Poppy-seed Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

3 eggs

150g butter (chop it into small cubes)

1/2 cup of caster sugar

1/4 cup of milk

300g plain white cake flour

3/4 cup of poppy-seeds

1.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda (if you are using self-raising flour, this is not needed)

3 tsps cream of tartar (if you are using self-raising flour, this is not needed)

1 to 2 tsps of icing

Preparation

1. Separate the white of egg from the yolks. Put the white of egg to the fridge (it is easier to whisk when cold)

2. Combine the egg yolks with the sugar and the butter until the butter appears melted and you have a good and fairly runny consistency. (If your butter is too hard, you can add a little bit of warm water to make it melt and mix quicker)

3. Add flour, milk and poppy seeds, cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda. Mix everything thoroughly. Start warming up the oven – set it to 175°C.

4. When the oven is heating up, take the white of egg out of the fridge and in a separate bowl whisk the egg yolks into a firm foam. Pour the foam into the cake mixture and gently fold it into the cake mix. Do it until the whole mixture is well combined and little bubbles appear in it. (At this stage you can also add some flour if you think that you cake is too runny).

5. Butter your cake tin (or fill it up with greaseproof paper), pour in the cake mix and put it to the heated oven for about 55-65 minutes. If you put a knife into your cake and the blade comes clean that means the cake is ready. If your mixture was quite wet or you have used a different cake tin, it might take a bit longer to bake.

6. When the cake cools, you can decorate it with some icing powder. I use my small tea leaf holder for this purpose. It helps me to sprinkle the powder evenly on the cake:)

Share and Enjoy!

Not sure if I can give this one up…

The nothing new challenge which I embraced this year is asking for a sacrifice… a healthy one though… I will need to stretch…. and I am being literal here… because I need to start exercising more as otherwise I may end up not having anything to wear when the weather gets warmer and when I travel to the beautiful and warm island of Cyprus at the end of this month to visit my friend’s family. This is not going to be easy as I am one of those people who is more inclined to choose a book over a stretch. So quite a change is required from me in this department. And… there is this other weakness… cakes… I just really like baking them… and eating them too, of course. :) Do I really need to give them up? Is it not possible to lose weight and have a slice or two (or three ;)) of cake on Sunday? Sunday cakes – oh, this is something so ingrained in my Polish culture. This is what my family gathers for around 4 o’clock in the afternoon every Sunday – the 3C’s: cake, coffee, conversation. Giving up cakes is like giving up childhood for me… unimaginable. Is it the same for you? Is it easy for you to resist sugar?

This week I’ll be posting a recipe for a very easy poppy seed cake. Watch the space if you are a fan of baking. Sorry if you’ve just decided to give up sugar for Lent, you see, it’s time for you to learn that temptations are everywhere even in blogosphere ;)

Below is a photo of my first attempt at making cheesecake. It was nice but even for such a cake lover as me a bit too rich.

Careful Caring

When you have a child you think a lot about caring. You do it and you question it too. Am I doing it right? Is this how I should be looking after a child who’s ten months, one year, a year and a half, two or 16? The wondering never stops. You always look for answers. And oh yes… there are so many people, books, gurus or even companies and organizations that are delighted to tell you how to do it… naturally recommending their own preferred ways.

When you are new to the role and utterly shattered it’s all too easy to go for those choices… to be swayed by persuasion of almost anyone… and this happens precisely because you truly love and you truly care… and thus you are truly willing to extend yourselves and make those steps and sacrifices that are often prescribed as necessary and crucial for your child’s development.

I do that too. Constantly. It’s part of learning how to be a mum and how to respond to this ever-changing and evolving-before-my-eyes character. But sometimes there’s just too much advice to implement, too many demands and conflicting requirements placed on parents and when that happens all that you need is a good dose of distance and a pause to breathe and think: Is this really what my child needs from me now? What is his personality really crying for? Is this really answering the need that emerges in the context of my family at this current moment in time? Is this caring or is this just a symbol of it?

I look at my son, I observe him, I listen to his simple talking and I follow his eyes, gestures and body language and I try to look for hints and clues in him. He is telling me how he wants to be looked after… and it is mostly in his words and his behaviour that I find my answers.

And so I am reminded through these simple observation acts that caring is mainly about communication… about being willing to listen and observe. It’s in being in the present… with our child, with our families, in our spaces, and in our circumstances. The rest is just an option.

