Lemon and Lime Sprite Cake

 

My baking is often quite experimental, with mixed results; this recipe is based on an old favourite – Chocolate Cola Cake – but uses Sprite instead of Cola and lemon and lime instead of chocolate – it is very easy and as it was deemed a success by my, somewhat fussy, family, I decided to share the recipe.

300g self raising flour, 300g caster sugar, 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, the grated rind of two limes and one lemon, 250g butter, 250ml Sprite, 125ml milk, 2 eggs (beaten)

Sift the flour, sugar and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Stir in the grated peel.

Melt the butter and Sprite gently in a pan, then add to the dry ingredients, along with the milk and eggs.

Mix gently but thoroughly.

Tip into a 23 cm cake tin (I used a Springform tin, lined with a circle of greaseproof paper) and bake at 180 degrees for approximately 40 minutes (until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean).

Make some icing, using the juice of the two limes and the lemon and icing sugar. I used a plastic bag, snipped at the corner, to pipe a very squiggly lattice over the top of the cake.

 

It’s been quite a year…and there’s almost a month still to go

I know it’s not the end of the year yet but this evening I’ve been taking a look back at some of the things I’ve done and places I’ve been in 2012, it’s been quite a year so far.

I’ve been getting out and about as often as I can, if there’s a blue sky, and if I don’t have a lecture, seminar or workshop to attend, then I get in the car and go somewhere, it seems such a waste of a day if I don’t…

Bath, Bristol, Kilver Court at Shepton Mallet, Glastonbury, Cannington Walled Gardens, Hestercombe, Yeo Valley Organic Gardens, Wells, Stratford-upon-Avon, Sudeley Castle, Butterflies and More, Bristol Zoo, the International Centre for Birds of Prey, Slimbridge, St Fagans, Cardiff Bay and Birdland at Bourton-on-the-Water are all places that I’ve visited over the past 11 months, some of them more than once.

I’ve made the most of my National Trust membership too, making my way to Tredegar House, Barrington Court, Fyne Court, Montacute House, Lytes Cary Manor, Newark Park, Dyrham Park, Tyntesfield, Knightshayes Court, Lacock Abbey, Killerton, Stourhead and Arlington Court. I didn’t hesitate when it was time to renew my membership at the beginning of October and I look forward to seeing many more places as well as revisiting old favourites in 2013.

Some of my travels have taken me further afield, my carbon footprint this year doesn’t bear thinking about as I have flown to New York, Rome and Pisa, also visiting Florence on the final trip.

There are photos of all these places on my Flickr page but the photo I have chosen for this blog captures my very first glimpse of the Leaning Tower of Pisa – it was only at that moment, when I first caught sight of it above the restaurant roofs, that I fully realised just how much I wanted to be there…less than an hour later I was stood at the top looking out – it was a strange feeling, like I’d achieved a lifetime ambition that I’d never really been aware I had.

I’ve been to the theatre quite a lot this year, to date I’ve seen 53 different shows this year, at venues in Bristol, Bath, Weston-super-Mare, Stratford-upon-Avon and New York, including ballets, operas, musicals, Shakespeare, comedies, contemporary dance and shows that defy description.  Of those 53 shows I have reviewed 41.

There have been many favourites but Sister Act, Priscilla, Henry VIII and the Royal Wedding Planner, One Man, Two Guvnors and The Mysterious Vanishment of Pobby and Dingan could well be my top five. I still have a couple of reviews to write before the year is out and I’m really looking forward to Peter Pan at the Bristol Old Vic on Tuesday and Aladdin at the Bristol Hippodrome next Monday.

I discovered that I really enjoy interviewing people this year, and it’s something I hope to do more of in the future. My first two interviews were with the artist David Shepherd and musician/artist/astrophysicist/campaigner Brian May, way back at the beginning of the year. Since then I have spoken to Tom Chambers, Elaine C Smith, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Martin Stephenson, Robin Cousins, Andy Ford, a couple of zombie filmmakers, Henry VIII and all six of his wives (aka Howard Coggins and Stu Mcloughlin) and a host of local community heroes. They’ve all been lovely.

When I leave university for the last time this year, a week on Tuesday, I will be at the halfway point of my degree course – how scary is that? I still love it, but the panic attacks about what happens next are becoming more frequent than ever.  I know that the best thing I can do now is to work as hard as I possibly can, the better my results the more options I will have when it becomes time to re-enter the real world.

Anyway, that’s enough looking back for now, I’ve got plenty to look forward to in 2013 and beyond, but that’s another blog.

I’ve lost the will…

…to bake.

This photo was taken on the 21st of July. It is an apple cake, made with homemade salted caramel sauce in which I used apple juice instead of water. It was rather yummy, if I do say so myself.

It was the last time I baked.

I’ve lost the will to bake.

This morning I briefly thought “hmm, Saturday, there’s no writing to be done, the weather forecast isn’t great for going anywhere, I know, I’ll make a cake.”

Within moments I had turned over and gone back to sleep, the moment had passed.

