Birthday surprises! And make your own birthday cake.

Well I have had a lovely birthday today. I was most excited to be given a Nike+ sports band (pink one!) to complement my running. This may see an end to my notebooks with lists of runs and times. Or maybe I will still keep them just in case the computer loses the info.

The weather was not that great (wind and rain is not a good mix for a day out) so we have postponed until tomorrow. So instead I made myself a birthday cake (carrot cake from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook). I cooked it in 2 tins instead of 3 (only have 2 that are the same size) so it needed longer. Also it said to use double the amount of cream cheese frosting but one lot seemed plenty. You can tell this is an American recipe book! Yet again I forgot about using the electric whisk for the icing, so used it for the cake batter and then got all hot and bothered making the icing by hand. I think next time I would make normal cream cheese icing (cream cheese plus icing sugar) instead of their recipe (which also has butter in it). The finishing touch was to sprinkle it with cinnamon, which would also be good to hide any lumps in the icing! Let’s face it, cinnamon makes most things taste even better.

The two of us went into the garden while the rain had stopped and managed to plant all the purchases from yesterday. The wind had battered the garden a bit though and a lot of the tulips had been blown over. Once that was done we came inside for a cup of tea (and a slice of yummy carrot cake) to warm up because it was freezing outside.

I also made some flapjacks to take to work (from Rachel’s Food for Living book)- they seemed to turn out really well. Sometimes when I make flapjacks they are too gooey and they all stick in the tin, or they are too crumbly and turn into granola when I slice them. I would definitely use the recipe again; at the bottom of the page there were ideas to make other flavour ones (ginger ones sound nice) so it’s a recipe that can be adapted.

I was also given a book about women’s running, some chai tea from Whitards (I had chocolate chai for Christmas which was yummy, am looking forward to seeing what they one is like- it’s chai tea but without black tea so just cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and a few other spices), some pretty butterfly and dragonfly sculpture things for the garden, and a lovely pink cake stand. Watch this space for my creations being displayed on a pretty cake stand instead of a plate (or the lid of a tub).

I am hoping that tomorrow I will have enough energy after my day trip that I squeeze in a run so I can try out my new toy, it’s all so exciting!!!