Wow blogging is hard with kids!

Wow its been an age since I got to come back to my fledgling blog.... To those of you good enough to join me here thank you Soooooo much & I'm so sorry I've not been posting recently.
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You see when I started this blog my little man was still in that magical sleep all day baby stage and I thought yeah I can do this!
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Considering my little girl is 2, somehow I didn't remember the clingy active dependant phase of babyhood. The phase where the only place they want to be is in your arms trying to mash your keyboard or chew your smartphone so my poor little blog had to be put aside till now!
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Little man is now just starting to want to do his own thing (Thank Goodness) spending time in his high chair, in his bouncer and rolling round the floor! Suddenly I have free hands for short spells at least so I just might manage to catch up on a few posts (there's quite a few to be honest!)
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So thank you all for your patience and I'll be with you as often as my little un's will allow :-)
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See ye soon!

Lemon Almond stream liner.

Well this post is from a while back to be honest..... This was the first cake I baked from Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson. And I can tell you now it was amazing enough that it was baked twice in a row! Once in the guise of a birthday cake and then in its more classic form.
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This cake was just magic, rich but not too dense but with a beautiful texture lavished in heavenly lemon custard. (I'm literly drooling remembering this one........ Gotta put ground almonds and extra lemons on the shopping list soon!)
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So this also had a few firsts for me....... Custard for starters and almond paste!
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So lemon custard eh? First I was sure I'd curdle the milk with the lemon or scramble the mix when I added the eggs but it all worked perfectly! No curdles no scrambles just a smooth creamy custard which was popped into the fridge with a big grin on my face!
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Now the recepie calls for almond paste, not marzipan, almond paste. So where in Ireland would I but almond paste? Simple answer I hadn't the foggiest so on the phone to mum for her paste recepie!
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For this cake that meant:
<p>75g ground almonds,
<p>50g caster sugar
<p>125g icing sugar
<p>1/2 tsp lemon juice
<p>1/2 egg (yeah I know beat it and estimate half. I put the other half into the cake)
<p>3 drops almond essence.
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So thanks to mum I had almond paste ready to go and it was sooooo worth making it.
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The cake was fab, the filling was a dream and the first version lasted barely 3 days. The second version was given as a pick me up gift to friends recovering from a nasty cold and that didn't even last 3 days! (Very healthy cake appetites)
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Suffice to say I was now eager to try some of the other cakes from vintage cakes and to help me decide it was over to "The Cake Slice" bakers to help me decide. Since I entered their baking year from "Vintage Cakes" more than half way through I started baking their back catalogue and I'll share some of those with you all soon as well as some others from outside the 'back cat'
<p>Be back soon!
<p> Happy Baking!

The pink cake.

Living in the suburbs we have a little garden (great for our kids to play in) and while I love gardening and worked for a B&Q garden center for several years my garden is a lot of function not frivolity. So we enjoy fresh herbs, blueberries, redcurrants, gooseberries, rhubarb, strawberries and of course raspberries! After a couple of weeks of great weather and a diligent water-er in the form of my husband we had a mountain of fruit this year. So rather than waste delicious fresh raspberries I decided to give Julie Richardson's "Pink cake" from her book Vintage cakes a whirl!
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Now this is not my recepie nor is it one I've adapted so I'm afraid I can't share it with you but I would encourage you to buy the book even if only for this cake!
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Raspberry and chocolate is such a classic combination, and this cake is just incredible!
<p>Flavorful delightful moist chocolate cake smothered in smooth fluffy swiss meringue buttercream its like a dream...... I don't know if I could have imagined a more fantastic combination.
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As I'm putting together this three tier creation I'm thinking we're never gonna manage to eat all this......... what have I done!
<p>Then comes the magic moment of "Jules, I've got to drop this back to mike....."
<p> My husband to my rescue! I can now take this cake visiting and share both the awesomeness and the calories! LOL!
<p>So my pink cake got all dressed up in raspberries and fresh cream with a few sprigs of mint and made 4 of us very happy over a cup of tea!

angel food cake with raspberry freckles

Ok so for a first real post I'm sharing with you a variant....... Angel food cake with freckles!

Now I'll be honest I'd neveir even tasted, never mind baked angel foodcake before yesterday! And I'm not too sure I'd make it again......

For one 12 left over egg yolks is a lot to find use for and two it tastes like candy floss!

Inspite of my innerchilds delight at the thought of candyfloss my adult delight at the thought of cake says they don't really mix.

