Cake forty - three

Choco Tea Loaf

Things change in our life and there are moments when you have no time to dedicate to yourself. I’m sure it happens to all of us, especially when you have a family and your children are at a crossroads and need your support, whether invisible or factual. 

So here I am after many months taking control of my time again... I had no chance to write but I haven’t stopped baking, you simply can't when baking is a part of your 'self'!

This is a breakfast cake, delicious with tea and coffee any time of the day. 

Get inspired and try it yourself.

75g bran cereal

125g brown sugar

50g mixed dried fruit

50g chocolate bits

125ml strong tea

75g flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp mixed spice

1 egg

125g icing sugar

Place the cereal, sugar, fruit, chocolate bits and tea in a bowl. Stir well and allow to stand for 30 minutes. Mix in the flour, baking powder, spice and egg. 

Line a loaf tin with baking paper and transfer mixture there. Bake at 180° for about 40 minutes. Cool cake and make the icing in the meantime. Spread icing on top.

Quick icing

Put the icing sugar in a small bowl adding some cold water until the mixture is spreadable but not liquid.

The cake looks different with some sugar sprinkles on top.

Easter baking - Cake thirty-eight

Hot Cross Buns

"Hot cross buns, hot cross buns, one a penny, two a penny hot cross buns. If you have no daughters give it to your sons, one a penny two a penny hot cross buns.." You know this refrain, don’t you? It’s a famous British lullaby and it’s ones of the many I sang with my children when they were little. I remember I used to play the tape recorder every morning and wake them up to the sound of a lullaby and sang together when getting ready. I also prepared some games to memorize the songs and once a week we spent an afternoon playing in English. It was a way to overcome the barrier of learning another language: through singing dancing and playing they connected sounds to gestures or pics automatically. 

And still now that they’re grown up one word is enough to recall a lullaby or a rhyme and there we all go...... we sing or say the rhyme and laugh a lot! We simply can’t help it! It’s like being one of those animals - I think they were monkeys - the behaviourists

used in their experiments to prove that we all react the same way after a repeated stimulus. 

Song: P.S. I Love you

I'm sure we all have some words to treasure  

See recipe: http://time-for-cake-making.blogspot.it/2014/05/easter-baking-cake-thirty-eight-hot.html