curiouswombat: (Bake on)
[personal profile] curiouswombat
We are currently in the midst of the TT motorcycle festival which, for me, means I am making what feels like industrial quantities of carrot cake - not to mention chocolate cake, chocolate brownies, flapjack, gingerbread... We sell filled baps, hot pasty, and lots and lots of home-made cakes at church to the spectators, as our church grounds are an excellent spot to watch the racing.

So this was yesterday's baking in my house -

carrot cake and chocolate cake

That was the third 18 piece carrot cake I've made, and I will make at least one more. The chocolate cakes behind, together, come to the same size but somehow, on that angle, they look a lot smaller. I know now that these are 'sheet cakes' - thank you [livejournal.com profile] bojojoti - in this case dark chocolate with chocolate frosting and fudge chunks.

I've also done 3 trays of chocolate brownie, 2 trays of oat flapjack, and one of gingerbread the same size as the carrot cake. And D-d has also been turning out her specialities - cherry frangipan, fruit flapjack, rocky road and tiffin. I reckon, just between the two of us, our personal cake sales will raise about £170 - and our input is about 10% of the whole!

For something completely different, there are a few pictures I took a week or more ago, just of the sea, and a stairway to nowhere...

A nice sunny day with a bit of a breeze to put the white horses on the sea - a good day for dog walking. And a rather lonely staircase to nowhere...


Steps to nowhere

sea Ramsey 2

seaRamsey 1

Oh - and a picture I took for [livejournal.com profile] photo_scavenger of a rather nice post box which serves a hamlet of about 6 or 7 houses in the west of the island;

stamp 2

Date: 05/06/2013 07:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] myrhiann.livejournal.com
Your cakes look nice, but it made me feel tired looking at them. They would have been a lot of work. I hope you made lots of money from the cake stall.

I was intrigued by the hotel, it looks impressive in the pics. It was a shame that it had to go. The stairway to nowhere is enclosed on either side by cycads, which are a plant endemic to Tasmania. A British botanist brought back a lot of Tasmanian plants in the 1980's or thereabouts, and they now grace the gardens of many stately homes in Britain. I only know this from viewing a British TV show called 'Lost Gardens'.

Date: 05/06/2013 09:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
We reckon to make about £2,000 on cake sales over the two weeks, apart from what we make on tea, coffee, the sandwiches, hot pasties, and hot-dogs! But you are right - my shoulder is sore from all the baking by now.

The hotel was rather past its prime by the time it eventually shut - and the company who bought it, and own the site, have built a smaller one a little closer into town, but still with nice sea views, so I guess it is what it is... The 'Manx palm trees' are Cordyline australis - which were brought here from New Zealand a long time ago, and thrive, weirdly.

Date: 06/06/2013 02:47 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Those trees also thrive on the Blackpool promenade. They are very hardy, and after all Tasmania can be a chilly place too. I actually meant to say about 1880. I saw one Cornwall garden which was a botanist's dream, many Tasmanian plants thriving there.

Date: 06/06/2013 08:07 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com
Yes - I realised that you meant the 1880s.

The cordylines do well in the parts of the UK washed by the gulf stream - you very rarely see them inland. They are known as 'Torquay palms' in the south of England.

Every Easter time we have to explain to the children at church that the palm trees in Jerusalem had different shaped leaves!

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