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.

Stupid dye lots!

I promptly started a Seascape Stole in Cleckheaton Studio Mohair 8 Ply after returning from the trip. I've stalled 3/4 of the way in though. I bought three balls of yarn, all different dye lots but perfectly matching. Then I decided that I needed another ball, and because of the different dye lots of the first three balls I didn't think twice about buying it from a different store. Yep, it doesn't match. I discovered that four days ago, and I'm still waiting for a chance to get back to the original store and get another ball. Frustrating!



In the meantime I whipped up a pair of hand warmers for wearing at the computer.

Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkins are in abundance in Australia at the moment and despite having pumpkin with dinner almost every night, I still can't get enough of it. So I made pumpkin pie. I've never made pumpkin pie before, and I've also never eaten it before. I used this recipe here, and I'm not sure if what I ate is classic Thanksgiving pumpkin pie, but it was really good. The shell was cookie crumbs style, using oats, coconut, spelt flour, and butter because I can't eat wheat. It was perfect.

Birds

Last week we welcomed two new members to the family. Helmut the budgerigar died recently, leaving his boyfriend Herbie all alone. We went to the pet shop to get him a new friend, and came back not only with a new budgie, but also a cockatiel. After four pets' names coincidentally starting with 'H', it's become a tradition, thus our new friends are called Himmel and Hello. Himmel means sky in German and the new budgie is blue, plus there's the novelty value of calling him Him. We think the cockatiel is female but wont be sure until she matures, so we needed a gender-neutral name. After repeatedly saying hello to her for three days, we decided that may as well be her name.

Herbie



Himmel


Hello

Berry Cheesecake Brownie

My brother came round to have a look at my photos from the trip, so I had to bake something. The bro loves cheesecake, but I couldn't go past this Berry Cheesecake Brownie recipe that I found a while ago. It turned out really nicely. Next time I will put a little bit of flour into the cheesecake mix though, to give it a proper cheesecake texture. The colour from the berries is so beautiful, it could easily have be dressed up and made really visually impressive, but I just chucked it in a bowl with vanilla ice cream and chocolate rum sauce and everyone here was happy.

Travels

I'm currently in Exmouth, WA. The trip has been amazing so far. On Saturday, WWKIP Day, I spent most of my time swimming with Whale Sharks. I did manage to get in a couple of rows of knitting though.