Checking in.....

Hello! I've not posted for a while as I've not had any major news to share about the shop. Things are plodding along slowly and steadily. We're almost there with the building regulations and pen pushing stuff and soon, very soon, the building works and real work can begin. But don't worry we've not been wasting our days, we've been filling them with all kinds of research. This research has mainly involved visiting other coffee shops for inspiration and making some of the lovely things we hope to feature on our own menu.

So last week we took a trip into Manchester and went to a lovely place called Tea Cup recommended to us by Bimble & Rose

They specialise in Tea and even have a separate tea menu. You get a timer on your table telling you how long you need to allow your tea to brew before you pour it from the red pot into the white one ready for drinking! It's wonderful! All the cakes are home made and there is a fresh cake list daily. We left full of tea and cake and some ideas too.
While we were in the centre of town we decided to pop to Patisserie Valerie and bring some treats home to try, be rude not to really!

We also went to visit our potential coffee supplier. They have a room filled with different coffee machines and Jay, whose job it was to demonstrate, made us several different kinds of coffee and chocolate drinks. The company roast their own coffee on site daily and the smell hit us as soon as we stepped out of the car. We left having chosen a machine and sampled lots of coffee, lets just say we were both wired by the time we got back in the car!

In between the fun there have been plenty of less exciting appointments, like the Bank, Business Advisor's and energy suppliers so it's not all tea and cake!

There's been plenty of baking going on too. Today we made a cake inspired by our visit to Tea Cup. It still needs a little tweaking but it's certainly not bad for a first attempt!

I'll leave you with the pictures of our Pistachio and Vanilla Layer cake MK1 (I'm working on getting Mr P to make MK2 tomorrow!)

The Gallery - Easter

This week I'm joining in with Tara's fantastic Gallery blog on the theme of Easter.

Mr P was at home for the first week of the holidays and spent a few days at the beginning of the week building a fantastic Hen House for the much anticipated arrivals to our garden. Mid week he treated the children (MB, L & R) to a session at AirKix

They all had a great time & it was very entertaining to watch! M had already said that she didn't feel that it was something she'd like to do, so unbeknown to her our lovely Mr P decided he'd get her a long sort-after pair of Converse. She was delighted!

 The hens were collected on Thursday and so far have been a great source of entertainment! They've settled really well and today we came home to our first egg.

This is Delilah (and Betty can just been seen taking a dust bath!)

There's been lots of activity in the kitchen too. Mr P got stuck in and made some sweet pastry tartes. Some were turned into frangipane tartes and others filled with rhubarb and custard.
He made his first even batch of scones, which have to be the lightest little scones I have ever eaten and were far too moreish

There were also cherry scones, a rhubarb orange & almond cake and home made pizza's as well as these

Chocolate macaroons

All I can say is they didn't last long!
We also had our annual family trip to Haydock Races where a good time was had by all.
So we had quite a busy Easter week. Sadly this week Mr P is back to work and the children and are are doing mundane routine things like eye tests & dental check ups! Roll on the weekend :o)
Pop over to  Tara Cain's BLOG to see all the other entries

Cake of the week

I don't always have an entry to Helen's Cake of The Week Blog but this week I have two!!! (well. sort of!)

The first are my pink & pretty Cupcakes made for MB's Birthday that I blogged here. She turned 8 and she was really pleased with them

And next up are my Raspberry and White Chocolate profiteroles. An idea I came up with a while ago but the sauce gave me trouble. This weekend I cracked it. You can read here how Mr P and I got it sorted and made these beautifully light little mouthfuls filled with a pretty pink raspberry cream......Mmmmm!

So there you are, not 1 but 2 and one not technically a cake!
Make sure you pop over to Casa Costello to see the other entries too.

So Far So Good....

I'm determined for this year to be a good one. I feel like we're due one, but I also realise that you can't just sit back and wait for good things to happen. There are certain things that I hope will happen, but they are not in my control. So while I watch and wait I'm going to make some good things happen, little things but who knows where they will lead?
I wrote a New Year blog post and I have to say the amount of lovely comments, messages and emails I received really gave me a boost. Everyone commented on what a positive post it was, I had said in it that one of my aims was to be more positive about things and once you write something in a blog and tell the world about it, you have to do it....right?
I'd like to think I've had less downs and more ups, it certainly feels that way and yes I know it's only the middle of January but that's me being positive!

This year I'm going to try and say Yes more. Yes to more things that I want to do. It's no secret that I haven't made many any friends since moving North and that's not because I'm not friendly or approachable, the opportunity just hasn't arisen. Drop off at two separate schools to start with didn't help, nor did finding a job where you work alone in a different location everyday, so how do you make friends?

