Christmas and Birthday Cake

David is one of the unlucky folk who have a birthday at Christmas.  Every year since we have been married I have ensured he has had a birthday cake.  This year however we will be going away in January and not wanting to leave our housesitter with two leftover cakes I thought we would have a combined Christmas and Birthday cake.  My good friend Ellie who has offered to make the cake was slightly horrified but followed my instructions to the letter and this is the result. 

Snow

Couldn;t resist putting a picture of our snow on my blog as everyone else seems to have snow pictures.  If you look really closely you will see it!

Cooking on hold!

Cooking will be on hold for a few days as I am deeply immersed in decorating.  This was not planned!  Last weekend our waterbed developed a leak which shouldn't have been a problem but after a failed repair we decided a new mattress was called for.  We drained the mattress (or so we thought) and tied it in a bundle and tried to carry it downstairs - I had a good idea to slide it down the stairs as it was a bit heavy - wrong.  There was still water in it and guess what as we pushed it down the stairs the water started to leak out.  Fortunately we managed to catch it before we lost too much.  The photo is of David draining the rest of the water just outside the front door. 

Having taken the mattress out of the bed it is easy to move so we decided to decorate before getting a new mattress.  Spent most of Sunday moving drawers etc and getting ready to paint.  "I'll give you a hand next weekend" says David.  Wrong again - he's on a safety boat course all weekend so no guesses for who is doing the decorating.

A rescued failure

I have been making cakes of all sorts for too many years that I care to remember but I have never ever made successful florentines.  On Saturday afternoon as the weather was awful I thought I'll have another go.  I found a recipe and followed it to the letter (not something I do very often).  I measured everything really carefully, set the oven as instructed - even heating it up first and cooked them for exactly the time stated.  Result - disaster!  They spread out all over the tin and stuck fast.  With a huge amount of hacking I managed to separate them from the tin in thousands of pieces but undeterred decided I could use then for florentine ice cream!  It was delicious though somewhat chewy - too much florentine and not enough ice cream I think.  The first picture is what they should have looked like, the second one is the "bits" and the third picture is the ice cream.

Penguins and a Scorpion

By special request I am putting a picture of Alison's 50th birthday cake on my blog.  I was too busy to make one so asked Helen Rollinson who makes cakes for a business to make me one - the brief was iced with marzipan and either sailing or Antartica.  I might add that I gave Helen less than two weeks to come up with something.  This is the result and underneath the icing a delicious carrot cake.

Knitting

It is over a month since my last blog - that's because I have spent the last month knitting squares for Zoe's Brownies.  Before I could start I had to search the cupboards and the loft for wool and needles.  The first lot I found had a no. 7, a no 8 and a no. 11 needle but not a pair.  When I eventually found the matching needles I tackled my first square using some grey wool I found.  Those of you who have known me a for a long time will recognise this as the grey wool from a and grey and white sweater I started to knit many years ago!!  The wool was a bit dull in colour so made a trip to the newly opened wool shop in Weymouth and bought some new wool.  It took two or three attempts to get something square but once I had got the hang of things I managed a respectable number of squares which I posted off to Zoe today.  This is the result.

Party Pics

The top two photos from the party in Orpington and the bottom one from the party at Castle Cove

Birthday Cakes

I have been trying to upload pictures of my birthday cakes for days and hope that I will be successful today.  I had one made by my good friend in Weymouth  Alison and one made by my good friend Ellie from Bridlington who brought it down for my party in Orpington.  I will also try to upload some photos from the party, particularly the wonderful spread of food.

Planting the cherry tree

Ellie gave me a cherry tree for my birthday - I've wanted one for a long time so was really pleased to get it.  This is me planting it in the front garden.

My birthday weekend

This weekend I reach the great age of 60 and last night my friends at Castle Cove put on a surprise party.  Along with all the other fantastic surprises my good friend and Iduna crew Alison made me a wonderful birthday cake (a real fruit cake) which was delicious.  The cake was decorated with these icing plaques painted by Serena.  When David sends me his photographs I will put a picture of the whole cake on my blog.

