I’ve gone a little bit retro with this bake, I absolutely love English Madeleines but I haven’t made them for years. I used to bake them in my teens, they are so easy that this is almost a back-to-basics post. Unfortunately, English Madeleines have dropped...
I love Halloween. Not the scary, freaky Halloween of adults but the colourful, Nightmare Before Christmas Halloweenyness of children. The cutesy skeletons, cheeky ghosts, glowing pumpkins and the dressing up. As a child, we always had a Halloween party at Girl Guides. Guides was weekly...
I baked these absolutely delicious cakes to fill an afternoon while looking after two gorgeous little dogs, I had the idea pop into my head the day before and was dying to try it out. The sponge has a wonderful toffee flavour from dark muscovado...
One of the fun things about baking in other people’s kitchens is the random ingredients you come across, the stuff you wouldn’t normally buy or have never come across before. The house we are currently looking after is a family home, school children, therefore child...
I love baking with veggies, there is something very satisfying about putting something ridiculously healthy into a decadent treat. I mean, there is no way this cake is ‘healthy’ but surely it is better for you than regular chocolate cake. Some of those vitamins, minerals...
Continuing on the French theme {after the Madeleine baking I did in Paris} these chocolate and almond treats are cupcake versions of Reine De Saba cake from Julia Child’s classic work Mastering The Art of French Cooking, with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle. They are decadently...
Madeleines, some Parisian Baking Paris has always been top of my travel list, one of the closest cities that I have never visited. Just a short train journey away, I can’t believe it has taken me so long. We arrived via Eurostar on the 11th...
First off I’ll apologise for the photographs. These cakes were a bit of a rush job, in the evening. I didn’t have the time or the inclination for a creative picture, so you get them snapped on the tray they were transported to my nephew’s...
I finally managed to catch up with the Olympic Torch on Sunday morning. I have missed it by 24 hours in a few locations through our travels last month. Our paths eventually crossed in Redditch, a town not too far from Birmingham where my brother...
Chris took the van to Manchester for a lads weekend last friday, so I had a couple of homeless days by myself. I decided to get the train to Liverpool and go on an art gallery pilgrimage, something I’ve been wanting to do for ages. Liverpool...
The guys were up working in the attic all afternoon so I was on keep-an-eye-on-the-children duty. Bound to the house, it was a good opportunity to try to perfect my vegan carrot cupcake recipe as I am making them for a wedding in August. These...
These little shortbread gems are more of a production line than anything, the only baking involved is the easy-peasy biscuit bottoms. I used the homemade lemon curd left over from the Blue Meringues but you could, of course, buy a jar. As for the meringue...
A swiss roll to match my dotty pinny! This bake was born out of the need to use up the two cartons of fresh strawberries I had bought a couple of days before for 49p each. For cheap, reduced strawberries, these were surprisingly good when I...
Ok, so they’re not brilliantly blue, more of a slaty grey but cut them open and they reveal a deep purply-blue courtesy of a couple of spoonfuls of that old favourite of mine, ground freeze-dried blueberries. If you bought some to make the Blueberry Swirl...
We have spent a lovely week with friends camping in North Yorkshire. I did a little bit of baking in the van, including these Eton Mess Cupcakes which I baked, rather drunkenly, on Jubilee Bank Holiday Monday {well, I was running out of time to use...
Rhubarb is a fabulous fruity vegetable which we have for pud in many traditional ways, rhubarb crumble, rhubarb fool, rhubarb and custard. We are house sitting in a rural spot on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales for a week, looking after two gorgeous old dogs....
