I had a lovely weekend, a very quiet one, which enabled me to get on with some household stuff, and just to enjoy being at home without any deadlines or agenda. My daughter and grandson (who live with us) were on their regular weekend stay at Daddy’s Grandma’s house, and it’s so much easier to get stuff done without a baby in the house! I managed to clean the bathroom thoroughly instead of just a bit at a time, and the kitchen, and give downstairs a good vacuum. I got through 3 lots of washing and hung it out to dry and did quite a bit of baking/cooking. I tried a new cake recipe on Saturday by imagining flavours that might go together in my head, and came up with almond and orange. The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

• 4oz margarine
• 4oz sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2oz SR flour
• 2oz ground almonds
• 1 large orange
• half a teaspoon of orange essence
• 2 tablespoons sugar (for syrup topping)
• a handful of flaked almonds

Method:

• Cream together the margarine and sugar until light and fluffy
• Add the zest of the orange and the orange essence
• Beat in the eggs
• Add the flour and ground almonds and mix in well
• Bake for 35 minutes (or so) in a moderate oven (gas 4) until springy
• Meanwhile, gently dry-fry the flaked almonds, stirring continually so they don’t burn, until brown and toasty
• Remove the cake from the tin when stilll slightly warm
• To make the syrup, boil the juice of the orange with the 2 tablespoons of sugar until it coats the back of a spoon
• Prick the cake all over with a skewer (or dried spaghetti!)
• Pour half the orange syrup over the cake, sprinkle with the almonds, and then pour on the remaining half of the syrup (careful the almonds don’t slide off!
• Serve with soured cream, as the cake is quite sweet and needs something tangy to set it off.

Voila!