As you read this, we will be laying out picnic rugs beneath trees by our beautiful harbour and setting up plates of sugar (well, mixed with other things to make cakes and slice and biscuits, but mostly sugar) and after blowing out birthday candles, we’ll be heading home with bags filled with even more sugar.

It is Bubba’s second birthday on Monday and we’re having a little, very low-key brunch picnic today with family and a couple of friends to celebrate.

And as low-key as I insisted it be, of course that still means I get to bake! I have had a couple of kitchen fails this week. I would go so far as to say epic kitchen fails.

I know, right? Crazy! A girl doesn’t get the nickname Martha because she can’t cook. All I can say is that it happens to the best of us.

Seemingly though, it only happens to me when following recipes to the letter. My usual plan is to look through recipe books, Pinterest boards and magazines for ideas, then kind of wing it in the kitchen. When I do that, things go okay.

This week, however, I had earmarked a couple of pages in a magazine and followed the recipes to the letter. The result? Dry muffins and a batch of ‘crispies’ that were more mushies. So bad were the latter that I didn’t even attempt to serve them to anyone.

The muffins were okay warmed a little with a cuppa. Well, the first few at least. They got thrown out on day two.

So, back to my way of cooking. You know the old saying … if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!