A little bit of baking

When I do my main shopping (usually around pay day) I try to buy in enough ingredients for the month so that I can make my own bread, do a little bit of cake baking, make puddings.  I have found sticking as much to a basic list month in month out usually makes sure that I have enough ingredients in house so to speak to have a go at a lot of basic stuff and a few fanciful things as well. You have to have something nice every so often to tickle the taste buds otherwise things get monotonous and people lose enthusiasm for what they are eating and life in general.  I have a set few things that I tend to make week in week out, like some scones, butterfly cakes, muffins, chocolate refrigerator cake, flapjacks, a swiss roll or a victoria sandwich and some tea breads and then I sometimes make a treacle tart, mini fruit pies or mince pies as well.  It depends very much on what time is available to me in any one week and sometimes I batch bake and then store the basic cake in the freezer and when it has defrosted then I decorate.  I also freeze pastry cakes uncooked so they can literally just be slipped into the oven from frozen and voila a fresh batch of something nice when you are in a hurry or someone drops round unexpectedly.

When you have children in the house, something sweet something nice is a big treat and somewhat of a necessity.  I know when I used to have my two at home, I used to do a batch bake every week and used to put my baked goods to cool on top of the chest freezer; needless to say "helping hands" used to intervene and the produce would disappear very quickly.