Lazy Sunday Afternoon

I love Sundays. Now technically, as a stay at home mum, Sunday is really no different to any other day in the week, except it features Sunday lunch. Nice roast, vegetables to force down the children, indulgent pud.. nothing beats it.
This Sunday is especially nice as the husband has taken the children out for the afternoon. Not that I don't love my girls, but you don't need to have children to appreciate a little bit of me time goes a long way. So work out done ( so I don't feel guilty about the treacle sponge and custard), its onto the next project. Never seems to not be a project at the moment. This one is a bit of recycling/customising. Growing girls need new furniture and its very hard to find exactly what you're looking for. In this instance, it has to be pink (everything has to be pink) and with butterflies on. So far, the orange pine bed we bought on eBay for £20 looks like this:

Now, the eagle eyed among you may notice that the husbands shed is also a touch on the pink side. This was not me. He started it. Second coat and butterfly stickers to be added tomorrow then hopefully it will be a bed fit for a butterfly loving princess.

Cake Day

I don't know what's happened to all the cake this week. I could have sworn I baked on Monday, yet today the tins are bare. I don't think its entirely down to me (well I'm pretty sure). Must have made small cakes. That'll be it.
So I'll share with you my store cupboard fruit cake. This is based on an old Delia recipe and is lovely and moist. It is a tea loaf which means that it keeps really well if it actually stayed in the tin long enough for that.

In a saucepan. heat:
150 ml water
150g sugar (I use whatever brown sugar I have as the end result is really treacly but any sugar will do)
100g butter
150g sultanas, raisins.. again what ever dried fruit you like. I've also chucked in dried apricots before now.
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
Simmer gently for about 10 minutes. you will need to keep an eye on it and stir regularly. The first time I made this, it boiled over and a hot sugary goop is no fun to scrub off the hob. Once its a deep brown colour, leave it alone to cool. I sometimes get impatient and try and go on to the next step straight away which kind of works but you run the risk of cooling the egg before it hits the oven and you get strange white streaky bits in it.
Once its cool enough, stir in 175g flour, 1 egg and 1tsp baking powder. quite often I'll also add a tsp of spice, ginger is quite nice. Pour it into a 1lb loaf tin and bake in the oven at 170c for around 45mins. The original recipe says 90mins, but I found in my oven at least, that was way too long.

I make this cake every week and every week it disappears which says it all I think.

And yesterday evening I did as I said. I turned this:

Into this:

And yes I did end up covered in glue but most of it was all over my fingers and not over the fabric which is the main thing. For the pattern, have a look at Laundry day clutch purse. All completed before Torchwood too!