An afternoon in the kitchen with Bob.

The grandchildren and I have not done any baking together for a while. Fifi manages to do baking at home by herself and now the twins are older Bob and his mum usually do some one day a week as part of Bobs home education so little need for me to do much with them. But last week I had gone to watch the twins while their mum did a few bits and pieces and was then coming back up the road to bake. So Bob came with me, was a brilliant afternoon with laughs at his mad antics.

We did two types of baking, Bob friendly and some stuff that wasn't. This is important for him as we feel he needs to learn how to make food with ingredients in that he is not allowed so he learns to handle the products safely.

So as hubby and I had been out blackberry ( bramble) picking on Wednesday first off all we decided to make something with them. So I peeled some pears and Bob chopped, we then added pears and blackberries to the pan and cook them up ready to make crumble. We made two crumbles, one gluten free one not but both dairy free.

Pear and Blackberry crumble Preparation time: 15 minutes Cook time: 20 Serves: 4 Ingredients 2 oz vitalite 2 oz sugar 2 pears 8 oz blackberries 4 oz gluten free self raising flour or 4 oz Self Raising flour Directions Peel and chop pears Place pears and blackberries into a pan with a small amount of water and cook for five minutes. Preheat oven to 170 oC (Fan) or 180 oC (none fan) Rub marge and sugar into flour until mixture resembles breadcrumbs Place cooked fruit mix into a shallow baking tin and top with the crumble mix Cook for approx 20 mins until browned. Serve with custard, cream or ice cream. Note - we used home made custard with coconut milk for Bob and I.

crumble with soya cream

Lemon Cakes Preparation time: 10 minutes Cook time: 10 Serves: 6 Ingredients 4 oz vitalite 4 oz sugar zest of a lemon juice of a lemon 1 mashed banana (egg substitute) 8 oz gluten free self raising flour Directions cream butter and sugar. add lemon zest and mashed banana and stir well stir in flour and lemon juice cook in batches in cake maker ( makes 20 small) , or alternatively at 160 oC for 12 mins ( makes 12) Variations eat plain or make a lemon drizzle topping

lemon cakes

Bob grated the zest off of the lemon.

zesting the lemon

 I love to eat lemons so I was having a suck at what was left and Bob asked for a bit, so being the nice grandma I am I gave him a bit.

its a bit sour

Once we had cleared all Bobs items out of the way we set about making an adaptation to a cake I had seen on another blog a few weeks back. Helen made this chocolate orange birthday cake and I had to give a version of it a try.

Orange and chocolate cake

Prep Time: 30 mins plus cooling time,

Cooking Time: 20 mins

Servings: 8

Ingredients

for the cake

• 4 oz sugar
• 4 oz dairy free margarine
• 2 eggs
• 8 oz self raising flour
• 2 tspn vanilla extract

making the jelly

for the centre

• one orange jelly
• half pint water

the ganache

for the topping

• 250 ml soya cream
• 250 g dark chocolate

Directions

1. Make the jelly according to the packet but only use half pint of water. Pour into a sandwich tin to set

2. Cream margarine and sugar together
3. add eggs and vanilla
4. stir in flour and add a small amount of water if too thick.
5. Split into two greased sandwich tins and cook at 160 oC for approx 15 mins until cooked through

6. break chocolate into small pieces in a bowl
7. heat cream to nearly boiling point
8. pour over chocolate, leave to sit for 2 minutes and stir until chocolate is combined.
9. leave to cool.

Once jelly is set and cake is cooled remove jelly from tin and place on one half of the cake. Sandwich together and top with cooled topping. Decorate with slices of tangerine.

nicely layered

ready to eat

While we were at it we also cooked up some more blackberries, strained the liquid off and made it up to a pint, then made a home made jelly with vege set. Popped the blackberries in and left them to set. Very nice they were too.

blackberry jelly