"if that's a pound cake, this is a tonne cake"

I made a cake for my Mum's birthday this weekend, using this Lemon Poppy-Seed Layer Cake recipe from a Traditional Home magazine (as per her request).  I thought the flavor combination of lemon, coconut, and poppy-seed would make for a nice light dessert to suit the improving weather.

Unfortunately the post title pretty much sums up my emotions towards the final product.  I was a bit disappointed with this recipe!  It was sooooooo dense, and it only got worse the longer I kept it in the fridge. I've come to the conclusion that this is because of the buttermilk, so in future I would omit it completely (perhaps substituting for 2% milk or whipping cream).

I slaved over this cake for houurrs (it definitely looked nice when I was done!).  If you follow the recipe link you might notice that there is no recipe for the icing.  I therefore had to go on a mad hunt to find one and landed on this Canadian Living recipe, which involved egg whites and had no icing sugar (!?).  I've never seen icing made like this before, but as I'd already given up my entire day on this cake I thought I'd try it.  In the end I found it tasted very much like regular icing (and maybe ever so slightly healthier? ...a girl can dream).  It was possibly my favorite part of the cake!

I would love to try this cake again at some point and see if I could make a lighter version.  After all the idea of coconut and lemon does sound wonderful!

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long time no blog

Helloooo.  Its been a while!  Hopefully your summer's treating you well and you have no cause for summer blues.  Personally I'm in it deep; working two jobs, no longer stuck in a house with nothing better to do but bake.

Unsurprisingly this means my blog efforts have slowed riiight down.  I barely even have the energy to read a book in the evenings (and my summer reading list never ceases to grow).

But this doesn't mean I don't have a use for baking anymore - oh no.  I will take any excuse to make lunches and snacks myself, rather than buying them ready-made.  So I have a couple recipes to share; two kinds of muffins that I keep in the freezer, which makes it really easy to grab-and-go in a mad morning dash to work.

The first are these carrot spice muffins I found on Martha Stewart's webpage.  These were reaaally good.  The only thing stopping me from making them again is the arduous task of grating the carrots.

I also noticed that the batter was quite dry so I added about 1/3 cup more yogurt but in future I think I would have just backed off on the flour.

The second batch of muffins are banana chocolate chip.  A classic in the McFadden house; these have been in my school lunches for as long as I can remember.  I never realized how incredibly easy they were, but I guess that's why my mum made them so often!!

recipe: 

3 over-ripe bananas

1/3 cup softened butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Mash the bananas.  Set aside.

Combine flour, soda, and powder.  Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar.  Add egg.  Stir in bananas.

Gradually fold in flour mixture.

Stir in chocolate chips.

Bake in 375 degree F oven for 15 mins.

Store in zip-lock in freezer for up to two months.

Neither option is particularly unhealthy because of the banana and the carrot (though you could omit the chocolate chips if you really wanted), and I baked both batches in tiny muffin trays because I find the ordinary muffin size too heavy for a snack.

These will definitely make an appearance at Ellerbeck! (as if our freezer wasn't full enough already!!)

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