Well that was rather a long pause

So what happened ... there I was, a stay at home mum, adapting to life as my son began going to secondary school, now he is in the middle of taking his GCSEs and I'm a qualified Level 3 Teaching Assistant working full time.

Initially my blog was to record what I was doing, making "stuff" and generally figuring out a way to keep myself occupied while I decided what was next for me. So now I'm revisiting the blog. My new career means that I don't work during the school holidays and I fear I'm sometimes a little guilty at not making the most of them. So I shall make the most of them. This half term we have been home based due to revision, however I've made sure I have met up with various friends, walked and talked with them, had a bit of "me time" and still intend to meet more friends, see a film and visit my Dad for an afternoon.

On top of that I've decided to teach myself to juggle ... why?  Why not?

Yesterday morning was lovely. I met my mum for coffee and a wander around the shops.  I had some important shopping to do for Mr SW19 but no more details as I know he will read this!  Mum and I have started doing this regularly and I must admit I do love seeing her, just the two of us.  We catch up about anything and everything and have a wander together.  It was such a beautifully sunny day, it was warm and the sun was so warm and low in the sky.  Everything seemed awake and glistening, even as I saw on the top of the bus on my way home after a quick whizz around the old German supermarket. I was dashing home to a coffee and catch up with a friend. It's strange when your child leaves primary school, off they go confidently every morning to their secondary school, with their friends.  It's wonderful to see how quickly children adapt to new circumstances and challenges.  As a parent it's also time to adapt to a change, no longer going to school in the morning and meeting up with girlfriends at school. It's really important to me to stay in touch and I think so far it's going well.

I was making christmas mincemeat yesterday. It's a Delia recipe using fresh cranberries.  I had some in the freezer that my neighbour gave me after christmas last year as she didn't want them or know what to do with them.  I had a couple of bags of fairly old mixed dried fruit skulking in the cupboard and some muscovado sugar that had gone as hard as a rock.  Soaking them overnight seemed to bring it all back to life, and after three hours in a warm oven I had four jars of absolutely delicious mincemeat.

I don't know if any of this will be added to any christmas hamper or given as gifts to SW19 Jnr's music or form teacher, I have a sneaky feeling a lot of it will end up in mince pies and in our tummies!

As somebody who loves baking cakes for us to eat and for anybody else who would like me to bake for them, I have been giving a lot of thought to a christmas cake.  Mr SW19 doesn't care for the icing and marzipan on a traditional cake, and I'm not wild about glace fruit that often adorns alternative christmas cakes.  So anybody who has the Nigella Christmas book may have seen the Chocolate Christmas Cake recipe and I think I shall give this a go.  I have tried it as my friend made it last year and it was delicious.  It has stacks of prunes in it, and it really was spongy and tasty, but still a proper fruit cake.  Unlike a traditional cake it doesn't need weeks of feeding so I think I shall make it soon and freeze it, then I can order some delightful golden cake decorations for it when we take it out the freezer.

Right, that's it for today, off to clean my oven!

I can't believe it's been a month since I last blogged. Not quite the way to go about it eh?  Anyway, half term holidays and a bout of norovirus accounted for most of that time away. More than enough about that!

In that time I've been busy making all sorts of things.  We got back from holiday on 30th just in time for Halloween.  We had been invited to friends for a get together. Time was a little short so I decided to make a cake (of course).  The plan had also been to make jelly eyeballs from fruit and jelly, however a distinctive lack of tinned lychees meant those plans had to be abandoned.  So I made a graveyard cake and it worked very well.  I have made it previously and decided MR SW19's suggestion of putting various children's names on the gravestones was just way too ghoulish!  I knew there would be a couple of people attending who are gluten intolerant, so I made it with GF flour.  It went down very well indeed and resulted in an order for a birthday cake ... more of which later ... unfortunately the picture on my phone really didn't do it justice.

I've been putting a lot of thought to making gifts for Christmas.  As I love making and cooking so much I have decided that one or two people will be receiving home made hampers this year.  As a start I've made a stash of sweet chilli jam which is a permanent feature in our kitchen so I try to keep a supply of it available.  I've put some into small kilner style jars as gifts.  Yesterday I turned my hand to making mango chutney for the first time.  It was very straightforward, a bit of chopping and grating of the ingredients, and then a long slow simmer, best part of three hours.  It needs to mature in the jar for a month or so, perfect for Christmas.  Next on my list will be a few jars of mincemeat.  I love small mince pies, but they always cost an absolute fortune so this year I shall make some mincemeat and make my own mince pies. Not sure if any of that will make it into the hampers, possibly not.  However I've seen a recipe for mulling syrup so think that could be another addition along with a suitable bottle to add it to.

So back to the cake order, I was a little nervous about this one as I was asked if I could put a bicycle on the top as the birthday girl is a keen cyclist.  Now my strength lies in making cakes that taste gorgeous, but have a slightly more "freeform" shape to them ... definitely not a novelty cake baker!  However as the person had seen my graveyard cake they asked if I could do a bicycle cake.  After a bit of a trawl of the internet, I realised that my idea of buying a small model just wasn't going to work, they either cost huge amounts of money, came from the US, include a bride and groom, or there were instructions to make a bicycle out of icing which looked very beautiful, but also looked like it would take me several weeks to perfect.  Finally I came to the idea of making an outline bike in white chocolate that could sit on top of the chocolate icing.  Thankfully Mr SW19 is extremely good at drawing and sketching so he came up with some great shapes for me to use.  I chose one, recreated it in white chocolate, and the end result looked like this ... Ta Dah!!

It was packed up and hand delivered bright and early yesterday morning!

