Oh the fourth day of Solstice my Thelma made for me...

Strawberry sauce.

So easy. And great when you have something like donuts or chocolate/fruit that needs something extra. It's so quick and instant though that it's easy to whip up to store! You could freeze it as it won't keep in the fridge for long, and always have strawberry sauce/flavour.

Strawberry sauce
100g strawberries
4T icing sugar (about 70-80g of raw sugar, blended down)
1 dash of vanilla
1 squeeze of lemon

Pull the tops off the strawberries and throw into the bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients. Blend down on speed 3 for 10 seconds then up to 6 for another 10. Taste and add more sugar if it's too tart.

On the third day of Solstice, my Thelma made eggy custard for me!

Anyone else struggle just a bit with how "eggy" the EDC custard is? I do. I don't mind it but given that TheHusband and I eat a whole serve of it, that's a whole egg each which does seem to be a lot of egg. And even with less cornflour the custard is still really eggy.

So next time I'll reduce it to:

Vanilla custard
1 egg
500mL full cream milk
80g sugar
1/2tsp of the best vanilla paste possible
35g cornflour

Put all of these in the jug. Cook for 8 minutes on speed 6, at 90 degrees. It will change tune a couple of times and that is really awesome to listen to!

Cake! Stunning cake! Lemon poppyseed in this case.

I made a cake this morning before an Australian Breastfeeding Association meeting. I made a lemon-poppyseed cake (thin-skinned lemons with lots of juice) which was delicious and still warm when I got to the meeting. I didn't make the icing in the Tmx but it was so.good. that I licked the bowl out.

Lemon-poppyseed cake
Rind of one lemon - dry it on paper towel so it doesn't just stick to the edges
250g raw sugar
1/2tsp of the best vanilla extract you can get your hands on
175g butter
4 bantam eggs and 1 humungous egg (or else 3 normal-sized eggs)
60g milk
Juice of the lemon
250g selfraising flour
30g poppyseeds
A pinch of cinnamon

Icing
75g white chocolate dots
1T sour cream
A drop or two of vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 175C. Spray a cake tin - I used a circular one from Ikea with hearts on it! Place the rind and sugar in the Tmx and process for 5-10 seconds at speed 7. Add the butter and eggs and process for 15 seconds at speed 6 if the butter is straight out of the fridge. You should cut it into small pieces if this is the case so it processes easily. Add the juice by squeezing the lemon onto the top of the Tmx lid when the MC is in place - this catches the seeds! Sweep the seeds off before you open the lid though. Add the flour and cinnamon, and mix for 30 seconds at speed 4. Add the poppyseeds and mix for an extra few seconds to incorporate. Pour into cake tin and bake for 45 minutes. Check that it's cooked then cool before icing.

To make the icing - melt the buttons in the microwave (takes about a minute). Add the sour cream and the vanilla, stir well and drizzle over the cooled cake. I did it over still-warm cake and it was fine.

This was inspired by the EDC book but is not quite the same as I'd heard the crumb wasn't particularly fabulous with that recipe (it used plain flour and baking powder, and I also adjusted the process to reduce the speed as the recipe goes on).

Keeps for a few days if it lasts that long. Lem