Hellooooo Saturday.

Here we go again.

The kids are here, the mini food critics full of snot (lovely) and totally crappy.  Miss Lily pily's been here 5 minutes and already crying because "I miss my mum".  There's only 9 1/2 hours to go till she comes home again.  It's gonna be a looooong day.

I'm cooking a roast for tea tonight, well two roasts, one chicken and a leg of lamb.  So it's all about the cake this morning.

Before I forget, last Sunday I made an incredible biscuit...snickers biscuit bites.  Something I dreamed up when I had nothing better to do.  The hardest part of making these was melting the caramel.  The base is a pressed chocolate ripple biscuit, filled with caramel and peanuts, covered with peanut butter icing and drizzled with chocolate ganache.  Totally divine.

Everyone was impressed. I could swim in them lol.

Anyway back to today.
I had seen a recipe through the week for a malteser mars bar slice. Not the cheapest thing to make but I'm going to give it a go.  More chocolate ripple biscuits and of course maltesers and mars bars. Also has condensed milk and butter.  The topping was supposed to be cadbury dairy milk chocolate but I substituted cooking chocolate.  Only took about 10 minutes to make. Very yummy.

I haven't used my bread maker for while, so I thought I would make some cinnamon scrolls and of course I decide to experiment and make banana nutella scrolls as well.  I  will just divide the dough in half when it's ready.  I double rise everything when I use the bread maker, so the dough stays in the machine till it rises, then  I punch it down and roll it out.  I cut the dough in half and put  a cinnamon, butter, sugar and sultana mix on one half and spread the other with nutella and some sliced banana.  Roll it up, cut it into pieces and rise it for another hour before cooking.  Three and a bit hours to make  and about 15 minutes to cook. Well worth the time though.  When cooled I iced the cinnamon ones with a pink strawberry flavoured icing and the banana ones with a nutella  flavoured icing.  So good.  Of course, I have to try them so I spread two with butter and devour.  I was even nice and shared with the man of the house.

The man had bought home some oranges so an orange cake is looking good too.  I wanted to try something different so I flip through some recipes and come up with one that uses the whole orange in the cake. I've made cakes like this before but that usually involves no flour.  I'll give this one a go.  This recipe says boil the orange for 5 minutes.  Every time I've boiled oranges it's been for an hour,  I decide to boil for  half an hour.
The rest of the cake is quick and easy, blitz, mix and done. Took about 40 minutes to cook.

Apparently I forgot lunch, well its only 2.00.  I make some sandwiches for the little angels and a coffee for me and have a bit of a break.  Liliy pily's out side. She's happy.  Miss snotty's inside destructing, she's happy too.  The boy's have gone visiting.  I'm very happy.  It's actually quiet.  Apparently you can destruct noiselessly.

Back to cooking.  The snickers biscuit bites were such a hit, I decide to make some more.   I get these done, except for the icing, but I still have to ice the cake so I will do that at the same time

 It's 4.00  and I like to cook my roasts low and slow.  I'm using oven bags so I put the meat into the bags, and into the oven on 150 c..  I won't have to worry about them again till it's time to dish up.

I make the  orange butter icing for the cake and the peanut butter icing for the snickers bites and get them out of the way.  The cake looks good, will be interesting to see what it tastes like.. Will have to wait for that.

I peel some potatoes and put them in the oven just as  Miss Tash arrives with the chunky one who is also sick.  She has a temp and is totally grizzly.  Time for a cuppa.  And a try of the malteser slice.  Miss Tash says its great. She's a chocolate freak like the rest of us, so great is good.

I leave Miss Tash with the grizzly one and go back to the kitchen to finish getting tea ready.  Honey carrots and green beans.   Lizzy lou arrives, I make her a cuppa and give her a bit of malteser slice as well.  Yumm say's she.  Good all round.

Number one son finally arrives and we dish up tea.  The man carves while I make the gravy and throw everything at the plates.  Dinner is served.
We always rush through this bit because it is truly all about the cake.

I cut and try the orange cake, not too bad but  I reckon I should have boiled the orange for an hour.   The flavour is good  but there is a bit of  peel here and there.  Definitely needed the hour. That extra half hour makes all the difference to the softness of the peel and the way it blitzes up.  Oh well, next time.  Still looks good.

So everthing is eaten.  Miss chunky who has cried all through main course is suddenly happy and climbing all over the couch. Miss Tash got to eat cake.   Number one son looks at me and says "I only have one complaint".  I look at him, must have been glaring lol . He smiles and says "there was no mint sauce"
If that is all there is to complain about, I'm one happy mum.

next week.....