Destruction

On Sunday, we had some visitors over. After a cuppa and cake we went outside and did a bit of cracking while their wee ones jumped on the trampoline. One of my cairns is terrified of the cracking sounds and came inside. She usually runs up and hides under a bed.

We stayed outside after they had left for a little while gardening, when I returned inside this is what I found.

I should have put a dome over it.

Cheeky little begger. It was a really nice pear and yogurt cake.

Her tummy was soooooooo full she could barely move.

Jaller you are to stay off the tables!

Here's what it looked like going into the oven.

with its mate the cherry cake

Which I enjoyed immensely with my favorite cup of coffee for breakfast.

That is my absolute favorite cup to drink from in the morning, it has just the right volume and has the right shape at the spot you drink from.

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This morning I awoke to the sound of screeching.

The screeches were coming from cockatoos who had done this.

My lovely new growth on my lemon trees had been chomped off and spat out.

I will be releasing the hounds on them earlier tomorrow. AND finding that big fake hawk that is laying about and hanging it from a tree to scare them away. It kept the peacock we used to have from roosting on the Volvo.

Another one, on another bed, mandarin this time.
They must have sat looking at each other munching and chopping.

I woudn't mind so much if they actually ate the stuff they bite off but they are just soooooooo destructive.

 Lucky for them they didn't touch these new trees, I went and checked to be sure. When we first moved in we planted Ficus helii trees all along the front near the road and we woke up one morning to find just the trunks left, they looked like sticks poking up from ground.

As I was out there surveying the damage, it screamed at me like a lunatic from up high.

 Another one of these has appeared, so I must be doing something right.

God help those cockies if they come back, I'll be calling in the local clay target shooting club.

Kcooking

Roll on tomorrow, holidays! yay!

Tonight I've done my weekly baking session, one for home and one for morning tea at the fountain of knowledge tomorrow. That new fancy (not!) yoghurt cake recipe I've acquired and changed to suit. I mentioned it last time. It's pretty yum!

here's what you'll need, all pretty simple stuff, any yoghurt can be used, I have used vanilla and this time mixed berries.

plus a packet of these berries just before it goes in the oven.

Into the bowl of the mixer place the following:

1 cup of caster sugar

1 2/3 cup of Self Raising flour, or you can mix up your own plain flour, baking powder cocktail,

1 teaspoon of vanilla

the grated rind of a lemon

2 eggs

1/3 cup of oil, (I use Rice Bran Oil, but any will do)

1 cup of yoghurt, any flavour or variety

and whatever fruit you want to use, frozen, fresh or canned/tinned.

whisk it all up in the machine,

then pour it into your cake tin ( 24cm for the one volume)

then place your choice of fruit on the top and a sprinkling of brown sugar before you place it into the oven at 180 degrees for 45 mins.

I made some modifications to the recipe *as usual!*. Mine will not have the fruit on top as it will be inverted.

I very easily quadrupled the above quantites(except the lemon zest) in my Kenwood maj to put into 2 of my Nordicware bundt tins and then lowered the temperature back to 165 degrees and kept them cooking away for about 1 and a quarter hours.

the berries sink into the cake, and end up nicely spread through it.

this bigger one looks the best, the other one's berries didn't sink so well.

this one came straight out of it's tin.

this one hung in there for a while

but finally popped right on out.

I can see some big craters on the cake, mmmmn I'll have to work on them next time.

Or just fill 'em up with a cream cheese icing- yee hah!!

There you go, recipe included just for u sis <3, enjoy, j