Hazelnut Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World

MrB is *mumblemumble* years old today, so it’s as good a reason as any to make cake. My little sister bought me the book for Christmas and this is the first outing it’s had, because I have been oh-so-good for the past month and not had a crumb of cakey goodness to eat. But the sugar, fat and chocolate in these should make up for it! They’re slightly not quite right because the mousse filling is actually on top of the cakes and I’ve omitted the chocolate ganache on top because I ran out of chocolate and there’s more chance of it raining Wollmeise than finding 70% cocoa chocolate at my corner shop. I blame the fact that the book is American and uses ounces. I mean, how can six ounces be more than a hundred grammes? Those ounces are huge!

And of course MrB loved his socks. He was impressed with the stranding after I waved the socks under his nose gently pointed it out to him, although I am fully aware that he doesn’t quite get just how fiddly they were. But I do and can feel chuffed with myself. They are on his feet today, which is the most important thing!

Have a good weekend, everyone!

My Delia inspired Christmas cake is done:

The top of my cake isn’t as flat as Delia’s, so it looks a bit mountainous, and I didn’t have any special snowflake cutters, so used stars instead. The end result looks good, though, and the cake itself is the most important part!

I have also made gingerbread for the first time:

Gingerbread Cut-Out Cookies, recipe available here

and even had a stab at making my own writing icing because the whole of the south of England apparently also want to use ready-made white icing in tubes. My favourite cookie is The Christmas Snail.

And for the final instalment in this rather calorific post, a pie for the boys to eat tomorrow as they hate Christmas Pudding.

Old Fashioned Chocolate Pudding Pie, recipe available here

I think Rose wasn’t that keen either last year, when she had her first taste, but will try again. My children are very odd.

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and I’ll hopefully be back knitting in a week or so when the baking frenzy is over!

I haven’t made a Christmas cake since 2008, so this year I decided it was time I got back into the habit.

The recipe is available here – a new one for me, and I hope that it tastes okay. Although every fruit cake is improved with a bit of feeding! And I am stealing Delia’s decoration ideas:

I am much cheered by the fact that she only decorates the top of the cake. Hers by design, mine because of laziness, but the end result is the same.

Marbled Banana Bread, recipe available here

And new old patterns for me:

I had a copy of this Sirdar pattern book when it was new, eleven years ago, and came across it again a week or so ago, whilst looking for patterns to queue innocently browsing Ravelry. After finding this copy on eBay and waiting for ages for the auction to end, it was mine once more.

I’m not sure why I didn’t hang on to it like I have done with other pattern books, but the designs are mainly aimed at girls so I suppose that explains it. I remember knitting this hat for Oscar, though:

because it was the first time I ever did any crochet. The edging at the bottom is all double crochet, which is added on after the back seam is sewn (yes, I know…). I think it was a Debbie Bliss How To Knit book that taught me to do a crochet edging (which is still a lot easier for me than starting crochet from scratch) and in the end I knitted a couple of them, whilst very pregnant and hot and uncomfortable. Unfortunately, this was in 2000 when I didn’t have a blog and didn’t randomly take photos of my knitted things. How times have changed.

There are several patterns in the book which I’d love to knit for Rose, so hopefully this time round I’ll get more than a couple of hats finished!

Lemon Cake, recipe available here

Oscar is 11 today, and requested a lemon birthday cake, not a squidgy, chocolately explosion of calories that his brother would have picked.

I am trying very hard not to feel ancient, even when I had to sort out his secondary school application this week, ready for him joining Henry at Big School in September next year. Ah well, they were small once…

*is evil parent*

And now Rose on 19th September 2011 :

As I mentioned last week, Rose is completely bear obsessed at the moment, so the perfect present had to be a trip to Build a Bear so that she could make a bear of her own:

“What do I do with this?”

“Be careful with her!”

Bear!

Today we are having spotty chocolate cake:

So if you’d like a slice, please form an orderly queue.

…and the crumble was good.

The strawberry cupcakes (recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking) were for no special reason at all, but sometimes it’s nice to disappear in the kitchen for a while and faff about with a piping bag to make pretty cakes… which then disappear within minutes. Complete lace of appreciation for dainty fiddly bits, but the cakes were tasty which is all that matters, I suppose!

The yarn, however, is definitely for a special reason. I have joined the International Scarf Swap on Ravelry and needed something lovely to knit my partner’s scarf with. The yarn is Dyeabolical Yarns Organic Cotton and Bamboo in “Guru Green” and is deliciously silky and soft. I am vaguely planning something lacy with a knitted-on edging, but so far swatching isn’t going too well. Hopefully there’ll be progress by the next WIP post.

Have a good weekend, everyone, whether you’re eating cake or squishing yarn (or both)!

Cinnamon Coffee Cake and Chocolate Cupcakes from The Joy of Vegan Baking

Because you can never have too much cake. Especially if you’re going to be doing a lot of knitting very soon.

Vanilla Cake from The Joy of Vegan Baking

Well, I’m settling in for an afternoon of tennis with a bit of cake. Whatever your plans for this weekend, have a good one!