It was my Husband’s birthday last week and I set about doing some making and baking with Alice again. She loves scribbling on cards and I’ve put together a big crafty stash for her – some card blanks, pencils, papers with different textures and patterns, and loads of embellishments – her particular favourites at the moment are googly eyes and racing cars!!

To add to the lovely card Alice made and her expertly chosen present (a lego policeman on a motorbike), we did some baking. Well, you can’t have a birthday without some cake now can you?!

As usual I ended up doing all the weighing and mixing, whilst Alice decorated rich tea biscuits and gingerbread men.

I used a Delia Smith all-in-one sponge method and added some ‘extras’ from the baking cupboard. There were some vanilla sponge cakes with added walnuts and rasins, and some chocolate sponge cakes with some chewy chocolatey bits. They only took 15 minutes in the oven at 170. I was very impressed with the simplicity of these cakes. I topped the chocolate ones with chocolate spread and then Alice added some chocolate finishing touches.

It was a Happy Birthday all round!!

Happy crafting xx