Showing posts with label cupcakes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cupcakes. Show all posts

Sunday, 25 October 2015

Blogtober day 25 - feet up, cake, sorted!

It's been a quiet weekend round here. I think I made a fatal error on Friday thinking my groin strain was on the mend and walking to work. By Friday night I was in quite a lot of pain. By Saturday morning I was Googling appendicitis symptoms in case I had misdiagnosed! Now I'm a tough cookie but this pain was something else. But when I lay down it totally disappeared so I wasn't too worried it was something more serious. So after taking Chook to the inaugural local brass band youth section rehearsal I retreated to bed all afternoon (what a luxury!!) and it is so much better today. So I do think it's just (just. Ha!) a groin strain but have a whole new respect for footballers who have this. I still have no idea what I've done to create it (extreme hoovering?!) but hope taking it easy will sort it out.

So today was more of the same. After a lovely long lie thanks to the end of British Summer Time AND Jones sleeping til half nine we were houseworking and then off to the stables for Chook's lesson. On the way home we nipped into a neighbouring town to check the location of Chook's first music exam on Tuesday and then got the groceries in. But after that I was free to chillax a bit (Spouse had been called out to work early this morning) before doing ironing and tea making. Hmm. That doesn't look like a relaxing day but it was. I'm not sure what that says about me! But while I had my feet up (finishing the chicken hat!) Chook was baking!
 

She's a funny wee thing and doesn't like cake unless it's chocolate so double choc muffins were on the menu. 

They are delicious and there's enough left for lunch treats for a few days. Result! 

I'll show the hat tomorrow!! 

Wednesday, 11 August 2010

very cherry delicious

Three years ago we planted a cherry tree in out back garden. It was tiny. Actually, it still is tiny - I think the Chookie may be taller than it - but we got a handful of morello cherries from it this year!! But what to do with them? They're for cooking but there's not nearly enough for a pie. Let alone jam. There really was only one option.
Muffins!! Two cherry muffins to be exact. Good job we had blueberries to bulk out the rest of the batter!!! Do you see sneaky fingers waiting for her first one?
I got the other one. It was delicious. And the really good thing?
The pear tree we planted at the same time has excelled itself this year and instead of the pair of pears we cropped last year? We've over a dozen. And you can just eat them. Woo-hoo!!


Friday, 1 January 2010

Happy New Year!!!

It's late(ish), I'm tired and I've the last David Tennant Dr Who to watch so I'll be brief. I don't make resolutions (coz I never keep them!) but I'm hoping that the next year olds for me....



...lots of baking (I made these malteser cupcakes yesterday - they are yummy!).......


...sewing of one kind or another (this is my snake draught excluder from some weeks ago)....


...and most of all a happy and healthy family (this is most of my lot today, from the bottom left:Chookie, Special-needs Spouse, Beloved Wee Granny, Papa, me Mam and Daddy).

I hope you all have a grand 2010 and I see you about the great cyber world!!

Saturday, 3 October 2009

muffins!!

I baked today for the first time since the Chookie's birthday in July!! My favourite muffin recipe (you can find it here ).


These are cinnamon and sultana and I only use a half cup each of sugar and oil. They are well tasty!

Tuesday, 12 May 2009

the great bedding plant challenge.

The Spouse and I had a delphinium growing contest last year (party central, eh?) which he......grumble........mayhavewon. *ahem* So THIS year the Chook chose hollyhocks for our front door bedders (I wonder why?!?). I know they're not really bedding plants but I can't keep them. So here they're annuals, 'kay? ANyhoo, she planted one pot, I did the other and there's two challenges afoot. First to flower and tallest. The winner gets a...........well, that's unspecified but I'm sure it shall be splendid. This is Chookie's pot. There's some trailing lobelia in there, too.
And in other unrelated news we've all three finally decided on a favourite cake. These chocolate chip muffins. They are goooooood!!


Oooh, I had lunch with a (very) pregnant friend today (waves to Biff - you're looking great!) and Catatonia (another friend) has been having contractions since Saturday. C'mon babies, lets go!!!!! Lynz wants to buy cute baba clothes!

Sunday, 10 May 2009

Same old, same old.

It really is business as usual round here. Cleaning (boo), scrapbooking (yay!), diddling around the internet and buying white t-shirts. *grins* You can never have too many plain white tees!! Ooh, we baked, too. Muffins again.

