Tuesday, 15 March 2011

Baking from the cupboards 8

Who can believe that I have been baking from the cupboards for 8 weeks, and I'm still not out of either ideas or things to bake with?! I haven't even had to buy any more sugar yet! Only two bakes this week, due to the absence of K, and the only thing that I really managed to use up was 1/3 packet of cranberries. You see, I'd bought bananas, but with only me around to eat them, they went black before they were all used up, so I had to make something banana-y. I'd wanted to try a banana and cranberry loaf from the M and S Easy Baking book for a while, and these little cakes were my version:

The original called for mixed peel, and nuts alongside the cranberries, but I just upped the amount of cranberries. They were also flavoured with orange zest, and given an extra zing with some icing made from orange juice. It also pleased me that they required vegetable oil rather than butter, which meant that I could finish off a bottle of vegetable oil that I hadn't used for ages (as I use olive in my cooking). K didn't manage to buy anything for his co-workers whilst away, and as I'd ended up with 24 of these, he took them in to share.

Not sure if he will share the melt in the your mouth shortbread Happy Hippopotami that I made for his lunchboxes this week - aren't they cute?

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6 comments:

  1. Darlene15 March 2011 at 17:42

    Hahaha! Very cute cookies...I suddenly have a craving for animal crackers.

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  2. serendipity_viv15 March 2011 at 17:46

    I love the cookies too. I love that you made K's colleagues cakes. My mum used to do that for me when I worked in a restaurant. They all loved me for my mothers cooking.

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  3. Anonymous15 March 2011 at 19:25

    Your shortbread always looks so delicious. And they look fun as well.

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  4. Ann Summerville16 March 2011 at 03:00

    I can almost smell these. I've been trying to use up what I have stored too. I'm trying to be more frugal this year.
    Ann

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  5. Jodie16 March 2011 at 16:08

    Love the hippos :) Does he work in a male filled office then? Sometimes we get baked goods in our (very male) office, but the blokes would never make animals shaped things (sad).

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  6. verity16 March 2011 at 16:10

    Darlene - they are sweet aren't they?

    Vivienne - they were all most impressed apparently. He took in the Hippo biscuits today too and they went down well.

    Jo - I do have a good assortment of cutters to make my shortbread look more attractive.

    Ann - yes, me too - I'm making big progress with clearing out my cupboards!

    Jodie - he works in IT, and 95% of the company are male I think! All of the rest of his team are male, but appparently they did enjoy these today!

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