I know, I know – my idea of “tomorrow” is dreadful, but I think my loyal readerbase are already well aware of my terrible timekeeping

So onto my mistake. If you click on the photo it will take you to the flickr page where I have added notes to explain the mistake. Unfortunately these notes don’t carry over if the photo is being hosted elsewhere so I’ll do my best to explain.

The first place to spot the mistake is on the waistband on the right hand side. You’ll notice it is about an inch higher than the waistband on the left. The second place to spot it is by looking straight down the middle of the main section of the longies.

When you’re knitting longies, you want the back to be higher than the front for the simple reason that the longies have to accommodate a cloth-padded bottom. To do this, you add something called short rows which basically mean you work to 3/4 of the way through a row, turn and work back to 1/4 way through, then turn and finish your row. This adds two extra rows to the back but not the front. The side effect of short rows is that you’re left with a clear join (which can be seen down the middle of my longies). Of course, being that short rows should have been worked across the back and yet mine are shown across the middle means that…

… I split for the leg in the wrong place. If I’d kept going, the rise across the back wouldn’t have accommodated Greer’s big cloth bum and the right hand side would have been significantly bigger than the left.

So there we have it! Doh!

Posted under knitting

I’ve seen these glorious things of beauty on so many blogs over the last few months. In a multitude of colours too, they just scream EAT ME! So when I came across this apparently simple recipe I decided to have a go for myself. My first attempt wasn’t so good – we didn’t make it to the sandwiching stage this time – but apparently once you’ve mastered them you’ll want them all the time.

Firstly, you’ll notice that my macarons are a bit lumpy. The reason for this is that my ground almonds were not fine enough – it’s not enough to pass it through a sieve, ideally you want to have these mixing in a food processor with the icing sugar and cocoa. Alas, avid fans may remember my food processor had a bit of an accident and I haven’t been able to replace it yet. I have subsequently been told that this is the definitive recipe for chocolate macarons but it’s slightly different to what I did.

You may have noticed that my photo quality has been – well, abysmal lately. Unfortunately I’m relying on my mobile phone just now until I get my camera sorted so please bear with me!

You will need:
3 egg whites
50g granulated sugar
200g icing sugar
110g ground almonds
2 tablespoons cocoa powder

Preheat your oven to 150C/Gas 2. Combine the icing sugar, ground almonds and cocoa powder and put them in a food processor to get rid of any lumps. In a glass or metal bowl, beat the egg whites until they begin to hold a shape then and slowly add the sugar. Beat until they are stiff then fold the dry ingredients into the egg whites half at a time. Pipe them on baking trays lined with greaseproof paper and bake them at 150C for 12 to 15 minutes. Sandwich them together with a chocolate ganache or if (like me) you’re a bit lazy, get some nutella on the go.

Let me know if you’ve made these and have had better success than I did!

Posted under baking, recipes

Yes loyal readers, it’s me back with another spur-of-the-moment decision that has my husband rolling his eyes and my children weeping into their porridge!

Yesterday, I decided that since my lovely husband had gone into the city with our son and the eldest was off to his Dad’s for the weekend I would take the opportunity to bake. I honestly believe that nobody in the world bakes like me – I use every clean utensil in the house – and destroy the kitchen in the process!

I used Nigella Lawson’s recipes from How to be a Domestic Goddess and decided that what the family needed were a nice batch of lemon raspberry muffins. Alas, despite having an oven thermometer to make sure they were at the correct temperature they fell somewhat flat. Next time I think I’ll break the raspberries up a little but it seems a shame since the large chunk of juicy raspberry was what made these muffins so yummy. Ah well, they don’t look that much but they were certainly demolished quickly enough! These are #4 on my “50 things in 2009″ challenge.

So after my bake fail which I solely blamed on my rubbish oven, I decided to have one last shot and make my Dad a birthday cake. My Dad really isn’t a sweet tooth so I went with a Victoria Sponge instead of my usual chocolate confection, and again relied on the ever wonderful Ms Lawson for the recipe. I have to say, in all my baking attempts I think this is the item I’m most proud of. It was light, fluffy, delicious and came out of the oven evenly baked. I am so very proud of this cake! Somehow it also managed to feed eight adults and two children with leftovers so it was deceptively large too. This was #5 in the list.



Of course, in the process of making Dad’s birthday cake I managed to make my food processor go on fire. Being the able housewife (haha) that I am, I am laying the blame solely in my kitchen and have therefore decided that I need to rip out my kitchen, knock down the wall, rebuild a wall in my living room to half it in size and enlarge my culinary space. Oh, and I’m investing in a range-style cooker too. This is in addition to growing a baby, parenting three unruly children and attempting to finish unpacking (we only moved in 2.5 years ago). I think I might be kidding myself a little

I’ll leave you with a photo of the person who really came out of yesterday the best – my hubby reminded me that I wasn’t allowed to lick the spoon when I finished with the sponge batter because I’m pregnant and raw eggs are a no-no so my daughter helped me out. She looks pretty happy doesn’t she?

Posted under baking, with the kids

I have misplaced my baking skills. Can anyone find them?

Let me preface this story by simply stating that I love baking. I’m just not very good at it!

Last week I made Nigella’s Guinness cake, except I didn’t weigh out all my ingredients beforehand so when my scales conked out when I was weighing the last vital ingredient the cake mix started cooking in the pan and didn’t rise in the oven. Cake fail number one – but one which I understood where my failings lay.

Yesterday I decided to follow this recipe* to make Chocolate Beetroot cake. I followed the recipe to the letter! I baked it for 45 minutes and did the listening to the top of the cake trick. The result?



The entire middle of the cake was uncooked. I was tricked because the top had browned and looked baked but I didn’t do the stick-a-knife-in-it trick. Lesson learned for next time! Admittedly it was still a tasty cake so I can’t complain too much. I am somewhat worried that I’m blogging more about my craft failings than my craft successes though!

*Here’s the recipe

Chocolate beetroot cake

Preparation Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 40 mins

Ingredients

75g cocoa powder or powdered drinking chocolate
180g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
225g caster sugar
250g cooked beetroot
3 large eggs
200ml sunflower oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 180˚C / 335˚F / Gas 4. Sift the cocoa powder, flour and baking powder into a bowl.

Puree the beetroot in a food processor. Add the eggs, one at a time and next add the vanilla and oil, and blend until smooth. Add the sugar to the mixture.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, add the beetroot mixture and lightly mix.

Pour into a greased and lined 9 inch cake tin. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the top is firm when pressed with a finger.

Cool on a wire rack and dust with icing sugar to serve.

This cake can be sliced lengthways and spread with an even layering of crème fraiche and chocolate ganache.

Posted under baking, recipes