Chookie made these raspberry and white chocolate ones ALL by herself. I just did the fiddly case filling bit. And the oven, obviously. They were delish - she's frozen a couple for in her packed lunch next week.

And these are cinnamon and apple. They were yummy but not a patch on the raspberry ones.

I'm hoping to finally get my bedding plants in today, the rain has FINALLY let up and the sun is out. The race is on!! I need to do the Tesco run, too (ick) and clean out our furry rodent friends. And iron since it's Sunday. *le sigh*

Sunday, 3 May 2009

(not so) Lazy Sundays.

I was baking these wee beauties at half past eight this morning.


There's nothing like warm banana and walnut muffins with your coffee on a Sunday morning. *g* It may never happen again!! I filled the papers more - only got 9 out of the batch but they're much more muffiny looking I think.

We visited Michael and Gerr (and baby Amelia) late morning and Gerr has a wee project she wants me to have a go at. More of that tomorrow, methinks. Exciting! Then we shopped for girlie stuff (more money spent in Monsoon by me and the Chook!) and pretty bedding plants. Ooh, and rattie gubbins. The pet shop had the most darling wee baby rats in. We aaaaw-ed over them something terrible. Then it was tea, cutting the grass, tidying round and we're about to hit the bedtime rush. Glad it's a bank holiday tomorrow!!!

Saturday, 2 May 2009

Yum!

I've found what I think is going to be my new favourite muffin recipe! It's a total doddle (dry ingredients together, wet ingredients together, combine the two and add your own flavouring) and we had just enough frozen berries and chocolate chips to make a batch. They all cooked at different times which was a bit of a gitter fishing some out and sticking the rest back in for a couple minutes but they have passed the Spouse/Chookie taste test!! You'll find the recipe here.

I'm still trying to perfect that classic muffin top. Hmph. They were very tasty, though, and I'm fancying banana and pecan for breakfast tomorrow. *g*

Chook and I have been round at Wee Granny's helping Mam spread some chucky stones and get a half barrel in place. Daft auld Papa was digging what appeared to be a big ditch - why we have no idea! We shoved all the soil back into place, flung down the membrane (in a professional gardening manner, natch) got the chuckies down and they're all set to get to the fun plant buying step. My hands are hurting, though, I hate wearing gloves but those stones were sharp! I bet a coffee and a muffin would help them. *g*

Monday, 27 April 2009

My own personal cakewreck. :(

I have a link on my sidebar to the wonderful Cakewrecks blog. I recommend a visit if you need a wee laff - remember these are "professional" cakes. As in some poor beggar paid for them (or is expected to). I can't claim to be *quite* in the same league as some of the fiascos there but I've had my first proper baking disaster.

*wails* WHAT HAAAAPENNED?!?!? I got interrupted in the middle of mixing to answer the phone but I could only have been about 3 minutes. Actually, Chookie did most of the mixing. Lets blame her. *mua-ha-ha* They were tasty, right enough, just a bit Yorkshire-puddeny in the visual stakes. Hmph.

Saturday, 11 April 2009

Do you know the muffin man....er.....girl?

Yesterdays baking escapades involved a newly acquired recipe. I've been a member of UKScrappers for nearly 7 years now but haven't done a swap for donkeys. This all changed when I spotted a swap being organised for cupcake recipes a few months ago. What a great idea! Well, the recipe cards arrived on Thursday and Chookie picked out the Berry Crumble Muffns for our first experiment. Here they are.

They are absolutely delish and there's none left now. *g* There's a fair chance that a second recipe could be getting tested this avo!

Tuesday, 7 April 2009

Strawberry Butterfly Cakes.

Chookie and I were baking on Sunday afternoon. These wee beauties are from a recipe in the Crabapple Cupcake Bakery book (although the cakes and photo above are all mine!). It was -at least to me- a kinda weird recipe coz there was no fat at all in the batter. Just flour, custard powder, eggs and sugar. But they were SO light and yummy AND (and it's a big and) the lack of fat meant the papers stayed all white and pretty. It's the little things, y'know? *g* The strawberry cream filling was divine, too!

P.S. Still coveting those shoes but seventy quid is soooooo much money for stilettos. I'm not really a high heel girl. But they're so niiiiiiice.....