Baking a Silver Lining

The past two mornings have started at 4.40. Damn you West Aussies for voting no to daylight savings!

Every cloud has a silver lining. It's amazing to have the kids dressed and fed and Moonshine down for a nap before Russell leaves for work. I've also had time for some baking.

Yesterday I baked a Nigella Lawson chocolate cake. I found this one on the Internet. It's not a sinful as most of her cakes almost a bit like a chocolate sponge. It looks really impressive and serves well so would make a great entertaining cake. I just did a half batch (and 1/3 of the fudge icing). Nigella had another layer on top so hers must stand 8 or 9 cm tall. She suggests it serves 10. They must be massive slices.

I also made Moonshine some baby pancakes. She loves them. They're very healthy with no processed sugar and very little fat and don't contain egg white or milk. They're very sweet with the banana and fruit juice. Moonshine's also had sultanas as I used muesli rather than oats.
I found them a bit sticky to cook as a pancake so cooked them for about 15 mins in the oven on baking paper (like cookies) and turned them half way through.
That got me thinking anything pureed could be turned into baby biscuits. So this morning I was making porridge with apricots and banana. (1/3c oats, 1 chopped banana, 4 dried apricots, 1 1/2 c water. Cook for about 10min. Mash or puree) So I dolloped some on the baking paper and there we go. The resulting cookie was a little flat so I rolled it up 'baby cigar'. (Perhaps not the best title!) Perfect finger food.

Tomorrow I'm planning on baking chocolate chip cookies for a friend and her two (almost three - 2 weeks to go!) boys. A year or so back I went on a hunt to find the best chewy choc chip cookie and this is the best! The problem is if you count on a child's sleep they'll do the opposite so we'll see.

Nothing crafty to show this week - my beloved machine is away being serviced. I have two hand sewing projects that are oh so close to being finished but I'm too tired to do it. It took me so long to get Moonshine to sleep this afternoon that Rainbow fell asleep on the couch waiting for her story. I then tried having a sleep but Moonshine woke after an hour. (See what I mean -you can't plan around children - she normally sleeps 2 hours in the afternoon!)

Moonshine's latest trick is that she can get from lying on her back to a sitting position (via rolling over and hands and knees). She gave me a real fright last night when I went to her. I could hear her crying but couldn't see her in the cot. Eventually I found her sitting in the corner. She then proceeded to pull herself up to her knees using the side of the cot so we'll be lowering the mattress this weekend. I'm excited for her that she's learning all these new skills. It's going to be life changing for Rainbow and I.