Raspberry and Rose Layer Cake

This cake is not nearly as bad as it looks. It's very low in sugar, and despite all that cream, there is no other fat in the layers (thereby knocking out all the butter in a standard cake) - and you could always use a light cream. It can be made small or large - just double the quantities and make a larger diametre pancake (I made mine around 16cm - you could easily go up to about 25cm if your pan is big enough and you are an expert flipper.)

The best thing? It's a no-bake cake. The only thing you need to cook are the pancakes, and it's actually better if its made the day before serving.

Ingredients

For the pancakes (layers)

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup self raising flour
• butter for greasing pan (If yours is not a non-stick one)

Sarah's Summer Pudding

Summer Pudding. It's one of those things I wish I could like, but I just loathe the delivery. Yucky sliced white bread soaked in sloppy juice. The concept is great - oodles of magenta sugary bombs wrapped in a secret parcel, but I just keep on coming back to the bread, which would probably taste much better with a slice of plastic cheese on it. The name "Summer Pudding" should conjure feelings of sweetness and light, and yet it's been hijacked by a lump of soggy purple bread. So - here's MY summer pudding. So much better.

Ingredients:

• stale cake - enough to cover the bottom of your bowl
• mixed berries - twice the volume of your cake - make sure at least 1/3 is tinned in juice.
• white chocolate (about 100 - 150g)
• whipping cream (same volume as cake)

Bananaberry muffins

I'm not much of a baker. As you might be able to tell from the blog description, I abhor measuring and weighing and being pedantic - it's just not me. Added to that, in Dubai, bread is cheap. I can buy 10 perfect little iced cupcakes from Spinneys for 10 Dirhams - that's less than $3US. I couldn't even do shake and bake for that price. Added to that, I'm overweight and my husband is wheat intolerant, so even if I make something gorgeous, only the kids eat it - and they would prefer the Spinneys cupcakes. Why would I want to bake?

Two reasons - the first is that it makes us feel good. Baking is an old school activity, from way back in the day when Mother didn't work, because Mothers were mothers. They had time to bake, and their families expected it because there weren't any such things as Spinneys cupcakes. And when kids came home from school on the local horse and cart, they would run inside and eat Mother's delicious baked thingies and think she was the most wonderful thing in the world. Then they would eat liver and brussel sprouts for dinner. Baking makes us feel like accomplished domestic goddesses - we can do everything Granny did, and we can "Facebook"...