Tuesday 1 October 2013

Weekend Review

The calm before the storm.
 
Simple cupcakes.

Hike/Treasure Hunt!

New project cast on.


Pretty cake - but I will follow the recipe next time!

Scooters at the skate park!
I'm just decompressing today after a very busy "birthday weekend" for my boy.  His friend party was a great success, but I'm still pretty exhausted..  I kept it as simple as possible.  The fact that we hosted it in the barn made prep and clean up fast and easy.  I kicked it off with a little scavenger hunt, and then my husband took them on a one hour walk/hike/treasure hunt around our property.  I'm finding as the kids get older, you need something to keep them occupied (controlled) at these parties, otherwise things can get a little crazy.  I think the hike did the trick. They were genuinely interested and there wasn't any complaining!

Yesterday the boys had the day off school, which was really quite perfect.  We gave Muffy a new scooter for his big day, so I literally spent 4 hours at the skate park   I'm just happy to see them doing something active and outside.  I spent the time knitting my little heart out - which was dreamy in the moment, until I realized I had made an error and had to rip the whole thing out.  Regardless, I'm happy to at least have a new fall project cast on the needles.  I chose the Little Hoodlum pattern.  It's looking pretty cute!

My parents visited last night for a quieter family celebration.  I decided to pass on the coconut flour cake for now, opting for a more traditional recipe.  Muffy requested a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, so I made just that, from my new book The Homemade Pantry.  I think the cake would have been good.....if I had followed the directions.  It was far too dry.  My mom informed me that "cake flour" and regular white flour are two very different things.  I just used white flour where it called for cake flour.  Something felt wrong before I even put it in the oven,as the batter was unusually thick.  What can you do at that point?    Next time I will adjust for the different flour (decrease by about 1/2 cup) or just source out some cake flour.  Live and learn!

Looking ahead to a fairly standard week, back to school tomorrow and back to our routine.  Wishing everyone a great week!

2 comments:

Andrea said...

I love those cupcakes! And I love your barn. Sounds like a perfect party...and I never knew about cake flour before, either. Good to know.

Madame Melville said...

I think I will read recipes more carefully from now on! It made a huge difference using just regular flour. Oh well, the frosting was good so that helped (: