My twist on a packet cake mix

Chocolate and banana cakes

Basically take a cake packet, I chose Betty Crocker.

Follow the instructions, but add a small ripe banana mashed and small pieces of chocolate, add that to the mixture before putting in the cake tin. Put it all in one tin, don't separate into two.

Add an extra 10mins to the cooking time.

When finished, let it cool a bit, turn it over onto a plate and spread the chocolate cream on top.

This is the most delicious moist cake I've eaten for a long time... Perfect for the chocolate craving days like today.

Estelle loved it too! :-)

L 

Lemon Cake

It's like a lemon drizzle flan. 

I have been making this same recipe over and over, which is an orange cake. It's the quart quart or victoria sponge cake base, but i've always found it a bit too greasy. It's always the same; weigh your eggs then the same weight in flour and sugar and mix in a certain way and add whatever flavours you want...

So today I realised that I can't follow the same recipe because I have no scales, so I had to improvise and I think I have found something better. Here is the recipe, for lemon cake.

1/2 a pack of unsalted butter, It was 200 grams.
1 cup of caster sugar
1 cup of flour
3 eggs
The zest of one lemon

for the drizzle

The juice of one lemon
1 cardamon
Caster sugar

It didn't turn out as moist or butter as when I weigh it but actually I prefer it this way.

Method

Cream the butter with the sugar.
Add each egg, yolk by yolk, to the butter and sugar.
Add the flour.
Mix well and add the lemon zest

Put in a cake tin and bake in a preheated oven at 180 for 45 minutes. This is all a rough guess but it usually works.

Bring the cake out and whilst its hot prick the top with a fork, throw some sugar on top and pour the lemon drizzle mixture.

How to make the drizzle:

In a small pan put the juice of one lemon, a handful of caster sugar, the black seeds from a cardamon pod and just bring to the boil till the bubbles are big then remove from the heat. Use a small metal sieve when you put it on the cake to catch the black seeds.

Serve as it is with a cup of tea or coffee.

We eat sweet things in the afternoon.

:-)

This is my first blog. I still don't understand exactly how this works but i'm just writing and then will check after to see if it's saved or what's happened. Anyway I have decided to start 'blogging' because I feel like I miss writing and keeping a diary and this is a more interesting interactive way of doing it. 

So what I want to do is update a blog once of twice a week giving info, ideas and just expressing my feelings about certain things including my hobbies which are; cooking, home decor, walking, travelling,  gardening, beauty methods and products, being a Mum, being a wife, being an expat, painting, teaching, reading, news, history, adventures, nature, dreaming, plans, holidays, music and anything else I might add along the way.

MFB stands for my first blog because I'm still trying to work it out. 

I'm still trying to sort my house out after moving so I might write a blog later about moving house in new country. The double move! It's exhausting. 

;-)

Leila