Are you taking part in Stir Up Sunday today? Stir up Sunday is celebrated the last Sunday before the season of advent when traditionally people made their Christmas puddings. I’ve already blogged about Lyle’s Mary Christmases campaign which sounds fun but I was contacted by Yeo Valley too, who think 2013 is all about the revival of the homemade Christmas Pudding; apparently it’s falling out of favour as the traditional pudding on Christmas Day. I’ll admit to enjoying some Christmas pud despite over indulging with turkey and pigs in blankets. How about you? Yeo Valley offered to send me a…
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Today was the school Halloween party and the toddler has been very excited about it. This morning we went last minute shopping for some outfits and when we got home we baked some extra special gingerbread men, or gingerdead men, to get us in the mood for the party. I made my favourite gingerbread recipe but with an added dollop of black treacle to give them some extra flavour. Lyle have launched a limited edition ‘Trick Or Treacle’ which we used last year to make some sticky ginger cakes which were delicious. After the biscuits had baked we decorated them with…
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After a very busy morning we came home and baked. We are a family who loves to bake so everyone helped making White Chocolate Chip and Vanilla Cupcakes. We were kindly sent a selection of products from Dr. Oetker so used their white chocolate chips and handy baking powder sachets. They smelled delicious and the children enjoyed licking the spoons whilst the cakes were in the oven. As the children were ‘helping’ they really wanted to decorate them with everything we had! We made a milk chocolate and white chocolate ganache using bars of the Fine Cooks’ Chocolate, covered the cupcakes and let the…
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I was sent some new baking products and thought I would make some flowery treats as autumn has definitely arrived here in London. There’s nothing like a batch of cakes to cheer our house up and these definitely did the trick. They were pretty fun to make too. Easy Flowerpot Cupcakes I made a normal batch of vanilla cupcakes in these fun silicon flowerpot cases from Dunelm Mill, cooking them for about 20 minutes at gas mark 4. I decorated them with a green buttercream for the grass, and slices of marshmallow dipped in red edible glitter to look like…
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When we were gripped by the horrible heatwave I really didn’t feel like baking. However, now it’s a little cooler I have been very happy to get back in my kitchen and bake! This morning I had a good look through my favourite baking recipes and decided to make ice cream cone cupcakes. We’ve been eating plenty of ice creams so I used left over cones, flat-bottomed for ease of baking 🙂 I whipped up some cake mixture using my favourite vanilla cupcake recipe and had lots of help from my two little helpers. We then added an equal amount…
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I was invited to take part in a baking challenge from Renshaw Baking who have over 100 years of baking and cake decorating expertise. The challenge was to create an original Royal Baby themed cake which I thought sounded quite fun. Baby cakes (fit for a prince or princess) We all love a Victoria sandwich and it’s a bit of a tea time classic so I made one following my favourite recipe. I wanted to use a 20cm square cake tin so first I weighed 4 eggs, then weighed out the same amount of butter, self raising flour and caster…
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How are you treating the Dad in your family this year? We’ve booked a delicious Sunday lunch in a nearby pub, I’m very happy I don’t have to slave over a hot stove for once! As a treat for my husband I’ve been busy baking some Flourless Double Chocolate Brownies. We don’t have any intolerances but we all adore brownies and this recipe sounded interesting! I’ve never baked without using flour before but I followed the recipe for Flourless Double Chocolate Brownies (gluten free) on the Dr Oetker website. The only slight change I made was to bake my brownies in…
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It’s so cold today, I can’t really believe it’s the middle of May. This morning we went to the annual May Fair at the toddlers new Nursery (he starts in September and I can’t wait!). When we got back he really wanted to have a picnic lunch in the garden but the chilly weather meant we enjoyed lunch looking at the garden rather than sitting in it. To cheer ourselves up we thought we’d take part in the latest Centre Parcs challenge. Creepy crawly cupcakes We wanted to make something special for our picnic which meant making sure we had…
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I can’t believe we’ve spent two weeks in our new house. It’s flown by and the place totally feels like home, despite having a room full of boxes waiting to be unpacked. The only slight dampener on our spirits has been the weather turning from glorious sunshine to stormy in the space of a couple of days. What better way to cheer ourselves up that with a spot of baking. The toddler was sent a cute little Miffy apron to review. Did you know that June 21st marks Miffy’s 58th birthday? We think she looks great for her age! We…