I met four amazing ladies (Juju, Julia, Helen and Fran)  through the wonder that is Twitter and met up with three of them in Manchester at the Christmas markets. It was like meeting up with old friends, not new ones and the only downside is that we're pretty spread out in terms of where we live, but that won't stop us meeting up as and when we can. I class them as real friends and I'm very much looking forward to meeting up again very soon.
Helen, who lives closest to me, couldn't make the markets, but had previously asked me along to a Clandestine Cake Club. I didn't go. If I'm honest I was too shy to go along. I would have known no one and I had no one to take either so I didn't go (Sorry H x)
 I've previously let too many things pass me by, well not any more!
Helen, amazing lady that she is, was setting up a new branch of The WI and again asked me along. I ummed and arred  about going, as again I would know no one and had yet to meet Helen face to face, but other than that I could find no reason not to go. I had a word with myself. For work I stood up infront of a hall full of strangers on a daily basis and yet I was stalling going somewhere to meet like minded people in my area. So that settled it, I told Helen I'd be there and went along to the meeting.
At the meeting I of course met Helen, in person and sat myself next to a lady, who happens to live very close to me indeed! We'll meet once a month, but there will be sub groups set up with the opportunity to learn new skills or crafts and share interests too. Suddenly I don't feel so alone.

And I've also signed up to go to the next meeting of a local CCC  where the theme is Patron Saint of Cakes. I have no clue what cake I will make and take along, so suggestions welcome! But as the organiser pointed out, it's not a competition, it's just for fun. Fun......yes....I think I remember how that works!

So that will be two new things I've joined or taken part in this month already!
I'm also set on making foodie things that I've never made or maybe never tried before. Some of them are simple, like tomato soup! No, I had never made it before, not until last weekend, that is. As for cakes I want to look more at using royal icing or sugar paste to decorate small and larger cakes. I've never tried, so today I took a tiny step in that direction and made some cupcakes for MB's birthday. I usually just do swirly butter icing but today I did some with Royal icing too.

I hope she'll like them. I've got a little glittery pink '8' candle to stick in the top cake for her.

On the sewing front I aim to make my first garment. I've had the pattern and the fabric for months, just been putting off trying it. Not for much longer, well until next week. It's only comfy pants or house trousers for my girls, but as M pointed out to me the other day if I don't make them soon, she'll have outgrown the pattern!

So, I think it's so far so good on the 'new' front...I wonder what else new will come from there first steps I've taken? New friends, new crafts, new skills.....who knows, but it's all very exciting!

Sticky Ginger Cupcakes

A while back I posted a RBOK, Random Bake of Kindness for Stuart,(the lovely man from the garage who fixed my car in about an hour without it being booked in) and his staff. Well I've been baking for him again!
We looked into getting my car converted from petrol to LPG. Stuart gave us advice and put us in touch with another local garage who carries out such work. He took Mr P to the other garage to see about getting it converted AND more amazingly he loaned me a car while the other garage carried out the work. What does Stuart get out of all this.........nothing. He hasn't charged for his time, or for lending me the car, without which I would not have been able to get to work this week. So I felt more cake was in order.
I decided on some kind of ginger cake. No particular reason, I just felt like it!

I looked on line for a ginger cup cake recipe and found this one. It's not from a blog I follow, or anyone I know I just found it randomly. My only question was how many cakes would it make? The answer to the question is 17 nice sized cupcakes.
I substituted chrystallised stem ginger for the kind in syrup, as that's what I had. It worked fine and I cooked them for about 17 minutes. Other than that I followed the recipe.
We taste tested one last night and they were nice. Moist and gingery, perfectly acceptable.
I decided to pipe them with cream cheese frosting and when I went to the tub to get them out the smell was devine. They had developed a sticky top and when I taste tested *cough* an iced one the flavour was totally different. They had improved in taste tenfold! They were now so much nicer than nice. They were a cake that I was reluctant to give away!

I topped off the cream cheese frosting with a tiny slice of stem ginger and seeing as I had made another cake to go with the cupcakes, I only gave away half a dozen.

Boxed up and ready to go

 The other cake was my old favourite that I've blogged about before, an almond and fruit cake just in case they don't like ginger.


Once again I almost lost my blog post in cyberspace and I've managed to retrieve it but it's a mess! So if you've read down this far, I thank you!  

 

Bowling Cupcakes

I'm going to be cheeky and double up on this blog as these cakes are also my entry to this weeks Cake of the week.

