What on Earth is a Yorkshire pudding?

Friends of mine are having their kitchen done and being the nice friend that I am I thought I would invite them over to have something that cannot be microwaved or made in an electric frypan - a roast!

And what was the reaction to this kind and generous offer.... Yes, we'll come over but are you going to make Yorkshire puddings? Firstly, isn't it a bit rude to make requests when you have been kindly asked to dinner? And secondly, what the hell is a Yorkshire pudding?

Some internet searchery later I was enlightened about this seemingly simple recipe that everyone apparently has difficulty cooking. Flour, eggs, milk, water, salt and pepper. How hard can it be??

The trick (according to my friends Nan) is to have the muffin tray with oil really hot and your mixture fridge cold. Then they will rise into glorious little puffs of amazingness. But I was skeptical. Would they, could they possibly work?

The photo doesn't really do them justice. They did indeed rise and took on a beautiful golden hue. And more importantly they were delicious. For someone who loves pancakes, tortillas, pizza bases and other bready things, they were on the very scrumptious end of the scale.

These will definitely become part of every roast dinner from now on.

A cupcake...with icing

What would the title of this blog mean if I didn't at some point add a post about a cupcake?

Well, yesterday I used a new recipe and made some chocolate cupcakes. The recipe was from a book called Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld, which is all about hiding fruit and vegetables in food for kids. These cupcakes used avocado instead of butter in the cupcake mixture and I was also supposed to add cauliflower puree to the cream cheese icing. But I just could not stomach the thought of cauliflower being anywhere near a delicious cupcake and I left it out!

The resulting cupcakes were interesting. Definitely yummy, but unlike other cupcakes I've made. They were not light and fluffy and yet were not stodgy. I would say they were dense in a nice mudcake type way. You could not taste the avocado.

Would I make them again? Yes. If you are going to eat cupcakes (and I am) then I guess the addition of a vegetable eases your conscience just that little bit. Mmmm, cupcakes...

Ta-dah!

Well, I promised a photo and here it is! Does it look like a lion? Hmmmm. Not bad for a first effort perhaps.

The version in the birthday cake book was a bit different. I freestyled it a bit to make it cuter. The mane was very time consuming to ice but I like the effect. But what about the birthday boy? What did he think?

Well, he doesn't look too impressed in this picture!

He loved eveyone singing happy birthday and blowing out the candles, but as for the cake... He liked looking at it and squishing his hand on it, but was not so interested in the eating of it! Never mind, the others at the party more than made up for his disinterest.

The most important question, however, is what to try next year...

Let them eat cake

Mmmm, cake. What would life be like without it? It would still be life certainly, but not quite so amazing, and not nearly as tasty!

On Saturday my boy Rafferty had his first birthday party. Finally I had the chance to make a cake from the iconic Womens Weekly Birthday Cake Book! Who of us doesn't remember leafing through the pages of the birthday cake book picking out which of the delectable cakes we wanted to have for our birthday? I remember the year I had the castle with white turrets covered in smarties, and another time the typewriter. My brother was lucky enough to have the train and I envied my sister the piano.

But what would my one year old have?

There was the number one covered in lollies. Simple yet effective. Or the teddy bear, definitely cute. But what about something to fit with the jungle theme on his invitations? The lion or the tiger, or maybe an elephant?

ROAR! Nothing says jungle more than the king himself, the lion.

I spent a couple of hours before the party madly icing and came out with what was mostly identifiable as a lion. Well, I think so anyway. Stay tuned for a picture of the finished product on my next post and whether the birthday boy was impressed...