Lemon Polenta Cake

Polenta for those who don't know is peeled barley and is used as a substitute for flour.

Anyway the cake.

It was very delicious if I say so myself and was made with very little catastrophes, thankfully. It is quite simple to make though so it doesn't say much...

You shove all the ingredients in to a bowl and cream together. The end mixture is grainy... because of the polenta, sounds really great right now doesn't it? Then you put it in the oven to do its thing.

I then had to make an accompanying strawberry compote. Now the problem with this was that it needed Kirsch. I had never heard of it before and surprisingly enough we didn't have any. After being told it was an alcoholic drink that if we bought a whole bottle of would just sit in the cupboard never used. I decided to improvise. Enter the sloe gin.

Along with the gin there is also strawberry jam, she says use Bonne Mama but that is way to fancy - I prefer Hartley's, and quartered strawberries.

This is then served with the cake along with some creme friache and it is all very yummy.

Next Recipe: Scones 

Pancakes

This pancake day was my first time making pancakes, ever. EVER!
Yes I had never made a pancake before so it seemed like a good time to try.

Anyway I began, not really reading the instructions just kind of shoving everything in to the bowl in random orders and whisking occasionally. This didn't work,
I only worked this out when I was about half way through and glanced over at the recipe book... The lumps in the mixture were also a good sign...

In order to fix this without having to start all over again (wasting 4 eggs in the process) the electric whisk came out. And after a few jooshes (no it is not a word, I am well aware of that) it was normal pancake mix again.

I left it for a few hours then began to cook them.

The first one to quote my brother looked like "wet scrambled eggs"... when were scrambled eggs dry?
But the point is it looked awful and it wasn't cooked enough.

So I tried again. After a few attempts with the pancakes being too thick, burnt or under cooked, they began to work.

So 30 pancakes later they were normal pancakes. I couldn't flip them, but I'll save that for next year.


Sorry there is no picture. You know what pancakes look like...

Next Recipe: Lemon Polenta Cake 

Smartie Traybake and Black Forest Traybake

Now this may seem like cheating... the fact that I am doing 2 recipes in one go but, they are the same cake just with different icings so I might as well save some time as I am really behind.

This is a chocolate cake made with light muscovado sugar and NO butter just vegetable oil. Now the first problem that I came across with this cake was that it soon developed mountains..... yep... mountains.... 

But they soon flattened down, not completely though...

I turned the cakes over and then TA DA, mountains? what mountains? 

With the smartie traybake the icing was dark chocolate with milk and smarties on top. With the black forest traybake the icing had syrup, whipping cream, with toblerone and glace cherries as a topping. 

There was a slight problem that the smartie icing was very thick and not very spreadable so I added some melted chocolate to make it more icing-y and it was soon better. 

They both tasted fine even though the smartie one was a bit more jolly and sugary, where icing was concerned. 

Next Recipe : Pancakes