This week sees the last of my three children's birthdays for another year. M was happy with a shop bought cake, thank goodness, as her birthday is in the first week of the new academic term, always a busy time. (I've vowed that I will make her one next year, no matter what!) L asked for a Horse cake which she helped me to make although again because of work it was a little late. But she didn't mind and it was my first entry to the Cake of the week blog.
So next is R's birthday. It's actually on Wednesday but he had his party yesterday, so for him the cakes came early! He originally asked for a chocolate tray bake covered in sweeties but I didn't have a tin that was a good size. They were all too big or too small so I suggested chocolate cupcakes instead and luckily he agreed! I told him to leave it with me and I promised him I'd make them special.
I baked the cupcakes on the Friday night using my usual recipe and then sat down to see if I could pull off my idea.
I was originally going to transfer the sweetie topping idea from the tray bake to the cupcakes but then, from nowhere the idea of Bowling Balls and Bowling Pins came into my head. Well, I say from nowhere, R was having a Bowling party but the idea to put the theme onto the cakes just seemed to pop into my head. I like it when that happens!
So I bought a small pack of ready coloured icing and a pack of white icing and once all the children were tucked up in bed I attempted to make the cake toppers.

Fiddly to make but I really enjoyed it 

The next morning I was up early to decorate the cakes. I piped them with swirls of chocolate butter cream and popped on either a bowling ball or pin to each cake.

Cakes ready to go in the early morning sun

Set up at the party

I was very pleased with how they turned out and so was R. His little face when I showed him the toppers when he got up that morning was worth all the effort. He had a lovely party with his sisters and friends and he still has his actual birthday to come!

My Little boy, not sure how much longer he'll let me call him that!

RBOK - Chocolate Orange Marble Cupcakes

RBOK or Random Bakes Of Kindness is a lovely idea that was started by Vanessa Kimbell. The idea is quite simply that you bake double of whatever you are making, keep one half and gift the other to someone you feel deserves a treat, for whatever reason. I loved this idea and I already quite often share my baking with the neighbours on either side of our house, as a thank you for taking a parcel in or just because I've made something I know the little ones or indeed the big ones will enjoy. I wasn't sure I'd officially take part, until the other day.

I think it's fair to say I've been having a tough time of things lately. I'm dealing with some very difficult family issues and I have been poorly for about three weeks. Work is......uncertain to say the least with potentially more uncertainty to come. Our aged cat took a turn for the worse (glad to say he's now fully recovered) and the fridge freezer is dying a slow death. Add to this three children with birthdays and it gets pretty stressful!

So can you imagine my horror when, whilst driving M to her theatre group a warning light started flashing on the dashboard of my car and to my dismay it started spluttering as we drove along. Once we'd arrived at our destination I looked at the manual and it seems it was something to do with the emissions or exhaust. I know nothing about cars but I knew this could not be a good thing and would probably be very costly, as cars tend to be. I was also worried as without my car I cannot work and if I don't work I don't get paid. Arghhh!!
Seriously......how much more could I take?
The following day I wasn't working as I had to attend court. I was meeting Mr P before hand as he was coming with me. Next to his work there is a garage. From the outside it's like a car grave yard, there are whole cars and parts of cars piled up and lining the drive. The owner is an older man, who under his overalls wear a shirt and tie. Walking into a garage, knowing I know nothing about cars, would fill me with dread, but this is the garage that has been looking after my car since the move north so I went in with Mr P. There was no sharp intake of breath, no muttering or tutting that you sometimes get in these situations, just a simple " leave it with us and we'll take a look" The owner had even agreed to lend me one of their cars if they needed to keep mine for more than the day. We left it there and headed off for our appointment. We came back less than two hours later and the lady from the garage waved us over as we passed by. My car was ready! Fixed and running like new, they had dropped everything  to look at my car. It turns out it was something quite simple, a part that needed replacing and they'd done it straight away. I was so relieved.

That's when I decided to do my first proper RBOK.
So this morning, just under a week later I baked a large batch of chocolate orange marble cupcakes, not something I'd made before, or had a recipe for, but that's what popped into my mind. So after the school run I whipped up a batch.
The recipe I came up with was this

200g unsalted butter
200g light soft brown sugar
200g self raising flour
4 eggs
4 tblsp milk
2 tblsp cocoa powder
zest of an orange
1 tsp natural orange essence

Place all the ingredients into the food processor, apart from the cocoa, zest and orange essence.
Once everything is combined put half of the mixture in a separate bowl. To the mixture that is left in the food processor add the cocoa and mix. To the mixture in the bowl, finely grate the orange zest and add the essence. Mix well.
I used 24 cake cases. They're an odd size from Ikea, not as big as muffins but bigger than fairy cakes. I might only make 18/20 in future.
Put a large teaspoon of each mixture into the cake cases. Take a skewer and swirl the two mixtures slightly.
Bake on 180c/gas4 for about 15-17 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
I topped some of the cakes with a little melted chocolate, but they're nice left plain too.

