Muesli Cookies

Last week, as you may have read, my Mum in law came to stay with us for the week. We haven't seen her for ages as she lives on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland. We had a really lovely time, and I think she appreciated my baking efforts!
What has this to do with muesli cookies, well, I remembered that Ann likes muesli, so I had bought some in especially. After she had gone, there was still quite a bit left, so I thought I'd use it up on these cookies!
I always think that one of the tests of how good something is, is the length of time it lasts, or does not last in our house.  Put it like this. I made them on Saturday, and there are still 5 left in the container. Tom is slowly working his way through them, but everyone else has steered clear!!!  They were nearly as bad as the pretzels I made in week one!
Mary does say that the flavour and texture will vary depending on the muesli that you use. I used an Asda's own brand, but its quite a good quality one. The result was a rather tasteless cookie.
Scoring is difficult for these because depending who you speak to in our house, you get a different response. It probably averages out at a disappointing 5.0. Still, we haven't had a disappointment for a long time, and maybe it was the type of muesli. I won't be rushing to bake them again.
Still, now that I have got up to date with my blogging, I can start on the hot cross buns - watch this space!

Fairy Cakes

I also made these fairy cakes for the school Spring fair. It felt a bit like cheating as last week I made the iced fairy cakes. These are exactly the same recipe as the iced ones, but it is still a separate recipe so it all counts. I guess its called "filling out the book"!
I don't know who would eat a fairy cake without any icing on it, so having dutifully taken a picture of my "fairy cakes", I then proceeded to decorate them with chocolate icing and tiny eggs.
I got the cake cases and toppers in the discount store. 24 for £1, what a bargain!

Chocolate Crispies

Having watched Mary & Paul's Easter bake off last night, I feel quite inspired. However, I am behind with my blogging, so before I can start baking hot cross buns and Simnel cake, I need to get up to date.
I made these chocolate crispies last Friday for our school Spring Fair. There is not much to say about them really. They are dead easy!
The cake stall at the fair raised £160, which was brilliant, seeing as everything was donated.
We gave them a score of 8.0

Just in case you are interested, this is my 40th recipe! Not exactly a challenging one, in fact probably the easiest in the book!

Divine Chocolate Birthday Cake

No, it was not another birthday in our house, but with our Sunday guests including two little boys, I thought a chocolate (fudge) cake would be in order.
This recipe does not use flour, but ground almonds instead. It also uses 6 eggs!
It was fairly straight forward, although it did not rise as much as I had hoped for. I am not sure if I whisked the eggs for long enough - what does stiff but not dry look like anyway?!
When it had finished baking, the top of the cake had a rather large crack, and it was quite flaky, rather like a very large brownie!
I was not feeling very hopeful, but need not have worried. Once covered with apricot jam, and chocolate icing, it looked much better. I didn't feel it needed any decoration, as it was not for a birthday, so I just grated some white chocolate on it.
This cake went down very well with some cream. Again it scored 9.0, and was a great hit with our little guests - we've got the marks on the walls to prove it!! (only joking Jen, it all came off, so no lasting damage!!)

Easy lemon Cheesecake

On Sunday we had friends to lunch, so with Ad's mum, that made 11 of us! Another baking opportunity.
This cheesecake was, as the title suggests, easy. Unlike the cheesecakes that I normally make, this one used a flan dish, and said to push the biscuit mixture up the sides as well. I was a bit skeptical as there was not loads of base mix, however, it was just right. I should add here, that my flan dish has a loose bottom, which turned out to be very useful for getting the cheesecake out.
The filling involved cream, condensed milk, low fat soft cheese, and 3 lemons - juice and rind (my zester proved handy once again!) I actually used the juice of 3 and the rind of only 2 as I had already taken rind off one lemon for my madeira cake. The flavour was just right.
It scored an excellent 9.0 from the guests, and by Sunday night had completely gone!
Oh, I should add that Mary says to decorate with whipped cream as well as strawberries, but to be honest, I couldn't be bothered, and it tasted just fine without - sorry Mary!
By the way, is anyone else seeing Paul Hollywood everywhere?!  I enjoyed his bread programme this week, but I must not get distracted by different recipes, its Mary or nothing - sorry Paul!

p.s for those of you who are following this blog regularly, I managed to take a picture of the returned comic relief fairy cakes, for your amusement!

Iced Fairy Cakes

On Thursday evening, after a busy day,(for me, not for Ben), Ben came home from school and said that they had been asked to take in cakes to raise money for comic relief.
It was rather last minute, but I thought it would be shameful if after all this baking, I couldn't rustle up a few fairy cakes!
Mary didn't let me down - these were so quick to make, and turned out really nicely. The ones in the book are decorated with dolly mixtures, but I thought the cherries were a good look for Red Nose Day.
I felt very pleased with my little cakes and put them in a box for Ben to take into school. On Friday morning, we carefully put them into a carrier bag, making sure the box was facing the right way.
Now, it should be said that Ben walks to school on his own, and I follow later with Nathan. I don't usually see Ben in the playground, but on Friday morning, I happened to see him chatting to his friends. In his hand was the carrier bag with an upturned box!! My lovely cakes! Oh well, pride comes before a fall.
I wish I had thought to take another picture of the cakes after their visit to school. Ben had the sense to not hand them in, having seen them all stuck to the box, and each other, so he brought them home. They still tasted ok, they just didn't look very pretty!
Oh well, lesson learned - next time I bake for school, take the cakes in myself!
They scored 8.5, and a word to all you busy mums - they are easy peasy to make, and kids love them!

Madeira Cake

My Mum in law came down from the Isle of Lewis on Thursday, so I decided to bake a cake for the occasion. I decided on a Madeira cake - the first recipe in the book.
The recipe was straight forward and turned out ok, although it says to put a slice of citron peel on top - what is that Mary? Is it a slice or lemon, or orange peel? I didn't bother as it seemed to be more for decoration than flavour.
The cake is fairly plain, which I guess is right for Madeira cake. It tasted fine but we gave it 7.5, probably because we like things with a little more flavour.