Firstly I apologise PROFUSELY for the terrible photo here. I took this quick snap with my mobile phone and it’s just as well I did because the entire loaf was gone within a few hours! Fruit loaf or cake is not something I make with great regularity because I have it in my head that Bob doesn’t like it but he tells me that Mr Kipling’s Country Slice is his favourite so clearly I just don’t know my husband’s likes and dislikes well enough!

This was super quick to throw together and is a lovely, moist cake. I’m actually surprised how moist it is because of how little milk goes into it – I’m so used to chipping cold solidified weetabix from my plates/table/windows/cats that I expected this to need a lot more liquid when in fact it was spot on.

You will need:
Two weetabix (or own-brand variations. I actually used Sainsbury’s cheapy version)
150g sugar (granulated will be fine if you have no caster, brown sugar will give depth to the flavour)
150g raisins
200g self raising flour
250ml milk

Preheat your oven to 180C/Gas 4 then grease & line a loaf tin (I used a 2lb tin). Crush the weetabix between your hands to make crumbs then add in the sieved flour, sugar and raisins. Give it a little stir to mix it together then add the milk and mix well until it’s all combined and there’s no dry flour around the bowl. Spoon it into your tin and bake for an hour until the top is golden brown.

Let it cool for ten minutes after removing from the oven then turn out to a wire rack.

Posted under baking

I used to love English and Drama at school and I remember my teacher telling me that background actors in TV shows are mouthing the word, “rhubarb” over and over again. Isn’t it funny the things your brain suddenly kicks in with when your mind is wandering?!

ANYWAY! As I showed everyone in my attempted self-sufficiency blog post the rhubarb I’m growing in my garden might feed a couple of gnomes, but it’s not really up to feeding a family of six! Luckily, my wee Nana has an abundance of rhubarb in her garden which she actively encourages me to half-inch as she doesn’t use it.

I’d collected some when I was last over to visit but hadn’t used it yet. For me, rhubarb is one of those ingredients that I could use every day. I was raised on rhubarb crumble, rhubarb sponge, rhubarb jam etc and I love it. In fact, I think rhubarb was the first thing I ever cooked on my own with my Nana when she taught me how to stew it! Problem is, I haven’t been terribly adventurous when cooking with it and this batch was going to end up in the bin if I didn’t use it.

So! I had read this entry on Laura’s blog where she’d used rhubarb in cupcakes. Sounded excellent, but I’ve “sampled” so many cupcakes over this last week between Bob and I’s bake swap practice runs that I couldn’t face anything too sweet. This was my compromise.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that these don’t look like much, but they really hit the spot. Not achingly sweet but enough to curb a craving. I was quite surprised when both Bob and Findlay ate these too and declared them delicious – definitely a recipe I’ll use again.

You will need:
300g rhubarb
3tbsp caster sugar
1tsp vanilla extract

300g plain flour
1tbsp baking powder
1tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
200ml milk
100g butter, melted
Brown sugar

Preheat your oven to 180C/Gas 4. Chop your rhubarb up into reasonably thin slices (I’d say no more than 0.5cm thick) and place in a baking tin (I used a 20cm square tin but any tin will do). Sprinkle your rhubarb with the caster sugar and vanilla and pop the tin into the oven.

Sieve the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl then add the sugar. In a jug whisk together the milk, butter and eggs. This will hopefully have taken you around ten minutes by which time your rhubarb should be nicely softened. Scoop the rhubarb into the dry ingredients bowl, trying to hold back the liquid if you can as you don’t want your mixture to be too wet. Pour the jug contents into the bowl too then stir until just combined – with muffins, you want the mixture to stay a bit lumpy.

Split the mixture between 12 muffin cases, sprinkle with the brown sugar and pop into the oven for roughly half an hour (mine took around 35 minutes and my cooking times are notoriously dodgy so just keep an eye on them raising and looking golden brown). These are amazing warm and I can imagine them being glorious with some warm custard.

Let me know if you try them!

Posted under baking, recipes

I’m not sure what to call this post! The cake wot I made has so many different identites that I know – millionaire’s shortbread, caramel shortcake, caramel cake to name but a few – that you will probably all call this something different. Whatever you call it, I found an old recipe that my Mum used to use and decided that I’d try this out. I must admit that I’m not a big fan of caramel cake so I only had a little bit of this, but Bob and my Nana liked it so I must be doing something right!

Now, being the kind soul that I am I’m going to give you two alternative recipes for the caramel. I misread the recipe from the side of the condensed milk can and ended up with a treacley caramel which made more of an adult cake. My Mum’s is a lighter caramel.

