yuletide yumminess

Our first real foray into the baking world came at Christmas. We held our own Christmas dinner, about a week before Christmas, because Chris would be going home for the real event. Some time prior to the big day, we made a trip to our favourite store - IKEA - where we bought some cookie dough (ok, another cheat). I also prepared some eggnog to allow Chris to feel more at home, although it is possibly the most awful fluid known to man. Well, maybe not the wost, but close. Chris prepared some delicious Nanaimo bars according to his mother's (no longer) secret recipe and we were all set for a day of guzzling!

On 'Christmas eve day' we got out the cookie cutters and baked the Ikea dough. We thought it was gingerbread but I think it was actually some kind of Swedish pepper dough but it was fantastic and the best ever cookie ginger/pepper combo I've ever had! We proceded to eat all 24 of them within 24 hours. Hey, why not!? Christmas comes but once a year.

birthday cake cheats

Back in September it all began when Chris and I decided to make a cake for Andy's birthday. Firstly we trawled through cook books and websites in search of an easy birthday cake recipe. Armed with a simple sponge recipe we hit Sainsbury's to gather the ingredients and left soon after with....a packet mix and some premade buttercream chocolate icing. Somehow, in the process of browsing through the assortment of flour, eggs, sugar, vanilla essence etc we became convinced that there was too much risk involved in trying to bake our first cake from scratch as a birthday gift. There would be nothing worse than presenting the birthday boy with a mound of burned sponge covered in a runny chocolate puddle. Instead, we opted to cheat and made a super easy chocolate covered sponge with chocolate buttons that went down a treat.
What did we learn?

1. You can give someone a cheat birthday cake and still provide them with a happy feeling of getting a homemade cake.
2. You feel kind of immoral for not having crafted something you can truly be proud of.
3. Baking a cheat cake, seeing the glee that can come with baking, and feeling bad that you didn't create it yoursef completely encouraged us to start from scratch next time.

Here is a photo of the yumminess with the birthday boy: