Rand Lines Trio: Gingerbread Man

Some snazzy music for your Wednesday.

Little bit festive....

Banana na, doo doo, doo doo doo

 Hello again,

Here I am with another cake recipe, this time a classic banana cake.
This isnt a very large cake, it has just enough for a 18cm square tin, so if you like a larger cake make 1 1/2 times this recipe.

BANANA CAKE

We're gonna make this!

Ingredients:

for le cake:

115g butter/ margarine

150g (3/4 cup) sugar

1 egg

2 ripe bananas

1 tsp vanilla essence (optional)

180g (1 1/2 cups) flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

60 ml (1/4 cup) milk

for le icing:

Around 1 cup of confectioners sugar (icing sugar for us kiwis)

juice of one lemon

Getting ready to roll:

Soften the butter/ margarine, take the egg out of the fridge.
Grease your cake tin.
Preheat the oven to 180C/ 350F.
Peel the bananas and mash well with a fork.

LETS GO!

These are the ingredients...you will need them out right at the beginning. I'll wait here while you do that.

Have you greased your cake tin? Better get onto that before you start...

Cream the butter/ marg and sugar together until light and fluffy (I had a wee issue - I melted the butter instead of softening due to being distracted, HENCE THE SOUPY NATURE, rookie mistake, the recipe works whether or not you have a butter faux par like me). Beat in the egg, followed by the mashed bananas and vanilla essence.

Sift together the flour and baking powder in a separate bowl.
Dissolve the baking soda in the milk in a separate bowl.
Keep em isolated.

Alternately fold in the flour mix with the milk mix until everything is well combined.

Gently fill your cake tin and smooth the top.

VOILA! CAKE! 

FOR THE ICING: Sift the icing sugar into a clean bowl and mix with the lemon juice until you get a smooth runny mixture.

Remove the cake from the tin and drizzle the icing all over it. I put my icing into a plastic bag and snipped a corner, creating a home-made icing bag, then I just went back and forth all the way around!oooo pretty.

Yum.

Hope you're all having a great Wednesday!

B-ridge out.

Lauren's Lemon Glaze Cake

HOORAH!
Little House's first blog recipe!
Today boys and girls I made Lauren's Lemon Glaze Cake.
Delicious and super easy.

This is Lauren's original recipe which we made this cake from.

Heres what I used to make'ith the cake. Noticed some of the ingredients here arent matching to the recipe?
Well you are a clever cookie!Read on to find out what Ive changed...

When I make this recipe I prefer to use margarine instead of butter, and yoghurt instead of sour cream.
I also omit a quarter cup of the sugar.

Lets get started!
Ready?
Set?
Gooooooooo!

First things first - get that lemon rind ga-ra-ted.
I like long threads of lemon rind - to achieve this use long strokes as you grate it as opposed to short sharp movements.
Set aside 3 teaspoons worth for your cake mix, and whatever is leftover for the glaze.
NOTE: grating your thumb like I did is not recommended...

Lightly beat 4 eggs in a separate bowlio...

Beat the marg and sugar until well combined, then chuck in the eggs and the 3 teaspoons of rind.
Beat them up Michael Jackson styles.

Sift your flour and baking powder together in a separate bowl...

Measure out your yog.

Alternately fold in the yog and flour....

YEAH! Now its all combined!

Get your grease on and grease that cake tin

Put your cake mix into the tin and gently smooth the top.

Bung your cake into the oven right in the middle and cook for 60 minutes.

MEANWHILE....make the glaze by combining sugar, lemon juice, and that left over rind you had.

Stirring occasionally over a medium heat until the sugar dissolves until you get something that resembles this...

Once the cake is ready pour the glaze over the top making sure every bit of cake is slimed by glaze.
NOTE: If like me you made your glaze too far in advance and its gone thicky by the time you get to this step, just stir it over a low heat to loosen it back to a runny syrup. Easy.

Nom! Leave the cake to cool completely before removing it from the tin.
Slice it up.
Eat it.
Genius.



Word.
B-ridge out.

More Halloween! More Halloween!

Here is s'more Halloween birthday fun...

Suzy and Cathy Beth.
(photo courtesy of Sarah Mc Evoy)

One foxy lady, one geek, two ragdolls, and a Jedi.
(photo courtesy of Sarah Mc Evoy)

The toffee apple eating Mexican.
(photo courtesy of Sarah Mc Evoy)

Ashley le' Jedi and Leah le' Fox.

Abby and Cathy Beth Terry.

Ghost-Jedi pals

Here they are again.

Jedi is slaying. Abby is slain, Cathy Beth Terry is...

Ashley le' Jedi and Cathy Beth Terry.

A Halloween birthday bash

On Friday night we hosted Ashley's Halloween themed birthday party.

Guests costumes included a Jedi, a Mexican, ragdolls, Marilyn Munroe, a hippy, a butterfly, batman, a polar bear, and a pirate.

Our team at Little House went as a fox (Miss Leah), Suzy Cato (Lauren), and Cathy Beth Terry (Bridget).

Yummy treats were a'plenty, as was the good times.

Happy birthday Ashley! We loved being a part of your celebration. Love from Little House.

The birthday cake. 

Caroline as a rag-doll.

Friends!

'Ghoul-die' bags for guests.

Lauren as Suzy Cato.

Leah as a fox.

Sarah the Mexican.

Ryan hanging ten with monsters.

Halloweeny treats!

Party party party

Woo! We are having a party tonight!
Heres an appropriate song...

'Having a party' by Sam Cooke

Undercover cat

Twiggy really likes being under things.

Twiggy under Bridget's bed.

Twiggy under the arm chair.

Halloween Party

This Friday night we are hosting Ashley's Halloween themed birthday party.

His real birthday was on Halloween itself, the party is a little late, but the theme is still valid.

Stay tuned for spooky awesome photos and costumes!

Jack-O-Melons we spotted at the shops.