So dear Blog, I will be back far, far sooner, updating you on what it is I've been making and doing.

Now much as I love cooking and baking, I do rather like the idea of having a home full of beautiful, useful items that I have crafted with these fair hands of mine.  Only problem is, I'm rather cack-handed and clumsy, not ideal when it comes to crafting.  When I bake cakes I rarely make them smooth and styled, swirls and curls and Mr Whippy style icing are more my style.  I have had a basic sewing machine sitting in the loft for several years now.  My lovely mum gave it to me when she had a sort out and discovered she had two ... don't ask!  I look at it, I have taken the instructions out of the box, I have read the instructions. Then put them away.  Safe and secure in my total conviction that I am incapable of sewing anything ... flashbacks to sewing classes at school and my inability to make a place mat with straight edges.  I haven't been so bold as to take that one small step and remove the machine from it's box let alone the giant leap to attempt to set it up.  I really must stop making endless excuses and reasons why I simply can't and get it out.  However, I do rather enjoy hand sewing.  I saw some gorgeous felt christmas decorations while I was surfing blogland the other day and thought I'd have a go.  It was cold, wet and dreary yesterday so it seemed an ideal day to see what I could come up with.  Not bad for a first attempt - what do you think?

Finally!

Ok Ok Ok ... I said I would do this ages ago ... and finally here it is ... my raspberry and rose cake for ladies that don't exactly lunch, but got together just this once to celebrate a birthday in style ... what do you think?

There is a layer of edible glitter glistening on top which picture doesn't properly pick up.  It really did look very pretty and girly was enjoyed by all, with a glass of well chilled sparkles :o)  Freshly baked cake with whipped cream on the top just seems to me the ultimate indulgence, include jam, fresh raspberries and a bit of sparkle and quite frankly ... what's not to like??

I watched the Great British Bake Off last night ... my word how do those contestants keep delivering those kind of bakes week after week ... the pressure they must feel yet they all rise to the challenge.  Last night's episode involving french patisserie really did have my mouth watering, I must have a go at a few more sophisticated bakes.

But first off I shall give this Waitrose competition a go ... I will have my first crack at making the cupcakes tomorrow. I held off over the weekend as I want to share the cake love with someone who has done me a big favour in the past few weeks and I didn't think she was around ... we're off on holiday soon and I seriously don't need to be eating that number of cupcakes so close to take off!

Bye Bye Blog, be back soon.

Getting into the habit

I'm not doing very well am I? This blogging malarky. I have been thinking about it a lot, but somehow not managing to get myself to the PC at the right time, or when I have enough time - hah that old chestnut! I really should use this October to establish the habit of blogging every day.  I will do better. So what have I been doing?  I have made a cake to mark a significant birthday celebration for a friend. I did faf about quite a lot deciding what would work best.  Something for a group of ladies meeting at 1.00 for a drink of something sparkly, however still intending to collect children from school at 3.00. I decided raspberry and fresh cream would work well.  I do find putting fresh cream on a cake works well.  Somehow it seems to work a little better than butter cream, matter how light and fluffy it's made, there's something a bit special about using cream. Going for a delicate, feminine look, the cake was scattered with rose petals and edible silver glitter. Have to say it went down a storm :o)  Mr SW19 looked a little disappointed when I returned home with an empty cake box. I do have a picture which I shall blog over the weekend.

As well as cooking at home, I do love growing things to eat.  I've had an allotment for about eight years with my friend, we have a pretty large plot and, along with a couple of other friends, we pitch up, drink a lot of coffee, talk a lot, and grow things in a rather haphazard way.  Some years we all find ourselves with lots of time and loads gets done and lots of stuff grows. This year hasn't been one of those years. Right now, mostly due to the bizarre weather this summer - obviously, nothing whatsoever to do with a pretty amateurish approach to managing the allotment, we have quite a lot of veg but not so much variety.  A bowl of green tomatoes, that are ripening pretty rapidly inside, lots of potatoes, chard (which we all love) and that's just about it it. Now I've seen a couple of recipes for a sweet tart which has chard in it ... yes I know, weird eh?  I haven't quite brought myself to venture down that avenue, could this be the recipe that turns us into a chard-hating home?  Will mull that one over.

Tomorrow I am having my first go at baking a batch of cupcakes to enter into a cake baking competition being held by Waitrose.  You followtheir recipe and then decorate as you see fit.  The prize is a cookery course at the Waitrose Cookery School which I like the sound of. So will give it a go and the pictures will appear here soon.

Some like it hot

This is what was made yesterday, photographed, but it didn't quite make it to my Blog.  Sorry Blog. I did try harder, just didn't do so well.

This is Sweet Chilli Jam.  It's a Nigella recipe from her Christmas book.  It's so straightforward  to make, even without a food processor, it just takes about five or ten minutes to hand chop the chilli and red pepper. The original recipe is on the mild side for us here at SW19 Towers so I always include a few chilli seeds, and  have added a couple of red chillis that we have grown this year.  These chillis are a beautiful dark purple when they first grow, ripening to a deep red and even though they were described as medium hot, they certainly pack a punch.

So you may remember that I said I had a cake to make for yesterday to take for a certain milestone birthday celebration.  Thankfully I realised that the celebration is in fact today so I didn't turn up "Ta Dah" with a cake a day early.  I have decided on a raspberry and rose victoria sponge ... except ... shhhhh ... I forgot I don't have any rose water ... so it will be more raspberry and cream victoria sponge, with roses to decorate.  Hopefully elegant enough for a girls get together with a few glasses of fizz.  I will add a picture when it's made.