Maisie is 7

Spiced Biscuits.

 My friend Sarah lives in Korea and on her last visit home, gave Lucas some cookie cutters, they come from Star Bakery and there's an English link here. There is a dog, cat, elephant, chick, pig and rabbit. 

I'm sure you can find ones like them where ever you live.

Below is my spiced biscuit recipe which is really easy to make.

You'll need: 

200g self-raising flour

2 tablespoons of mixed spices

1 table spoon of ginger (I know it's already in mixed spice but it's nicer with more)

100g of butter

75g soft brown sugar

splash of milk

 Put oven on Gas mark 6 (about 200c). Sieve flour and spices into bowl. Cut up butter into cubes and mix   into dry mixture until it turns to crumbs. 

If you have children helping you get them to do this bit, it's messy fun. Then add sugar. Mix it all in.

Add a splash of milk and work into a stiff dough. Roll out, then cut out.

Pop into oven until it starts to turn brown, leave to cool, job done.

 I thought we'd go through these biscuits quickly so we doubled up the recipe to make more, and as Maisie and Lucas made it clear that the animal biscuits would be theirs I made some heart ones for Stu and I. 

 I loved that the cutters made little faces on the animals, the rabbit looks very much like Miffy.

There you go lovely spiced biscuits to go with your cup of tea, or glass of milk in some cases.

It's great to have my biscuit tins filled with handmade goodness.

Let me know if you try any of my makes or bakes.

Love Amanda.x.

Maisie's Bread and Butter Pudding

Maisie and I have had a few conversations of late on food my Mum used to make me when I was growing up, Maisie thought Bread and Butter Pudding sounded really funny and not real pudding at all, I was shocked that it was something we'd never made together so set to put that right.

You'll need:

85g of butter

6-8(depending on dish size) slices of thick bread, we used wholemeal which gives a nutty flavour. 

55g of sultanas 

3 large eggs

300ml of milk

150ml of Double cream

55g of Caster Sugar

Some mixed spice

Handful of soft brown sugar.

 Pre heat oven to gas mark 4(about 180c) and get your helper to grease a oven proof dish. 

Cut away crusts from bread and cut into triangles, butter both sides, then lay out the bread in the dish while hiding fruit in-between each layer.

In whisking jug, add eggs, milk, cream, heaped spoonful of mixed spice and caster sugar. Whisk well, and pour over the bread in dish, leave mixture for about 20minutes so the bread can soak up the mixture. 

Poke down any sultanas not hidden well so they don't burn in the oven.

The joys of having a kitchen helper like Maisie is how proud they look when they've made something and know they'll to eat it themselves late on.

Sprinkle over handful of soft brown sugar, and and a little more mixed spice.

Place on a baking tray and into oven for about half an hour, or until golden brown on top.

 Opps, ours got a little overdone on sticky out parts but tasted delicious. Maisie was very impressed and asked what it would taste like if we put Nutella on the bread. 

People I have a genius living with me, why have I never thought of that? 

We'll keep you updated on the Nutella pudding. 

Please enjoy, and if you try our recipe and enjoy it please let me know.

Love Amanda.x.

Drowning under a sea of chocolate

 So I'm still playing catch up with my blog, but give me a break I'm a busy Mummy with my hands full with cheeky children and drowning under waves of shiny tin foiled covered chocolate. Thankfully over Easter time we got a lovely package from Kelloggs (thanks) which contained a lovely baking kit, lots of cake topping goodness and instructions on making a Marshmallow Rice Mummy Head, which you won't find here as myself-esteem couldn't handle it.

However it gave me ideas for using up the huge amounts of chocolate we had by making classic Rice Krispie cakes and as we were still feeling patriotic from the Royal Wedding some marshmallow square flags(hmmm they didn't quite turn out).

Above is Maisie and Lucas quality checking chocolate before breaking it up into the bowl for melting, I love that Maisie choose to accessorize her chefs hat with flower clips, she's becoming so girly now.

Lucas did have some hat trauma but we quickly turned into chef hat peep po, although he didn't really enjoy the baking he loved the dressing up of it all.

