Martha's Marvellous Munchies

It felt like a busy Easter holiday this year - a nice mixture of household jobs, time in the sunshine, and family celebrations. Here are a few highlights. Birthday cake Graham's mum had a big birthday, so Graham and his sister secretly organised a few friends to come to dinner with her. She was surprised - and pleased! - when a small family meal at the pub turned out to include fifteen extra people. Theo baked and decorated this amazing cake all by himself. My sole involvement was cutting it up at the end. The event was a big success. thanks to my mum for the photo Days out We had a family day out at Peak Wildlife Park , in the Staffordshire countryside. It's been a few years since we last went; the penguins and lemurs were familiar, but the zoo has acquired a couple of polar bears. Believe it or not, these two are only half-grown. They're about three years old. playfighting polar bears lemurs penguins otters   I persuaded Toby and Theo to come to a garden with me with the ...

I don't know why, but I just did not twig that Theo's birthday was coming up and we might actually want to celebrate, until about two weeks before.  So then I hurriedly scribbled some invitations ("who are your friends at preschool?  Oh yes, I think I remember you mentioning that name at least once before.") and bought cake ingredients. Theo, somewhat surprisingly, wanted gingerbread cake this year.  I'd seen one once with gingerbread men around the edge, which was cute, so that was easy enough for decoration.  It didn't really lend itself to a theme, though. Flipping through the craft catalogue, the best I could come up with was a kind of "funny faces" idea, so I ordered a bunch of stuff.  When the box arrived... it was full of someone else's stuff!  They'd sent me the wrong order, and it was too late to send the right one. So the craft consisted of some bits I found in a drawer, the party bags contained a few things from some...

One thing I've really enjoyed about working in a cafe again is having a good reason to make cakes.  I've dusted off some of my old recipes and tried out a few new ones too.  Carrot cake and sweet-topped fairy cakes are reliable favourites; a crumble-topped apple cake (with slices of apple pushed into the cake batter) and gingerbread cupcakes have gone down well. However, I haven't always found much time for baking at home.  This week's been an exception.  Three different bakes have gone in the oven, though you'll have to wait a little longer to hear about the third. Firstly, I'd had my eye on a recipe for parsnip and pecan loaf for a while.  Yes, parsnip.  Same principle as carrot cake, as in you mostly taste the spices, not the root veg.  Besides, I like cakes with funny ingredients - I've got an aubergine brownie recipe tucked away to see if I ever dare to make it! Like carrot cake, it uses oil instead of butter, so except for the bit of peelin...

Looking back, it seems like lots of nice things have happened this month.  My diary records sunny afternoons with friends; discussions about 'what is poetry?' and 'what if Jesus hadn't been raised to life?'; visits to and from parents; a stop-off at Stratford-upon-Avon (nice town, even if you don't do anything Shakespearean); Easter bonnets, Easter biscuits, Easter church; parks, plants, parties; and my first attempt at ten-pin bowling in a long time.  (Since you ask: No.  I was awful.  But we had fun.) Helping with a lock gate on the Stratford Canal In the interests of keeping it real, this month has also included tantrums, whinging, fights, bleeding from the head, food on the floor, a screw in a car tyre, and me failing to get a job I interviewed for.  You didn't really think we had it that easy, did you? Life goes up and down... Toby - got his silver award for achieving 600 Dojo [award] points. - learned to do Sudoku puzzles with Gr...

When I saw that Maltesers was donating £5 to Comic Relief for every cake made in their #bakeamillion challenge, it seemed like a better than usual reason to make a chocolate cake!  The devil's food cake I'd tried for Theo's birthday was so good that I didn't need much persuasion to bake it again.  The original recipe made a BIG cake.  So in the interests of all our waistlines, I halved the quantities this time.  And of course, adorned it with Maltesers. Devil's Food Cake Recipe adapted from Green and Black's Chocolate Recipes .  Apart from halving it, I reduced the amount of sugar and avoided mixing the cocoa with the cold water.  In my experience, all this does is give you a brown sludge which is hard to get out of the measuring jug.  I don't see how that improves the quality of the cake. 175g plain flour 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda pinch of salt 50g cocoa powder 200ml cold water 125g margarine or shortening 200g...

Some blogs are full of posts which start: Recently, *big company* sent me three pairs of expensive shoes / five bars of delicious chocolate / a free holiday ... This is not one of those blogs. But, recently, a company so small I'm not sure it really exists yet sent me a free cake mix, on the condition that I filled in a survey about it and took a few photos.  Blogging about it was not a condition, but just in case the owner makes it to the big time, you heard it here first! So the Hope Makes It Easy Matcha Cake Mix popped through my letterbox on my birthday (good timing to start) and the rather pretty package sat on my counter for a few days until I'd assembled the ingredients.  Most cake mixes require a few extra ingredients, but this one needed milk, eggs and butter, plus cream and possibly white chocolate for the icing.  Not exactly all-inclusive.  On the plus side, it helpfully provided a cute origami cup for measuring the milk, a line to show you how m...

Well, I know it's not the end of December yet, but I thought we'd have a whole bunch more photos once we'd got through Christmas.  So here's the rest of the month (also quite Christmassy). Christmas lights at Calke Abbey Toby - has been really struggling with illness, poor boy.  He's had several occurrences of being sick in the night, plus hives and swollen eyes, plus a cold. - was pleased to meet Marshall and Chase from the Paw Patrol at Markeaton Park. - enjoyed a Christmas-themed Inspire Day at school - I got to go and do lots of crafts with him for a morning. - managed not to eat all the sweets before making a christingle with them. Theo - was a sleepy shepherd in his first pre-school nativity. - describes anything he likes as "so beautiful". - carefully hung as many baubles as possible on the bottom branches of the tree. - can tell you all the names of the Paw Patrol characters, but was not so sure about...