cake

Food: Gâteau au yaourt

It’s been a while since The Great British Bake Off has brought weekly joy to my life and of course, baking inspiration. The arrival of January,  in which so many want to watch their weight, has brought my motivation to make cake to a low point. Gâteau au yaourt doesn’t count in my mind as it contains yoghurt which is obviously healthy!

The more astute among you would have noticed from last week’s ‘day in the life of’ post that I’m currently reading ‘French kids don’t throw food.’ Although I’ve read this before,  as I approach weaning with Thomas, I’m keen to remind myself of different cultures and the way they do things. This book, written by  Pamela Druckerman (an American) , is an account of living in Paris and the many differences she encountered in how people raise their children. It’s a good read and a nice reminder that there is not one ‘right’ way and that’s it’s good to keep an open mind.

In one chapter she noticed at a friend’s house that her small daughter was making cake by herself. Whilst the age wasn’t specified, I thought it would be nice to see how Ben and Katie would get on with her suggested recipe for – Gâteau au yaourt aka yoghurt cake.

Aside from being something of an experiment with the kids, I also wanted to make it dairy free so decided to sub in coconut milk yoghurt for full-fat dairy yoghurt. I have no idea if this was the cause of things not going quite to plan:Read More »Food: Gâteau au yaourt

Food: Free from Fairy Cakes

I’m not about to start disclosing my daughter’s full medical history, which would be long, boring and a bit grim at times, but suffice to say – she has a number of food intolerances. At one point we were entirely off dairy, but had begun to re-introduce it in the hope that her gut had matured a little more. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to have been the case and we’ve been referred back to the children’s hospital again. Whilst we begin the months of waiting for an appointment, we will need to manage Katie’s diet as closely as possible but that’s no excuse to exclude fairy cakes!

After keeping a food diary for the last couple of weeks, we’ve decided to not only cut all dairy again but also to try and cut her gluten intake. Supermarkets have such superb ‘free-from’ sections now, this isn’t actually that much of an inconvenience. However, it’s still fun to do baking at home and pretty easy with help from Doves Farm – the provider of all good gluten-free cooking goodies in this house!Read More »Food: Free from Fairy Cakes

signature bake

Food: Signature Bakes

What does the acronymn GBBO mean to you? If it doesn’t conjure pictures of cake, bread, pastry and Mary Berry goodness, then Iet me try to educate you! Bake Off signals a happy time of year for me, it’s TV where people are genuinely nice to each other (even with last year’s bin gate) and it’s really hard to watch without feeling a little happy by the end. Also, it’s a time of year that I get baking again.

I find it very hard to watch the GBBO without wanting to get in the kitchen and try recipes out for myself. A few years ago my Mum and I decided that we would  challenge each other to make one thing from each episode. It could be our own take on whatever it was but would have to generally follow the rules of the episode. We had to be honest about how everything went, take photos and occasionally have family members chip in but then we would come to a mutual decision about who won that week. Our friend Craig soon joined in and this year, despite the arrival of baby Thomas five days before the first episode – we baked along with Bake Off.
Read More »Food: Signature Bakes