FRIDAY is cake-bake day at my place.
The small rituals of baking are very soothing; warming the oven, beating the sugar and butter in a small bowl, adding the fresh eggs from Gidget and the girls then transferring the mixture to a larger bowl.
Sifting in the flour and cocoa alternatively with the milk, then using the spatula to ensure every ingredient is evenly combines.
Pouring the mixture int a well greased and baking-paper line tin or individual patty pans.
Then when they come out of the oven the whole kitchen smells like home.
Thank goodness for Fridays!
Most of these will come into work with me for my colleagues to enjoy for morning tea.
Here's the recipe
Alison's chocolate butter cakes
185g butter
3/4 cup castor sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup of mil
2 cups sifted SR flour
1/2 cup sifted cocoa
- Preheat oven to 180
- Prepare greased cake tin or put patty tins in tray
- Cream butter and sugar in small bowl
- Add eggs
- Transfer mixture to large bowl
- Add flour and cocoa alternatively with milk - you may need to add a little more milk
- Pour into tins / pans
- Bake for 15-25 minutes depending on your oven
- when cakes spring back to you touch they are ready
- Enjoy!
GOLDEN-HUED yolks.
Whites so firm they half meringue without the mixmaster.
A taste so complex yet simple, you have to be there. Sponges so light they practically float off the plate. Creamy, scrambled eggs and cakes with an extra dimension of deliciousness.
Yep, I'm talking about home-grown eggs. Or should i say home-harvested?
Whatever the name, these eggs are sensational.
I know I'm biased but the people whom I pass on some of my extra cackleberries say the same.
My flock of five girls (Hilda, Layne, Gidget, Ledger and Laura) average four to five eggs a day and they reflect their mostly free-range lifestyle. I let them out ta dawn and shut them back up around 7.30am before i head off to work.
Arriving home around 5.45pm, they are again released to wander across the lawn and encouraged to turn over land which will be another veggie bed come the weekend.
They are fed lots of food scraps, oodles of fresh greens and have access to clean, cool water on top of their usual pellets. They are loved and have their own fox-proof hutch and fully enclosed run my friends refer to as Cluckingham Palace. And they are so worth it.
Hilda and her posse are a wonderful mixture of bug-eaters, fertilisers and magic producers. I says magic because their eggs are fantastic.
Nothing beats your own eggs and my feather riot, rescue chooks all, are up there with the best.
If you have room and you don't need much, consider getting a couple of hens and you'll be amazed at how your cooking and your garden is transformed.
