Don't Get the Wrong Idea

This isn't a food blog and I make no pretensions about being a good cook. In fact I remember years ago a new bride proudly telling me that in the month she and her husband had been married she had served up a different meal to her husband every night. At the time, I thought that I probably couldn't claim to having made 30 different meals even though we'd been married several years (of course, I'd feed my husband every night - or most nights - but we often had similar meals from one week to the next). I might have passed the 30 mark by now but I tend to stick with tried-'n'-true recipes that I can whip up quickly and which I know my family will eat (I must admit though that I've been blessed with a family that will eat just about anything).

Today is my day off, and as often happens on my day off, I had the urge to get in the kitchen and do some baking so that when the boys arrive home from school they'll be greeted at the front door with the smell of baking and will have something for their afternoon tea. I'm not even sure why I feel this urge. I enjoy doing things for my family, but this picture of the mother waiting at the door with cookies and milk is not one I ever experienced growing up.

My mother worked full-time and it was Dad who, having worked an early shift, cared for my sister and I when we arrived home from school. I can never remember Dad baking a cake or biscuit in his life! For years Mum thought he cooked our evening meal, but it wasn't until my sister and I left home, and Mum was puzzled that Dad seemed so inept in the kitchen that she learnt that it was actually my sister and I who had cooked most of the evening meals for all those years!

I do however have a vivid picture of visiting a neighbour who had five children and walking into her kitchen filled with the most delicious aromas. Perhaps that's where my urge to bake for my sons comes from.

Anyway, I now have a slice cooling in the kitchen and the boys should be home soon to enjoy it. I used the recipe from here but had to change it a little. I had no chocolate chips so I used walnuts instead (they've been sitting in a bowl all winter and it was about time they got used up); I substituted wholemeal flour for the plain flour and doubled the baking powder; I used butter instead of margarine (in my mind margarine is just one step away from eating plastic); omitted the salt (I rarely use salt in baking); used coarse-ground rolled oats; and baked it as one big slice rather than as individual biscuits (it took about 15 minutes this way). Then I drizzled chocolate icing over the top and cut it into squares ready to eat. It's as the recipe says: crunchy on the outside and chewy in the middle. Mine are a little crumbly but that might just be because I tried to cut it up when it was still warm.

I just hope the boys like it now. And for the moment at least, the picture of the perfect Mum remains intact.

[For those that showed an interest in my Fruity Fruit Cake recipe I've now edited the post to include a photo.]