I know what the problem is…there’s not currently enough stress in my life…I finished my first year at university months ago; I received my results weeks ago, removing the worry of possible re-sits; my weekly workload has been a bit lighter than usual and I’ve had some nice trips away.

There’s another problem, I haven’t had nearly enough lunches at my favourite eatery this summer, I don’t think I have ever returned home from the Ethicurean at Wrington and not been inspired to go straight into the kitchen to cook, whether it’s soup, a main course or some kind of cake. The 21st of July was the last time I ate there, the apple cake my most recent attempt at trying to recreate their legendary Sticky Toffee Apple Cake – as always I failed, however nice it was it didn’t come close, nowhere near close.

I was hoping that writing this blog post might prove cathartic in removing this baker’s block…seemingly not, I feel no more inspired to bake now than when I sat down.

My second year studies don’t begin again for another four weeks, so until then I can’t rely on stress to get me into the kitchen…there’s only one thing for it…I need to go out for lunch…and soon!

It’s been a while…

…since my last post.

The countdown timer is still ticking away to my long-awaited trip to Florence in September, I have 45 days, 23 hours and 48 minutes to wait for that, but in the meantime I’ve been keeping fairly busy.

After what seemed like an interminable wait, I finally received the results for my first year at University, I passed…with distinction. To say that I am thrilled would be an understatement, but I know that it’s going to get much harder from now on and I have to work ten times…a hundred times…harder when I go back at the end of September. I’ve been trying to prepare by reading some of the recommended books for the modules I’ll be taking and I’m glad I’m doing that, if nothing else it’s helping to keep me in the right mindset for studying.

I haven’t been doing many theatre reviews lately, just a couple at the beginning of July and nothing for the last few weeks…until last night, when I travelled up to Stratford-upon-Avon to review the RSC’s production of Much Ado About Nothing for Guide2StratforduponAvon.

I’ve been writing a few articles for them about the World Shakespeare Festival, so I jumped at the chance to see one of the shows making up that event. I’ve never been to Stratford so I decided to stay overnight and had plenty of time to visit Shakespeare’s Birthplace, New Place and Hall’s Croft. I actually bought a ticket to see all five of the Shakespeare houses, despite knowing that I’d only get to the ones in the centre of town, it’s valid for a year, so I have an excuse for a second visit.

The show is great by the way, it’s set in Delhi rather than Messina and the journey to India begins before the show even gets underway with street vendors outside the RSC’s Courtyard Theatre selling bhajis and samosas to the arriving audience.

Of course being me I took lots of photos in the 24 hours or so I was in town, you can see them here, if you’d like to have a look.

I’ve also been doing some interviews for Guide2WestonsuperMare, for a new strand called Community Matters, talking to some inspirational local people such as Sam Maher from Weston-super-Mare COG, Kirsten Hemingway Arnold, organiser of the Weston Fringe, and Glyn Hayes of the RNLI, as well as TV food campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall who visited Weston-super-Mare last week to record an episode of his Channel Four series Fish Fight.

I’ve had a new toy to play with too, a rather lovely Canon EOS 600D camera, which I am still getting to know. I decided to enrol on a one day photography course with a company called Photography Made Simple. It took place at Ashton Court, just outside Bristol, last weekend and I had a lovely day, met some really nice people and started to learn a little bit more about how my new camera works. I’m hoping to do one of their Creative Photography courses sometime fairly soon.

It’s been quite a busy summer so far and some days I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m awake in order to convince myself that I’m actually doing the things I do now. It’s only a year since I left my old job at the dance school and so much has changed in that time…everything has changed in that time.

I still have almost two months left before I start my second year at UWE, but I think the time is going to fly by…that countdown I mentioned at the beginning of this post, well, it’s been going a bit slowly for my liking, so I’m inserting a little trip to Rome into the waiting time and the countdown to that is going nice and fast, only 7 days, 11 hours and 21 minutes to go, or EIGHT SLEEPS, as I might say if I was using my excited voice.

This one isn’t a solo trip, I’m taking my three kids…and Mother. It’ll be the first time that my daughter, who’ll be 21 next month, has been on holiday with us for several years, and the first time that the boys will have done any kind of ‘cultural’ holiday.

The weather forecast is looking good, very hot, (so hot that most of the Romans leave the city in August apparently) and 0% chance of precipitation…which after all the precipitating we’ve had here lately really is something to look forward to!

My youngest son, Dom, will celebrate his 15th birthday while we’re away, which is an excuse for eating copious amounts of Italian Gelato if ever I’ve heard one.

I’m enjoying this summer a lot.

The next countdown begins

So my trip to New York has been and gone, leaving me a fully fledged member of that annoying group of people who watch American TV shows and films while constantly repeating the phrase “I’ve been there”.

It was fabulous.

