Sunday 7 March 2010

Tea and Unbirthday Cakes

We had a little tea party yesterday.

I made Chocolate brownie-ishes and a Cinnamon apple cakeythingybodge and we ate a small piece of each with a nice cup of tea and thought of what might have been. 

My period started yesterday too, which seemed like such a mean cruel joke, but it's ok. I have Ray. I have kittehs. I have cake. I have you. I think I can feel you all holding on to hope for us. Thank you. Keep holding on? Have some cake.


The recipes were bodged together from; two or three chocolate brownie recipes, a one-egg cake recipe (because I only had two eggs and wanted two different cakes), a few apple blondie/cake recipes and a convert cups of butter to grams site and a never mind my scales' batteries are dead convert grams to cups site. The nicest bit was the aroma of the apples, dark molasses sugar, bit of butter and plenty of cinnamon heating gently in a pan (none of the recipes called for part-cooked apples but I just felt like doing it for the luurvely smell. It made the cakeythingybodge jolly nice too!


I more or less halved the sugar content of the recipes I found because I think most cakes tend to taste of sugar and not of whatever flavour cake it is. So the 70% dark chocolate brownie-ishes taste nice and not-too-sweet and cinnamon apple is the predominant flavour of the cakeythingybodge (more apple would be even better though).

And I have just realised that I am indeed and in fact becoming my mother... who never ever makes too-sweet cakes. Aaargh! And she also makes a boiled fruit cake that is scrumptious but never has enough cherries in it, so I'm not quite there yet.

::

Cinnamon Apple cakeythingybodge
1 egg
100 grams butter, and an extra blob for apple cooking.
1 teaspoon expensive vanilla essence with bits
1/2-1/3 (wasn't too accurate) cup mix of caster sugar and dark molasses sugar, sort of half and half with a little saved to cook with apples.
2 nice apples peeled and sliced and cooked gently for a little while with a some of the sugar and a blob of the butter
1 other apple, grated and not cooked but only because I decided I wanted more apple, I would have added a fourth but I didn't have any more.
1 1/2 cups flour
I'm not sure how much cinnamon, at least a teaspoon, maybe more cooked with the apple, and another teaspoon mixed with the flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
::
Beat egg viciously
remove kitteh from vicinity of butter
Beat butter, vanilla and sugar together even more violently, taking all of your frustrations out on them (easier to take out frustrations by beating with wooden spoon)
rub aching arm
remove kitteh again 
add beaten egg (not to arm or kitteh)
add apple mixture without licking spoon until all apple is added
add flour (with baking powder, salt and cinnamon mixed in) a bit at a time
pour into small cake tin or a small rectangular glass dish
sprinkle a little dark sugar on top because you like the idea of crunchy bits
cook for about 20 minutes at 180c or until a knife comes out clean
cool before cutting into pieces

 


 Chocolate brownie-ishes
1 egg
100 grams butter
1/2 cup dark molasses sugar and caster sugar mixed about half and half
100 gram bar lovely good quality dark delicious chocolate that you absolutely did not nibble at the corner, the very idea.


1 cup flour with a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of baking powder
::
 Melt chocolate with butter in bain marie type set up
resist urge to drink resulting buttery chocolatey yumminess
allow to cool a little
mix in sugar
allow to cool a bit more
resist urge to stick finger in chocolatey yumminess
beat egg and add to chocolate mix
add flour bit by bit
think that next time you will add some chocolate chips and maybe dried cranberries or cherries
pour into small cake tin or a small rectangular glass dish
cook for only 15 minutes at 180c
(I cooked mine for a bit longer and it isn't quite chewy enough)
sprinkle a bit of caster sugar on top because you don't have any icing sugar
allow to cool completely before cutting



Don't eat them all at once. Or do and suffer later.




13 comments:

  1. yum, barb. looks like a nice, sweet, peaceful celebration. thinking of you. xo

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  2. I usually do a balloon release and dinner out on Levi's birthday~thinking of the three of you with much love
    xoxo

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  3. Oh~thanks for the recipes~they look yummy!

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  4. Can I haz cake for breakfast? So bookmarking this post to save those recipes. Wish I could have shared a slice or seven with a few cups of tea with you yesterday.
    Hope the pesky kittehs kept their pesky paws off them.
    xo

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  5. I'm drooling all over the keyboard. Yum yum. Definitely want to try and Cinnamon Apple cakeythingybodge.
    So sorry that nasty old Mother Nature decided to turn up on this particular day. She has a habit of popping up when she is least wanted. Sigh.
    Glad you enjoyed your tea and cake. A lovely tea party to honour a lovely boy. xo

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  6. Still holding on for you....

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  7. Thank you for sharing the recipes! They look so yummy! I love that you had a tea party.

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  8. Love the recipes, gave me a chuckle reading them. The tea party sounds like a good idea. ((hugs))

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  9. Looks delicious- but what's with all this urge resisting? None of my recipes involve resisting urges of any sort. Which may be why all my recipes wind up yielding half the promised amount.

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  10. The pictures are perfect...and I know that they must have tasted perfect too.

    You know what you said about sugar in cakes is true for other dishes as well. I do not like the 'overspiced' dishes that are so prevalent here. Spices are supposed to bring out the flavour of the food, not fill the food with themselves....

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  11. Lovely pictures... Have you ever used icelandic chocolate in brownies? delic!

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  12. Those cakes look delicious. Baking up some more gooey hope for you, since that is the only kind of baking I am decent at. xo

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  13. these look delicious. thinking of you, ray, and george. hoping for you and george's little sibling.

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