Following the return from Sweden all the adults wanted was a quiet house for the day and no disturbance. That was fine for the teenager who wanted to spend her day doing art and watching Friends. I am watching her now, eyes intent on her paper and scissors whilst Chandler and Ross flit across the screen in front of her and every so often there will be a burst of laughter and she is back into her world. Will they be marking her knowing the subliminal influence that must run through it all.

For the younger daughter we had some baking to do. There had been a recipe that caught  my eye in the weekend paper from the previous week for a Sticky Ginger Cake. So when she said she wanted to make some cakes I got it out and said lets do this. She asked what ginger tasted like and did she like it? I played down the answer and anyway it had lots of syrup in it.

I am not a great cake maker but as we started to measure out the ingredients I was surprised that the cake needed only 25 gr of flour. We could have been heading for a disaster but I was able to get myself 2 minutes on this thing and established that it should have read 225 gr. After that it was a breeze apart from the arguing over who should be responsible for spooning the treacle and syrup out of the tins without making mess and who should lick the bowl.

One of the privileges of being an adult should be being able to clean out the bowl with your fingers without a parent to tell you off. And then you go make the mistake of having your own children and the little buggers want to lick out the bowl as well, So you end up in an unseemly fight round the kitchen as to who gets the last lick.

Having got that over with (daughter won) half the cake went in one go. Warm slices of dark cake on small white plates. The rest is now swaddled in grease-proof paper and foil slowly developing its flavour. It will be good tomorrow.

Next week we will have a go at Sticky Toffee Pudding.