Today I am officially an adult, a mom, a grown-up; call it what you will: I made a Christmas cake. I thought I had achieved something when I figured out that carrot cake is not too difficult, but that was merely splashing about in the kiddies' pool. Mind you, I made the non-alcoholic type that doesn't require any pre-soaked fruit, so I guess it was still in the realm of 'basic cakes' after all; it really wasn't as difficult as my preconceived and vastly uneducated notions had supposed it to be. So, after lunch I first made a macaroni cheese ready to pop into the oven when the cake was done. Then I did the cake - the ground almonds refused to co-operate with the sieve but were easily disciplined with a spoon. Took about 20 minutes to assemble the whole thing and smooth it into my marvellous new silicone cake pan, although I was worried about what might happen if the self-raising flour did its thing - the pan was pretty much at capacity already. Left it going while I fetched the boys from school, and Aaron brought a friend home with him (being Friend Tuesday and all).
The three boys got on really well together, engaged largely with talking and imaginative games. I made a batch of peanut butter cookies (not wanting to waste all that oven time), but my plan to bulk up the batter with extra peanuts and choc-chips nearly backfired as I overdid it somewhat, and the batter became as difficult to roll into balls as handfuls of peanuts and choc-chips would be with too little glue to hold them together. The end result was good though. Got the cake out at 5 pm, just a little shy of 3 hours but the clean knife told me it was done. If the recipe works then I'll have a good one for years to come. Still have to ice it though, so will post photos of "The Cake, Part II" before Christmas.
After tea we went somewhere...somewhere lovely and interesting...but I'm not going to write anything about it now. Time enough tomorrow! Made another batch of cookies after getting back from our field-and-photo trip which were only partially successful, but now I am tired and so, I bid you all goodnight, adieu and so long.
The three boys got on really well together, engaged largely with talking and imaginative games. I made a batch of peanut butter cookies (not wanting to waste all that oven time), but my plan to bulk up the batter with extra peanuts and choc-chips nearly backfired as I overdid it somewhat, and the batter became as difficult to roll into balls as handfuls of peanuts and choc-chips would be with too little glue to hold them together. The end result was good though. Got the cake out at 5 pm, just a little shy of 3 hours but the clean knife told me it was done. If the recipe works then I'll have a good one for years to come. Still have to ice it though, so will post photos of "The Cake, Part II" before Christmas. 
After tea we went somewhere...somewhere lovely and interesting...but I'm not going to write anything about it now. Time enough tomorrow! Made another batch of cookies after getting back from our field-and-photo trip which were only partially successful, but now I am tired and so, I bid you all goodnight, adieu and so long.
1 comment:
So is making a Christmas cake South African?
In the U.S. we are mostly about cookies, fancy cookies, plain cookies...a big tray of a huge assortment of cookies is the standard. Churches do cookie sales, all the shops have their cookies, bakeries make up special trays. Here at this house we have none of that nonsense though - every cookie is homemade!
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