Wednesday 16 January 2008

Cakes and Tea Towels

My eyes have been opened to a brand new world. The previous occupants of my middle drawer were from Tesco, Primark and a very dodgy looking one from Centerparcs! (no I didn't steal it, I bought it!!). Anna then posted on her blog about having too many tea towels. A new obsession was born. Cath Kidston...Emma Bridgewater...Heinz Ketchup?! Fortunately for me (or my purse), CK had a sale on, as did EB... When I took a good look at my collection I realised I had MORE Christmas tea towels than anything else! I got a nice Santa one from my parents this year too. Maybe they were trying to tell me something when they came to stay. I even checked Ebay for tea towels - well you can get anything on there!!

Then...came the Ginger Cake, with picture. Of course I HAD to make it but I didn't have ginger in syrup. Feeling a little under the weather, I ventured to Waitrose miserably on Monday. I wanted to curl up in front of the TV watching Dirty Dancing for the 100th time but also I wanted to make that cake!
I should have gone straight to the syrup, but no....I ambled from aisle to aisle browsing, thinking "ooooh that looks nice", "so does that" (plant, flowers, magazines x 3, early birthday presents, nice soap, chocolate, Lavazza Carte D'or - I was ill!). "Yes, and I definitely need a pink whisk". I shouldn't have got a trolley!

£125 later (I kid you not) I had everything I didn't need, but what did I forget?!! It's OK, I remembered as I got into my car! (People who know me well, will know that I do this a lot).

Our printer is in for repair so I hand-wrote the recipe down. Meticulously followed the instructions: omitting the dried fruit on the purpose, and the sugar by mistake. It ended up sloppy though (I beat the hell out of it), lined the tin and popped it into the oven with a baking parchment lid on it so it didn't burn (very wise A). The smell from the oven was delectable (I have regained my sense of smell thank goodness!).

So here it is....together with one of my new tea towels :-) I am now going to cut the BIGGEST peice of cake, make a Latte and watch Dirty Dancing.


This was a very expensive cake!!!!! But totally worth it. I think I'll have to add it to my regular cakes when the coffee shop opens!

7 comments:

dragonfly said...

Mmmm...I'll have a slice!
Lovely tea-towels, too...

Garden Girl said...

Hurrah! Am so pleased you made it and took a photo too! (very impressive work) I am going to start a tea towel blog at some stage, you know! Maybe you could design a tea towel of your own to sell in your coffee shop?(god I'm good)and donate so much to a local charity or something?(are you sure you don't want to open a franchise in the Cotswolds?!)I love Waitrose and know your predicament- their stuff is just too good!
Am now going to see why I have NO Christmas tea towels whatsoever.Am a tea towel phony and failure.Sob.

Garden Girl said...

p.s- just spoken to gardenboy and mentioned the teatowel thing-he said you should design a very cool pink cupcake jute bag to sell instead, as de rigeur at moment (I think that means v.cool)x

moss stitch said...

I've now got a tea towel search on the go! Will no doubt Blog about it soon!
Anna look what you have started!

Garden Girl said...

I know, I know, am a bad tea towel influence. Sorry kids x

tess said...

both cake and tea towel look scrumptious!

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