Pineapple Upside Down Cake

 

Anybody here like cake?

Hands up?

Yes, me too. And this particular cake is a bit of a sweet-toothed 80s bright coloured throwback, to a time when exotic fruit in a tin was the highlight of the week.

Making this seems a long time ago now, as it's two weeks since I last ate. 

(Not strictly true, but I am sticking to the diet pretty well and cake is not currently happening).

This cake is the perfect comfort food for a winter's evening.  Enjoy with custard.

Ingredients

butter (melted)                   100g

brown sugar                       1/2 cup

pineapple rings (drained)     440g can

Pineapple juice                    2tbsp

Cream cheese                    125g

butter (softened)                150g

caster sugar                        1 cup

rind and juice of 1 orange

2 eggs (lightly beaten)

self-raising flour                    1 cup

Method

1. Preheat over to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Tip the melted butter into a 24cm round cake tin, brushing it up the sides to grease. (If you're using a loose bottomed tin, like me, be aware that it will ooze out in cooking).
3. Sprinkle brown sugar over the butter and then arrange the pineapple rings over the base of the tin.  I popped glace cherries in the centre of each one for a really vivid pop of colour.
4. Mix the cream cheese, butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.  
5. Add the orange rind and juice, 2 tbsp of pineapple juice, eggs and flour.  Mix well until smooth.
6. Spoon the mix into the prepared tin over the pineapples.
7. Put the cake into the oven for 40-50 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
8. Leave to cool for 10 minutes and then turn out carefully onto a wire cooling rack.

This is one of my creative endeavours this month in my year of creativity.  Considering I had five creative things to do this month I've made a remarkably slow start. 

The crochet is going well, but I'm not sure if I'll finish this month.  I have at least bought the bottles I need to make the wine. I haven't even begun to think about the cushion covers or the macrame and the stuff to make the little dolls is just sitting there waiting for some attention! 

On the other hand, I have been running two Beaver meetings and two Cub meetings via Zoom, I have a lot of Phonics videos on my YouTube channel, and the children are getting on well with their home learning. There's certainly been some creativity going on in the house, even if it hasn't all been mine.

Endangered animals masks made with Beaver Scouts

I really don't know the purpose of the cardboard fort or the Harry Potter x Victorian costume - sometimes it's best not to ask.

Charlie's tin can tealight candle holders that he made with Scouts.

Charlie's pelican, penguin, cat mash-up that he did for an Art lesson.

2021 - Our Creative Year

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to allow more creativity back into my life. It's easy to become too "busy". I'm certainly guilty of wasting time on social media or on games on my phone.

This year I wanted to put the emphasis on my creative self. Creativity is a type of playfulness (see my other blog www.the-playful-way.com) and I think we all need a bit more of that in our lives.

It also allows you to express yourself, to find your self or your voice.

To help keep me on track and to explore a whole range of different types of creativity, I've come up with 52 different craft activities (this isn't even touching on the creativity I enjoy in the garden, in my writing or in my teaching or tutoring!).

I've divided them into seasons, with the intention that I'll do four or five each month. 

For example, this month I'm hoping to

- macrame a plant pot hanger for the bathroom (1st attempt at macrame)

- make wine (I've been meaning to do this for ages!)

- make at least one cushion cover

- crochet a window valance (like this)

- make some little fabric scrap dolls.

 

What I really like about this is that my daughter has taken a copy of my list. She's ticked the ones she wants to do with me, and has added her own crafts to replace the ones that she doesn't think she can do.  We're going to get crafty together!

I've not been terribly good at maintaining the blog in 2020. I'm hoping that I'll be a lot better in 2021, and blog regularly about my crafting, writing, gardening and family exploits, so you'll be able to see how I get on with some of these crafts.

What are your crafting and creative intentions for 2021?

Why it's okay NOT to do Joe Wicks

No offence meant to Joe Wicks here.  I've done a couple of his workouts and the man is a legend.  The internet is bursting at the seams with activities that you can plug into or do at home at the moment.  There is so much choice out there.  The issue is that so many of us are trying to work from home and educate from home as well as just existing.  All these activities are a good source of inspiration for parents who are used to out-sourcing their children - gym classes, Cubs, swimming lessons, boxing and so on.  However, it does leave you with a vague sense that if you aren't doing Joe Wicks every morning, followed by online art lessons, online Steve Backshall, online Scout activities and online education, as well as downloading all the free resources being offered by the BBC, Twinkl and every other portal on the interweb, then you are somehow failing your children.

I'm here to tell you that this is not so.  

What is important is maintaining sanity and love within your family.  

