Hello Dear Reader,

Before I get onto today’s frugal and lovely cake, if you want, would you nominate me for a blog awards? The button is on the right of your screen. Thanks xxxxx

This is a thank you cake. I couldn’t think of a suitable present so I resorted to lemon drizzle cake. It’s a nice quick and easy cake to make.

10oz SR Four,
10oz butter (I use Utterly Butterly as it’s on offer)
5 eggs (they weigh 2oz each)
10oz sugar.
Zest of one lemon.

Put the lot in a bowl and either beat together or mix with a hand held electric mixer. Pour into two greased or lined 7″ cake tins.

Cook for 30 minutes on 180 (celius.) degrees - you can do the conversion for your cooker. Just google it.

Whilst cooling make the filling and topping.

Filling - Lemon butter icing.
Zest of one lemon,
8oz of icing sugar
3oz of butter (I use a cheap substitute)

Beat together until you have a soft frosting finish. Now leave in the fridge until you want it.

Lemon topping.
Juice of one lemon.
4oz of granulated sugar.
Mix together.

Assembling the cake - allow to totally cool. Spoon some of the lemon topping onto one of the sponges, but leave the main for the topping. Now use a palette knife to spread the lemon butter icing onto one of the sponges. Put the other sponge on top. Now carefully spoon the lemon topping all over it, some will soak in creating the sticky lemony topping.

Chill until you want to eat it.

Or………………….give to someone as a gift, or take to a fundraiser or make one for the local fete.

Until tomorrow,

Love Froogs

It’s a very long way to Christmas but sloe gin has to be one of those winter treats to be savoured and sipped out of tiny glasses. It’s great to offer a ‘nip’ to visitors who arrive as the nights draw in. In Tescos it is £15.99 a bottle…………..but you don’t imagine I bought any, did you?
Another yummy sipping drink is raspberry vodka, which is almost as delicious as blackberry vodka and again £15.99 in Tesco and again, I didn’t buy any!
What I did buy was a bottle of Tesco ‘value’ vodka at £7.97 and Tesco value gin at £7.97 and a punnet of raspberries which were reduced to 29p. You take 200g of sugar and 200g of sloes, which you prick to release the flavour, add them to a bottle along with a dash of almond essence and top up with gin, leave until Christmas, sieve and drink in moderation as it will now be a sipping liqueur. You do the same raspberry vodka, to which you add a dash of vanilla extract/essence. They will both be ready by Christmas…..and yes! I have used two old ketchup bottles for the raspberry vodka. In a few months, I’ll show you what they turned in to.
Today, I decided to make red onion marmalade, but I must have sauteed the onions in too much butter because the whole affair turned into nothing more than red onion soup. I had bought the red onions, the malt vinegar and the soft brown sugar, which are all expensive and I was not going to waste them. I quickly washed, quartered and cored the apples I found growing next to the car park of Mole Valley farmers and threw them into the bubbling mixture.

I just kept adding what I had until I had something tasty and edible. As it was so ‘loose’ I decided that it might make a good marinade for chops or chicken pieces so I added a liberal amount of ground ginger, some sweet chilli sauce and then blitzed it with my hand blender to make a ‘sauce’. However the pectin content of the apples has thickened this and the result is a spreadable, spicy chutneyish sauce. I’ve called it a chutney as ‘saucy kind of stuff that you can spread on cheese, chops or put onto any meat’ wouldn’t fit on the label.

I’m glad I saved it as I certainly wouldn’t wanted to have wasted half a bag of sugar, half a bottle of vinegar and a pack of onions!