It was a beautiful day along the south coast today, and we decided to take full advantage of the fact that this could well be the last decent weekend we have for the rest of the year and packed up a picnic, jumped on our bikes and went for a bike ride to Hengistbury head, we then walked down to the beach, and then back through the nature reserve back to the bikes.
It was such a clear day we could see right across to the Needles on the Isle of Wight.
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This weekend Jason's parent came over to help with the new(er) car and to also help fix the lights, that have been on our 'to fix' list for nearly two years, I'm pleased to say the lights are now fixed, finally!
As a big thank you we decided to make a carrot cake, I've not made or eaten one in a long time, as I cannot stand cream cheese frosting, bleurgh! I used a recipe out of the very first Great British Bake Off book. Instead of making two sponges, we made one large one, obviously this nearly doubled the cooking time, and half way through I had to put some foil over the top to stop it from burning, but it was cooked to perfection!
It's one of the most moist cakes I think we've ever made, even after only a day, next time I'd like to leave it a few more before devouring it.
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A tad late I know, but we couldn't find any pumpkins last weekend for love nor money, however, this week we managed to bag ourselves one.
I've never made anything with pumpkin before and never even really tried it, so I thought a simple loaf cake was as good a place as any to start. I cut the pumpkin in half, hollowed it out, removing all of the seeds and white stringy bits. I then put both halves on a baking tray lined with foil and popped it in the oven at 200ºC for 30-45 minutes (obviously this is dependent on the size of your pumpkin, ours was 1.5kg).
Then wait for it to cool and scoop out the orange flesh, making sure not to get any of the outer skin whilst doing this. Pop it in a blender and blitz into a puree, and voila! You have pumpkin puree for half the price you'd pay in the supermarket and nearly three times as much (we got about 700g from ours).
What you'll need -
* 200g Plain flour
* 1 1/4 tsps Bicarbonate of soda
* 1 tsp Salt
* 1 tsp Ground cinnamon
* 1/2 tsp Ground nutmeg
* 255g Pureed pumpkin (shop bought or home made)
* 200g Dark brown soft sugar
* 110ml Buttermilk
* 1 Egg
* 2 tbsps Margarine
How it's done -
1. Pre heat the oven to 180ºC. Lightly grease and flour a 23 x 23cm loaf tin, and set aside.
2. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg into a large bowl.
3. Mix in the pumpkin, brown sugar, buttermilk, egg and butter until well blended.
4. Pour into the loaf tin and smooth the top.
5. Bake for 1 hour or until a cocktail stick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Enjoy!
Next week we're attempting Chicken cobbler, stay tuned . . .
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