Rachel's Rustic Bacon & Cheddar Bread

This evening I was at my brother's Leaving Cert Graduation Mass and in the car home, reflecting on the lovely encouraging words of his principal, I got The Fear. For many, that Fear might be when you think you're at death's door from a hangover, but it also works for that sense of complete dread and bewilderment you might get regarding what the hell you're going to do with your life. As well as the immediate future. So when I got in the door, I decided I'd bake. Obviously.
I took out Rachel Allen's Bake book (at this rate I imitate that movie Julie & Julia and see if I can make all of Rachel's recipes) and decided I'd try some bread. Since I don't have yeast or buttermilk in the house, I was quite limited, so I tried the bacon and cheddar bread. Oh my wow it's yummy. And stupidly easy to make. It sounds strange, having bacon and cheese in bread, rather than on it, but it's soooo good. It says it's a good served with soup or just with butter, so I dished it out with a bit of butter to my parents with some tea and coffee when it was ready and joined them in sitting back and watching some girl try and make her dream of creating a B&B a reality on More4. The Fear had subsided. But only slightly.

Cawfee Cake

Oops, it's been a while! I'll blame it on the fun I've been having since wrapping up college! Ooooh! Scary times. But thrilling at the same time. Madame Zwerner was over here last Saturday for a little Cavan trip before she heads back to France. She wanted to bake which I of course agreed to, so being the little French gal that she is with her coffee and smokes, I thought a coffee cake would be fitting! I spell it 'cawfee' above because of my Mom's pronunciation...
Anyway, so we made a delicious coffee cake from Rachel Allen's Bake book which has been providing me with loads to do lately! The cake was just fabulous and really moist, which is what I think is due to the egg being separated and added at different times in the cake mixing... I didn't make it too strong with the coffee cos I don't really like it, but by golly did this cake taste wonderful. We topped it off with some coffee buttercream, chocolate sprinkles and a sprinkling of icing sugar. Mmm:)

Oatmeal and Raisin Cookies

Today I had a tea party with the Donegal lassies, Molly, Aoife and Anne as well as Siobhan and Sarah K and so last night I baked some oatmeal and raisin cookies for them from Rachel Allen's Bake. They looked all scrumptious on the tray, and following her instructions, I didn't line the tray. If you're doing similar, please line your tray. I always do since the Birthday Cake Tragedy of '09 (see earlier post) but Rachel told me not to, so I listened. They crumbled and broke when I tried to take them off, but luckily I hadn't put all the cookies on the one tray, so I was okay. They went down a treat as did Siobhan's mommy Joan's Swiss Roll sans cream as Siobhan doesn't like it...so it was a jam sponge roll:) I've still to try a roll, so maybe I'll get onto that soon! Here are some snaps from the day. And as you know, I love tea parties, and I love the girls, so it was definitely a lovely few hours well spent:)

Marble cake for Valentine's!

Being Valentine's and having no one to spend it with romantically, I thought I'd do something nice for my wonderful family and since I usually bake for other people, much to their dismay, I decided I'd bake them a cake I hadn't made before. So I tried to make a marble cake from Rachel Allen's Bake book and while it tastes quite amazing if I do say so myself, it's not quite marble-effect enough. Must work on the swirliness. It just sort of looks like a chocolate cake with pale bits here and there...I then decided I'd cut the cake in half and put butter cream (which had to be near rescued from Conor eating it out of the bowl) in between the two cakes. I found pink icing in the cabinet, so I made an attempt at a heart on the top of it with a sprinkling of icing sugar. Must say, it went down a treat. Win!:)

Butter free sponge cake attempt

So my sister's birthday has come and gone, so a cake was obviously made! Sadly we were very low on decorating equipment (a new piping bag would be the most revered of presents if anyone feels so inclined...) so it is not my finest of cakes by any means. But I tried, for the first time, a butter free sponge cake from Rachel Allen's Bake. (Note to all- do not get rid of the egg whites when adding the egg yolks to the mixture as you'll need them later on...) It actually turned out okay! I was a bit apprehensive as the egg whites took absolute ages to come to 'stiff peaks' and my arm was a tad sore from beating. But I got there in the end and it looked pretty well. Sad part of this baking excursion- Siob had gone out with the neighbours and didn't return until after I had left to head back to college, so I ended up getting none of the cake :-( But by all accounts the cake was rather lovely. The siblings loved the excessive chocolate in the decorating (I think everything I bake has chocolate in it somewhere) but the parents thought it was too sweet. However, I was more concerned about the sponge in this particular cake and they all enjoyed it, so I'm happy with that! One of the brothers kindly took the photo of the cut cake there.

Don't judge me on the decorating...I was low in supplies...