Tits and Cake

Rainy Saturday, so no birding, I know that confession causes damage to my hardcore birder reputation!! So I decided  to make a cake!! I went down the Everyday Fruitcake recipe route, though as it's nearly Christmas I soaked the fruit in Brandy for half n hour to try and get a bit festive!! 
The recipe I use is the one at the link, though I do modify it for Gluten Free purposes using my Gluten Free flour mix 50%  Cassava Flour, 25%  Buckwheat Flour 25% Tiger Nut Flour, all Organic obvs, add to that 3 desert spoons of Tapioca Starch, two Teaspoons of Baking Powder and a teaspoon of Xanthan Gum, I use this mix for pretty much all Cake and Pastry recipes, it works well, haven't really tried it in Bread or other recipes with yeast so don't really know if it works! Also with Gluten Free I find you need a bit more moisture, so  I usually add an extra egg or maybe a few more millimeters of Milk. Another change I make is the recipe calls for a Tablespoon of Jam, which I replace with Black Treacle which gives a nice strong "dark "Flavour to the cake. (can you have a dark flavor? you know what I mean!) Following the festive theme I added a few Cranberries to the dried fruit mix, you can pretty much use any dried fruit mix you want, I go with Sultanas, Raisins and Glace Cherries, cos I like em but as long as the overall weight you are adding remains the same the choice is yours, depending on your currant mood!! 😂😂See what I did there!!

I have made this recipe several times and it really produces a tasty cake! Good tip buy a pack of the cake Tin Liners makes it very easy to remove the cake from the tin! 

Recipe at link

Everyday Fruitcake 

Continuing with the cake theme, I took the opportunity yesterday to apply the Marzipan to the Christmas Cake I made back in September. Homemade Marzipan is easy to make and tastes delicious! 

I use this recipe Marzipan Recipe  I find a bit more liquid is needed, but just add a teaspoon of Brandy, it's Christmas, when adding the eggs.  I also swap out the Vanilla for half a teaspoon of Almond Extract as I like a strong almondy flavour! 

I use the Mary Berry Christmas Cake recipe, It's a bit of a phaf but works well and produces a superb cake. I use the Gluten Free flour mix detailed above and swap out the nuts for the same weight in extra fruit but that's just personal taste, nothing against nuts but I'm not a fan of crunchy bits in fruit cake!! This recipe is where I got the Black treacle idea from!! I also use her recipe for Christmas Pudding, which will be the best Christmas Pudding you will ever eat, but be warned there is 10 hours, yes 10 hours of steaming😱 but it is worth it! Though as i made that in February you are a bit late for this year! Bit late for the cake as well,  you know now so pull ya finger out for next year!!!

Mary Berry Xmas cake

The cake, smells as good as it looks, possibly something to do with the amount of Brandy I've fed into it

The Marzipan rolled out and ready to go! Rolled it out between two sheets of cling film, less mess and made applying it to the cake easy!

Will do the icing next weekend as the Marzipan has to dry! Probably won't be allowed to write on it after the previous incident, so will have to go rustic again!

Preplanning not necessarily my strong point, hopefully won't happen again!! 

Another good thing about homemade Marzipan is when you "accidently" make to much you can make delicious sweets. simply by rolling them out into the desired shape, sprinkle with icing sugar and popping them under a hot grill, i'm not allowed to have a blowtorch😢😢😢😯😲😁

Marzipan Sweets

"What about the Tits" I hear you cry, "you promised us Tits" Well they turned up in the Garden in a brief spell of sunshine! So I grabbed a few shots!  We also had our first Chaffinch for a couple of years, which was nice to see, though I didn't manage a picture of that!

Long-tailed Tit, they have been coming in fairly regularly, but usually as it's getting dark so nice to see them in better light, flock of at least eight probably more but they are nippy little blighters!

Blue Tit, we have 4 regulars but numbers increase dramatically when the Tit flock arrives

One of our regular House Sparrows posed as the Tits went through

So they don't feel left out some pics of a Starling from the garden a couple of days ago

So quite a productive Saturday, I made Peppers stuffed with Polenta, Chorizo, Haloumi and Cheese for tea, sounds posh but was bits we had left in the fridge, bit Nigel Slater there, tasted nice though. We then watched the Mighty Whites get a somewhat fortuitous, but very much deserved draw against Liverpool. Although Margie, who was reading her book at the time complained of nearly having a heart attack when Anton Stach banged in his goal, as I leapt like a Salmon from the sofa, punching the air and shouting at the top of my voice!! Her own fault for not keeping her eye on the ball!! Though I confess it didn't do my back, knee or throat good !!!  😱😲But I will hopefully recover by the next match!!!