looking for my mojo

I'm sure it's around here somewhere. 

Hello? … Mojo?

Dammit I need it. And totally do not have it. 

Right when it's all systems go, I seem to have hit the wall. Which could have something to do with about four weeks of religiously interrupted sleep (not just the six month old I must add. We could be running a good Catholic establishment here – up for Compline, Matins, Lauds. There's a bit of invoking the Lord's name on Adam's part which I guess might disqualify us.) 

Two. Weeks. Left.

As I am perennially guilty of burying fairly major news at the bottom of posts, may I refer you to the bottom of the previous post on Emily and the Wiggles?

Yep, we're moving to a distant green hill.

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And seriously, I'm not kidding about the tiled orange bench top. You wait. 

But after catering Christmas and keeping up the energy through a gorgeous celebratory New Year with friends, we seem to have ground to a halt. Well, I say "we" but actually I can smell the chemical not-home-made cleaner which Adam has just attacked the oven with. Plus he de-spidered all the outdoor furniture today ready to move it. And he has a Master List. And a clipboard. 

Obviously, notwithstanding my lethargy, I'm in good hands. Lucky!

Meanwhile, shall we have cake?

Here's one I made earlier. For Tilly's last day of daycare, actually. She wanted to take cupcakes, but has a couple of severely allergic kids in her class. So the cook gave me her "allergy-free" cake recipe and actually it's pretty good! 

I fiddled with it a bit and reduced the sugar, but it rises well and tastes like cake. (Doesn't have the heart of a good butter and eggs cake, but sometimes you need something different.)

Egg-free, dairy-free and you could easily sub in gluten-free flour, which I didn't need to for this group. 

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I made vanilla ones (above) for daycare but was pretty impressed with the simplicity of the recipe so made a chocolate batch for the next gathering of kids at my place to see how they went down. Quickly! Enthusiastically! 

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Egg-free, dairy-free Cupcakes.  

INGREDIENTS
3 cups self-raising flour

2 cups warm water

1.5 cups sugar 

Half cup vegetable oil

1 tsp white vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract (don't use imitation if you're making these for really sensitive kids)

 

METHOD

Prepare cupcake tins -either butter and flour them or use cases. My mix makes (weirdly) 23.

Combine all the ingredients together and whisk well until smooth then pour into pans. 

Bake at 160C (or 150 fan forced) until cooked and golden (approx 12 mins).

ICING: I mixed pure icing sugar and water to a paste and just piped it from a ziplock bag with the corner cut off. 

 

Right. Maybe my mojo is at the bottom of a cup of camomile tea. Better be somewhere. There is a giant bookcase waiting to be culled by 25% tonight. Yep, much smaller house, no built-in bookshelves. Adam is standing next to me with a determined look and a big box. 

P.S. If you find my mojo, please send it home? I'll send you back cupcakes with grins?

xxx 

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