Too dark inside and out for the old iPhone camera, it did its best…..
Rain, rain, rain with some added rain today.
Roads starting to become streams.
After a super wet walk it’s time for most definitely indoor exercise. Time for yoga. But as I have shown you before indoor, yoga, a yoga mat and a big boy cat don’t really go well together.
First of all, how can one cat take up the whole mat. Second how am I supposed to perform any sort of balletic move with that fella between my legs…..
But today that feline apex predator was distracted. His focus drifted from the ‘funny chubby chap who feeds me’ to the yoga instructor on the iPad. That was it, he was hooked. I think the boy cat likes Adriene. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
We would love you to still take part in the Great Bloggers Bake Off Festival of Love. Please send your baking photos and baking ideas into:
CRUSHEDCARAMEL@GMAIL.COM
Already Mel has received so many fantastic submissions and the occasional disaster 😂😂😂😂.
Ok time for Sunday Blogger Bake Off Entry . A heart shaped Carrot Cake. First problem… No carrots…. I foolishly used them all up while making Sunday Lunch. The garden ones are out of bounds as Captain Chaos has been wee’ing on them. I’m not driving today so just have to make do again. But no viable alternatives. No pumpkin, no zucchini, no pineapple, no coconut. Then the madness set in. Carrot is ORANGE. Cheese is also Orange and can be shredded. Lactose free cheese was added…..
So now it’s a heart shaped cheese cake.
Then the shaping issues. The carefully moulded HEART shaped cake fell to bits.
So I give you a bit of a disaster cake. Presentation needs a bit of refinement. The actual cheese tasting cheese cake is interesting. Think sweet spice. Think cheddar cheese. It kinda works. But do I serve it with custard or with butter.
As I dream then what better time can there be to try to make some homemade ICE CREAM. So after a hunt I located one of those random impulse purchases that never made it out of the box. An Ice Cream Maker. Then the panic. How on earth am I going to fit that big bowl which needs freezing for 8 hours into a rammed freezer. I can’t remember that bit on the glossy advert. It just said make delicious ice cream easily at home….. So an hour later the freezer is bursting at the seems. The lid is weighted partly down with my heaviest kettlebell.
Wait patiently for 6 hours….. I’m sure two hours won’t make that much difference.
So in went the dairy and gluten free ingredients. Lots of tinned coconut milk, vanilla, decaf coffee and maple syrup. That kinda thing. Plus cookie dough….. why does my attempt at cookie dough look like rabbit droppings 😳😳😳😳😳
Then the press the machine button and it stirs…..why didn’t I just use my food mixer and save the money.
The end result…..
Not sure the famous ice cream brand will be too happy being associated with my attempt. But it is recycling….
Whisper it. It was nice……. WOW.
We would love you to take part in the Great Bloggers Bake Off Festival of Love. Please send your baking photos and baking ideas into:
CRUSHEDCARAMEL@GMAIL.COM
Already Mel is receiving so many fantastic submissions and the occasional disaster 😂😂😂😂.
It’s almost upon us. Time to show that baking love.
But first. Time to dive into those panic rooms. I’m baking. I’m baking something new. Banana Bread. How difficult can this be. Even for me. So I carefully measured out the gluten and dairy free ingredients. I had everything accept Bananas. Unbelievable.
So a rapid tour of the local stores yielded NOT ONE single yellow fruit. Have bananas been banned from Yorkshire. How can bananas be so difficult to get round here. But undaunted, I wasn’t going to let the lack of bananas spoil my banana bread. Didn’t some big bloke once say ‘I am inevitable’. 😂😂😂😂😂
The only alternative to the funny shaped yellow fruit I could find were a few mini satchels of a banana recovery protein gel. The stuff long distance cyclists use. Needs must. The evil smelling gel was squeezed into the dough. The gel was also out of date……
The end result was…..
And the smell. Not so much bananas. More I guess akin to something being stuck in a cyclists lycra for several months. The taste – challenging…..
Which self respecting cyclist will reach for a plastic covered recovery gel when they can have recovery cake like this….
We would love you to take part in the Great Bloggers Bake Off Festival of Love. Please send your baking photos and baking ideas into:
CRUSHEDCARAMEL@GMAIL.COM
Already Mel is receiving so many fantastic submissions and the occasional disaster 😂😂😂😂.
Time for more baking. Yes time to play some ominous Hammer Horror music. It started off as just a standard gluten and dairy free loaf of bread. Then I remembered, it’s all about LOVE.
