oh gosh I do love being home. part one.

I began my Easter break yesterday, making the 4 hour trek home from Surrey with the most luggage I think I've ever carried. SIGH!

...but oh how I love being home.

Today, I had planned a nice lazy sunday in the sunny Norfolk sunshine, but I have only just sat down after being a busy cooking bee. I really should stop boredom-baking (best worst habit ever) but I can at least blame this one on my mother. This was our conversation this morning,

Mother: "you see those dodgy carrots on there? is there anything you can make with them?"

Me: "yeah, carrot cake?"

Mother: "fantastic! and there is some rhubarb in the fridge that I want to store"

Me: "shall I make some jam?"

Mother: "sure!"

(obviously slightly less enthusiastically, because every time Mother Marsh suggests I cook, she instantly pictures her kitchen looking like a baking bomb has gone off. I am possibly the messiest cook. ever.)

So, from midday onwards, the kitchen in the Marsh household came to life with...

Carrot Cake.

Lentil Soup.

Rhubarb, Blueberry and Lime Jam.

Lemon Curd.

Homemade Yogurt.

(On top of this, we all somehow managed to pitch in keeping the chickens occupied and designing Mother Marsh's extended veggie patch which I am soooo excited about I might just explode! I may have to create a post about it as we go along...but just thinking of all the goodies we might get from the ground fills me with a warm fuzzy feeling)

I actually attempted to do a step-by-step recipe of everything I made this weekend using my old faithful Blackberry, so the pictures are pretty poor quality but some look quite good!

So the entire baking escapade began with the fact that my mum can't bare to waste food, even slightly gross, floppy carrots...so I reckon its best I start with that.

Carrot Cake Recipe

300g soft brown sugar.

3 eggs.

300ml sunflower oil.

300g plain flour.

1 teaspoon baking powder.

1 teaspoon bicarb of soda.

1 teaspoon cinnamon.

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger.

1/2 teaspoon salt.

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.

300g grated carrots.

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.

Peel, top and tail the carrots and weigh out 300g. 

Proceed with mass grating exodus (my arm will ache tomorrow).

I raided our cupboard and found every other type of sugar except for soft brown sugar...so I made a combination of the lot. 300g of sugary brown goodness.

To the sugar add 300ml of sunflower oil, and 3 fresh-from-the-bum chickens eggs (ok, you can use shop bought one if you can't walk down the garden for your eggs).

Whisk with an electric whisk or in a mixer...its just easier. 

Weigh out the flour, baking powder, bicarb, cinnamon, ginger, salt  and sift into the golden sugary mix. Best do it in two halves and beat it up with the electric whisk. oh..and don't forget the vanilla extract (I nearly did).

Mix in the carrot...look at the amazing colour! 

Scrape into a pre-lined tin (this is Mother Marsh's job because she's bad at baking) and lick the bowl clean! Bake in the oven until golden and a skewer comes out clean. See the recipe said 20-25minutes, however mine took more like an hour, but this could be because a) our oven is crap. or b) because the original recipe called to split the mix and I just bunged it all in one tin. It cooked fine though and didn't dry out cooking for an hour.

Allow to cool.

(I wish i'd photographed this, because it sat our our kitchen windowsill balancing, like how you picture an apple pie cooling in the breeze in a country kitchen...mmmm)

oh the delights of cream cheese frosting.

you will need...

1 tub of cream cheese - I think its 200g

40g butter

400g-500g icing sugar (depends on how creamy/cheesy/sugary you want it)

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and just whip it. whip it. and whip it some more. until its light and fluffy and soooo scrummy.


And here is the finished article, although I don't think the picture does it justice.

oh gosh, there is so much more to write about...just wait for part two.

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