being kate

My two eldest often joke that something mystical happens to me at 4pm and the Engish woman in me slowly starts to appear, and no matter what else may be happening in our lives EVERYTHING stops for afternoon tea. In Algeria everything stops at roughly the same for coffee, and people take great care in most houses to have things set out properly...especially if guests are around. In our house, more often than not... there will be a fresh cloth on the table a jar of weeds..sorry a beautiful posy..handpicked by dd11 and some sort cake or baked goodness. Having said that though, it's sometimes as simple as a bought brioche and some buttered baguette, but those teas are nowhere near as satisfying. There is something significant in being able to meet up at a more relaxed part of the day, after the rush of getting to school and before the misery of trying to get everyone into bed at the right time..and actually having the time to listen to what's been going on in each others day....

 
I have a smallish kitchen in our rented house, and no work space.. so the dinner table that lives up one end of our sitting room also doubles as my prep area

anything and everything..from cake to dolma gets made at this table... and then once assembled back to the kitchen for cooking

my poorly bubba who has been brave in the face of the most horrible teething pain, helped mama make chelsea buns this week... the yummy cake at the top of the page is a carrot cake the recipe for which is...

4 eggs

1 cup of oil

a cup and a half sugar

 1 sachet of baking powder

2tsps cinnamon

 2 cups of flour

 1 cup of golden sultanas

 2 cups of grated carrot

 and the method is a s simple as mixing all the dry together (leaving the carrots and sultanas to last) mixing all the wet ingredients together, then mixing the wet to the dry. Then stir in the carrots and sultanas, and pur into a greased and floured tin. It really couldn't get any easier!

 I guess our cake takes about 30-40 minutes to cook in our one temperature oven, so proceed with caution on the baking front and bake as you know your own oven to bake best....

Oh, and happy teatime!