Winter cupcakes

Jessica is hosting lots of yummy cosy winter and holiday recipes over at her blog Way Side Violet including my winter orange and amaretto cupcakes.

Swoon

Swoon towards the festive season with a copy of the latest Sweet Paul Magazine. I love every page, from the sugar jewels to the bloody Mathilda cocktail. Packed from cover to cover with beautiful photography, styling ideas and DIY projects, could this be the best issue ever?

All images Sweet Paul Magazine.

Eat Me

Party planning for the weekend, I need to make a chocolate dinosaur for a friends little girl in the style of George from Peppa Pig, and for Saturday night's cocktail party I am thinking Margarita cupcakes from the oh so pretty book Eat Me by Xanthe Milton. This book is so pretty and full of magical recipes perfect for a fairytale bake sale.

I am on the run this morning late for work as usual.
Back later.

I hope you all had a marvellous weekend.

Extra blankets

I woke up to find a light sprinkling of snow covering my street this morning, so I thought I would share some more lovely wintry pictures from around the UK. I so hope it stays for christmas. I know the whole country seems to grind to a halt and some people get a bit crazy when it snows, but I just see it as an opportunity stay home, pile extra blankets on the couch and make a round of cinnamon dusted churros.


Photos by Alexander Morag and Jan Ford over at The BBC weather gallery. Churos image from Cherry platter.

Ps. thank you so much for all your well wishes on my last post. Still beaming : )

A stollen a day

I have been out taking photos for an article about my town. On my travels I discovered one of the coffee shops had delicious mini stollen cakes for sale. Needless to say I have returned day after day this week to buy some to accompany my coffee. I also found this great recipe that looks very close to what I tasted so I am going to give it a whirl later today.
Do you have any favourite festive recipes to share? I have been gathering magazine pages for so long about christmas recipes, decorating, entertaining and gifts, I really must to knuckle down and finish collating them all in a book.

The beaded beauty

I recently went on an etsy spending spree. I am now the proud owner of a whole bunch of stunning glass beads from the lovely Caladonia March. I want to bead everything in sight with these beauties. Add some rhine stones and a bit of Mata Hari style dressing up.

PS the frittata recipe can be found in Jamie Oliver's Italy cookbook. But it is just pan fried then baked eggs, herbs, flat leaf parsley, lemon, chili flakes and fresh raw prawns cooked till pink, salt and pepper. I served it with leaves and pan fried sweet potatoes.

As promised

Lemon Lime and ginger cooler.

2/3 table spoons sugar
1 glug of maple syrup (optional)
1 inch fresh ginger peeled and grated
juice of 3 lemons
zest of 1 lemon
1 lime sliced
As a variation add a good handful of bruised mint leaves instead of lime slices.

Put sugar, maple syrup, grated ginger, lemon juice and zest in a 1 liter glass jug.
Pour on a little hot water to dissolve the sugar, mix well.
Top up with sparkling water add slices of lime and a ginger to garnish.
poor over ice.

Sit out in the garden and enjoy, or like us sit in the breeze of the open kitchen window and watch the summer street life.

next time

Your requests for the lemonade recipe have been noted. But I keep forgetting then run out of time! So I will be back later with that.

Double chocolate freckles

Everyone is sure to love a pretty biscuit. I took a batch to work and my colleagues descended on them like a locust storm! So I thought I'd share the recipe. I found this in an M&S cookies book. Still available if you are in the UK. They look so cute and dark topped are best for grown ups. For kids I would probably top them with melted white chocolate.

Double Chocolate Freckles

125g butter softened
165g firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
225g plain flour
35g self raising flour
35g cocoa powder
200g dark eating chocolate
(for a sweeter version you could use white chocolate instead)
sprinkles

1 Beat the butter sugar and egg in a bowl with an electric mixer until combined. Sift together the dry ingredients then stir half at a time in to the sugar, butter and egg mixture.

3 Knead dough on a floured surface until smooth, roll dough out until 5 mm thick. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

5 Preheat oven to 180c/160c fan assisted. Grease oven trays and line with baking parchment.

6 Using 3 cm and 5 cm rounds cut discs from the dough. place 3 cm rounds on one tray and 5 cm on another. Bake small cookies for 8-10 minutes then larger ones for 12 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

8 Melt the dark/white chocolate and spread on top of cooled cookies. Top with sprinkles. Leave to set at room temperature.


