Orders from the CEO of the cake club

So yesterday I had a message on Facebook...

Hello

The CEO of the Cake Club is BACK!!!!!

I just thought I would let you know I'm back working with the team now, so any time you feel like making another batch of your wonderful cakes, they will be very welcomed.
Hopefully they will actually make it to the office without 'you-know-who' tampering with them. LOL
Take Care
Simon x

Bit forward I thought but when the CEO gives an instruction one must step to it! So I decided to make a batch of brownies for the cake club. I had to have one myself, just for quality control purposes and I have to say they were mighty fine. The raspberries (which were from the parentals last summer crop) were lovely and tart next to the dark chocolate.

I had a very bad night with pain last night, spent most of it in the bath and sadly I didn't think to fetch a medicinal brownie and now they've all gone off to work with Mr Lardshow! Darn it! 

So here's how to make the brownies...

INGREDIENTS

100g dark chocolate chunks,

50g milk chocolate chunks,

125g salted butter,

200g soft brown sugar,

2 eggs,

70g plain flour,

25g cocoa powder,

100g raspberries, 

METHOD

1. Heat the oven to 180/160 fan/gas 4 and line a baking tray with parchment paper. Do not use a stupid brownie tin like I did, it's impossible to get the brownies out!

2. Gently melt the butter, sugar and chocolate in a pan. Remove from heat.

3. Stir the eggs one by one into the chocolate mixture.

4. Sieve the flour and cocoa powder and stir in. 

5. Add half the raspberries and scrape the mixture into the tray.

6. Scatter over the remaining raspberries and bake in the middle shelf for 30 minutes. Cool before slicing into squares. Enjoy!

Goosey Goosey Gander

Just wanted to share these pictures with you. We went back to the Farm the other day to see if there were any eggs. Every time we went over winter there were no eggs and we always left bereft but this time...

This time there were eggs and not just hen's eggs and bantam's eggs but a whole big fat whopping GOOSE egg!

So we bought it!  I have absolutely no idea what to do with it or how to even go about cooking it but it was just something that filled my little heart with joy so I thought I'd share it with you all too. 

XBx

Back again

Ello all, I've been a bit absent from here for a while,  haven't really felt like blogging much but the lovely Mr Lardshow bought me a tablet for my birthday and I thought maybe I should use it for something more worthwhile than just looking at pretty things on t'internet!

So I thought I'd dip my toe back in by showing you a few of the things I've been getting up to in bed recently...we're getting married next month (eep) so I've been saving my spoons and have just been doing little things in bed. My pain management doctor has been working with me to help me have more structure to my day, I have to get up in the morning, have to eat properly and I have to do 'something' every afternoon.  It's helped a lot with my lack of purpose feeling recently. It can be very boring and lonely even with two mad cats.

Here are some of the bits and bobs I've been up to...
I can't work out now to write captions on the pics so hopefully in the order the pics are... making the wedding invites,  cutting out bunting triangles ready for mum to sew,  making confetti cones, baking some very rushed cakes for a comic relief bake off at Mr Lardshow's work (my cakes didn't soon,  competition had some spun sugar on theirs, i was MOST upset!),  making some diamond wedding anniversary cakes that never got delivered because of all the bloomin snow! Turning old clothes into pet beds and cushions and finally a relaxed birthday hot chocolate in Shrewsbury.

I will try to get a bit better at getting back into blogging. It is good medicine for me!  xBx

P.S. the photos haven't come out in the right order...I give up but I'm sure you can all work them out.  X

Boomerang Biscuits

Just a quick post.  I dont think I could feel any rougherer if I tried. My kidney pain has spread up into my ribs and I am not liking it...not at all! 

Anyway,  I think some of my readers don't believe that I actually do bake in bed.  I do...
As much as there are days where my body just wants to hibernate life goes on and I have to keep going.

One of Mr Lardshow' s friends has got a wonderful job down under and so to celebrate and say good luck we made them some boomerang biscuits. 