Marble cupcakes

Once cooled I popped nine cakes into a cake box and six into a plastic tub. I drove to the garage and found the owner in the office talking to his sister who also works there.I gave them the box of nine cakes and explained that I simply wanted to say thank you. I don't think I've ever seen two people more surprised to receive a gift! They really were genuinely delighted and a little taken back!
Next stop was Mr P's work, just next door. I was collecting some hedgehog boxes that he's made to donate to Warrington hedgehog rescue. I swapped him two hog houses for six cakes to share with his colleagues. He seemed happy with that and a few minutes after leaving I got a cheeky text asking what I'd be dropping off tomorrow!
 There are still some cakes left at home for the children to have after school or in their lunch boxes. It felt really nice to be able to make so many people smile, it could get addictive!

The lady in the garage, who I now know is called Barbara made a really good point. She said "So often you go out of your way to help people and it's so rare that they really appreciate it" At least they know I did!

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Waste Not Want Not

"Waste not, want not." One of my Mum's favourite sayings and she had many! My parents were a good bit older than most of my friend's parents.They were eleven when World War II broke out. My Dad was evacuated to Brentwood, Essex and my Mum stayed in London with her family. Her father was of the opinion that they would stay together come what may, very 'Keep Calm And Carry On'. Rationing was in place until 1954, by which time my parents had met, married and had 2 children, my sister & brother. This meant my parents had grown up being very careful with food. They both hated waste and neither of them ever took food for granted. We never really had leftovers as Mum was really good at judging portion sizes (something I'm working on improving!) and she had a knack of stretching a dinner to feed one more. I can safely say no one ever left my parents house hungry!
 I learnt a lot from my parents and as a result I too hate food being wasted. My Mum was all for sharing recipes and tips, especially if they could save money!
So I thought I'd share one of her recipes with you.
 It's a recipe for Bread Pudding, not to be confused with Bread and Butter Pudding. It makes good use of stale or left over bread. My Mum made this recipe often, either with a stale loaf she brought home from the bakers where she worked or with scraps of bread she'd stored up in the freezer for making a Bread Pud. She made it in a large roasting tin and anyone who came to the house would get a slice, including the Window Cleaner or Postman. Neighbours would often get a knock on the door & receive a warm foil package containing a couple of slices, as would the man in the paper shop. When I lived at home I'd end up taking slabs of it into work to be shared with colleagues over a cup of tea. The church had a Christmas fair each year and by the time the doors were opened she'd usually sold out of Bread Pudding. This resulted in her making two tins every year, one to be sold to the helpers and one kept aside for when the fair was open to sell to the public!
Some bakeries make and sell Bread Pudding. It's a good way for them to recycle stale bread. But whenever I've seen it in a shop it always looks pale and pasty and you can see great chunks of bread, which I find off putting. My Mum's recipe ends up resembling something that looks more like a very rich fruit cake. I should point out that none of the measurements need to be exact and I have converted it to Metric (sorry Mum!) (She'd be rolling her eyes and tutting right now!!)

So here it is

Doris's Bread Pudding Recipe

Ingredients

About 400g stale Bread (white, brown whatever you have)

100g Sugar (caster, light brown, dark brown whatever is to hand)

175g Butter (or suet, as per Mum's recipe)

75ml Mixed Spice

350g Dried mixed fruit (whatever you fancy but I use a 'value' bag of mixed fruits including peel)

Juice and Rind of an orange and a lemon

2 Eggs

Mum's secret ingredient, about 2 Tbsp's

Tear up the bread and place in a mixing bowl

Brown, White homemade or sliced, it's all good.

Run the bread under the tap until every piece is wet. Don't fill the bowl with water or leave to soak.

Squeeze any excess water from the bread and leave to one side

Wet bread, but not soaking.

 This is where I get to use a family heirloom. A very large mixing bowl of my Mum's. The same bowl she made wedding and birthday cakes in and all the Christmas puddings I ever stirred and wished on, and of course countless Bread Puddings!

In a large mixing bowl place the butter, sugar, spice, grated rind, juice, mixed dried fruits and eggs

No need to be gentle here just give it all a really good mix until everything is combined, like this

My very large mixing bowl

Next add the wet bread to the mixture. Just like before give it a really thorough mixing. The bread should break down until you can see any chunks of bread at all.

Last of all, add the secret ingredient

Add a generous couple of tablespoons

Pour into a large oven proof dish or roasting tin. I use a Pyrex roasting dish that's roughly 28cm square

ready for the oven

Bake at 180c or Gas 4 for 1hr 45mins. Just like a cake, if you insert a skewer it should come out clean. It will have a little wobble to it but as it cools it sets. Leave to cool in the tin/dish.

Fresh from the oven

Sprinkle with a little caster sugar and serve warm with cream, custard or a cup of tea. It's also great cold and lasts a good few days in a tin, if it doesn't get eaten that is!

Perfect with a cuppa and great for sharing.
Enjoy!