Sticky Fingers

Yesterday I got to do the thing I’ve been looking forward to doing ever since my little god-daughter Hannah was born: bake fairy cakes with her. I love the child’s play element to baking; the puff of the flour, the stirring of the mixture, the lick of the wooden spoon, and I’ve been so looking forward to the time when I could have that fun with Hannah and see it through her eyes. And of course, as you know, cooking is one of my greatest passions in life and to finally be able to start sharing that with my god-daughter is very special indeed.

Now, I’m a very messy cook - just ask Rob – and so this little two year old was my perfect partner in crime - although if I’m totally honest she was probably tidier than me. Yesterday afternoon Rob took one last look around the kitchen, with Hannah stood on a chair, me by her side, both of us smiling angelically up at him before leaving us to it and letting chaos descend.



First up were those gourmet cakes, perfect for young food connoisseurs, none other than the chocolate rice crispy cakes. I was in charge of melting the chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and then it was over to Hannah to mix in the rice crispies. The fun part was seeing how much of the mixture Hannah could get into the cases and how much she could get onto the tea towel underneath, the kitchen top, my hand, the floor. We giggled with each dollop and it wasn’t long before we were tasting the mixture, as all good cooks do, with much of it ending up smeared around Hannah’s mouth and hands.



After a quick wipe up it was onto the fairy cakes. Sugar, flour, eggs, butter, a drop of vanilla essence and a lot of love; into the bowl they went. After a quick whiz of the mixer we were almost done, except for the final – and most important – stir with a wooden spoon by Hannah. With the cakes in the oven she was now a little tired; we had, after all, worked very hard indeed – such is the life of cake makers. But when the time came to ice the cakes and choose the toppings Hannah perked up and did a great job, with a little help from Aunty Julia and Mum.






Finally, after all that hard work, it was time for our reward: tea and cakes. And very nice they were too. Of course, as well as being nice, they were full of sugar - especially with all that icing on them – and this became apparent very quickly. Hannah went from being somewhat sleepy to somewhat bouncy and she soon had us all up dancing and playing. She was still full of beans when it was time for her to go home and as I waved them all off I knew my cousin and his wife were going to have their hands full. Oh dear. But of course that’s one of the thing’s that’s so great about being an Aunty and a Godmother; we get to have all the fun and then get to put our feet up!

In the Bag: Cooking the Month of March - the Round Up

Last month's bag contained leeks, eggs and cheese - lovely spring ingredients - and here's what you cooked up:







Thanks to all the contributors:

Real Epicurean

Springtime

With Knife and Fork

What I Ate Today

The Hungriest Hippo

Good Things Come in Small Packages

A Brit's Dish A Day

eCurry

Allotment 2 Kitchen

Foodee

Apple Crumbles

Gato Azul


'In the Bag' is a monthly food event run by Julia from A Slice of Cherry Pie and Scott at Real Epicurean

The Guardian Word of Mouth Chocolate Tasting Event

Last week I joined a group of Guardian Word of Mouth readers for an ‘Easter egg taste test-cum-festival of chocolate-celebration’. Like the children who followed the pied piper we followed the call of chocolate and the scent in the air all the way to deep inside the Guardian offices. We came out of the goodness of our hearts and, as Jay Rayner pointed out, completely selflessly, only for those enticing people of the Word and Mouth team to force feed us chocolate all evening. It really isn’t on you know…

…OK, so it wasn’t quite like that.







We were greeted with samples of Courvoisier and Cockburns, chosen to compliment the chocolate we were about to sample. I was particularly taken with the Cockburns Late Bottled Vintage 2003 Port; deeply fruity and chocolaty. When we entered the room where the chocolate tasting was to take place the delicious smell of the chocolate in the room hit us straight away. There was every kind of Easter egg for us to sample; from low through mid to high budget, from white to the darkest chocolate. We made notes as we tasted but unfortunately had to hand in our tasting cards and, believe me, there was a lot of chocolate to taste so it’s difficult to recall all of the findings. Luckily though my friend Nicole took some separate notes as she tasted: Drinking Courvoisier after tasting Green & Blacks dark chocolate gave a tingly sensation on the tongue; Lindt was one of the best, melting almost instantly; Thorntons white chocolate was very sweet and sugary; the Hotel Chocolate strawberry sensation had a really good strawberry taste and even had the texture of strawberry; the Marks & Spencer white egg was a favourite.



The Paul Young chocolates were a big hit, particularly the Guiness and the basil truffles, as was the Mayan Magic chocolate and the chocolate making kits, containing natural sweetener (agave nectar), butters (raw cacao and coconut) and powders (raw cacao, lucuma and carob); all the ingredients you need to make your own chocolate. Also on offer were samples of Choc Star chocolate brownies, which had a fantastically texture and lovely taste.









One of the biggest surprises of the evening was Nicole’s admission that she’d never had a Cadbury Cream Egg. Yes, really. I couldn’t quite believe it and insisted that she try one then and there. And her verdict? I think her face says it all:




P.S. For more on the event take a look at this Word of Mouth video with an adorable little star and the Twitter feed, and be sure to look out for the Word of Mouth write-up next week.

Easter Cake Bake 2009

Pat a cake pat a cake baker’s man
Bake me a cake as fast as you can!

For the third year running I'm very pleased to open up the 'Easter Cake Bake'; the competition that invites you to bake a cake for Easter, post it up on your blog or website and send a picture over to me for submission.

The competition has seen some absolutely fantastic cakes both years it's been running; take a look at the entries from 2007 and 2008.

Last year's winning entry was this Vegan Bunny Cake (Vegan Pistachio Spice Cake) submitted by Feeding Maybelle:



Are you inspired now?

Entry Details

All you need to do is bake a cake, or several smaller cakes, with an Easter theme then post about it on your blog, including a link to this post so that people know what the event is about and how to enter. Feel free to use the logo too.

Once you've baked your cake and posted about it send an email with ‘Easter Cake Bake’ in the subject line to asliceofcherrypie@yahoo.co.uk by Monday 20th April with the following information:

• your name
• the name of your blog
• a link to your post
• a picture of your cake(s)

I’ll post a round up of all entries and announce the winner. Happy baking!