Birthday cakes, biscotti and fig preserve

Had a spurt of baking now that the kitchen is clear of flatmates. they are away because its august and august means everyone is on holiday in rome. half the shops around work are closed! back to the cake, this is Anne's birthday cake (a work colleague), it is her birthday tomorrow and i decided to start the celebrating early. because, thank goodness we dont work on saturdays!

used the Hershey black magic cake recipe because it is the best.

this is biscotti. i decided that since im in rome i should stop buying it and start learning how to make it myself. i know, it looks a bit strange but its going to be biscotti. i used an italian recipe and apparently traditionally it should be made without butter, only egg. and this was what i decided to do because you see i didnt have any butter left after the cake... so i used this recipe here and added lemon rind, cinnamon and roughly chopped almonds. it was very yummy

see it turned out okay

last but not least... the fig preserve.
i have been watching the fig tree we pass on the way to work everyday, for a sign of ripeness. today they were still as small as usual but i looked closer and some of them were splitting at the ends. so i picked a few and they were ripe! the tree is ina parking lot so im not sure whose property that would make the figs but theyre mine now. maybe theyre poisonous?



after reading a few recipes on preserved figs. i used some water, added some sugar, boiled it up, added some lemon pieces, cinnamon stick and popped them all in a leetle pot to stew away. stewed for a while then poured it in a jar...



and now im waiting for it to cool so that i can feast!!!

and all the while leetle diego was playing happily around my feet. little monster