Delia Smith's Lemon drizzle cake with poppy seeds

Last week I got a copy of Delia's Cakes book for only £7.50 through O2 Priority moments, which was great as it should have been £25.

There are so many cakes in the book, loads of biscuits, cakes, loafs and muffins, and as it is Delia I knew it wouldn't be too difficult.

As it is Mother's Day today I decided to make a cake and picked the lemon drizzle with poppy seed one.

It was really easy to make, you just mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and then put in the cake tin.

The only problem I had was to do with my oven. In the centre of the cake it had risen so there was more mixture so the outside had cooked but the middle was still gooey.

This wasn't helped by the fact that we poured a sugar lemon syrup all over it so it made it even wetter. I will admit that this cake has so much sugar in it and on it and it is very lemony but it tastes delicious, would probably make a nice pudding with cream.

Mary Berry's banana and chocolate chip loaf

More baking today and I decided to make a banana loaf and found a recipe online for a banana and chocolate chip loaf by Mary Berry for Comic Relief does Great British Bake Off.

It was fairly quick to mix together and fairly easy to do.

The only problem was baking really. The oven is just hot constantly so it cooked the outside but not really the inside. So the boyfriend said to put it back in the tin the other way round so the bottom was on the top and it would cook through without burning, which worked a treat.

When cooled the Mary Berry recipe says to melt chocolate and pipe it over the top of the cake. Instead though my boyfriend put golden syrup over the top which looked delicious.

We had a taste and at first it didn't taste much of banana but it later kicked in. My first try of a loaf and I think I would do it again.

The recipe from BBC Food - 

Ingredients

• 1 ripe banana (peeled weight 100g/4oz)
• 1 tbsp milk
• 50g/2oz soft butter or baking spread
• 75g/3oz plain flour
• 75g/3oz caster sugar
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 free-range egg
• 50g/2oz dark chocolate chips

To decorate

• 50g/2oz dark chocolate

Preparation method

1. Preheat the oven 160C/325F/Gas 3. Grease and line a 450g/1lb loaf tin with non-stick baking parchment.
2. Use a fork to mash the peeled banana in a mixing bowl. Add the remaining cake ingredients (except the chocolate chips) and beat with an electric hand whisk until combined and smooth.
3. Stir in the chocolate chips and spoon the mixture into the prepared loaf tin. Level the top.
4. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until well risen, shrinking away from the sides of the tin and golden-brown.
5. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack.
6. For the decoration, break the chocolate into small pieces and add to a heatproof bowl.
7. Melt the chocolate in the bowl over a pan of simmering water (ensuring that the bowl does not touch the water). Stir regularly, until almost completely melted, then remove from the heat. The heat of the bowl will melt any remaining lumps.
8. Spoon the melted chocolate into a piping bag and pipe zig-zags across the top of the loaf. Set aside for the chocolate to set. Slice and serve.

Money makes the world go around

Many of us have would love to have some extra cash; be it for that holiday you have been dreaming about, Christmas around the corner or just to have some extra money for emergencies. Now many people are re-evaluating their jobs and taking up hobbies which can provide a bit of extra money, which means there are more opportunities for you to do the same.


One way to make extra money is by taking craft classes and making money from the items that you make there. Craft classes are not very expensive and in the long run can help you forge a new career or at the very least an enjoyable hobby. Craft’s come in all shapes and sizes, and the image associated with them being un-cool or boring is fast changing especially as people seem to appreciate homemade items.

Card making is a very personal and great way to make extra money, it won’t make you a millionaire but it may make you feel good about yourself, especially as people seem to appreciate the personal touch. It also means people can ask you themselves what they want and what kind of cards they want, as there is nothing more frustrating than searching the shelves of your local card shop and being disappointed with the cards on offer. A great starting point to help you out is the web; one great website is www.making-greeting-cards.com, which has lots of tips for different projects and cards for different occasions including Christmas and Mothers Day. Once you pick the card or occasion you click on the link and you receive a how to list on how to make the card. There is also a page dedicated to how you can start a home greeting card business. If you are interested in card making then it may be worth starting a blog, as it is a great way to show others what you can do, also try and join as many craft forum groups as you can, they are a great way to publicise yourself and get tips from others. Another useful website if www.makingcardsmagazine.com, which has its own forum and lots of information for budding card makers.

They say that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, however, on many people’s budgets diamonds are not your credit cards best friend, so the next best thing could be to make your own jewellery. Not only can you create yourself a bespoke piece of exclusive jewellery but you can also create gifts for your friends and loved ones.

Baking may sometimes be bad on the hips but could be good for the wallet. Everybody loves cakes so why not hone your skills and sell what you make, and if a batch goes wrong then I’m sure there will be more than enough people to eat the results. Baking cakes can also be inexpensive if you buy in bulk you can make a lot of cakes for a profit. To start you off here is a recipe for a simple chocolate cake, this recipe serves eight, and preparation time is ten minutes with cooking time at fifty minutes. Now the ingredients you will need for the cake are: 175g (6oz) margarine or softened butter, 175g (6oz) caster sugar, 3 large eggs, 150g (5oz) self-rising flour-sifted, 50g (1¾oz) of sifted cocoa, 1tsp baking powder, 1tsp vanilla extra, pinch of salt. For simple chocolate icing all you will need is 100 (3 ½ oz) of dark chocolate icing and 100g (3 ½ oz) of chopped butter. To cook you need to heat your oven to 180˚C (gas mark 4). Lightly grease a 18cm (7in) round cake tin with a little extra butter or margarine and cut a piece of greaseproof paper or non-stick baking parchment to fit the base of the tin. Put all the cake ingredients into a large mixing bowl and beat with a wooden spoon or hand-held mixer for 1 minute, or until just combined. It is important at this stage not to beat the batter too much, just long enough to make it smooth. Pour the mixture into the tin and smooth the top, bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 45-50 minutes. The cake is cooked when it looks well risen and golden; the top should spring back when lightly touched with a finger tip or insert a skewer into the centre of the cake and it should come out clean. Let the cake sit in the tin for about 5 minutes, then gently run a knife around the edge and turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool. For the icing, place the dark chocolate and chopped butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a saucepan of very hot water until melted. Cool for 15 minutes and then spread over the top of the cooled cake. If, however, the cake business doesn’t take off at least you have learnt to make lots of delicious cakes.

There are many ways that you can make a bit of extra cash in these trying times by making something delicious or unique. At the end of the day if it’s fun you will enjoy it a whole lot more.

Back to basics...

So after the disaster of the cola cupcakes I went back to basics and made some simple vanilla ones.

I put some chocolate drops in, which sunk to the bottom but I know for next time now to put in when half baked.

To make up for it when they came out of the oven I put a chocolate button in which melted, yummy!

The icing is just a butter icing with vanilla essence and red food dye to make it that pinky colour. And finished off with pink sparkles and chocolate sprinkles.

They were very nice, which the cola ones were not.



It has restored my faith in my baking, the road to becoming a domestic goddess is a long and windy one and I went down a bit of a dead end.