Monday No Bake - 15s

The weather has continued to be excellent here - finally a proper spell of summer weather - Saturday was hitting over 30 degrees.  Hubby was in Durham on a "man" weekend and Minibakebakegirl was in town with a friend, so I spent my time between the house and the garden with my book.  Our house thankfully, stays nice and cool downstairs in this heat.

Last week Minibakebakegirl made 15s.  Minibakebakegirl found this recipe from one of the people she follows on Youtube.

15s get their name from the fact that there are 15 each of the main ingredients!  The recipe is really easy and you can find it here. 

Instead of making one long sausage shape to slice into pieces, Minibakebakegirl rolls small balls of the mixture and puts into petit four cases.  A great messy job!

Thanks for visiting.

Todays top three Ipod songs:

1. Laura - Scissor Sisters
2. Teenage Dirtbag - Wheatus
3. Choose Life - PF Project - Feat. Ewan McGregor

Monday Bake - Ultimate Chocolate Brownies

Yesterday was an exceedingly lazy day, split between sitting in the garden reading a book in the morning and sitting in the living room watching Andy Murray win Wimbledon in the afternoon - what a match, it was so exciting, the last game especially, it had me on the edge of my seat!

This week's recipe is from a couple of weeks ago when we made brownies for Minibakebakegirl to take into school for her birthday treats.    We made Marian Keyes Ultimate Chocolate Brownies - omitting the nuts.  We also baked them for 30 minutes as I didn't want them too gooey.  

Minibakebakegirl reported back that her class mates thought they were good!

Hope to see you next week,
Bakebakegirl

Today's top three Spotify songs:

1. Get Lucky - Daft Punk
2. Tangled Up - Caro Emerald
3. Sunday Girl - Blondie

Monday Bake - Banana and Raspberry Loaf

British raspberries are at their best this time of year - especially Scottish ones - which we can get down here.  We are growing some in the garden - Hubby states that these are "coming along", so hopefully we can be eating them soon!

This recipe was in a recent Asda magazine, it's another good way to use up brown bananas.

Ingredients:
125g margarine
125g caster sugar
2 eggs
3 ripe bananas - mashed
225g self raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
150g raspberries

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180c/Fan 160c/GasMark4.

Line a 2lb loaf tin with a loaf tin liner (I use Lakeland) 

Place the margarine and sugar in a large bowl and cream together with an electric whisk until light and creamy. 

Add the eggs one at a time beating well between each one, add in the mashed banana and mix well.

Fold in the flour and the bicarb and then finally fold in the raspberries.

Spoon into the tin and cook for about 55 minutes.

Check the cake is cooked by inserting a skewer into the middle - if it comes out clean - it's done, if not pop the cake back in the oven for another 5 minutes - then check again - repeat as necessary.

Leave to cool in the tin.

I love the squidgy raspberries!


Thanks for visiting.
Bakebakegirl

Todays top three Spotify songs:

1. 5-7-0-5 - City Boy
2. 5 Year's Time - Noah And The Whale
3. Promise You Made - Cock Robin

Monday Ta-da! - Moustache Cake

Minibakebakegirl is 11 today.  She only has 3 weeks left at Primary School - and what a jam packed three weeks it's going to be -  with dance displays and a school play among other things.

Yesterday, we had family round for coffee and cake.  The past three years I have made a Hello Kitty themed cake, last year's instructions were "that it wasn't allowed to be girly"!  Well, as Hello Kitty is so last year and Minibakebakegirl is Moustache obsessed, I didn't have to think too hard what to do.  I made a chocolate victoria sponge by adding two tablespoons of cocoa powder to the flour, covered it in buttercream and white fondant and then used the "Munchtashe" biscuit cutters to cut out black fondant moustaches.  Simple but (I think!) effective.

I also made a batch of vanilla cupcakes and made some chocolate moustaches for the top.  Dark chocolate, white chocolate and salted caramel milk chocolate ones!

Thanks for visiting,

Bakebakegirl

Todays top three Spotify Songs:

1. A Little Less Conversation - Elvis vs JXL
2. Love At First Sight - Kylie Minogue
3. Get Over You - Sophie Ellis Bextor

Minibakebakegirl Monday - Cupcakes

Hello fellow bakebakers! It’s Minibakebakegirl here. It’s been a while since I have had a chance to blog, also there has been a lot going on.  Mum had her 2^nd sinus operation last Monday night so has been resting, she has stitches in her mouth :o(

From the 2^nd- 7^th June I went to Snowdonia National Park, North Wales with the rest of my year (and my teachers).  The estate the 38 of us stayed in was called Plas Tan y Bwlch. Originally the Oakeley family owned the Plas and it was theirs from 1789 to 1961.