You will need for the base:
100g butter
50g caster sugar
150g self raising flour

Preheat your oven to 200C/Gas 6. Cream together the butter & sugar then add the flour. Spread into a greased & lined 20cm square tin and bake for 20 mins. Allow to cool.

You will need for my Mum’s filling:
100g caster sugar
100g butter
1 tbsp golden syrup
400g tin condensed milk

Place all ingredients into a pan, bring to the boil stirring constantly. Boil for 4 minutes then spread over your cake base and leave to cool.

OR, you will need for the filling I used:
25g butter
150g dark brown soft sugar
400g can condensed milk

Place the butter and sugar in a pan and stir over a medium heat until the butter melts and the sugar has mostly dissolved. Add the condensed milk stirring continuously until the first bubbles appear on the surface. Remove from the heat and spread over the base.

Once your caramel has set, melt 200g chocolate (I used 100g milk and 100g dark) and spread over your caramel. Leave it for 15 minutes to cool and if your chocolate has semi set, lightly mark out the squares on the surface before leaving in the fridge to set properly.

Posted under baking, recipes

I have no idea where this recipe originated or why it’s named so but this for me is a true taste of my childhood. My Mum was a sporadic baker at best but any time she did bake, this is what she made. I have a feeling the recipe came from my Auntie Anne and now I am blessing the greater internet with it. This stuff is amazing.

You will need:
150g butter
75g brown sugar
100g desiccated coconut
150g self-raising flour
1 tbsp cocoa powder

100g chocolate (I used milk)

Preheat your oven to 350F/180C/Gas 4. Melt the butter and add the sugar, coconut, flour and cocoa powder. Mix well and place in a well greased & lined square tin. Bake for 15/20 minutes then leave to cool. When it’s cooled, melt the chocolate and spread evenly over the top. Leave until starting to set then quickly mark out the bars before leaving the set completely.

I also added a wee funsize smartie to the top of each bar because I think it looks cute and I’m daft like that

Let me know if you try it!

Posted under baking

Bob and I seem to have started a wee tradition of baking a cake for our nearest and dearest when they celebrate a birthday. Bob’s Mum turned 21 (allegedly!) yesterday and I made this:

It’s just a sponge with 4 tablespoons of homemade lemon curd added to the batter. Once baked, I whipped 150ml double cream with another few tablespoons of the lemon curd and sandwiched the cake with it before dredging the surface with icing sugar. It was really refreshing, not overpoweringly lemony but just nice on a hot summer afternoon

Posted under baking

So, the third and final cake that was baked at the weekend for Fathers day! Loyal readers may remember the cream and jam-laden confection surprise that I made my Dad for his birthday. What you may not remember is that my Dad ate maybe half a slice before discreetly handing his plate over to one of my siblings because he’s really not a sweet tooth. And yet, I still made him a cake! My poor wee Dad is awfy awfy thin and I’m determined to fatten him up a little so he was given a Nigella Chocolate Guinness cake. Luckily he works on a building site so at the very least his workmen will have had a tasty treat with their tea!

Before icing:

After icing:

You will need:
250 ml Guinness
250 g unsalted butter
75 g cocoa
400 g caster sugar
142 ml sour cream
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
275 g plain flour
2 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

For the icing, I used a third of this icing recipe and it was plenty enough to cover the cake.

1) Preheat the oven to gas 4/180C, butter and line a 23 cm springform or loose-bottomed tin
2) Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter gradually and heat until the butter has melted. At which time, whisk in the cocoa and sugar.
3) Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and pour into the pan before whisking in the bicarb and flour.
4) Pour the cake batter into the greased, lined tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour (actually, I had to leave it for nearer 1h 20m). Leave to cool completely in the tin on a cooling rack.
5) Ice the top of the black cake so that it resembles the frothy top of a pint, or like me smooth the icing across the sides and top of the cake. Devour with a good cuppa.

Posted under baking, recipes

Yet another offering from Fathers day for me – this time, the carrot cake I made for Bob’s Dad. David kindly shared his cake with us and although it was really tasty, for me it was a little too nutty. I’d make it again purely because it turned out so well!

You will need:
150g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
150g caster sugar
250g carrots, grated
100g shelled walnuts, finely chopped
150ml vegetable oil
3 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence

1) Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4. Grease and line an 18cm diameter round cake tin.
2) Sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and cinnamon powder into a mixing bowl. Stir in the caster sugar, carrots and walnuts.
3) Pour in the corn oil, and add the eggs and vanilla essence. Stir to mix and keep stirring for a minute to let the egg mixture pull everything together.
4) Pour the cake batter into the prepared tin and bake in the centre of an oven for about 30-35 minutes, or until risen and firm to the touch. Remove the cake from the oven, leave to cool for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Leave to cool completely.
5) To frost the cake, I used a third of the icing from this recipe. Using a spatula, smooth a thin layer of the frosting across the sides and top of your cake to catch any crumbs before icing the cake to your taste.

