Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Passion Cake

Yesterday before I started on the housework, the bain of my life, the thing I despise, I had a cup of tea but something was missing.  No all the ironing was clearly there waiting for me, the breakfast plates still on the table, sink full of washing up, junk everywhere.  The thing that was missing was cake.  So I jumped right up and got making this yummy Passion cake.  Anything to avoid the housework! 

That word 'carrot' cannot be uttered in this house as for sure the kids would go running to the hills, so I renamed it passion cake and the fact there are carrots in are never ever mentioned!  Being a sharing sort of person, I thought I would share such yumminess with you all.

As it is a healthy cake - got fruit, veg, nuts and fibre - I can't possibly cook it with the kids in the house, so with much sadness I had to leave the ironing yesterday morning in order to bake some cakes.

(Healthy) Ingredients





8oz wholemeal self raising flour (fibre)
5oz soft brown sugar
1/4 pint sunflower oil 
2 eggs 
4oz walnuts (nuts)
4oz sultanas (fruit)
2 ripe bananas (fruit)
1 carrot (vegetable)
2 tea spoon baking powder
1/2 tea spoon ground cinnamon

If you don't like nuts or sultanas they can be left out.  As you can see I didn't add walnuts, as I didn't have enough to go in the cake as well as decorate the top.

This recipe makes a 1lb loaf and 3 muffins or 2 x 7" round cakes or 12 muffins.


Method

Heat oven to 160

Grate carrot.
chop/mash bananas

Place everything in a bowl and mix.  







That simple!

Cook for 45 mins to 1 hour for loaf/cake.  
Muffins 25 to 30 mins



Leave to cool




Yummy Frosting
(the not so healthy bit)

6oz full fat soft cheese 
2oz softened butter
4oz icing sugar
couple of drops of vanilla essence

Place all of the ingredients in a bowl & mix.

Spread over the cooled cake




If you like it can be decorated with walnut halves or marzipan carrots (at this point I'd only got some walnuts!)

Slice & enjoy with a lovely cup of tea (at this point you can think about doing some housework but it is really NOT recommended)

Now groovy mums, this is my predicament; I need to lose weight and I need motivation to do the housework.  Diets bore me, housework bores me.

I can go on a diet for 4/5 weeks max and have great results then I just get bored.  Housework, well, this is a temporary place to live until I sell the house in the Midlands and it is tiny.  Just not enough room and always in a mess.  Physical health issues make housework hard too and sadly no money for a cleaner.  The chaos gets me down and I comfort eat.  Big cycle going on here.

What do you suggest?

I'll just sit here with another piece of cake and a piping hot cup of tea while you ponder over some answers to this big problem of mine as I am just stuck in a rut and don't know where to go.

Linking up with Kate for Groovy Mums.

8 comments:

Louise Barrett said...

Perhaps make a deal with yourself. You can only have cake if all the housework is done. That is a workout in itself. If not house work then what about going for a brisk walk then having cake.

I exercise so that I can eat cake. It is the deal I made with myself and, fingers crossed, it is working well for me. I have lost just over stone since October.

Louise
@LJB41

PS: that cake looks awesome. I am defo going to cook that! ;-)

kateonthinice said...

Love this post and the cake!
Housework - systems and little and often seems to work best for me
Play music and dance your way through it.
Use colourful cleaning cloths - I know that sounds dafts but it helps me
Cake and losing weight - bake for cake sales and don't eat it or just have a little.
More exercise.
And whatever you decide, don't beat yourself up

Glasgow Mummy said...

I also have weight to lose but love cake!
This one looks yummy!!
What about sharing your home bakes with the neighbours? That's what I used to do and it ensured that I didn't eat all the goodies myself!

Anne said...

This looks divine! Carrot cake is my favourite.

Hannah said...

This looks so yummy! You don't need a diet you need a lifestyle change! I hate diets even the word bores me haha. Little and often as far as food, exercise and yes, even the housework are concerned! XX

Sounding Like My Mother said...

I agree with Hannah, you need a lifestyle change. You need to be in the zone with losing weight I've found and an occasional treat is fine. Don't look at it as complete failure, just pick up where you've left off and keep at it.

Lisa-Jane said...

Get the kids to help (or get out of the way!) / little and often / treat yourself after / do it fast and then it counts as exercise / find something active that you LOVE / find what is it that bores you about diets and then find one that fits around that (maybe try the 5:2 if it fits with your other issues?)

alexa said...

This recipe looks scrumptious ( though I'd probably forgo the icing). Looks like you've had lots of good advice already so the only thing I could offer is : how do you want to feel? What makes you feel like that already or would if you did it? Now go do it and keep the feeling alive on an hourly basis :).