Lucas is going through the stage of not liking his hands being dirty, which didn't help when we came to making marshmallow cakes, my plan was to put in on a baking tray, smooth out and then decorate like a Union Jack. 

However, what we made was not an easy substance to use, Maisie thought it looked like an alien from Dr Who, and all 3 of us became attached by goopy melting marshmallow. 

Maisie and I loved it but Lucas ran to the sofa and the comfort of an un-messy Peppa Pig. 

We couldn't get it to flat on a tray so I wrestled it into cases and see to on the roll of master decorator, covering them in dolly mixtures and icing.

I think she did a great job, the cakes above if you squint, who am I kidding they won't look like a flag, but they taste great and the chocolate Krispie cakes, well you can't beat a classic.

Thank you for reading.

Amanda.x.

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas my true brought to me...

the work of eleven pipers piping....(although really I think it's just one lady).

These were all made by a local to me company called Cutiepie Cupcakes, and I'd be delighted to get some of these beautiful made cakes as a gift. My cupcake piping experiences have been far from satisfactory so these are completely stunning to me, and would make a change to the usual chocolates or Christmas cake.

Enjoy Amanda.x.

Saturday Treat - Chocolate Banana Loaf

Chocolate & Banana Loaf

You'll need:
2 ripe Bananas
150g Green & Blacks Cooking Chocolate(you can use any but I like this)
1 Teaspoon of ground ginger
3 eggs
200g butter margarine or cooking butter like Stork
175g Caster sugar
250g Self raising flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

Grease a Loaf tin and put oven on Gas mark 4 to pre-heat.
Put chocolate,ginger & 25g of butter into bowl & melt in microwave or over a pan of hot water.
My Gran used to always put ginger in her bakes, I think she thought it was exotic.
Mash bananas up.If making this recipe with children you can get them to do this job, but you may want to add an extra banana to make up for what they'll eat.
In separate bowl add butter and sugar mix until creamy then add the eggs and banana mush.
Add to this the flour & baking power and whisk together until thick and creamy. Yummy.

Add 1/4 of mixture to the tin then swirl over the melted chocolate mixture, then add more banana mixture continue till all mixture has run out. This should make a swirly pattern when you cut the loaf.
If you can save some chocolate mixture till the end rather than lick the bowl clean, you could swirl it over the top of the loaf, but as you can see that didn't happen to my loaf.

Enjoy your weekend.
Amanda.x.

Argh, a plague on my house.

While we were on holiday we had to deal with Josh(2) having just had chicken pox, so was a bit grumpy; he did spring back by the end of the week, only for this older brother Ben(4) to get the pox on the Thursday & spend the last couple of days on the sofa watching Ben 10 and trying not to pull his own skin off.
Although we felt really sorry for them it was hard to know how to deal with kids that ill because our Maisie(3) never seems to show illness, she's had weird rashes, major ear infections with burst ear drums, bad head colds but the most she's shown for them was a crappy nights sleep, but then it happened...she got the pox, argh.

Now in a way I'm quite glad she got it now before starting school but it was a real shock to see our live wire little girl knocked out like this, we had 3 days where all she had was 3 spots & was a bit grumpy, then we woke to find her covered & she spent 2 days on the sofa sleeping for hours at a time & covering her in Chamomile lotion in between.
All of this brings me to what do you then do when they feel a little better but you can't leave the house, because nothing is more boring to a child than their own toys and mothers company, then I remembered the little felting kit we bought from Twist Fibre at Woolfest.
We had bought a flower brooch kit which contains everything you need for 6 brooches, but unfortunately doesn't contain extra calm necessary to complete the whole task with a very knackered mummy & over emotional little girl, so we did some felting experiments, there's no finished products yet as they're still drying, I'll blog about them later, but I'd recommend felting to any bored households during this boring (none)summer holidays, its messy enough to be fun & you may get some very strange but fun accessories too.


We also made cakes, for the post illness recovery.
They seem to have done the trick.
We just have to wait and see if Lucas get pox now.

Snowflake.x.