International Blog Swap Day!

Today is international blog swap day and I have had the privilege of sharing my blog with Kelly from Domestic Goddesque! Kelly is from England, as you will learn and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share her post with you all! Enjoy ...

Greetings from the other side of the globe, and thank you for taking the time to read the first sentence of this post. I'm Kelly, I live in the Kent countryside, in the South East of England.

I say countryside, but my nearest supermarket is a five minute drive, and hospital is a half-an-hour away. My husband can be at his desk in Central London in an hour and twenty minutes so I'm guessing that some of the readers who live in the more removed parts of Oz are actually rolling on the floor laughing about now. So, sorry: that’s why I thanked you for reading the first sentence- in case you didn’t get any further!

I should also apologise now as all I know about Australia I learned from Neighbours, Home and Away and Heartbreak High. But hey, everyone has their cross to bear. In the spirit of Not Knowing, I have come to the very tolerant Middle Class Mamas blog today to share with you a recipe: a take on a classic British Treat, the Bakewell Tart. This basically scoops up all the Bakewell flavours- almonds, cherries and so on, and pus them into a cake. Less effort, same taste.

Bakewell Cake:

100g Ground Almonds

150g butter

150g caster sugar

150gSelf Raising Flour

2 eggs, beaten

1 tsp Almond Essence

200g fresh cherries, stoned.

Handful each Demerara Sugar and Flaked Almonds

Preheat your oven to 180C.

Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin (you could use a small round cake tin if you don’t have one.)

Measure out the flour and almonds into a bowl. Roll the cherries so that they are coated (this helps prevent them sinking into the cake whilst cooking. Put both cherries and flour/almond mix to one side.

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy then beat in the eggs, adding one at a time until well blended. Add the almond essence and mix in.

Fold in the flour/almond mix, then pour half into the loaf tin. Press half the cherries into the mix. Top with the remaining almond mixture. Press in the last of the cherries, then sprinkle with the Demerara sugar and flaked almonds.

Bake for about 50 minutes until golden. And enjoy mid-morning with a cup of tea ☺

Kelly is the face behind the vintage silhouette at Domestic Goddesque, is part of The Motherhood, and is a Contributing Editor at BritMums. She has recently moved beyond the fringes of Greater London to the Kent countryside (though still within eyeline of the M25) and has added a few chickens to the family menagerie. Her day is spent chauffeuring children, learning how to cook with an Aga and encouraging the hens to lay eggs and trying not confuse the three. She is mother to two absurdly photogenic girls, wife to her beloved DH and master to the Wonder Hound. She drinks a lot of coffee and spends time on social media to make up for the fact that she doesn’t get out much. You can find Domestic Goddesque on Twitter,Facebook, Google +, Pinterest and Instagram. Do stop by and say hello!