From time to time I get rather bored of all my cake recipes and seriously hanker for something new and a bit more interesting. It was on one of these occasions that I came up with my super easy Pistachio cake recipe. I had looked around for a similar recipe but they all called for ingredients I just didn’t have and seemed overly complicated for what I had in mind. With this in mind I created this lovely sweet treat, it’s a wonderful moist cake with a denser texture than a simple sponge. The flavour is then truly highlighted by a Cardamom cream topping.
What You’ll Need for the cake
100g/4oz Pistachios (shelled)
4 Eggs
225g/8oz Self Raising Flour
225g/8oz Butter
170g/6oz Caster Sugar
55g/2oz Soft Brown Sugar
Cardamom Cream Topping
Seeds from 6 cardamom pods
100g/4oz Butter
200g/7oz Icing Sugar
200ml/7 fl oz Double Cream
Method
Cream together the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl.
Sieve the flour into the mixing bowl and then add the rest of the ingredients and whisk to form a cake batter.
Chop the pistachios (not too finely, we want a bit of texture in the cake) and fold into the mixture.
Scoop the batter into a prepared cake tin and bake in an oven 180C/ 350F / Gas Mark 4 for 55 minutes – 1hour or until the cake is cooked all the way through. Cool on a wire rack.
Topping
Once the cake has cooled begin making the topping. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Grind the cardamom seeds in a pestle and mortar and add to the mixture. Pour in the cream and whisk until the topping is light and fluffy and easy to spread.
Spread onto the top of your cake and then admire your handiwork.
Finally grab a cup of tea and enjoy a slice!
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This year our Blackberry bush has decided to produce fruit rather early and my children picked a bumper crop over the weekend. As much as I love a good pudding the weather was so hot and muggy that baking didn’t feel very appealing, so we needed a super quick and easy recipe to use up the berries. Therefore in today’s blog I’m going to share the most quick and easy blackberry pie recipe that I know!
What You’ll Need
1 block of shop bought Puff Pastry (I keep some in the freezer for just this kind of occasion)
550g Fresh Blackberries
125g Soft brown sugar
Preheat your oven to 180C/ 350F/ Gas Mark 4
Start by preparing your Blackberries. If they are shop bought then they will just need a quick wash, however hand picked garden berries need to be soaked in cold water for awhile to make sure any resident bugs etc. float up to the surface. After removing any bugs give your berries a final rinse under the tap.
Next you need to roll out the pastry. Dust your worktop with plain flour and roll out thinly. It needs to cover the bottom and sides of your pie dish, but as it’s puff pastry don’t worry about a fold here or there, you wont notice it once baked.
Cut any excess from the sides.
In a large bowl mix together the brown sugar and blackberries. Tip the berries into the bottom of the lined pie dish.
Using the remaining pastry roll out a top for your pie and lay across the dish, pushing the edges together with your fingers to seal. Cut a couple of steam holes into the centre of your pie.
Bake in the oven for approximately 25 minutes or until golden and risen.
Eat warm with oodles of custard and/or cream and ice cream.
Tip. This pie is full of juice, if you would rather have a firmer filling then the berries will need to be precooked or a little thickening added (such as cornflour).
I have long been fascinated by the skill required to make stop motion animations. Most of which I can probably attribute to watching the Wallace & Gromit films from Aardman animation every Christmas as a child. I vividly remember my attempts at animating my jointed teddy bears and other toys, they weren’t all that amazing 🙁 So when I was asked to review the Hue Animation Studio with my kids I was more than enthusiastic to agree 🙂
Here’s the official product blurb:
TheHue Animation Studio contains everything a budding animator needs to begin creating stop motion animation videos. Children can discover, imagine and create stop-motion animation through powerful, easy-to-use, animation software complete with Hue’s market leading Plug ‘n’ Play HD camera with built-in microphone and a unique flexible neck for unlimited positioning options.
The software (used in schools and at home) helps children to create simple visual adaptations using toys, modelling clay, play figures and stop-frame animation techniques. The process of animating with the Hue Animation Studio encourages children to learn a diverse range of skills in both a fun and stimulating way. They can create a story, create characters, make them from clay or plasticine, design and make sets, compose soundtracks or select appropriate recorded music to enhance a film.
Whether you’re five or 95, you can’t go wrong with Hue’s full feature animation suite!
Excited… just a little bit! We received a red camera, I know that has nothing to do with the performance of the product but I always appreciate an attempt to be aesthetically pleasing.
My twins wrote a story together and set about building props from Lego. Their film also included a Mollie Makes hedgehog and a Sylvanian Family rabbit. They did need a little help and direction, but the included software suite is very straightforward and easy to use. Within minutes they were animating.
The camera takes still pictures which then appear on your computer screen, when you are ready to take the next still you see a ghost of your previous image which makes it easy to place your model(s) in slightly different poses while making sure they don’t jump about. I love love love this feature, especially when our youngest kept stealing the props and running away with them! Once the film was complete my husband read out their story to lay over the video.
Here is their completed film, I feel immensely proud of them! Plus I think the whole process was extremely educational. They used:
Teamwork and cooperation to compose their story
Penmanship and English to write their script
Dexterity and Imagination in prop building
Concentration and Patience to animate
All very valuable life skills I think.
The animation studio isn’t just for kids though, here’s my husband’s first little animation of a Sylvanian Family wedding dance. It’s such good fun it’s hard to stop animating! The program also has an option to upload your videos, we chose to host ours on YouTube.
I should also point out that we didn’t have the best lighting on the day we made these films, with a nicer background image and better lighting I think we could have produced even crisper films!
Would I recommend this product?
Definitely! No longer do you need prohibitively expensive equipment or even great skill to animate. This product helps you to make genuine animations in minutes!
Could it be improved in anyway?
I’m struggling to think how. Maybe an option to upgrade the camera to a higher spec if you really find yourself hooked, but otherwise no, it’s great!
From time to time I get rather bored of all my cake recipes and seriously hanker for something new and a bit more interesting. It was on one of these occasions that I came up with my super easy Pistachio cake recipe. I had looked around for a similar recipe but they all called for ingredients I just didn’t have and seemed overly complicated for what I had in mind. With this in mind I created this lovely sweet treat, it’s a wonderful moist cake with a denser texture than a simple sponge. The flavour is then truly highlighted by a Cardamom cream topping.
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