Just call me Martha!

After our decadent weekend in the fancy schmancy hotel, THIS weekend was it's polar opposite. The yin to last week's yang, if you like. Actually, now I think about it, polar just about nails the weather - I mean snow, FFS? It's almost Easter!! It's just so wrong AND we're supposed to be caravilla bound in a few days. Although looking outside now I feel quite faint just thinking about it...and not in a good 'Can't wait for the holidays' kinda way, a 'What the hell was I thinking? Is there any way out of it?' sorta way. Yikes!

 Anyway where was I? Ah yes, the weekend. Well, I channeled a smidgen of Martha Stewart with a pinch of Mary Berry, and I before I knew it I was rustling up chicken broccoli bakes (one for dinner, one for the freezer), vegetable soup AND the piece de resistance -my very first lemon drizzle cake. Who's the mammy!? If I'd had The Archers on, the transformation would have been complete.

To be fair though, this time it WASN'T Lady Mary who inspired me to dust off my Kenwood, it was in fact my fellow blogger Sarah Miles, who writes the fabulous blog Hello Wall, and if that wasn't enough, she pens the award winning foodie blog 'What would Nigella do?' as well. (Honestly, some people! If I didn't love her, I'd hate her.)

Despite the fact that it wasn't Lady Mary's recipe for Lemon Drizzle Cake, (it's her Bake Off chum Paul Hollywood's), she made it look so easy and the pictures were so yummy that I was dying to give it a whirl. Also, it just so happens that the Mothership is very partial to a slice of lemon cake, so I made two - one for us, and one for Herself-and they were both hoovered up in no time at all- okay, mostly by my greedy offspring, but even so.

Tah-dah!

Now, before you examine MY less than stellar pictures, and then compare them unfavourably to Sarah's (I KNOW you're going to-don't deny it), I've a couple of disclaimers. First of all, I'd no actual real life lemon, waxed or otherwise, on the premises, and it was so Baltic outside there was NO WAY I was going out specially, so I just used lemon juice instead. And hey, there's lemon curd in there too, so I reasoned, what's a bit of lemon zest between friends?
Secondly, I baked them in too big a tin- which means they look as if they'd been sat on but they hadn't....not on my watch anyway. (Note to self- you clearly CAN'T gauge the tin size just by looking, so just bloody measure it.)

Later on that evening, carried away with all this domestication, and heady with my baking success (yes I AM deeming it that), I cracked open the Villa Maria and my new Cath Kidston knitting set.....but tragically that all ended in  tears.... but there's another story for another day.
Happy Monday peeps and chin up, Lents nearly over, Emma  xxx

PS Final Call!!! Tomorrow is the very last day that you can vote in the MAD Blog Awards 2013- I'm a finalist in the Family Life category and I'm shamelessly hoping you'll consider taking a wee minute and voting for me- I'd be so grateful. (If you have already-thank you so much!)


PPS-I've joined up with Sarah Miles at Hello Wall today-go on over and take a peek at the rest! 

Let Them Eat Cake!

If there's one food group that I'm VERY partial to, it's cake-that's ALL cakes.....except fruit cake- I can take or leave that. It's funny because biscuits and chocolate can stay in the cupboard for weeks and I can be relatively restrained-the only exception being, as you well know, a good caramel square-but as soon as cake makes an appearance, I'm done for. It calls my name, no one elses, only mine over and over, until every last piece is gone.

 So wisely, because I know this about myself, I very rarely buy or make cakes, and if I do I force feed them IMMEDIATELY to the children, and any visitors or delivery men who happen to call, just so that it won't be crying for Mama come supper time. I'll be honest with you though, birthdays are tough, and we have not one, but two here in January. And really, is there ANYTHING nicer on a cold, wintery night than a bit of Gok, a cup of tea and a wedge of M&S Madeira with balloon icing and jam and cream in the middle? I think not. Except possibly a generous piece of M&S chocolate caterpillar cake, preferably the face part, but at the very least one or two chocolate feet thrown in for good measure? (Yes, I DO favour M&S as it happens- it's THE best-just trust me on this, cos I've tried 'em all!)

An added complication of the January double birthday whammy is, as usually occurs, the boys' actual birthdays fall midweek, while their parties are scheduled for the weekend. You see where I'm going with this? That means not two but FOUR cakes, and I'm feeling quite faint right now just thinking about it. I've tried to think of ways around it- perhaps buying a boring old cherry cake, or a Christmas cake on sale, just to do our 'family' parties, and that way I'm not tempted to have even the smallest piece. But seriously, can you imagine? I'd be run out of the house before I got to the 'For he's a jolly good fellow!' part if I tried to fob them off with that..and rightly so!

What disaster?

Whoops-a-daisy!

This year for Rory's birthday, I decided to make a cake for the family gig and he requested a 'jam' cake, (my old nemesis the Victoria sponge), so I dusted off my Kenwood and got cracking. Actually, I used to do a fair bit of baking, but now I blog instead....and it shows. There was a teensy bit of a hiccup, as you can see, when the whole top of one half refused to come out of the cake tin. (In these circumstances, I automatically blame the Aga, but truthfully, I should have just greased the cake tin properly.)

It's wonderful though, how a buttercream filling, ( NOT margerine-cream), good quality raspberry jam, and a bit of icing sugar over the top, can pull a would be baking disaster back from the brink, and the end result was deemed a resounding success.... and not just by me! So good in fact, that Cormac specifically requested it for HIS family birthday party the following week, which has sadly been and gone, but I've PROMISED to do it this weekend instead. Hmmmmm, and that would be the weekend before Lent begins.....which is surely cake free....so stick the kettle on- I don't mind if I do!