The outline of our week was –

Sunday- Boring coach journey to Blist Hill then to North Wales.

Monday- Long, tiring walk up Mount Snowdon - amazing view near the top.

Tuesday- Caernarfon castle and Caernarfon town - cool castle.

Wednesday- Moelwyn Mawr and slate mines - fell and cut my leg on a piece of slate!

Thursday- Harlech Castle and THE BEACH - we did a talent show in the evening.

Friday- Visiting Wroxeter on the way home.

My favourite part of the week was obviously Harlech beach!  We played in the sand dunes and made sand sculptures.  We also created a ‘Harlech Shake’ which we all wanted to do! I thoroughly enjoyed our week together.

Today years 5 and 6 at my school held a coffee morning to raise money for Compassion because we sponsor a child in Africa. So I made some cakes! Here is what they look like.  We raised £460!

Hope to write again soon. Minibakebakegirl,

3 most listened to songs this week:

1. Wild - Jessie J

2. Laura Palmer - Bastille

3. Young Volcanoes- Fall Out Boy

P.S. We  will upload my photos from the trip when we can get them downloaded - silly camera....

Monday Inspiration - Rhubarb Cornmeal Cake

Another beautifully sunny week here.  Last week in our veg box we got a bunch of rhubarb.  I would normally just make crumble with it but I decided to seek out a cake recipe for cake club.  In Nigella's "How to Be A Domestic Goddess" I found a recipe for Rhubarb Cornmeal Cake. I just replaced the flour with Doves Farm gluten free flour.  

Now peeps, this gets me to a wee blogging dilemma I have....this recipe isn't on Nigella's website for me to put a link to it on here.   When I searched the internet several people have blogged it - the ones I've looked at have stated it is a Nigella recipe but are there rules about this - is this allowed?   I have blogged recipes from magazines before - stating my source but these are usually from free supermarket or Sunday paper magazines - I feel that if a recipe is from a book this is different and I shouldn't be blogging it, hence why I call these posts "Inspiration" so you can find your own rhubarb recipes.  I would love to hear your thoughts on this or where I can find the bloggers rule book!

I watched the last episode of Case Histories today.  I enjoyed Kate Atkinson's books and have enjoyed watching this.  Edinburgh looks lovely, as always, and I enjoy trying to work out where all the bits are filmed.   Last October, Sister, Minibakebakegirl and I watched them filming - we hung around long enough to spot Jason Isaacs at the window.  Watching today I worked out the bit we saw him at the window, reading what he'd printed off! 

Hubby has planted some rhubarb down at the allotment, so I'll look forward to looking for more rhubarb cake recipes.

Today's Spotify Songs:

1. You Surround Me - Erasure
2. I've Been Losing You - a-ha
3. All I Wanna Do - Sheryl Crow

Monday Review - London

The sun has got his hat on again this week, which is perfect as Minibakebakegirl went on her school trip to Wales yesterday.  She will be back on Friday, probably exhausted with a suitcase full of dirty washing and lots of news and photos!  Her school have a private school journey twitter account for the mums and dads to follow. It's great as they post pictures of what they are getting up to.  They will also tweet when they are nearly home on Friday - saves hanging around the school if they are stuck in traffic.

Yesterday Hubby and I went into London, we planned to go out for a nice meal and then Hubby surprised me by also booking a room in a hotel for the night.   

Our hotel was near The British Museum.  We went here last year with Sister and Family; however it is huge and we only did part of it then and even after yesterday we still haven't seen it all.  I love the Great Court it is so bright and airy - the amazing roof consists of 3,312 panes of glass and no two panes are the same.

We went for dinner at The Waldorf Hotel.   It was excellent - the food was delicious.   For pudding Hubby had the strawberry cheesecake and I had the Tiramisu - it was in my top 3 best Tiramisus!  (My Sisters is number 1)

On our way back to Kings Cross this morning I stopped to take some pictures of St Pancras railway station.  It is such a beautiful building and with the blue sky behind it - it looked even more impressive.  Luckily it was saved from being demolished in the 1960's, as something as hideous as the British Library next door may have been standing there today.  

I also took a photo of this field of rapeseed from the train - I love the bright yellow colour - it came out quite well - as the one below was my first attempt! 

Hope the sun is shining where you are.

Thanks for visiting
Bakebakegirl

Today's top three Spotify songs:

1. Pretty In Pink - Psychedelic Furs
2. Don't You (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds
3. St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion) - John Parr