In a time full of financial and health anxiety, in a time when people are concerned about their jobs and their family and friends, in a time when we are facing an unprecedented global pandemic, that's when we are all confined to our homes and cut off from friends and from the outdoors.  A walk alone in the woods is my choice of activity to re-balance and to restore my sense of self and optimism.  We normally have a healthy mix of society and solitude in our lives.  Time to think and time to talk.  At the moment we have some people forced into solitude, while others are denied it.  It's hard for our children too: used to the routine and society of school, time and space to run and jump, laugh hysterically at the daftest things, feel proud of themselves when they get the right answer or seek solace with friends if they don't.  Now they're stuck at home with only a limited understanding of why. 

I'll be honest.  I'm finding this hard.  I'm supposed to be self-isolated for another ten weeks.  I want to do a good job for the families I'm supporting as a teacher and as a Scout volunteer; I want to get the house and garden looking good; I want to build up my writing again; I want to get fit... all during this period of isolation.  What I'm learning though, is that looking after myself and my family is going to have to take priority here.  In the last few days I've had a deep sense of anxiety, unease and disquiet.  I have been irritable and tearful.  Miss Busy, who is very nine: noisy, messy and emotional, is finding the lock-down overwhelming and needing her mummy.  My husband, when he gets home from a busy and tense day as a hospital doctor, needs a lot of support too - for him, planning for the future helps him deal with the present.  

So I'm remembering that I need to prioritise cuddling with a film over replying to e-mails;  Playing a board game with the children over cleaning the floor;  While my to-do list doesn't get any shorter, reaffirming connections within the family, building our strength in this time of uncertainty, seems the more important task.  When this is over, like the flowers that grow back more vigorously after they've been cut back, we will be ready to bloom vibrantly.  When we look back, we'll think of 2020 as the year that made us.

So don't feel that you have to be busy all the time.  Don't feel that you need to keep up with all the activities and resources.  Don't worry about fancy-schmancy specially-created internet resources and lessons.

Do your best to keep up with the things that you have to do for your work and your children's education (don't worry too much about this - they are remarkable at learning when nobody is teaching them, and will also soon fill in the gaps when they get back to school).  Mostly though, it's okay to do the simple things, to spend time just being, and just connecting with your children.

Here are a few things you can do as a family: 

1) play with the kids - get the Lego or the doll house out and get down there and play with the children.

2) Do the housework together.  This one may be a harder sell for older kids, but I taught Mr Build-it to iron shirts yesterday (we had to submit a video for his Scout Skills Challenge), you're teaching them valuable life skills, and its definitely more fun when you do it together - and that's a life-lesson in itself.

3) Play silly games like charades and hide-and-seek.  A daft friend posted a video of herself playing noughts-and-crosses with her dog.  (ask and I'll tell you how - very amusing!)

5) Rediscover peaceful crafts that you can just sit and do together - drawing, painting, rock painting, crochet, knitting and sewing.  Or if those don't appeal - how about wood-work or creating miniature models for Warhammer or a model railway.  These things take time and lets face it, we're not going anywhere in a hurry, and you get the satisfaction of creating something.

6) Bake and cook together.  Explore those cook books and come up with some recipes that you can make.  (Forward planning is useful here as given the shopping limitations for most of us at the moment.)

Most of all, try to relax.  Don't try to do too much.  Press the "Reset System" button on your life.

If grannies wore knickers...

If Grannies wore knickers, would they look like these?

Just an opportunity to show off my latest craft project really.

Several years ago my amazing big sister sent me a link to this pattern http://www.sfmgs.co.uk/2016/09/granny-square-crochet-shorts-free-pattern.html, and suggested that I might make her some at some point.  (She blogs at http://www.seasidebelle.com/)

It takes me a while.  I got around to it eventually.  My other crochet project has reached a fiddly hiatus and needs some concerted effort to continue, so granny squares seemed like a great idea.  I dutifully followed the pattern given on the link above.  In fact, I was pretty excited and thought I'd almost finished.  Then I tried them on.  There is something wrong with the pattern.  By following the pattern you get just the bottom half of the shorts shown above.  To call them hipsters is being very ungenerous to hipsters.  I know I have a largish bottom, but these didn't even come halfway up the cheeks!  So I made another four squares and built an extension!

 I tried them on for size and was suitably happy.  My sister's bottom is considerably smaller than mine, so if they could stretch around me, they would be fine for her.  I don't often wear holey clothing, I'll be honest, but mum assured me that "if anyone could carry off an item of clothing like that, Jo can."  It's true - photos on her Facebook include her dressed as: Betty Boop, the fairy on the Christmas Tree, a Greek goddess and Scary Spice.  However, apparently her child #3 has put his foot down and suggested that she needs to line them as it's not right for her to wear shorts where people can see her pants!  

I feel reasonably sure that she will defy him and that these shorts will get at least one outing, and that she will carry them off with style nothing like a granny!

Crafty Mum - crochet pyjama cases

I've been teaching myself crochet for two or three years now, and this has been my most ambitions project yet.

