Getting Started...

I wish I could play a musical instrument. I wish I had practiced as a child. I wish my mother hadn't (quite reasonably) allowed me to give up. Consequently I am reluctant to let Molly abandon the recorder even though daily practice almost inevitably results in one of us crying and rolling on the floor.

Yesterday, when I suggested that she might like to adhere more thoroughly to the music as written, rather than playing the notes freestyle, she decided to leave home. She stormed upstairs and began to pack her suitcase. I can only wonder what motivated her to include her yellow school swimming hat.

Anyway to cut a long story short, after some encouragement via facebook in response to the swimming hat post, I have decided to try writing a blog. As a result I am now entertaining fantasies of publishing deals, world domination and endless riches, in the style of JK Rowling. Predictably starting a blog has not turned out to be a simple process, I have spent most of the morning ignoring my family, trying to set up a new e-mail account and a new g-mail account, getting Colin to take a photograph of a fishfinger in my pocket and signing up for a blog. Not to mention fending off ever more desperate requests for breakfast, establishing that advent calendars may not be opened until Thursday and spending 40 minutes on the phone talking my irate mother through her dysfunctional e-mail programme. 

I have promised Molly that I will assist her in her quest to become Junior Bake Off champion 2013. Today this involves making cranberry and white chocolate muffins. Yesterday, with considerable guilt, I bought myself a holly leaf shaped plunger cutter, which will make me very happy as I will be able to create my very own embossed sugar paste holly leaves. The guilt was not so much about the cost of the cutter itself (£3.49 to which Colin's response was "How much?"), it was the additional expense of the nice red cupcake cases, the specialist 'holly green' food colouring and a large block of flower sugar paste. I did get a small amount of change from a £10 pound note, but since Colin has just finished work I am supposed to be economising and cutting back to essentials. In my mind, at the time, all four items seemed  fairly essential to producing Christmas cupcakes.

My other problem is that I have become mildly obsessed with airmiles, or Avios as they have now been rebranded. I have 15000, I need 40,000 to get myself and Colin to New York and back to celebrate my 40th birthday in 2013. The girls are not invited. I am mentally justifying most of my pre-christmas expenditure by consoling myself with the avios I am racking up.

Molly has just interrupted again, complaining that there is no number 19 on her advent calendar. Needless to say, there is. A mountain of washing is still awaiting my attention, the dishwasher needs emptying, the chickens need cleaning and Molly is already sorting out her ingredients...

Cranberry and White Chocolate Muffins

1. Measure and mix caster sugar and butter without too many problems.
2. Retrieve pebble weights from Donk's spaceship.
3. Berate sous-chef for eating aforementioned mixture.
4. Add more eggs than recommended due to smallness of eggs.
5. Pick out bits of shell and straw from mix.
6. Allow sous-chef to use handheld electric whisk to splatter mixture across worksurface.
7. Add plain flour, bicarb and baking powder carefully, emphasising importance of level spoonfuls.
8. Allow Sous chef to use electric whisk again, this time to create impressive dust clouds in kitchen.
9. Sous chef chokes on aforementioned dust cloud and falls off stool.
10. Add Craisins and whole bag of white chocolate chips.
11. Remind sous-chef repeatedly to put only a small dollop of mixture into lovely red cases, avoiding getting mixture all over tin, self and kitchen..
12. Banish sous-chef from kitchen and finish the job properly.

13. Closely supervise precarious placing of cakes in hot oven and bake for approximately 15 minutes.
14. Estimate remaining bake time, having forgotten to set timer.
15. Demand that sous-chef helps with washing up.
16. Order sous-chef out of kitchen and finish washing up properly.
17. Use lovely new plunger-cutter to make holly leaves from sugar paste, sprinkling liberally with edible green glitter.
18. Persuade sous-chef that marshmallow frosting involving whisking egg whites and sugar over a bain-marie is ambitious. Use ready rolled fondant left over from Halloween instead.
19. Use peach schnapps leftover from last Christmas mixed with apricot jam to glue fondant in place.
20. Forbid sous-chef from drinking peach schnapps.
21. Spend considerable amount of time making tiny balls of red fondant icing then dipping them in red edible glitter, becoming increasingly annoyed with sous chef, self and general unavailability of shiny red cake decorating ball type things.
22. Assemble cupcakes and allow sous-chef to take all credit for production of cupcakes.
23. Congratulate sous-chef and speculate on sous-chef's chances of victory on Junior Bake Off.
24. Abandon horrible mess in kitchen, ignore family and post on new and exciting blog.....