When Whitworths challenged me to use their lovely new sugars I wondered what I could make. Fortunately they have a handy section on their website which you can search by category or sugar type. It’s probably no surprise I have a bit of a sweet tooth. I love honeycomb so was excited to see a recipe for it on Whitworth’s website. I found it difficult to get the right consistency so I had a few attempts. Fortunatley you really don’t need many ingredients and it literally takes 5 minutes to heat and transfer to a tray to cool. Using Whitworths…
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Although we don’t take the children trick or treating I can’t resist making some sweet treats with them. This Halloween Lyle’s has revamped their traditional black treacle with the name ‘Trick or Treacle’ and turned the entire tin into a pumpkin head. It’s a really lovely collectable item so I snapped one up to go with my Lyle’s ‘Happy and Glorious’ Golden Syrup from the summer. They make great pen pots! Did you know you can use black treacle to make lots of yummy treats? There are some great recipes floating around for Halloween – how about Witches’ ribs with…
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It’s no secret I have a love of gingerbread. Biscuits or cake, I’m not fussy as long as it’s delicious. We were recently sent some gingerbread biscuits from Bee’s Bakery to try. They arrived beautifully packaged, carefully wrapped in paper, tied up with string. The first thing that struck me was the delicious smell followed by the unusual design of the biscuits. These are not just any biscuits – but an updated version of the jammie dodger – two delicious gingerbread biscuits sandwiched with a creamy filling. The top of each biscuit feature words or faces which you can customise…
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I have a really fun competition today for five lucky readers of the gingerbread house to win one of 5 tubs of Kelly’s of Cornwall ice cream. Don’t let the chill autumn air put you off as Cornwall’s leading ice cream producer, Kelly’s, is launching a nationwide search to find the ultimate home-made pudding recipe to serve with Kelly’s ice cream! Do you make the most sumptuous sticky toffee pudding? Have you got the best bread and butter pudding recipe in the county? Then this is your chance to don an apron, bring out the rolling pin and bake for…
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I was challenged to bake a family friendly recipe using Anchor Butter. I wanted to get my toddler involved as he loves baking so we made some yummy vanilla cupcakes. Ingredients: 125g Anchor butter 125g caster sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence 2 eggs 125g self-raising flour dash of milk Method: Cream the butter and sugar and add the vanilla essence. Beat the eggs and add to the mixture. Fold in the flour and add milk as necessary. Divide between 12 cases and bake for 15-20 minutes at 180ºC. I used the new silicone cupcake cases sent to us from Anchor.…
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We’ve just returned from a couple of days at my mum’s house. We got to do all our favourite activities. I went round the local charity shops (more Bob the Builder toys for the toddler), the husband flew his model aeroplane from the top of the local beauty spot and my mum kindly looked after the kids so me and my husband could spend the day at Yeo Valley, more of which later. My mum has one of those kettles which is always on, boiling water for cups of tea. She is constantly asking if we want a cup of…
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This week I have been on a bit of a roll, making home-made tomato soup as well as apple and blackberry crumble, thanks to our trip to the Pick Your Own farm at the weekend. A couple of weeks ago I picked up some Stork Easy to Mix Baking Liquid at the supermarket. I love trying new products but it has sat in the fridge for a good few weeks, with me lacking baking inspiration. This week is National Cupcake Week however, the perfect time to fill the cake tin, which everyone enjoys in our house! There are some handy…
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I was stupidly excited when I heard the people behind Mollie Makes were bringing out a new magazine called The Simple Things. I’ve decided that I need my monthly fix of craft eye candy, even if I’ve never made any of the cover gifts, to keep me sane. The idea behind The Simple Things is to embrace a simple life. This is what I need. My life is cluttered, my brain is cluttered, my house is cluttered. I picked up a copy, read through it and knew what we would be doing today. An article about picking fruit really struck a…
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I can’t believe the summer holidays are nearly over. We’re going away visiting family next week so I thought I should pull out all the stops to ensure we’ve had lots of inexpensive fun this week. We’ve been dodging the weather and making sure we spend as much time outdoors as we can. I bought the toddler a box of chunky chalks and he’s been having great fun drawing on the patio. Don’t forget there are lots more ideas for inexpensive play from Play England on Morrisons website. Yesterday we made our own modelling putty for the first time. I…