Posted under baking, recipes

I have such a backlog of things to blog that I think you’ll be inundated this week with posts!

Firstly, I wish all the Dads in your life a Happy Fathers day. I didn’t get to see my own Dad yesterday so I can’t blog what I made for him, hopefully I can remedy that tomorrow. Truth be told I don’t know what I’d do without my Dad, he’s an absolute superstar and a great Papa – I know that my kids and my niece absolutely adore him. I just wish he didn’t live almost an hour away!

Secondly I had to share this little photo of my niece. Bad Auntie Vonnie gave Bailey a marshmallow twizzler in Starbucks on Saturday while her Mummy was on the phone and therefore powerless to do anything about it. Isn’t she a cutie-pie?

Thirdly! I made these cookies a few weeks ago and the kids devoured them almost as soon as they were in the cookie jar so I figured I should pony up the recipe. This makes loads, although the recipe suggests it’ll make 14.

You will need:
100g/4oz butter, softened
100g/4oz light muscovado sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
150g/6oz self-raising flour
85g/3oz (approx 3 tubes) smarties (I used the mini smarties)

1) Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. Beat the butter and sugar in a bowl until light and creamy, then beat in the syrup.
2) Work in half the flour. Stir in the smarties with the remaining flour and work the dough together with your fingers. Divide into 14 balls and place them well apart on baking sheets. Do not flatten them.
3) Bake for 12 minutes until pale golden at the edges. Cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight container for up to four days (if the little horrors in your life let them last that long!)

Posted under baking, knitting, sewing, with the kids

Greer is settling into family life and proving to be a very laid back kind of child – very like her oldest brother Findlay, and nothing like Nairn and Erica were as teeny tinies. So much so that I’ve actually been granted time to bake a little this week. I’ve thrown together one of my Cherry Bakewell cakes using raspberry jam instead of cherry, a batch of smarties cookies and the most gorgeous cinnamon apple upside down cake using Apryl’s recipe. I’ll blog the smarties cookies recipe tomorrow when I find the scrap of paper I wrote measurements down on

I had a bit of a freak out a few weeks ago over the state of the boys’ bedroom with the result that we dismantled their bunk beds this week and installed brand spanking new cabin beds complete with storage space *swoons*. This of course meant there’s been spare bits of bed lying around the house whilst Bob got the grunt work done.

This is what happens when you leave a mattress on its side on the stairs. The toddlers get it, pull it over and spend the day doing this:

I promise I do dress them occasionally

Posted under baking, family

This post was written by Vonnie on May 27, 2009

Tags: bake, baking, cinnamon apple upside down cake, erica, Nairn, recommendations, smarties cookies

So, the second of my cakes from yesterday and alas this one is a bit of a sad story. I mentioned yesterday about listening to your cakes – when you’re baking, a quick and easy way to tell if your cake is finished cooking is to listen to it. Put your ear to your cake and if it’s not quite ready you’ll be able to hear little bubbles popping and you should put your cake back in the oven. A done cake should be silent. Well! I pulled this loaf out after 40 minutes and it was still bubbling so I put it back in for five minutes and pulled it out without listening. Had I done that, I’d have realised that the centre was completely raw and that my cake would collapse as soon as it started cooling. Sigh.

Anyway, the parts of the cake that were cooked were out of this world but this is a cake I’d definitely recommend being careful with.

To make it yourself, you will need:

140g butter , softened
200g self-raising flour
1½ tsps baking powder
200g light brown sugar
3 large eggs
6 tbsp milk
finely grated zest 1 large orange

For the topping
3tbsp juice from your zested orange
50g golden caster sugar
50g dark chocolate

Preheat your oven to 180C/Gas 4. Grease and line the base of a 1.2l (2pint) loaf tin. Put all the cake ingredients into a bowl and beat with a hand whisk or wooden spoon for 3-5 mins until light and fluffy. Spoon the mixture into the tin and level the top.

Bake for 40-50 mins until golden brown and firm to the touch. Meanwhile, heat the orange juice and sugar gently in a small pan, stirring until dissolved. When the cake is cooked, remove it from the oven and spoon over the orange mix. Leave to cool in the tin, then remove and cool completely on a wire rack. I usually mark holes in the top of this cake the way I would with lemon drizzle cake, using a skewer.

Break up the chocolate and melt. Drizzle over the cake and leave to set.

Posted under baking