So back to the bed baking. I made it downstairs and collected all of the ingredients, propped my sore ribs up and used the heat of the electric blanket to help soften the butter.   Genius idea I thought...
So by the time Mr Lardshow got home I was struggling to ice the biscuits but they eventually got done.

Im quite chuffed with how they turned out . Thank you again to Weena Fish for the boomerang idea x ♡ x

Vegetarian Lasagne

Hmmmmm...I can hear you saying it at the thought of veggie lasagne. I spent most of yesterday saying the same thing.

You see I've been a vegetarian for 22 years and apart from bacon butties I've had no desire to eat meat. I never really liked the taste or texture of meat and I don't really like meat substitutes like tofu or Quorn. However a certain husband to be has had a hankering for lasagne and so yesterday I took the plunge and bought some Quorn mince *shudder*. 

Here's how to make it...

I browned the mince and while it was burning nicely I chopped up a carrot and half an onion into the teeny tiniest pieces imaginable and added these to the mince. Once the onions had softened I popped in a squished up garlic clove and a handful of basil and a tin of tomatoes. 

While the mince mixture was bubbling away I made a white sauce...I did add mustard and a generous handful of cheese to it so it wasn't a true bechemal sauce but it was tastier. ..

Now to the construction.  You put a layer of mince, cheese sauce and lasagne over and over again until you have run out of ingredients.  Try to finish off with a final layer of sauce and a generous sprinkling of veggie parmesan. 

Bake, serve and enjoy xBx     

Mini Baguettes

Afternoon all, 

Yesterday was a bit of a 'stay in bed' day.  Saying I felt rough would be a bit of an understatement...  However by the afternoon I was going slightly mad from being in bed so I bundled myself into my poorly jumper and headed to the kitchen, pulled up my stool and let the kitchenaid do all the hard work. 

So these were made with the hope that they would be little delicate breadsticks to go with the delicious garlic dip that the delicious Miss Rachel made.  They turned out quite chunkier though...all the more to dip with!

I do like a recipe like this that you dont need to go and fetch special ingredients for, you can just mix and make.

Ingredients.
2 tbsp honey,
1 1/2 cups of warm water,
1 packet fast acting yeast,
4 1/2 cups of bread flour,
1 tbsp salt,
2 tbsp melted butter

Method (could not be simpler!)
*Measure your ingredients using the darling measuring cups that cousin cath bought.
*Melt the butter in the new sospan fach that the parentals bought me for Christmas.
*Pop all the dry ingredients into your mixing bowl and give them a quick stir.
*Add the honey, water and melted butter.
*Start the mixer on a low speed and mix just until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl...I told you it was easy!
*Plop the dough onto your work surface and squidge it into a rough rectangle shape.
*Divide the dough into 12/18 pieces (this is where I struggled,  division was never my forte)
*Roll each piece into a long sausage and pop it onto a baking tray.
*Cover and leave in a warm place (under the duvet) until you're ready to bake.
*Bake in the oven until they're golden brown at 200ºc 

Toppings
I put a mixture of garlic salt, butter and olive oil on ours last night but I think you could put anything on them...within reason.  Maybe poppy seeds, chilli flakes, sesame seeds,  parmesan. ..

Eat and Enjoy

xBx

New Starts

So this is 2013. This is the year where everything changes. No more needing to feel scared. No more worrying about things I cannot change. just being...

Here are 13 things I am looking forward to;

• seeing the new daffodils peeking through the soil
• learning how to ice a cake
• using my new pizza shovel
• saying I do, me too
• lying on a picnic blanket with a cup of tea, family, friends, bunting and Mr Plumtree
• travelling with a warm bum
• moonlit walks back to the upper arches
• seeing Betws-y-Bryn get covered in snow
• filling a jar with happy memories
• being showered with homemade confetti
• training Finn how to shut a door behind him
• seeing how many layers of knitwear it's possible to wear while still being able to breathe
• December 31st 2013