Baking a Cake...

Last weekend I had the urge to bake a cake after I happened to come across my mother's recipe, which contained some vague instructions like "oven temperature between 180 - 200°C and "baking time 50 - 60 mins". I knew I'd be taking a risk trying it out; after all I'm not the best cook in the world, and cakes I make tend to be stodgy or crumbly. But I felt I had to give baking one last go before I give it up for evermore due to hopeless incompetence.


Luckily, the cake turned out to be a success, and because it is so simple yet delicious, I would like to share my mother's recipe with you:

Ingredients
350g self-raising flour
150g unsalted butter
150g sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk (at room temperature)
vanilla essence or vanilla sugar to taste
optional: 1 cup of chopped roasted hazelnuts

Method
First mix the butter, sugar and eggs until creamy and fluffy; at this stage the mixture is still runny. Then add the remaining ingredients gradually until the dough has an even consistency. Put the mixture into a regular sized greased loaf tin and bake in a preheated oven at 190°C for about one hour.

If you're giving this recipe a go, please do let me know how it turned out for you.


Toodles.....

Gothic Granny Squares

Granny squares don't need to be all prim and proper in pastel colours.

I thought I'd give them a sinister twist for my recent creation, a Tarot reading cloth.

This was a really enjoyable crochet project; so easy to complete whilst watching TV.

Traditional Bohemian (i.e. Eastern European) designs have inspired me to come up with this colour scheme.

Now that it's finished, it would also make a lovely baby blanket for the Addams Family. What do you think?

Yarn: Sirdar Click DK; colours: Black Sheep 138, Fern 132, Blueberry 137. Available online here.

If you would like instructions for the granny square, please check out this page.