When Blocks Are Cleared Everything Shifts and Everything Falls into Place

The only thing that gets in our way, is ourselves. I don't know if that is an official quote but it certainly sums things up. I have been a "can do" person all my life. Always solving my problems, but more often than not, everyone elses. But in 2012 I got made redundant and not long after, I went into a "can not" phase, which has been enduring.

I can't do craft

I can't bake

I can't paint Aaron's bedroom

And so on... and so forth... except so forth infers some movement and quite frankly there hasn't been any.

But if you have read my posts of late, you will know that tide is turning. Even my foot is hurting less, whether it be plantar fasciitis or gout, I will know very soon (in 5 days).

So, last Friday, a week ago, tomorrow, I baked.

I went and bought all of the ingredients (who said baking was cheaper than buying cakes though? *gulps):

You'll see the cookery book I was using above.

I love that the recipes are VERY straight forward and that there are quite a few that are a little different - Aaron's Teacher's Assistant said "it was different eating a cupcake with a spoon" but more on that later :-)

The first instruction was to pre-heat the oven, but considering I was doing this for the first time in 10 years, it probably wasn't the best idea for me, as it took me far too long faffing around so I'd say the oven was on a tad too long by the time I got MY act together.

Second mistake, was that despite owning a scales, i didn't bother getting it out of the cupboard. Meaning I guestimated everything, resulting in (i) the cupcakes being too sweet and (ii) the cupcakes being too eggy. I announced my frustration on Instagram (as you do) and a very helpful @threeboysandacat suggested that I weigh the eggs, in their shells, and then you add that same amount in flour, caster sugar and unsalted butter. It works. It's great for example if you are using large eggs instead of medium, as they may weigh at 200g instead of 180g and you can then adjust everything accordingly. Yes, cupcakes appear to be an exact science. Am I right in thinking it is the exact same recipe as madeira cake? Should madeira be with a capital "M"?

Anyway the page after the cupcakes recipe, had the instructions for "Cupcakes in a Jar" so that is what I did, and I simply adored them:

What is really weird is that I had already washed two jars that chocolate spread had vacated, about a week before. I NEVER do that. I mean I do, but they go in recycling. When I washed and kept them, I didn't even know why I was doing so, AND no, I had not read the cookery book yet!

So these are the two teacher's gifts prior to delivering them on the p.m. school run:

They were not expecting them, so on delivery I announced that they were "Thank God It's Friday" gifts, which I kind of made up on the spot, to cover my embarrassment at giving a gift without reason. If you have read recent posts, you will know that after that, I opened Aaron's book bag and he'd got a Head Teacher's Award certificate, so it was like I was saying THANK YOU for that, without even knowing about it yet. He got it for handwriting - his is very good it has to be said, and he gets that from his Dad.

I must say, I did enjoy the baking. I wasn't an expert at filling the cake cases though. This was my first effort:

I'm such a perfectionist, that the MINUTE Aaron came home from school, I made them again, this time with him. True say, they were much better. I was glad of the weighing eggs tip, as my medium eggs were by this time finished, so I was now using large eggs. Now, I DID get my scales out of the cupboard. I weighed all of the ingredients out correctly and as a result the cupcakes tasted perfect. They weren't too sweet at all, and therefore could accommodate the jam and buttercream, without it all being a bit much.

Baking for the first time in sooooooooooooo long meant there was NO WAY I was going to make the buttercream myself, so I bought this stuff. I'd say (i) it is too expensive and (ii) the taste is a bit much. If I made a cupcake have a topping the size of what you see on the web, I don't think I could eat it - just too rich. Plus if you do a topping THAT size, you'd only get 8 from the tin, which means the cost per serving would just be too much. So now that I have popped my baking cherry, I WILL be making the icing topping MYSELF next time - watch this space :-)

Clearly baking was on the horizon for me, as I bought this wire stand a few weeks ago. You'll see that my cakes kind of sunk. They rise beautifully in the oven, then sink as they cool. This even happened when I was making them for the second time, despite doing everything right :-(

You'll see that's the amount of icing I can JUST about cope with:

So are we bonkers? Or, do you weigh your eggs too? I would love to hear more about cupcakes from the lovely +Helen Jessup as I know she is the resident cupcake expert of the parent blogging world.

Anyway, if you like the sound of Bake With Maw Broon, which is a beautiful baking book, with wonderful photography, you can win one below. It certainly is a bit different, with lots of slightly out of the ordinary things in there - lots more recipes for me to try, now that I am back in the game. The baking game! Now, I need an apron!

MAW BROON is the indomitable matriarch of the Broons family and the original domestic goddess. In between cooking, cleaning and setting the world tae rights ower a braw cup of tea, she has also found time tae become the bestselling author of Maw Broon’s Cookbook, Maw Broon’s But an’ Ben Cookbook, Maw Broon’s Afternoon Tea Book and Maw Broon’s Cooking with Bairns. Bake with Maw Broon is her definitive guide tae guid Scottish home baking. She lives with her husband and eight children at 10 Glebe Street, Auchenshoogle.

Here's the comp, which is quite easy to enter. You don't have to do much, but all entries are mandatory.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you

Bye for now, Liska xxx

+New Mum Online 

I have listed this comp over at Super Lucky Di's linky list of comps ending in February:

Sadly, despite the enthusiasm displayed in this post, I learned a tough life lesson TODAY just after writing it, which resonates with positive, intended to be upbeat, opening sentence of this post. It has inspired me to create this pic below, which I will open up about tomorrow in a further blog post:

This competition has been listed at The Prize Finder
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