We visited so many places during our short stay:

Times Square, Ellen’s Stardust Diner, Central Park, Trump Tower, the Rockefeller Centre, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Grand Central Station, Bryant Park, the Empire State Building, Hurley’s Saloon, the Music Box Theatre, Short Hills Shopping Mall (New Jersey), the New York Public Library, Ground Zero, Liberty Island, Ellis Island, Battery Park, the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company and the Palace Theatre.

My travelling companion, and best friend, Sarah and I were lucky enough to stay with her cousin Katie and Katie’s husband Dan in Summit, New Jersey. They were fabulous hosts, making me feel incredibly welcome, despite the fact that Katie had only previously met me once before, when she visited England in March, and Dan only met me for the first time when they picked us up from Newark Airport.

On Friday evening Sarah and I sat in the Music Box Theatre, waiting to see James Corden go on stage in One Man, Two Guvnors, not quite believing that two former dance school receptionists, neither of whom has had life particularly easy for the past few years, were actually on Broadway, about to watch a show…and what a fantastic show it was; I don’t think I have ever laughed so much at the theatre.

Two nights later we were back on Broadway, this time at the Palace Theatre to watch Priscilla Queen of the Desert, another fantastic show, full of colour and excitement and impossible to watch without grinning in delight.

There were so many highlights, many moments which I will never forget – the view from the top of the Empire State Building, the beautiful icons and stained glass windows in St Patrick’s Cathedral, the beautifully designed twin pools of the National September 11 Memorial at Ground Zero, the first glimpse from the ferry of the Statue of Liberty…

There was also lots and lots of laughter, at times verging on hysteria, and I know that for years to come Sarah and I will be quoting lines from this holiday to each other regularly. Sometimes as you cross New York’s streets and avenues you notice steam coming up through the manhole covers from the subway below, we became quite convinced that it was actually laughing gas.

This was my first visit to New York, my first ever visit to America at all, it lived up to and exceeded my expectations, and I will be returning – next September if all goes to plan.

Meanwhile the countdown has started for my next trip – in 88 days, 4 hours and 14 minutes I will be on my way to Italy, flying to Pisa and from there taking a train to Florence. I’ll try not to go on about it too much.

I did take rather a lot of photos, they aren’t very good and they are very repetitive, but for me they are a record of almost every aspect of my trip, if you want to take a look they are here

The end of year one…

…unless I’ve failed anything.

Today I took the first, and last, exam of my first year at University, and that’s it, no more studying until the end of September.

Unless I’ve failed anything…in which case I’ll have to study like mad to make sure I pass during resit week in August.

The last seminars and workshops of the year took place in early April, the final lecture had been a week earlier. We had an essay to hand in a week later and from then it seemed like ages until the next essay was due in on the 1st May. I know I wasn’t the only person to realise that the end of April had come around much faster than anticipated!

My plan had been to get the essay done and then spend an hour or two, or three, revising each day for the next 10 days. It didn’t happen.

This week has been busy. I did a review earlier in the week, Calendar Girls at the Bristol Hippodrome and an interview yesterday morning, on top of my normal workload, then I got an email asking if I wanted to review Matthew Bourne’s Early Adventures in Bath last night.

Last night…when I was meant to be doing the 10 or 20, or 30, hours of revision that I hadn’t done over the last 10 days…that last night.

I said yes.

It was fabulous.

I did about an hour of revision this morning, speed reading 24 weeks worth of lecture and seminar notes, and then drove up to Bristol to meet up with friends for coffee before we sat the exam.

All around us people had notebooks, little cards, big stacks of printouts…we spent an hour laughing hysterically.

Two o’clock came around and I opened the exam paper…relief…no question on discourse which was the one subject I’d been praying for, having somehow managed to commit several pages of notes to memory…but several questions on things that I knew I knew.

I think I’ve done ok, not brilliantly, but well enough to pass.

I’ll find out sometime next month. In the meantime, year one is over and my books have been packed away for the summer…

…unless I’ve failed.

Here I go again…

With only seven weeks or so to go until my trip to New York it’s time to start making some preparations – passport info has been submitted to the airline, excursions have been booked and, today, the  diet has started.

Over the last few months I had finally become comfortable with my figure, I had stopped worrying about what size clothes I was wearing, about how I looked…unfortunately I had become too comfortable with it…to the point that all my clothes had become extremely uncomfortable.

So here I go again…it’s diet time.

As usual at the end of day one I am asking myself why I ever deviate from eating healthy food…I like healthy food, it tastes good and I enjoy the challenge of finding new and interesting variations on healthy.

I’ll lose weight, I’ll buy new clothes, I’ll feel more comfortable again…and happier.

Hopefully I’ll manage to stick to this new regime (which involves calorie counting and keeping a food log) throughout the summer and by the time I go to Italy in September I’ll be happy to pack some dresses in my case.

Then I’ll go back to university, life will get manic and stress filled once more and gradually my eating habits will get steadily worse until chocolate, crisps and cake have once again replaced fruit, vegetables and lentil curry.

Then I’ll start again.

I’ve often compared the world to a circus, with everyday life one big juggling act, well within that circus my weight issues are the stunt yo-yo act – will it ever change?