite so "vegetabley". I was sent this intriguing recipe so Eliza said she would bake it. It is an American recipe so the first challenge was finding some cup measures! Luckily Mum had some! This is the finished cake complete with glaze.

It was so hot that we ate tea in the garden. Here I am cutting it up....

...see not a green bit in sight! The rather lovely plate was my Grandads by the way, and we always put cakes on it!

And here it is! Really moist, not too sweet and sickly and no courgettey taste anywhere!

Baking today!

I unexpectedly had a free morning so I decided that I would bake some cupcakes. First of all were custard and apple cupcakes...

The recipe said "put some mixture in the case, add some custard and top with mixture" Well what a mess, the custard was rather runny and they overflowed everywhere sticking to the tin and completely dissolving the paper cases! Still I expect my lot will still eat them. Next I did Ginger and Lemon cupcakes which were a WHOLE lot more successful!

Now I think I might get on with some Inchies.....

A Birthday Cake.

So tomorrow my oldest baby will be 18! It has been a mad, mad day getting presents wrapped, balloons bought, cakes marzipanned and iced. And on top of that it is also Mother's Day and then on Monday it is hubbys birthday too! What a weekend! This is her cake; she wanted something "pretty".

I did buy the butterflies already made (cheat!) but the rest I did myself, cutting out the 18 and adding the glitter.

If I have time to blog tomorrow I will show the Mother's Day card I made and Jess's birthday card too. Might just be too busy partying!