I'm sitting here watching the Channel 4 documentary on the Japan earthquake and tsunami and its just completely unimaginable what has happened out there. I wish I could do more to help as do most of us and I thought I would put some of my skills to use to do what I can and so last Sunday I spent the evening baking in order to raise some money for the earthquake appeal.
First up I made some low fat gluten free cupcakes, which were devoured. Last time I made gluten free brownies with beetroot, no one ate them as I wrote it on the box. So this time I didn't mention it that the cupcakes were made with courgette/zucchini (for my Aus readers). They are a simple cupcake with a jam centre which still retain the light fluffy texture of a normal cupcake.
 |
| I fooled them all!!! |
 |
| at about 220 calories.. who can't enjoy this cupcake! |
Since I had to share my kitchen space/time/oven with my housemate who was cooking a lovely roast for us all, I decided to try making the Chewy Monkey Bars from the new Hummingbird Book - Cake Days as these bars needed no oven time. I love the Hummingbird Cookbooks, however I think sometimes they forget we are just humble home bakers. Anyway they didn't quite work as I was meant to slowly melt down all the marshmallow's to use as the combining agent, but I seemed to mis-read that vital step and it just ended up being a mess of delicious ingredients. However the next night I melted down some more marshmallows and we had success!!!
 |
| Monkey Bar fail :( |
 |
| ta-da!! |
 |
| I like that it now had chunky bits of marshmallows in it.. nom |
When I got the use of the oven back, I was straight back in there with a rhubarb and flaked almond loaf, also from Cake Days. I've never cooked with rhubarb as its always slightly intimated me, but oh my what have I been missing. Not only is it dead easy to cook, its delicious!! So far this week we have had apple and rhubarb crumble (which I also baked on the Sunday - 5 baked things in one afternoon - yes I'm slightly mental), and also a rhubarb and meringue which was low fat and a little less guilt free than the crumble with Cornish custard.
 |
| filled with rhubarb goodness... |
The last thing I made that evening was another Cake Days recipe - Lemon & Poppy Seed loaf. I did have a slight disaster with the drizzle and my lovely boyfriend ran to the store at 11pm just to get me lemons - I think he saw me going a bit sour after seeing my lemon drizzle go brown so I think he thought best to get some more... bless!
 |
| is meant to be messy okay?! |
The treats lasted over 3 days and I raised a total of £72 which will be donated to the Red Cross. I feel like I should do more after watching the show tonight - so any suggestions for fundraising ideas are welcome!
Happy Baking x
No comments:
Post a Comment