Happy Birthday Bunny!

So, it was my baby girl's 2nd birthday on Saturday.

My baby. Is. 2.

I can barely deal with that. But, I made her a cake anyway!

And I guess it's the perfect opportunity to pass on my favourite cake recipe. Courtesy of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Super Easy Cake

Eggs
Butter
Sugar
SR Flour
milk
flavouring

Now, you'll notice I didn't put any amounts up there. There's a reason.
What you do is weigh your eggs. Use as many as you want. I did 5 medium eggs for the cake above. They were about 250g in total. It fed 8 adults. And there were left-overs. Well, there would have been if the kids hadn't gotten to the cake!

Anyway, weigh your eggs then put aside. Take note of how much they weigh. Then weigh out the same amount of butter and sugar. Cream together. Add eggs. Then add the same amount of SR flour. Add a bit of milk. A couple of tablespoons until the batter is a nice consistency. (Pourable but not too thin)

Add a teaspoon of vanilla.

I made a vanilla chocolate swirl cake by splitting the batter in 2 at this point and adding a quarter cup of good quality cocoa. You'll need to add a bit more milk to this one.

Then pour both into a greased and floured pan (or 2 depending on how many eggs you started with) and bake at gas mark 4 for about 20 minutes. But again it depends on how much cake there is. My best advice is: Keep an eye on it!! (But DON'T open the oven a lot...your cake will sink!)

Obviously this isn't the Peppa Pig jumping in muddy puddles birthday cake. But I make this cake a lot with my son. This one turned out exceptionally well.

Vanilla buttercream icing with chocolate buttons and Reese's Pieces ice cream and chocolate fudge sauce optional.

Actually, that fudge sauce was a complete accident. I was making icing and realized after I had creamed my butter that I only had about half a cup of icing sugar. So I put it in. Not sweet enough. So I added some vanilla and cocoa powder. Still really needed sugar. So in a moment of insanity I added some regular sugar. Don't do this. Really. It was gross. UNTIL!!! Until I put it in the microwave for a bit to try to melt the butter and sugar down a bit. OMG it was fudgy chocolatey goodness. Especially when it cooled down. Like the next morning when I was eating it for breakfast

I haven't tried it again to see if I can recreate it. For now I'm going to live with the memory.

Oh, and did I mention I bought proper running shoes? Now you know why I need them!

So you'll never believe this....

...but I've been RUNNING!
Me.

I know! It's crazy!

I really am the most unfit unsporty type person. But I've been getting up early every other day to take the dog out and one morning thought I'd run just to see what happened...

total shock.

I'm not ready for a marathon yet but I can do about 5 minutes which for me might as well be an hour.

I do have some great food stuff to blog but I thought I'd start with this. I'll be back later with something unhealthy. Don't worry. I'm still me.

(Another) Healthy start

Last year I lost a stone and a half. Then summer came and I relaxed a bit. And a bit more. And a bit more. and then it was Christmas and ....

Well, you get the jist. It wasn't good. In January I decided to get back on the wagon. That lasted a few weeks but I just can't get into it this year. Last year it was hard but I was determined. This year...meh.

It's not even as if I don't have motivation. My brother is getting married in July. I want to find a kick-ass dress. But still I just can't be bothered.

So today I got up and took the dog for a power walk. (which reminds me...I haven't seen him since we got home...) had some fruit for breakfast and then did a half an hour of Wii Fit (burned enough calories to have a piece of toast ??) . So is today the FIRST DAY OF A NEW START? More likely just another first day of a false start. But maybe I'm on my way again. I just have to stop reading all those blogs written by skinny girls who make cake.

This is what happens when I'm left to my own devices.

The Kids and I end up eating banana and chocolate chip pancakes with peanut butter cream cheese icing and chocolate sauce. For. Dinner.

Damn. I forgot to put sprinkles on.