Cake.
A couple of days ago I baked my first cake from the smashing Scandinavian book I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.
The first cake, a chocolate and apricot pound loaf didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. Kinda dry I felt, although The Mister had no complaints. It may well be down to the fact that my oven cooks a wee bit hot. So if I make it again I will turn it out earlier than the recommended hour and let it firm up in the hot loaf tin, outside the oven.
Next Wednesday I have some friends over for afternoon tea and will be making a second selection from the book, chocolate and coconut cake. The choice of cake was largely decided by the fact I have left over chocolate from the first one and a pack of desiccated coconut in the pantry.
I have also been 'pimping' up my bargain face cream from Lidl. I use their Cien Q10 moisturiser because I find it every bit as efficient as the Nivea Q10 one it replaced, at a fraction of the cost.
It is rather bland smelling though and I do like my face potions and lotions to have a strong floral fragrance. I usually only get a really fine fragranced one when I get free samples from Espa or Elemis. So to get the expensive salon effect I have added my own essential oil blend. Camomile, Rose Geranium and Frankincense. The latter being especially good for more mature skin. It smells divine and strangely, feels much better too.
I also put a few things on Ebay today:
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| a rather fetching Wade teapot |
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| and some pretty Ming sateen cotton fabric |
Lastly, I have been trying to understand some of the mysteries of my Blogger dashboard in a bid to improve my blog. And so I have to ask you dear blogging chums for some advice. I have discovered during my research into setting preferences that I have my custom robot txt and my robot header tags disabled. My question is should I enable them to help my SEO and are there any down sides to doing so?
Also how does one set up labels on the sidebar of a blog to categorize topics and subjects so that folk can find posts more easily.
Sorry about the homework, but if I can't ask you guys who can I ask?
Not much help to you on the 'custom robot txt?' I'm afraid, and as for labels on the sidebar... I set up a list, and try as I might can't for the life of me find where it is let alone how to change it. I am however extremely adept at disposing of any annoying leftover bits of chocolate and coconut cake you may have next week... give me your address and I will be round to rid you of the nuisance of it hanging about the kitchen making it look untidy. x
ReplyDeleteAh you did make me chuckle. Maybe next time I have a big blog anniversary I should send cake to all of my blogging chums. I think that would be a good thing to do.
ReplyDeleteJean
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Well this is how I did it using Blogger ...You add a label to a post on the top right hand corner of the post editor. You will see a text box in which you can type your label. The labels will appear under your post. This label will be available to select next time, making things quicker. You can then add a list of labels to your navigation menu for your readers to select; you go to Layout, select Add a Gadget and choose Labels. You can configure the Labels gadget to behave and look how you like by clicking Edit, i.e. alpha order, etc. Hope this helps..if you use Blogger!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much SAL, I will give it a go tomorrow.
DeleteJean
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You're talking a foreign language to me I'm afraid Jean. The computer bit, not the cakes. Cake I am fluent in! xx
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming your kind Mister has a high metabolism - or is so young that he doesn't have to worry about the carbs. Oh, to be youthful and care-free again!
ReplyDeleteHello Jean, I’ve just made myself a cup of tea, and I could really do with a slice of that delicious looking cake – any chance you could pop over with some??
ReplyDeleteI don’t even know what custom robot txt & the other thing you mentioned are. I hope someone explains it.
Regarding labels go to ‘Layout’ then ‘add a gadget’ go down the list of gadgets until you come to ‘labels’ and then following what it tells you to do. I’ve already got mine set so it’s a little difficult to go back to check how I did it, but I think the above is correct. Barbara x
Food porn!! lol. I try not to fiddle with blogger as my computer doesn't like working at the best of times x
ReplyDeleteHappy to see you got the labels up! I think the pound cake looks delicious - chocolate apricot, yum!
ReplyDeleteHi. Your cake looks so good. I'm sure your having a great time baking with this wonderful new cookbook!
ReplyDelete