Monday 10th November - Bake a cake

 It's on the November list, and I've done it!

I made a fruit cake, the first in my annual quest for a Christmas Cake that we will both like. 

This was a pretty quick and basic effort. I started with the usual 2-egg Victoria sponge all-in-one method that I nearly always use; 2 eggs, 4 oz each of soft butter, sugar and self-raising flour. This time I used 2 oz black treacle - what a game-changer those squeezy bottles are - and a scant 2 ounces of light brown sugar. It all went into the bowl together with around 2 teaspoons of mixed spice. When it was all well combined I added around 10 ounces of mixed fruit.

I reduced the sugar because the fruit is sweet. I'd also normally want a tablespoon of milk to loosen the batter when mixing but I think the liquid in the treacle was enough. 

Then I cooked it in the airfryer, for 50 minutes at 150C. 

Verdict - a good flavour, possibly a little under baked in the middle, and a bit sticky. I doubt we'll have any difficulty finishing it though!

The Great Joy for me is being able to make the cake at all! Last week has been tough. All that sitting around and being so cautious about doing anything at all has driven me slightly stir-crazy. I had planned to get out and be more active instead of going into slump for Autumn and Winter. But this the chart of my step count from Friday 31st October  to Wednesday 5th November - I was regularly getting to 3000 steps per day, then.... struggling to get to 200...

Step chart for 7 days up to Wednesday morning.

Today has been different - I'm looking forward to this week. I might even get to 1000 today...