It's a while since I have had time to put on any photos but thought I would show off our apples as Ellie didn't think we had any apple trees! The other one has just as many - just hope the squirrel doesn't eat them all before they are ready to pick.  Using the windfalls at the moment but will soon have to start picking.

Food for trip to Cherbourg

Busy day today - first shopping for our trip to Cherbourg, hopefully on Friday if the wind ever stops blowing.  Then cooking - bread, sausage casserole, summer pudding and flapjack.  Also made sausage casserole without sausages for Jan!

Lucky to get any dinner!

Today I decided to make a plum crumble for tonight's dinner.  I picked and prepared the plums this morning and then as it had stopped raining decided to do some work in the garden this afternoon.  First of all I helped David cut the hedge but he cut through the wire of the hedge trimmer so while he was mending the wire I spent some time clearing the blanket weed from the fish ponds during time which I fell into the pond head first!  I emerged soaking wet with a bleeding head and David was concerned enough to mutter something about head wounds always bleeding profusely.  Anyway after a shower and a cup of tea which David made for me (I must fall in the pond more often!) I felt I was able to make tonight's dinner.  Here is my plum crumble complete with custard.

PS We've only seen one fish since I joined them for a swim so hope the rest are OK

Cake for friends

This is today's offering.  Our good friends Jon and Karin are having a week's sailing  in Weymouth so came for tea this afternoon with Lizzie and Andrew.  I couldn't possibly give them tea without cake so knocked up this coffee cake this morning.

Goodbye to the "boys"

Fruit Loaf

I thought my "boys" would like something different for breakfast as it was their last day so baked this fruit loaf last night.  Sorry, Ellie, if all this food is making you hungry!
I would like to change the look of my blog but can't work out how to do it other than put a coloured background. 

No Cooking Today

I wasn't going to put anything on my blog today as I didn't do any cooking because we were sailing all day.  However while we were anchored in Lulworth Cove for a quick lunch we were treated to an "amazing" sight.  Tim took to the water wearing a wetsuit which he had been wearing since leaving Weymouth (slightly worrying for the rest of us as it was windy but we didn't think it was that bad).  This picture was taken as he entered the water.
Next week I am going to look at improving the layout of my blog.

More successful

Saturday morning was an early start as I wanted to make a birthday cake for Marian.  Having failed to take her for a meal on her birthday Iduna crew assembled at Weymouth SC for supper and birthday cake 10 days late.  This is the finished cake - I didn't have time to pipe "Happy Birthday Marian" so resorted to letter candles.                                                                                                                                       

Nearly burnt offering

I have been making two varieties of flapjack for years, one takes 20 minutes to cook, the other 35 minutes.  On Friday I made the 20 minute version but unfortunately had a senior moment when it was in the oven and thought I was cooking the 35 minute version.  I remembered after about 25 minutes and just about saved the flapjacks - as I had added cherries it helped to prevent them being too hard.

More cooking

It took me ages to put photos on my blog so going to have another go today. 


These are some delicious chicken pies I made for David to take to Bristol for his evening meals. 











And these are pots of strawberry jam I made - it took two goes to get it to set.  Am or am I not a domestic goddess?

I'm still not sure how I got these photos here - just kept pressing keys until they appeared!!  I will try again tomorrow when I hope to have made some flapjack for Iduna's crew.

Learning to Blog

Today, because it's raining I have decided to try to work out this "blogging" thing.  We want to do a blog for our holiday next year but I need some practice first.   I decided to use my cooking skills to create this blog as that is what I have been doing today.  Unfortunately my batch of rocks got slightly overcooked as I was talking on the phone and it wasn't until I smelt burning from the kitchen that I remember they were still in the oven.  This has taken me about two hours in total - now what?