Over the last few months, I've developed a bit of a thing for mini cupcakes.
Now, I like baking cakes anyway, but for some reason they seem to be even more tempting when bitesize. This hasn't been helped by discovering websites like Bakerella...
Tonight I've been experimenting a little... and have created some rather yummy apple and cinnamon cakes 
Here they are fresh out of the oven. I'd also like to point out that silicone cake cases are awesome.
Noting the recipe down for future reference:
- 1 egg
- 125g self raising flour
- 100g light muscovado sugar
- 75g (ish) butter
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 apple, chopped into tiny pieces
Mix everything up*, and cook for 18-20 mins. Then enjoy!
One thing I'm not good at, however, is icing tiny cakes. The last two attempts have ended up with more icing on my worktops than on the cakes, as it's never thick enough and runs off. So these are staying naked.
*yeah, I'm not one of those people who carefully creams the sugar and butter, then gently folds the rest in.. sod that!
Bye bye 2009.
The last few days of which were spent faffing about in South Wales. A little bit of surfing, a lot of food and drink, and a day of mountain biking.
We did most of the Penhydd trail at Afan - 12km rather than 17, as one bit was closed. Quite fun, although far too much uphill (I hate cycling uphill, so walked the bike...) and a couple of fairly terrifying descents. That can be explained by the 'red' grading of it 
I chose to ignore the warning signs ("Red Route - is this for you?" answer - probably not) and instead pretty much entirely wore out my rear brake pads trying to go slowly. haha. Also fell off once... unfortunately with everyone else watching. oops!
The rest of it was great though - plenty of muddy puddles to splash through 
(we won't mention the stream I ended up half standing in...)
Rather typically all the snow that had been forecast decided to wait until we were getting ready to leave to appear. boo! This has now been made up for by it snowing lots here today
...and all that.
I've finished work for the year Apparently since the end of June I've managed to take just one single day of holiday, so I'm probably due a break!
Presents are all bought and wrapped up, I've made (and scoffed) a lot of mince pies, and currently cooling in my kitchen is a mincemeat and marzipan tealoaf. yum yum.
Christmas shopping has been a bit of a dangerous one this year. As well as sucessfully buying all required presents, I seem to have treated myself to quite a few bits and bobs. A book, some poi, and today I mostly-accidentally bought myself a new camera. Er, oops.
In my defence, I've been after a new one for at least a year, and would have bought it in the sales if Canon weren't ending their £50 cashback offer tomorrow...
Other than that, it's still not snowing 
Gloucester seems to have done a very good job of entirely avoiding all the snow. Venture a few miles down the road into the Forest and there's plenty of it, but none here. Rubbish!
The news tells me that the entire country has ground to a halt, but all that means is that London/the South East got some.
My current favourite source of info is the #uksnow map. Geeky. And bonus points for being a useful use for twitter!
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