What could I add to the bread dough.
Without enough thinking time I went for it. Sunflower seeds. Ok that’s sensible. Dairy free cream and Strawberry Jam. Not so sensible.
So I give you Strawberry Jam Bread….. Looks ok. Tastes different but not unpleasant. That almost worked and I do love a Cream Jam Scone. So yes bread love.
Do you feel the baking love.
We would love you to take part in the Great Bloggers Bake Off Festival of Love. Please send your baking photos and baking ideas into:
CRUSHEDCARAMEL@GMAIL.COM
Already Mel is receiving so many fantastic submissions and the occasional disaster 😂😂😂😂.
There is nothing better than sneaking into the open washing machine as it’s being loaded with clothes. Select a lovely sock and then leg it outside. Once the sock is outside then it’s lost to the wilds…
If only some other things could be lost to the wilds.
With the Great Bloggers ‘Festival of Love’ Bake-Off fast approaching it was time for another creation. Yes it was time to move to Def Con 3.
I tried to keep this simple. A basic sponge cake. Dairy and Gluten Free. Well it started well, with carefully measured out ingredients then the first disaster. For some reason my mind mixed up 20ml of tepid water with 320ml…. Talk about a mucky swimming pool. Not quite the smooth batter I was looking for.
I’m sad to say I panicked. I grabbed the flour jar and just poured. But why was the flour brown…. Yes I had grabbed the cocoa tin. Then I checked the next tin, this one had white contents. But as I poured it became clear this was caster sugar. By the time I had found the proper flour tin the cake mic was looking a right mess. Hawklad recommended that the best course of action was now just to randomly add more ingredients. So we added cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, orange peel and maple syrup.
The end result. Well it looks like a cake. Bizarrely it’s feels like a cake. As for the taste….. Well love can take many forms, but this cake probably isn’t one of those…
Do you feel the baking love.
We would love you to take part as well!! Please send your baking photos and baking ideas into:
CRUSHEDCARAMEL@GMAIL.COM
Already Mel is receiving so many fantastic submissions and the occasional disaster 😂😂😂😂.
Yes it’s fast approaching. Do you feel the baking love.
We would love you to take part as well!! Please send your baking photos and ideas into:
crushedcaramel@gmail.com
Already Mel is receiving lots of recipes, photos, poems and song suggestions. Please remember this is an INCLUSIVE festival. If it’s wonderful baking, we LOVE it. If it’s a baking abomination, we LOVE it.
Talking about abominations it’s time I got going. Baron Frankenstein has erected the lighting rod and has started bringing to life baking monsters.
Today’s horror is a loaf of bread. A cheese loaf. A loaf with the light, moist, tender, soft, airy and springy nature of weapons grade reinforced stainless steel. It might be a bread horror but it’s LOVED.
Oh yes it’s back. This August sees the return of an old friend. The Great Bloggers Bake Off. This times it’s LOVE…
See you in the kitchen.
As you can tell from the quality of the design photo– it’s not mine. The wonderful Mel is doing a shed load of awesome work for this event. Check out her site for so much more.
It’s inevitable that if you spend anytime on this planet then you will experience what LOSS feels like. Losing something precious to you. A person, a dream, a way of life, a friendship, a love, a companion….. It’s inevitable.
When I experienced LOSS I also LOST something else. MYSELF.
LOSS is about losing something permanently. Never getting it back. That’s why it hurts so much. All you can do is to try to learn to live with that LOSS. But with LOST it can be different. It doesn’t have to permanent. You can find it again. That’s what I did with MYSELF. It took several years but I have found MYSELF again. And here’s the thing, I actually may have found more than I LOST. I may have grown as a person. May have a better outlook in life. More appreciative of what is truly important to me. I definitely understand MYSELF better now.
Wind back the clock 20 years and a couple walked along a country lane and thought we must try that narrow path that runs along by those trees. Where would it take us.
Virtually every single time that couple walked that lane one voice would mention the need to walk that tree lined path.
20 years, 15 years….
Then it became a family of 3. Still they walked that lane and pondered that mysterious path.
10 years, 5 years….
The TIME ran out. Time ran out for that couple, that family. Since then the bereaved partner has finally run down that path. Found out where it led to. Definitely beautiful but such a powerful symbol of missed opportunity. The dangers of thinking that you have plenty of time. in reality the clock is always TICKING.
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 