In the Bumper Book of Crochet (from Dorling Kindersley - no affiliation) they have a pattern for a turtle back pack.  A couple of years ago my big sis (Seaside Belle blogs here) mentioned that her children might like a hand-made pyjama case for Christmas, but at the time I had a backlog of craft projects and not enough time.  I did remember though, so this year started to make the turtles,  I just left off the straps to make them pyjama cases and not backpacks.

I have to confess that this has taken me a very long time.  To begin with I started learning to make the first hexagons for the turtles back when I was on a pretty high dose of steroids, so I had terrible cramps in my hands and found any kind of craft work hard-going.  I decided to make one in fresh jungle type colours for my nephew (age 4), and one in Frozen colours (turquoise, pinks and purples) for my niece (age 6).  

I was making pretty good progress with the Frozen one, and had made the front of the turtle, the head, tail and all the legs, but somehow they didn't seem right.  It was only as I looked much more closely at the individual stitch instructions while completing the back of the turtle around the edge of the hexagons (away on holiday in August) that I realised I'd been using entirely the wrong stitch for all the other pieces - doing them in treble instead of double.  That was why they looked like cones instead of disks!  Once I realised this it didn't take me long to undo them and re-use the wool to crochet correctly.  I then had a plan to get them completed by the end of October, but failed because I hadn't ordered the zips.  I wasn't far behind though, and I think I can safely reveal them before I pop some pyjamas in them and wrap them up for Christmas ready for niece and nephew.

What's your latest project?  What's your next one?

My next one is to put some scenery on C's model railway which is looking sadly unloved and empty.  I've set myself an ambitious deadline of Christmas (ahem, that's not very far away!) to create a hillside, cliff, railway tunnel, cave for the dragon, and ruined castle.  I'll post again on here very soon and let you know how I'm getting on with that!

Crafting gifts - crochet cushion

I first picked up a crochet hook this time last year.  I'd bought a book "First Crochet" by Lesley Stansfield, and took it with me to Mum's so that she could help me master the crochet chain.  Then I posted back in March about a dolls hat I crocheted and in August I crocheted a little bag. I've been alternating big knitting projects with crochet, but when I made the bag in August I knew that I had finally got the hang of double crochet.

In view of Mum's support and inspiration in all things crafty, I decided back then that I was going to make her a crochet cushion cover using double crochet for Christmas.  It's one of the next patterns in the Lesley Stansfield book.  I altered the colours to suit mum's sitting room, and towards the end of November, when I'd only got the hood left to do on C's jumper I put the knitting aside and got on with the crochet so that it would be finished in time for Christmas.

I'm pretty delighted with the result, it came out really well, with even stitching, no stitches lost randomly on the ends of rows and the outcome looks very smart.  It was also quite cheap to post!  The cushion pad to go inside was quite tricky to find, as it's not a standard size, but John Lewis came up trumps.  I think I might make one for my sitting room next!

Learning the craft - crochet!

So I undertook my first ever piece of crochet at Christmas - a flower using simple chains of crochet.

I'm planning to develop my skills by gradually working through the items in "First Crochet" by Lesley Stansfield.

My second attempt was a baby hat.  I'm not sure what went wrong but it definitely didn't look like the one in the picture.

This time I think I've got the hang of it.  It's a tiny tote bag.  I think the finish would have been better if I had used Cotton DK as suggested, rather than the wool I had sitting in my wool basket, and it's a little wonky and uneven in places where I've lost and then regained a stitch in the rows, but it's definitely double crochet, which is what it's supposed to be.  And I am proud of it.  

More importantly, C loves it.  It's purple which is his favourite colour, so I've given it to him.  

I won't tell you what the next crochet project is going to be.  If it turns out well then it's going to be a Christmas gift for somebody.  I have another knitting project to do before then though - I'm going to learn a new skill, and knit an Aran Cable jumper for Bug - CABLE??!!!

Latest creation - crochet hat

Here's the deal.  I'm a crochet beginner.  I mean a total beginner.  I bought myself a crochet hook and a crochet book with the book tokens that I got for my birthday back in September, but I didn't allow myself to touch them until after I'd got everything done in the crazy pre-Christmas rush.

I took them with me to Devon at Christmas, and asked my mum (who can crochet) to help me to make head or tail of the instructions.  I managed to successfully achieve chains, and even linking chains before I left there.  Then I made a start on the second item in the book, which involves rings in double crochet to make a hat.  Now, I don't know how many of you can crochet, or in fact how many of you own the same book as me ("First Crochet" by Lesley Stanfield), but for some reason my hat doesn't look the same as the one in the book, even though I used the same size hook. 

I asked a friend what she thought, and she said it looks as though I've done every stitch while they've done every other - does that make sense?

Can any of my reader(s) help me to work out where I went wrong?

To be honest I'm not too bothered about this hat, as you can see the doll is very happy with it, it's just that I might want to crochet again at some point, and it would be useful to know what I need to do to do it properly.