A Taste of Childhood

For Christmas, my mum bought me The Great British Book of Baking. It is the official book that  accompanied the BBC series The Great British Bake Off which she and I both enjoyed.

Mum bought me the book after I admired the copy she had purchased for herself - one of many recipe books that she treated herself to last year. The funny thing is that despite having an enviable collection of recipe books, she hardly ever cooks anything from them. She has her tried and tested recipes that she knows by heart and rarely deviates from them. More often these days, she lets my dad loose in the kitchen while she gets on with her latest knitting project or goes on her computer. Dad and recipes really don't mix.

So despite a wealth of ideas and inspiration at her fingertips, my mum's cooking repertoire remains small. She is very competent with what she does but feels no desire to get experimental.

The other odd thing about my mum's cooking, is her obssessive compulsion to have everything perfect. Biscuits must be regularly sized and shaped. Any that fail to meet her rigorous standards will be thrown in the bin (or given to dad to eat!). Choc chip cookies must each contain the same number and distribution of choc chips (she places them meticulously by hand to achieve this). I laugh about it with her but it really is very alien to me.

I love to cook. I especially love to try new things or tweak old recipes to give them a new twist. I do take a pride in the presentation but if it all goes wrong and looks like roadkill (which it often does), I am fine with it as long as everything is vaguely edible.

Recently I was reminded of a couple of old favourites of my mum when I came across a two hand written recipes. I remember her cooking these particular family favourites in the  kitchen of the house I grew up in. I had a go at making them myself.

Although the recipes couldn't possibly have belonged to my mum as they were metric - grams is a swear word to my strictly pounds and ounces mother - the taste and cooking smells were very nostalgic.

Of course, if my mum had made them, the jam wouldn't have been so blobby and uneven and the sultanas may just have been a little more evenly distributed!

fantastic publish, very informative - Anonymous

As a blogger, I love when a reader leaves a comment. It gives you a feeling of connectedness and it is great to know that your words or pictures have touched another person causing them to smile or empathise or best of all, be inspired.

However, I am not enjoying the massive influx of spam comments that have been appearing on posts old and new in their hundreds, each anonymous and each with a link to a slightly dubious looking website.

I have been doing my best to clear up the spam manually as the filters on Blogger that I have relied on in the past seem to be obvious only by their absence.

I do not know enough about the virtual world to understand just who gains by the spam comments. Clearly, someone is profiting enough to make it a worthwhile pursuit.

At first, I was amused by the comments. Usually written in slightly clumsy English, they flatter the blogger with phrases like fantastic publish, very informative - and my personal favourite What a stuff of un-ambiguity and preserveness of  valuable experience on the topic of unpredicted emotions. 

Now, it is starting to feel like a violation.

My blog is my personal space. The content is my own and I certainly do not want to endorse links to gambling websites or cures for genital warts!

The internet is a vast and unknowable place with huge potential for good but as with all things, there is a dark side and the potential for misuse and abuse.

I will continue to blog with enthusiasm and feel delight when a genuine comment is posted. I doubt I have seen the last of 'Anonymous' but it is reassuring to know that with one click of the delete button, he is gone.

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes for Ivy

It was my Ivy's 22nd birthday yesterday. Her boyfriend was working an evening shift so she came home for a birthday dinner with the family. Monday is one of my running nights so while I was kept busy with a 4 mile route around town, dad cooked up one of her favourite dinners - Mexican Enchiladas.

Earlier in the day, I had prepared a birthday treat of a cakey nature.

Ever since I had first heard of the idea of cooking sponge cake inside ice-cream cones and piping buttercream to give the appearance of a cornet, I have been dying to give it a go. This was my perfect opportunity. The cake mix did bubble up and over the cone which meant a lot of trimming and tidying up was necessary before the piping could begin. The plate of trimmings did not last long once a hungry Charis came home from school.

As often happens with me, time was running out when it came to the decorating. It all had to be done fairly quickly. Although I know I could have achieved a more professional finish and been more creative with toppings if time had allowed, I was quite pleased with the overall effect.

Ivy seemed happy enough with her plate of birthday cakes.

On the down side, they were very unstable being particularly top heavy. There were several toppling incidents and a couple of close misses which caused amusement rather than catastrophe.

Charis loves cake but hates wafer. We all watched with interest as she carefully peeled her dessert before eating. Perhaps I will stick to paper cases in the future!