DIY: safari made out of a shoe box

Buying nothing new is not only about shopping. It is also about making use of what we have in our houses already. I had a shoe box and quite a bit of felt from my craft projects that I did as far back as two years ago. I decided to make something out of them. When I started I wasn’t sure what it will be… I thought that the fabric and scissors will lead me somewhere and I was right… it was quite a journey… a safari in fact.

First I ironed the felt that I wanted to use. Then I tightly covered the box with black felt and folded it diagonally to make nice and clean looking creases. I used big binder clips to help me with fabric adjustments. Once I knew how the fabric would cover the bottom part of the box I started unfolding bits of felt and gluing them back to the box with a double-sided adhesive tape. I glued the felt onto all the walls of the box and inside the box too.

I used green felt to cover the top of the box. I glued the felt to its flat horizontal surface and its side walls using the double-sided adhesive tape again. Around 3 cm of felt was hanging down from the side walls of the cover. I cut out small triangles on this hanging fabric using the pinking shears. And this is when I decided that it’s going to be a safari box. I left the off-cuts to use them for the grass and foliage inside it.

I remembered about an elephant stencil that I had in one of my books ( Stencils by Lotta Jansdotter) and decided to use it on the box. I tried it first on paper but it didn’t work very well when I wanted to fill the cut out with paint so instead I decided to use yellow paint on its edges and make an imprint on the cover. I corrected the imprint on the cover when it was required. (If you would like to do it for yourself you can just cut an elephant, a heart or a flower out of paper and try to paint around the edges. It will give the same effect.)

Next, I cut out two leaves out of brown felt and glued them to the cover.

I flipped the box on its side, glued the remaining scraps of the green felt to the bottom of the box and onto its one side. Cut out a red circle and glued it to the back to make it look like the sun. I looked for some animals in my son’s toy collection and placed them in the scene. (These can be made of paper too. No need to buy special animals for it.) Placed the box cover on top and here it is… a lovely safari to play with. Perfect for a good pretend play with your child or between your children during a rainy or sunny afternoon. :)

All I used was:

iron, 1 shoe box, felt in 3 different colours, self-adhesive tape, yellow paint, an elephant stencil, large binder clips, pinking shears and small toy animals (nothing new was bought for this project)

Nothing New Challenge was started by Sash at Inked in Colour. Have you visited her blog recently? It’s the most amazing place online I’ve come across so far. Have a peek, it’s well worth it.

Against all odds

I used to bend my time. I was able to dedicate extra hours, days, weekends to various projects and ambitions and I was good at it. I was good at being dedicated, going the extra mile and generating motivation to do things. When you have love for learning, motivation is easy. It is just there. And you draw from it. Happily. Freely. Endlessly. So you think. Until you become a parent. When a child appears in your life, you realise that there is very little time to bend… no time to waste… hardly any time to flex. It is the time when despite having loads of motivation to engage with things, you realise that motivation on its own will not take you far. That you need a change…in attitude…in lifestyle… in your entire life approach maybe too… you just need to change… change.

Last year I embarked on a very important professional long-term project. This project is now calling for my attention, wants my commitment and wants the hours to be put in. This is not going to happen in the evening when my son falls asleep…It wants more of my time and so it seems to me that it’s only the early start that can do it…. the two hours before the baby wakes up… and I need to do it as otherwise I’ll fail… and everything that I’ve been working for over the last six years will be lost… and simply I cannot allow this to happen. I never needed as much discipline in my life as I need now… I never needed as much planning and I never needed to be so organised… and my dear friends this is painful because I’ve been always valuing freedom and flexibility and space… and now I need to change… and put some limits and barriers on that space and time that I possess as otherwise I would need to give up what I started… give up something very precious… an opportunity to grow… and that’s just not in my character.

So I’ve got a challenge before me that requires discipline and strong will… will that I need to develop and the discipline that I need to master. They will allow me to confront the challenge and find solutions to my busy days. I am starting from a new position… from a position that is still new, continuously changing and always demanding… that of a very tired but filled with love mum. It’s difficult, it’s exhausting sometimes but I believe that what I’m doing will lead to growth. Of myself, of my family and of others. And that’s what matters, doesn’t it? That we grow. Spiritually. Mentally. Intellectually. Truly. Grow.

“A characteristic of human nature – perhaps the one that makes us most human – is our capacity to do the unnatural, to transcend and hence transform our own nature.” M. Scott Peck

Thank you Mary Slow for your inspiring words. You motivated me to write this post. Check out Mary Slow’s wonderful and thought-provoking blog.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: