After a late arrival at my mum
and dad’s, a later pizza (my dad is now legendary for these) and an even later
night I was not likely to be getting up early to complete this morning’s
culinary tasks.
My athletic friend Alex had
organised a bake sale to raise money for Farm Africa who she is running the
London Marathon for next month. I had possibly been overambitious in my promised
offerings: ginger muffins, lemon muffins, marmalade cake and chocolate
brownies. Plus a quiz. And some reconstructed “vintage” cake stands.
Knowing that there would be a lot
of cake to come this afternoon I skipped breakfast, topped up with caffeine and
set to work on the cakes. Today’s bakes were to be tried and tested recipes,
not wanting to be too adventurous in someone else’s kitchen. The limited time
available, using my mum’s kitchen and her inevitable “help” would be challenge
enough. (In fairness my mum’s seemingly continuous washing up was immensely
helpful.)
The marmalade cake had to be done
early as it needed to cool before icing. I first made this a few weeks ago in
response to my glut of marmalade and it was certified a success by my friends
Sarah and Andrew, and particularly by their 22 month old son. All went
according to plan until it came to line the tin (recipes always say to do this
first but I find it boring so don’t bother until just before cooking) and
discovered that mum didn’t have the right size cake tin. This is a woman who
has two, not insubstantial, cupboards dedicated to bakeware and an extensive
baking history. It was not unreasonable for me to assume that she would have a
20cm round tin. We engaged my in some rudimentary mathematics and I was
persuaded that I could bake the same volume of cake in two loaf tins.
Two cakes for the price of one
into the oven.
While they were cooking I set to
work on the lemon muffins. At which point I discovered I didn’t have the ideal
ingredients. The basic was possible but I like to add poppy seeds for texture
and lemon extract for turbo lemon flavour. So I despatched my husband, Matt,
off to the shops.
And meanwhile I put the finishing
touches to my cryptic bakes picture quiz. First devised on Thursday evening it
needed modifying (apparently some clues were much too hard), adding too (you can
never have too many cryptic bake quiz clues), and the answers putting into a
visually agreeable format (the cryptic bake quiz makes a very pleasing
PowerPoint® presentation). It was just like an assignment where you think that
you’ve finished and nearly submit it when you realise that all your references
are in a right mess.
Cakes out. Muffins in (but only
just with poppy seeds as someone in the shop overheard Matt on the phone
telling me that he couldn’t find any and kindly placed some in his basket).
Quiz work on-going.
The excellent chocolate brownie recipe
was given to me by a friend who doesn’t eat wheat and uses ground almonds
rather than flour. It requires four separated eggs. I do not class egg
separation as one of my skills. My success rate is usually about 50%. I often
enlist Matt to do it for me but he was busy with glue and crockery so I went
for it myself. And had 100% success.
Muffins out, brownies in. Quiz
work on-going.
I had made two cake stands at
home with top of the range super glue but had brought the rest to finish here.
Unfortunately I forgot to bring the top of the range super glue. Cue crockery
and glue fiasco. Suffice to say only the original two cake stands went to the
bake sale.
I delegated Matt the task of
icing, which as you know is not something that I relish. He completed this with
aplomb whilst I did the next batch of muffins. Mum had baked some
gingerbread and I thought that to avoid repetition I ought to go for a
different flavour. In a moment of inspiration I decided on white chocolate and
cranberry, never tried these before but the muffin recipe is very versatile and
it’s usually a good flavour combination. Fortuitously both were available in
mum’s randomly stocked kitchen.
Brownies out (smelling divine).
Muffins in. Quiz work on-going.
Somehow it was now lunchtime. Still
in anticipation of an afternoon of cakey goodness I just had a small mug of
soup (I didn’t even have any cheese which is always such a treat at mum and dad’s
as there is such a vast selection available).
Muffins out. Quiz work complete
with a little help from dad with the printing. Mad rush to get to the bake sale
on.
It was great. Loads of people turned
up and I was able to catch up with quite a few friends. And as planned eat lots
of cake. I had some almond slice, chocolate biscuit cake, chocolate brownie and
I’m sure something else but it slips my mind just now. All delicious. We won an
embarrassing number of raffle prizes (but there were loads of prizes). The quiz
seemed to be enjoyed and two small boys (who had been keenly selling raffle
tickets) certainly enjoyed pressing the buttons for the PowerPoint®
presentation. And I got a new spider plant. We used to have a fantastic one
with lots of baby spider plants but it died some time ago so hopefully this one
will fill that void in my life.
Apparently the event raised
nearly £500 – fantastic and really helps Alex on the way to her fundraising
target. So inspiring I think I might just plan a bake sale of my own.
Here's the link if you'd like to contribute to Alex's fundraising:
No comments:
Post a Comment