Cake on a plane

My Son's Birthday is today and as he is working in the Isle of Man. We flew over for the weekend.

I made his birthday cake and brought it with me as hand luggage.

It travelled very well and he was delighted

You can find the recipe for the Almond sponge here


As my Mothers Day treat I was brought to Milntown Gardens in Ramsey.

This is the view from my hotel room window on Sunday morning.

And of course we met a Manx cat.

Happy St Patricks Day.

Have a green one.

Toffee Apple Cake

This is perfect for the weekend or any day and is very easy and quick to make.

25cm Spring Form cake tin, Greased and lined on the bottom.
Oven: 180 fan.


175g really soft butter.
175g light brown sugar.
175g plain flour,
1tsb baking powder.
4 eggs.

Put all the ingredients into a food mixer and mix until well combined.
 
2-3 apples, peeled, cored and cut into wedges.
50g very dark brown sugar.

Place the apple wedges in the base of the tin and sprinkle on the dark brown sugar.
Pour the sponge mixture over the apples and spread out to cover the apples.

Place in the oven and cook for 40-45 minutes until golden brown and shrinking away from the side of the tin.
Cool in the tin for 10 minutes.
The open the spring on the tin and carefully turn the cake over onto a cooling rack, the bottom is now the top.

This is lovely served warm with ice cream or custard.

Enjoy

Posh Flapjacks.

Everyone has a favourite recipe for flapjacks this is one of mine. They have marzipan and dried fruit, the mix with dried cranberries and Californian raisins. I like the colours. I buy the fruit mix in Aldi.

Oven 160 Fan
Line a Swiss roll tray with baking parchment.

180g butter,
140g light brown sugar,
2 tbsp golden syrup,
1tbsp honey,
240g oats (porridge)
120g luxury dried fruit,
100g marzipan, cut into small cubes.

Put the butter, sugar, golden syrup and honey into a pot.

Melt over a low heat.

Have the oat, dried fruit and marzipan ready.

Mix in the oats. Stirring well so the oats are coated with the liquid mix.

Stir in the dried fruit and marzipan.

Turn into the tin and spread evenly. Bake for 20 minutes until lightly golden.

Cool in the tin. When cold cut into 16 squares..

Enjoy.

February........ in Pictures.

Bargain buy. Cat doorstop all of 2 euro

Giant lemon cupcake to celebrate exam results.

Egg basket.

Pancakes

February competition, Take 3 blooms.

 February competition, Petite. Bowl of beauty

Spring container

Purple sprouting brocolli from the allotment

Afternoon Tea Party.

Last weekend the flower club held an Afternoon Tea Party as a fund raiser. There was a mini flower arranging demonstration by Christine and afternoon tea with lots of home baking by club members. 56 people attended and we made 650 euro, some of which will go to AOIFA for the World Flower Show which is been hosted by Ireland in 2014.

Check out the website  www.aoifa.com  for more information.

 

Dinner is hanging over a sweeping brush.

My Mother-in-Law bought me a pasta machine for Christmas and yesterday I decided to give it a try. Making the pasta dough was simple.

300g 00 flour.
3 large eggs, beaten.
1tsp salt.
  Sieve the flour and salt together into a bowl. make a well in the centre. Add the beaten egg and mix together to form a stiff dough.

Wrap in clingfilm and chill for an hour.

Roma make 00 flour and Dunnes sell it.


While the dough was in the fridge I got out Rachel Allen's Home Cooking to make her Tomato and Cream sauce.

75g butter.
1/2 onion, peeled and finely chopped.
1/2 carrot, peeled and finely chopped.
1 stick of celery, trimmed and finely chopped.
1x 400g tin chopped tomatoes.
Salt and pepper.
A good pinch of caster sugar.
75ml of cream or mascarpone.

Melt the butter and gently cook the chopped vegetables until soft but not coloured. About 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, caster sugar, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer very gently uncovered for an hour, until reduced and thickened. Stirring occasionally.

When cooked blend smooth and reheat and add the cream or mascarpone.

I used mascarpone because I had already bought it for another recipe. I also doubled the recipe because I did not have any other use for the half onion or carrot and the book said it could be frozen.

I have to be honest and say this is one of the nicest pasted sauces I have tasted in a long time. I find a lot of tomato sauces are too strong for my liking and I can only use a little. This is mild and creamy and coats the pasta beautifully.

And Now The Fun Begins.

The Machine.

Rolling out the dough.

Cutting the pasta.

The mess.

Homemade pasta.

I can tell you here and now it is not as easy as it looks when the chefs do it on the telly. There was a lot of re kneading and re rolling and a hell of a mess to clean up. In the end I had a lot of fun and dinner was a big hit.

Throw in some nice bread and it was a great family meal.

Sorry there is no photos of the whole lot together but it was wiped out. I will have another go at the pasta machine. Maybe with practice I will get it down to the fine art of the TV chefs or maybe not.