Wednesday 26 August 2009

Baking, Hummingbird style and daydreaming in style.




We've been back from Yorkshire one week now and it's been a lovely lazy week, I had this GREAT idea of replacing the dreaded ''b'' word with another b word: BAKING!!!
Sooo BEWARE and be WARNED because a LOT of baking follows here: all done by my kids.
And all from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook as mentioned in a previous post.( re COOKIES)
First was a joint effort( 6 were made by each) on the vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting: they were absolutely DELICIOUS and we had leftover frosting on our sandwiches that day!!!


Next - a day later- was the RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE BROWNIE which is pictured as in the book above. It's quite complicated and involves 3 stages but my eldest coped amazingly and TA DAH : produced THIS!!!This is as just from the baking tin and it's VERY BIG! We cut a portion to resemble the photo:
ABSOLUTELY TOTALLY SCRUMDIDLEY-ISCIOUS!!!! But sooo rich that we could not eat such a portion: about 1'' or 3cm squares were more our ''thing''.
Can't see the 3 layers here as the chocolate rose up the sides in the tin thus ''hiding'' the cheesecake!
TAH DAAAAH! The pink raspberry cream is a little too runny as she'd got up early to whisk it and finish off the production after it had ''set'' in the fridge overnight.... Didn't know how much to whisk it and how firm double cream can become if you persist....
But you can see the 3 layers here! And here! The cream layer is a New York style BAKED cheesecake. I've grown up with the jellified lime/lemon variety and had not had a baked one before: YUMMY!

About this time or the day before we treated ourselves to ( I've ALWAYS wanted one as we had one where I grew up) a swing seat for the garden!!! This was also becuase our ''proper'' swings had to be removed to allow for the ENORMOUS trampoline the kids had been pestering us for for aaaaages. So to compensate: VOILA!
And it's been terrific! Early morning cuddles in our PY's, cups of tea, lying reading a book, or sitting daydreaming( oops sorry ''planning'') for hours and hours. Giggly times with all 4 or 3 of us or even 6 when both dogs join us. Just swaying gently and looking at the garden and it's sooo restful, peaceful and relaxing! Even allowing for some crochet it stays VERY relaxing.

Speaking of crochet I have started to design a swing cardigan for Miss Youngest in her favourite colours and have- of course- called it the raspberry cheesecake cardigan!
Here is a bit of the Yoke with a bit of inspiration ( mmmmmmmm, a crocheter needs sustenance!)
We treasured these sunny days and admired the garden view from the swingseat:


Like I said: ALL the family have already enjoyed this soooo much I'm really glad we made such a lovely impulse spontaneous purchase.
Ah: Lucy keeping guard while the master sleeps.
WHO are you staring at?Don't point that at us, he may wake up!
A few days later- when we had finally eaten all the scrummy cheesecake-brownie it was Miss youngest's turn for a solo baking performance.
Not to be outdone she rejected my lemon loaf idea and chose a 2 layered ''lemon bar''which also involved juicing citrus fruit and a lot of ''zesting''.
And here they are: another tastebud tickling moment. Fabulously fruity these are more whicked than they look as you don't want to know the amount of butter that went in!
But ooooh they really are soo VERY GOOD to eat!
I can see these being made for lunchbox treats very soon!!! Or weeknd walk treats, or picnics, or...oooh do I need an excuse?!

Then we had a playdate day and the lovely hot sunshine did a runner and it bucketed cats and dogs! So what did they do? BAKING!!!
This time it's the MARSHMALLOW cupcakes with marshmallow frosting.
These perfect little cupcakes had a core removed and melted marshmallows inserted- what a STICKY job!!!! Still they did it.
Topped with vanilla- oooh the smell was divine!_ frosting with lots of tiny pink and white marshmallows. Sorry the photo does NOT do them justice.

Almost but not quite?
How about this? They didn't hang around very long!1,2,3,: all gone!

Back soon with some more baking and more CROCHET!!! I have finished the moebius- but not yet photograped this and made a mobile phone baglet- see you soon?!



















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