Carbonnade and Cakes

If you read this  post you will know that I have been having the long-awaited beef stew for tea this week. As I haven't done a Freestyle Friday in a while, I decided to do something a little different with it yesterday. It wasn't terribly exciting, but it did taste good. I made the stew into a cheap version of beef carbonnade. In the proper version, you take slices of a baguette, dip them into the stew 'juices', turn them over and lay them on top. Then bake the whole thing until the bread starts to crisp up. I however, used supermarket own brand wholemeal bread! No it obviously wasn't quite the same thing, but I don't care... I never said it was an authentice carbonnade ;) Now, the only photo I took was blurry, and I didn't realise until afterwards (I was hungry and in a hurry to eat!), but I do have something else to show you...

... the cakes! It was one of my housemate's birthdays on Tuesday, and as per tradition when it is someone's birthday (friend/flatmate/housemate/stranger on the street...) I always make something. This time, I decided on (with a little help from my mum!) traditional fairycakes. I did put my own spin on them though... The recipe book simply covered the cakes with buttercream, but as I had some rather special jam, I thought I would go one step further and do the whole wings thing and everything. The jam I used was raspeberry and vodka flavour! I thought it would be perfect for a birthday treat. They all went in less than a day, so safe to say they went down very well indeed.

Sprinkled with a little icing sugar to finish.