What a week

 Grandson is in isolation; granddaughter is poorly; daughter is poorly; son-in-law has an infection and is now on antibiotics and feeling poorly; other son-in-law had his second jab yesterday and is suffering; husband is in trouble with his wrist; I have had my troubled tooth out and didn't do too well on it but am feeling better now although I got sent home from school a couple of days ago because I was struggling so much. Hopefully we will all be going uphill from here : )

Being poorly is one of the reasons that I have been working very hard to not only supply all the cake for the church coffeeshop since it reopened but also to stock up the freezers. This week, not being able to go and bake, I was confident that there was plenty in the freezer to keep them going. I would like to stock it up a bit more so that if there is an opportunity to go away for a few days, then I can go knowing that they will cope even if there is a mad rush on cake.

We were down at the allotment this morning. The warm weather and yesterday's rain have meant that the weeds are rampant. We were able to pull up lots of weeds today fairly easily because the soil was damp and I brought a big bucket of them home for the hens to pick over. The three grandchildren who are neither poorly nor in isolation came too and had a lovely time. It is lovely to spend time with them again and they are so proud of the little patches that are "theirs" where they have planted seeds and are watching their carrot/onions/radishes/sweetcorn/peas growing with great interest.  I have very tiny baby courgettes on the plants and am looking forward to them being a little bigger and having them for lunches again. I haven't dared have a carrot stick since I had the tooth out this week and I am missing some extra veg with my lunches.

New Cakes

 Life is very busy at the moment. If I am not at school then I am at the coffeeshop catching up on my baking and cooking. I am pleased to say that the freezer now looks as if I have been baking because it is filling up. for the first few weeks that the coffeeshop was open, it was hard to make enough for current use as well as some to put in the freezer. Now I have caught up a bit and am happy that if I were to be poorly (I hope not - but.......) or managed to get away for a few days over the summer ( I do hope so), the coffeeshop would survive without me.  I am responsible for all the shopping too so if I can stock up the storeroom and the fridges and freezers then they would only have to buy some milk from the nearby supermarket. I have to say that I am so pleased to have reached this point and I have put a lot of time and effort into it.

I have been doing a bit of research into new cake recipes to broaden the range a bit. I am finding that YouTube has a lot of experienced cakemakers and I have been watching their videos. A cake has to be worth the effort, has to look good, taste good, keep well and not be too expensive to make. We are a charity and ends have to meet! Some of the cakes I have made will not be appearing on the menu again but some will. I have to admit that it is fun to try new recipes. 

If you want to have a look on YouTube, then try Schnell Lecker Einfach or Il rifugio perfetto. One is Italian and the other German but you can press the button for English subtitles. I do smile sometimes at the literal translations from the original language.