Well, foof! Having my mum to stay was great but rather exhausting. We Did Stuff every day, and frankly it would seem that I'm out of practice! Another reason to find a job.
I did manage to make two cakes, both from the Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache cook book. The first was Coconut, Lime and Blueberry Slice (which I made with lemons and raspberries, because I don't like lime much and I think blueberries are tasteless).
This was not a huge success. The idea is that you replace a traditional pastry base with coconut, but we (Ma, Mr G and I) decided that it didn't work flavour-wise, and fell off the filling rather too easily too. The filling itself tasted good (nice and tangy) but was a bit rubbery so not entirely appetising. So this one is consigned to the probably-won't-make-it-again pile.
And, on a diet note, the coconut base costs about twice as much in WeightWatchers points as normal pastry would.
The other one was more of a success. So much so that I forgot to photograph it until it was half gone...
It's Vanilla Cream and Raspberry Swiss Roll, only I used strawberries and Philadelphia in the filling instead. It's does look rather overwhelmingly 'cream' orientated in this photo, but the fact that it was Philly and therefore less fatty worked really well. I'll post the recipe later today or over the weekend.
On the sight seeing front, we went back to the Botanic Gardens in north Dublin and had a potter around the glasshouses and herbaceous borders, and had a delicious lunch in the cafe. I didn't take any photos of the cake selection but they all looked to die for, and if you think the swiss roll above has too much cream, you should have seen the roulades at the Bot Garden! Fortunately for my hips, I was too full for pudding (an unusual state indeed!).
Anyway, the Bot Garden has of course got more colourful since I went with Mr G a couple of months back...
Lots of Achilleas, which I love...
Hostas and geraniums...
Lillies about eight feet high...
Delphiniums in a myriad of blues...
... and a Cornus (but can't remember which one) in flower. I would love to have one of these in my garden. The flowers are the teeny tiny green bits in the middle, and the white 'petals' are actually bracts (modified leaves).
We also went to Newgrange in the Boyne Valley, but that's a whole 'nother post...
