Bits and Pieces

Weaving in and out of all of that kid crazy, a lot has been going on here. Perhaps that's part of the problem - trying to do too much with too little. I'm not a perfectionist. I don't strive to have everything just so and I've always been able to live with good enough. But the big thing hovering over all of my thinking and doing in the years since I had babies is the great ticking clock. I wish I'd known this, or felt this, back when I was single and fancy-free, with ludicrous amounts of spare hours on my hands. But only now, with time at such a premium, am I aware of how quickly it goes, how little there is left, how much there is to be done, and how foolish it would be to waste it.

So I've been pushing towards finding work doing what I love, rather than spending all of those precious hours earning money but feeling empty. And there's a lot of exciting stuff slowly coming into focus. My ever-so-softly announced Etsy shop selling handknits is getting closer. There are a few bits and pieces to sort out, and the plan is to launch it as soon as I return from our holiday in early November. Watch this space.

And on the food front, I recently contributed a handful of my recipes and photos to Kidspot Kitchen, with the happy result that I've been asked to do it on a regular basis. Great, huh?

To celebrate, here's one of them - a reworking of the cakes I baked during my Very Bloggy Morning Tea back in May. These little pear and raspberry cakes look and feel like spring, even though pears are decidedly an autumn fruit. The Kidspot recipe used tinned pears, but I like to poach mine, peeled, cored and quartered, in a light sugar syrup (4 cups water to 1 cup sugar) with some sliced lemons and a scraped vanilla bean. The vanilla flavour infuses the whole cake and it's so good. Of course, you could always substitute with tinned pears and a teaspoon of vanilla essence, and I reckon, with summer approaching, any type of berry or stone fruit would be lovely too.

Little Pear and Raspberry Cakes

160 g unsalted butter
1 cup natural yoghurt
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 cup poached pears, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup raspberries, frozen or fresh

Preheat oven to 190 degrees C. Line a 12-hole muffin pan with paper cases. 

Melt butter and allow to cool. Whisk in yoghurt and eggs. Place flour, baking powder and sugar in a large bowl and whisk to combine. Pour in the butter mixture and whisk until smooth. Stir through pears.  

Spoon mixture into lined muffin pan, and dot each one with a few raspberries, pushing them into the batter. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until lightly brown and cooked through.

If you've made it this far, be sure to check back tomorrow. I'm giving away a beautiful knitting book. And everyone needs knitting books.