When baking, follow directions. When cooking, go by your own taste. ~Laiko Bahrs

A first in the house of Sigga - I did some baking yesterday - the last time this was attempted was before Christmas in 1987,  Unnur and I thought we would try and be Icelandic and bake cookies and things.  Well, it was a disaster.   This time round I thought it time that I made the brown layer cake that is my favourite (for Christmas).  Thinking that I would need to do it a couple of times - well for a first attempt it wasn´t so bad.  I used mum's recipe - problem with recipes from mum - they often don't come with instructions - just ingredients......

This is the dough which then gets baked for about 10-12 minutes (I think I may have over baked it as it ended up too dry)

The next step is to put in the butter icing - yes it's just butter, icing sugar and eggs, - I forgot the vanilla essence - it wasn't listed as an ingredient - but is apparently a requirement.... oh well, next time  - the burnt offerings to the right are my biscuits - we made ginger nut and chocolate and coconut (they ended up very large...... again - will know better next time)

This is the final result - the taste is good, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

In other news Uncle Andres came today with the reward for all the work Olga and Ross have been doing - 4 lambs are now nestling in mums freezer... oh, except for the back that we are having for dinner tonight - yummy!!!  There will be lots of lamb on the menu this winter.... I also ordered half a pony the other day.  So, there is no chance that any of us will be short of food this winter.

Have a great week people.