Yay! I just heard that one of my friends has had a sweet baby girl. So it looks as though I will be baking again very soon!


Recipe from Marks and Spencer.

Good flummery!

Thank you to all who participated in my giveaway, I am sorry that I didn't have enough flags to give one to each of you : (

For the lucky, you have my hubby to thank as he did the honors ; )

So without further ado congratulations to the three winners! I wish I were a ballerina, lola enchanted and hrsj. I will message each of you so you can mail me your address's. Have a lovely Wednesday evening. I can't believe it's half way through the week already, I am very much looking forward to doing some baking at the weekend. I found a sweet little book of old English puddings in a junk shop the other day and it had some fun recipes including Black currant flummery, Tafferty tart and Exmoor in and out. Not sure which of these tasty fruity treats to try out but I have a couple of days left to dream about it. Maybe you will help me decide?

Vintage buffet

Remember when food looked this good? Me either! I just love vintage cookery books. Found this one in a local antique store. Those little prawn stuffed tomatoes look so cheerful. Maybe a little weird but definitely cheerful. I wont be reconstructing them. But I'm thinking the domino biscuits. Happy tuesday.

Sugar clouds

Searching for marshmallow recipes today I stumbled across these gems. So beautiful, the colour of them and the dish combined is just perfect. I am crazy jealous of all the baking equipment and icing tools this girl has. Cake on the brain is so full on, check out her latest (epic!) project, It took four posts to document. A little someone is going to have a very special birthday! And it doesn't end there! I also think I caught a glimpse of some marshmallow fluff-filled bittersweet ganache-dipped chocolate madeleines. I'd be sure to investigate further if I was you!

All images from Cake on the brain

Gold and Black

Can't take my eyes off these stunning prints from Pica Pica design I love the dark brooding colour mix's and the combination of wild animals, children and patterns.
The colours in these fabulous prints lead nicely on to my next stop and the latest mouthwatering offerings from Cup cake bake shop. Pear, vanilla and chocolate. Boy o boy, am I just mad for cake all day everyday, and there are plenty of flavors to choose from in the recipe archives on this feast of a site!

Images from (top) Pica Pica design (bottom) Cup cake bake shop.

Tuesday so soon

Saturday I had a great day hanging out with a soon to be new mummy friend, in the sun with just a wrap to keep snug. Sunday had a promising sunny start so Dean and I popped to town to grab some more record cards and browse the estate agents windows again. A few flakes fell then a dash more. We decided snow was the perfect reason to spend the rest of the afternoon indoors keeping warm by baking. So with a new recipe book tucked under my arm and new icing bag in hand we made our way home. Two hour later we looked out of the window to see this! Thought I'd catch it on camera as it doesn't snow in the south of England very often. Unperturbed we braved the snow to visit some nearby friends with a batch of hot chocolate brownies and a plate piled high with hot Churro's, yummy spanish doughnut sticks. This recipe is from the new recipe book Piri Piri Starfish: Portugal Found by Tessa Kiros. This is such a beautiful book that paints your thoughts with pictures of age old traditions and a great big dose of happy family time spent around the kitchen table. I hope when you click on this image you can read the recipe.
we had great fun making these, mind the hot oil though!

Late now, as usual, will be back later with some thank you's!

Tooth cracking

Sunday was rainy. I entertained myself by making these easter cones from scraps of paper and fabric for a friends children. Said friend was very kind and invited me to easter lunch as the boy is away again. Monday was finding myself awake at 7am. I had invited my friend Emma-li round for lunch so what else to do at this hour? but bake. I tried this flapjack recipe from yarnstorm. I was carefully watching the clock, then decided to go change my bed sheets, took my eye off the ball for a second, over baked the flapjack. It turned out more like crunchy oaty butterscotch! Tasty but crunchy. Practice makes perfect and I must remember my oven is crazily hot. Burnt sweet complete I moved on to the boiling my first ham/gammon this turned out better. Served with the first of many spring salads, lunch was received well. Em is not afraid to embrace the experimental side of home baking! Just ask her about her unique recipe for banana cake!!