So, the last time I wrote about my adventures in the kitchen it was spring. I must have been trying to impress you. I still am. Hence the following rather mundane blog about my CAKES.
No photos boys, I have a cake in the oven
I have made cakes. Two cakes in less than a week. Chocolate (Mr B’s Birthday cake with chocolate icing) then banana and raisin. I can no longer claim to be useless in the kitchen. A banner that I have happily traveled under for many years. Farewell uselessness. Farewell ineptitude. Hello domestic brilliance…
Erm no. Wait. domestic brilliance goes beyond the kitchen doesn’t it? Includes such evils and cleaning, washing, folding and making beds. Phew. Welcome home domestic rubbishness. Return to the Mothership.
Erm, banana cake
There are so many capable and creative women in my family… that I don’t know why I have denied it for so long. My capability started with homemade marmalade when I was pregnant and was followed not long after giving birth by an overwhelming desire to make chocolate cake. These days I roast things. I make chicken stock and fish cakes from scratch for goodness sake. And yesterday I went out and bought a loaf tin and made a banana cake because, and get this, I didn’t want my over-ripe bananas to go to waste.
Now I know that one banana cake a Nigella does not make…
I am still me, only with a spatula in my hand. Lie. I don’t have a spatula… but I need one. You see, there it is again. I NEED a food processor and a spatula and an electric whisk. These words do not fall easily from my incredulous lips.
WHO AM I AND WHAT HAVE I DONE WITH MYSELF?
Baking is kitchen carnage
With me it used to be all liquid lunches, thai takeaways and tin openers… now it’s all roasting times, cake tins and online recipes. I think that I do know what happened – necessity being the mother of good recipes and all that. When we moved here to Southern Spain I was pregnant and a little picky. We couldn’t easily find some of the things that we liked to eat in the local shops and so much of the typically Spanish food that I was looking forward to indulging in was on the ever-growing and increasingly nannying ‘No’ list for pregnant women. And without wanting to sound too damning, there was a real lack of good restaurants in the area where we first moved to. I had to learn to cook.
I still have a fear of feeding people when they visit. A simple lunch that ought to be able to make itself is a major challenge for me. A bit like being in charge of the music at a party. I freeze up when given the task of deciding what people might like to eat/listen to.
Crumbs!
OK. Back to my cake. If you need any proof of its gloriousness … look at this ant… they couldn’t make off with it fast enough! In truth, they make off at the same speed with all the crumbs dropped from Bibsey’s table, but I don’t generally feel the need to photograph it and publish it on my blog.
So, as living proof that an old dog can learn new tricks, I would like to know what new skills you may have picked up out of necessity? Oh and also how to make chocolate icing that isn’t just essentially chocolate sauce?
