Weekend baking, part 2 - 110 cakes

Hello Blogging Lovelies, 

Welcome back to Part 2 of my baking weekend. Today we're making "110 cakes."

110 cakes are super simple to make, and are perfect to make with children as it's all about the decorating and less about the measuring, baking, fiddly bits etc. You just add 110 grams of sifted flour, 110 grams of margarine (or butter to make it a bit richer), 110 grams of sugar, 2 eggs, a splash of milk and a teaspoon of baking powder into a bowl and whisk. When it's smooth, you put into paper cake cases and bake at 180 degrees for fifteen minutes. It makes 12-15 cakes depending on how big you want your cakes to be.

These were cakes that are super easy to adapt as well: over the years, I've added chocolate chips, raisins and dried cherries into the mixture and various types of icing. melted chocolate, chocolate buttons, whipped cream, mini-eggs. paper flowers, sprinkles and fruit onto the top of the cakes.

Today, I just went with icing sugar. The cakes last about three days, so I'll be taking some in my lunch box this week. Yummy. 

And so ends my first week blogging - just to say thanks to all the people who've read so far; I've been overwhelmed by the number of hits. If you do like this blog, or any of the posts, either join by Google friend connect (over to the left) or write a comment.

Much Blogging Love xxx

Weekend baking, part 1 - Bread and Butter Pudding

Hello Blogging Lovelies, 

So, for my first weekend baking entry, I decided to make my all time favourite pudding: Bread and Butter Pudding. 

This was super simple to make: I buttered five slices of white, fairly stale bread and sliced them into halves and layered them into a greased dish. On top of each layer, I added dates and sugar. I prefer to use dates instead of the traditional raisins as they caramelise a bit more and, as I have a mega sweet tooth, they taste a little bit sweeter. After that, I just whisked half of litre of milk and two eggs together and poured the custard over the top. Finally, just before the pudding went into the oven, I sprinkled a little bit more sugar over the top to make the top nice and crispy when it had baked.  I put it in the oven at 190 degrees for 35 minutes. 

The finished product.  Looks good, right? Tasted wonderful too. 

And, looks like I'l be baking some more tomorrow, I'm making some mini-cakes for a family party so I'll blog how those turn out too. 

Much Blogging Love xxx

Hello, Aloha and Bonjour.

So this is the first post in my brand new shiny blog... I'm just a little bit excited. 

This blog has been inspired by so many people: my friend from Uni, Fiona, has a fantastic blog (http://maid-in-scotland.blogspot.co.uk/) and one of her friends, Rachel, also has a fantastic blog (http://sweet--rachel.blogspot.co.uk/). I love them both and am constantly so inspired by their passion, creativity and the joy that they get out of blogging. My Uni tutor has been encouraging us to write so this is hopefully an extension of that task. 

Here is my current plan for my blog:

Monday - Weekly catch up and my challenge. As an avid Instagram user, I tend to do Instagram photo a day challenges; I also love blogging quizzes so I may post one of those once in a while. 

Tuesday - Tuesday "Shorts." Basically, a really short story from some point in my life/something involving one of my friends that has happened in the last week. 

Wednesday - Game Review. Anyone else love gaming? I'm a total nerd. I'll be reviewing a mixture of games from both I-Win (http://www.iwin.com/) and from major games consoles. If you haven't checked I-Win out yet, then do so! They have a great mixture of both free and pay for games and I'll be reviewing one of their games in my next blog post (up in about twenty minutes). 

Friday/Saturday - These days are pretty interchangeable. This post will be about FOOD. I love baking and eating so this will be an opportunity for me to talk about everything foodie. I plan to start by working my way through "Easy Peasy Cooking" (yes, it's a children's cook book) as all the recipes in there are yummy! 

How yummy does this look? My baking will be nowhere near as successful!

I may post other things from time to time: film reviews, things that I've seen or that I'm interested in, poetry, tit-bits, big life moments (you get the drift, right?)

Much Blogging Love

xx