Crouching Tiger, hidden (not so) Zebra cake by Lorraine Pascale

Another birthday in the work team, time for another cake.
Watching Lorraine Pascale on the weekend I loved the idea of her Crouching Tiger, Hidden Zebra Cake.

The recipe sounded easy enough, so I gave it a go.

Let me put it this way: It tasted yum yum and was gone in no time, but it didn't have the zebra stripes *sadface*

I will bake the cake again and hope its gonna work out better next time!

The chocolate dough

The vanilla dough

Stripes done

 Fresh out of the oven

 Close up

 Another close up

Bit blurry, sorry...there was a cake craving colleague waiting for this piece ;-)

 No zebra stripes....more a marbled cake *sigh*

The best low carb chocolate fudge brownies in the world!

Yep, I am not kidding. These are the very best brownies you can find! Not only are they low carb, they are also super moist and just yummy!

They don't contain any flour nor sugar so it's an absolute guilt free treat. I can't count how many times I have baked them so far, but ever since I am eating low carb these bad boys were a trusted friend when it came to chocolate cravings.

You can find the recipe here.

I pretty much follow the recipe. The only thing I adjust is the baking time and the amount of dark chocolate on the top. I usually use less baking time (25-30min) and less chocolate (50-70g)

What also tastes pretty awesome is to put a few nuts into the dough like hazelnuts or walnuts.

I am pretty sure you won't be able to taste the difference to a 'normal' sugar loaded brownie! Give it a go; they are really easy to pull off!

Any fruit cake & Abby swimming

Today is my BF birthday, so of course it was time to bake another cake! Never ever would I buy a cake. Home made ones taste much better AND they also have soul and spread the love.
You never baked? Not to worry, this one is really easy and tastes light, moist and fluffy....go for it...I am sure you will love it!

My cake of choice is the "Any fruit" cake. Why "Any fruit"?
Because you can throw in what ever you have left or fancy.

Was planning to do a rhubarb cake, but when I went grocery shopping I saw lovely fresh blueberries. The solution was to do a half and half cake.

The first step is to preheat your (fan) oven to 160 Degrees.
Next mix together 150g unsalted butter, 120g caster sugar and three eggs. Beat it for quite a while until the whole mixture becomes nearly white and fluffy.
The final step is to mix in 150g plain flour and 1 tsp baking powder. If you like you can add a teaspoon of vanilla essence. Of course it also works with some Rum or good old Whiskey.
Don't mix it too long.
That's it! Easy, isn't it?

It should look like this now:

Grease a tin of your choice and fill in the dough (I used a round silicon baking tin)
Now put your fruit on top and press them very lightly into your dough. If you like your cake extra-sweet (like my BF) sprinkle some brown sugar on top.
Another variation is to make some caramel by melting sugar in a pan and putting the fruit into the caramel before joining them with the dough. BUT be VERY careful! Caramel gets extremely hot and the last time I did that I ended up with a really bad burn.

Anyways, put all fruit on top of your cake and it will look like this:

Pop it into the pre-heated oven and bake for about 20 minutes.

And here it is, my BF-birthday-rhubarb-and-blueberry-cake:

I kept the decoration simple by just sifting icing sugar on top, but it would also be nice to melt some white chocolate and decorate the cake with it.
Let's have another look at the cake:

One more? Maybe a little closer? Ok, here we go:

BF also get's a present. This year it is tickets to Robbie Williams in June. YES, he does actually like Robbie Williams and already went to concerts of him. (Yeah, I do like him too so I really don't mind to be his date on that night)

All the work done it was time to bring little Miss Abby for her walk. Today is really an absolute gorgeous day. It's 20 degrees and it was the first day were I left the house with just a T-Shirt. This means a lot because usually I am too cold in Ireland. 

We went to the canal so that she can have a swim. She just can't get enough of jumping into the water after a stick and bringing it back to me. 

Right, now it's time to get dolled up, because I am taking the BF to a spanish tapas restaurant.

Have a great evening!

Cherry Bakewell cake

So I decided to started blogging again.
I really loved my old blog, which kept my family and friends updated about my backpacker life in Australia.

No, I am not going travelling again, but hey.....why not share my day to day adventures with the world?
My plan is to blog about baking, knitting, sewing, my dog, and whatever crosses my mind.

One of my colleagues is flying back to the US tomorrow to get married. That seemed like a perfect occasion to bring in one of my cakes....of course! What else would you do?!

The cake of choice was a  Cherry Bakewell Cake. Found the recipe in one of my fav IPad apps, which is BBC Good Food.
Pretty much followed the recipe, but decided to make the top half a little smaller than the bottom half.
Since I didn't have any cherry jam at home, I opted for a tin of cherries which i thickened with a little milk, sugar and custard powder. Also added a bit of Rum for a little naughty twist.

The third picture is not the best...this is how a cake looks like when you let a man cut it!

Anyway, the cake disappeared in no time and everybody enjoyed it. Perfect start to another busy week.