Now the problem is when my friend Sharon and her son Cian tried it they found it delicious! So I guess you guys may have to decide for yourselves!

4oz frozen raspberries

4oz plain/cream/cake flour

4oz icing/confectioners sugar

12 room temp egg whites

1/2tsp salt

1tsp cream of tartar

8+3/4oz sugar

2tsp vanilla essence

Ungreased 10"tube pan or angel foodcake pan

PreHeat your oven to 350 F / 160C

Right so here we go!

Sift together your flour and icing sugar. (At least 4 times, trust me its important)

Mash your frozen berries, you want them to break up into those little bead like segments. spread them out on a plate or piece of paper and return to the freezer, you want them to stay frozen!

In a seperate bowl (in your stand mixer bowl if you have one. I'm still on a hand mixer) wisk egg whites and salt on a medium speed till your getting bubbles then add the cream of tartar. Up the speed till soft peaks form.

Turn the mixer down to medium speed again and add your sugar in a stream while you continue to beat the eggs. when its all in up the speed again till your peaks are starting to firm up but arent stiff. Slow down the mixer and add the vanilla essence.

Reserve 2tbs of flour/sugar mix.

Fold the remaining flour/sugar mix in by hand in three parts. (I can't find the flour pic.......Oooops!)

Last but not least sprinkle the freckles with your reserved flour and fold them in.

The flour helps stop your raspberry freckles falling to the bottom of your cake.

Now one thing I hate is greasing and lining tins, especially tube/bundt tins, so while wary of it your not meant to grease the tin for angel food cake. So here we go an ungreased tin filled with lovely light cake batter into the oven.......

so we bake for 40-45mins....... I'm not sure if the top is meant to crack or if its coz I don't have a real angel food cake tin.......but suffice to say it sprang back when pressed so that means its done!

Okay, so I had it out of the oven I let it sit for the ten mins its meant to and then I inverted it like your supposed to and let it sit for an hour and a half......... No I didn't.......... I got impatient after a half hour and I dug out the butterknife and started "loosening" the sides and center........

And the dramatic bit! Firmly tap the tin on the counter till the cake drops out........TaDa!

Okay it wasn't that perfect all round, I should have let it cool fully and not gone poking at it till it was cooled fully.

Well that's that till I tried to slice it with a knife....... Once it was out of the oven I stopped paying attention to directions. I squished the first slice before I read how your meant to cut it. 'Take a serrated knife and with a sawing motion cut through gently.......'

I've also learned there is such a thing as an angel food cake slice, looks like a very long toothed comb, it sort of perforates the slices apart instead of cutting them.

Well I tried that first slice and while its really light just like its supposed to be I was kind of disappointed....... It was supersweet, for me sickly sweet, and just not at all what I had imagined.......

However my willing guinea pigs loved it with their cup of tea.

The raspberries helped with their tartness but I think I'd have been better off adding something more to it, desiccated coconut for example or even replacing the vanilla with coconut essence........

Maybe I'll give this another try some other day with a few more tweaks.

What do I do?

So here I am starting a blog? No idea what I'm doing really...... Guess I'll find my way through as I go....... It's kinda strange how I've gotten here, I love to cook and spend faur too much time exploring and experimenting with more sugar than is healthy for any one person....... Thankfully neither my friends or family object to helping me consume the results of my kitchen sorties. As for coming to actually blogging one lady in particular de-mystified the whole idea for me. Hazel over at http://hazeyfantazey.blogspot.ie She's the only blogger I know and a cake goddess to boot! A while back Hazel introduced me to The Cake Slice. A group of bloggers baking and comparing experiences of the same recepie. It's been amazing to see so many stylings of the same desert and to hear how they got on with the actual baking. I got my teeth into the latest book they're baking from, Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1607741024/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1375091273&sr=8-1π=AC_SX110_SY190 I openly admit to loving to write my own recepies and intend to share them with you (if they've actually worked out that is!) There are disasters as well as treasures along with once off's (usually coz I didn't write down how I got there) I'm half hoping blogging will improve my recording skills............. Hoping......... We'll see how it goes. I've visited one to many friends who are terrified to bake anything and stick to spending 4 times the money on commercially prepared treats than they would spend on ingredients to make something. So I guess I'm here to remind that its not that hard to make something each month if not each week and hope I'll manage to post something you'll be willing to try try every month or even just for special occasions