Pear & Blueberry Coconut Loaf

Go and make this Pear & Raspberry Coconut Bread.
It is awesome. Pears are in season, so I went looking for recipes and had to try this one. I had some blueberries in the freezer, so I used them instead of the raspberries and they were great. I'm definitely going to try it again with the raspberries though. It's a really great recipe for a people who want a cake that's not to sweet, because most of the sweetness comes from the fruit. The cake is really dense and moist, and it just fine on it's own, but is really good with butter too.




Please excuse the ordinary photos- I just wanted to get more cake in my mouth as fast as possible!

Pot Plant Covers

I love to have lots of indoor plants, but nice indoor plant pots are really expensive. So I bought some 50c garden twine and crocheted a quick cover for the normal plastic pot that the plants come in. It looks like I'll get two and a half covers out of 50c worth of twine, compared to around $15 for an average sized pot.

Pumpkin Cupcakes

I had an excess of cooked pumpkin to use up, so I decided to make spiced pumpkin cupcakes. Most of the recipes I found online were 'box of yellow cake mix + can of pumpkin' (which, for the record, I don't consider a recipe!), so I improvised and used a banana cake recipe, swapping the mashed banana for mashed cooked pumpkin. It worked perfectly! I'll definitely make these again. The vanilla and cinnamon cream cheese icing is absolutely heaven as well.

Birthday Cake Dramas

It was my mum's birthday a little while ago, so of course I made her a cake. I chose a coffee and apple cake that she had been asking for, and which is a tried and trusted recipe. But for some reason, I have no idea why, it all went terribly wrong. I've made mistakes while baking before, but I've never had something entirely un-salvageable. Until that day.


Worst of all, I timed the cake so that it would be done right before mum got home from work, so she could have some for afternoon tea while it was still warm. Luckily I put the extra batter into cupcakes, and when I saw them sink the second I pulled them out of the oven, I frantically started making another cake. I opted for a quick mix orange and date cake which I had to cook in a glass bowl because we don't have many cake pans.


It was still in the oven when mum got home, and when I eventually did pull it out it still wasn't quite done in the centre, so it sank the moment mum stuck the knife into it. Thankfully my mother isn't fussy, and she was very happy with the cake, which thankfully was delicious despite the slightly gooey centre.

Ladybird/bug/beetle

I found a ladybird on the footpath the other day, and I put it on my lemon balm plant because there's been a few aphids on it. The ladybird wasn't in the best shape when I first found it, but four days later and it's still on the lemon balm and seems very happy.