I hope you all had a great weekend and enjoyed the weather. Unfortunately I was at work on Saturday but more than made up for it yesterday!
I had a few friends round and we sat in the garden with lots of nibbly foods and a bit of cider. It was lovely and relaxing.....just chatting, eating and doing a bit of crochet. I taught a total beginner how to chain and double crochet and she was away! I was very impressed by the speed at which she learnt! I managed a few 'squares' of my current WIP and helped a friend get started on as new project.
I love to bake but haven't had much time recently. I got this book 'Ms Cupcake' for Christmas and despite flicking through it numerous times I had never had the time to make anything from it. At first glances this book is a cute, quirky cake book.....a bit different from the Mary Berry's, but it is actually vegan! Veganism is often stereotyped as being adopted by people after a more healthy lifestyle and more recently there has been heightened interest in raw food, which consequently is almost always vegan. This book is worlds apart from this stereotype, as many (cue lots!) of vegans are vegan because of their objection to the conditions animals farmed for food have to endure. These vegans still want cake, and the stickier, more sugary the better!
I will just point at that I am not vegan- I am a lactose-intolerant vegetarian. This means that most of my diet is vegan, but I do sometimes eat eggs and the occasional bit of cheese!
It was this 'Rhubarb and Custard' cake that caught my eye. For one- I just love rhubarb and custard (especially together) and two- I was enticed by this pretty, colourful picture!
First off I made the decorative crumble....
This tasted absolutely delicious.
Then the sponges. I have never made sponges without eggs before so was a bit nervous but as you can see, nothing to worry about! Big fat sponges. They rose like a dream :-)
Then onto my favorite part of any cake....the icing! I would be more than happy to polish off a whole tub of icing if my teeth didn't ache and scream 'NOOOOOOOO' a few spoonfuls in. This icing was extra special- it contained custard powder. Double yum.
To be honest I was a bit disappointed by the final result (well the look of it anyway). Firstly the lovely pink colour on the top (see the pic in the book) was meant to be achieved by swirling rhubarb through the icing. However, the tinned rhubarb I bought had been peeled and was just green. Soas not to make a cake that looked like snot, I left the rhubarb off and sprinkled some more crumble on instead. The biggest disappointment however was that I could not find any rhubarb and custard sweets to buy :-(
So all in all, I was left with a pretty plain looking cake....
It did taste preeety good though! Bizarrely it tasted 'eggy', a bit like a victoria sponge although there was not an egg in sight! Got a fair amount left so hopefully I can get through it before it goes stale- apparently vegan cake doesn't last as long as 'normal' cake!
So this is part one of my weekend. More pictures to share tomorrow....
What did you get up to at the weekend?
SSxx
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