For my birthday back in March I asked my husband to buy me Betty Crocker’s Gingerbread Cake & Cookie Mix. I’m not even sure where I saw it but I can’t resist gingerbread so had to have it. The best before date was today so I finally got round to baking it. I really wish I hadn’t bothered! It was horrible 🙁 The mix makes gingerbread cake or cookie mix (naturally flavoured!) and I chose gingerbread cake. I don’t know what went wrong as it smelled delicious, but it didn’t bake properly. I served it with custard to try and…
-
-
I was asked if I would like to try Truvia sweetener, which is a calorie-free sweetener from the stevia leaf. It has the consistency of sugar and is an innovation in food, working great in all sorts of recipes from your good old hearty meals to refreshing drinks. My husband has been using it as a sugar substitute in his hot drinks and I tried it in baking, whipping up a delicious batch of scones. The scones tasted lovely although I made sure to slightly lower the temperature of the oven and baked the scones for an extra 5 minutes…
-
I’ve always loved baking but The Great British Bake Off has really encouraged me to be a bit more adventurous with my baking. I still have baking disasters (too many to mention) but I love baking and seeing people enjoy what I’ve made. The new series of The Great British Bake Off aired this week and a new iPhone app is available to download for the first time (priced £2.99). The app contains fifty fabulous recipes to whip up at home and are all based on The Great British Bake Off books published by BBC Books in conjunction with Love…
-
The Mothership has come to stay. I needed to pull out all the stops to impress her so thought I would try the delicious Lemon & Lime Drizzle from the Half-Baked Cake Co. What could be better than readymake cake mixture in a case, made with real kitchen cupboard ingredients, in a box? The Half-Baked Cake Co. use only the finest ingredients such as free-range eggs, patisserie flour and real butter. Finishing this cake off was simple as there’s no need for any other ingredients or even a baking tray! Just take out of the fridge, remove the packaging and…
-
I had a definite fancy for Victoria sandwich today, so- called because Queen Victoria favoured a slice with her afternoon tea. I really wanted to make miniature sponges though as they look so delicious and you get to eat a whole sponge yourself without being too greedy! For the cake I used: 200g caster sugar 200g softened butter 4 eggs , beaten 200g self-raising flour 1 tsp baking powder 2 tbsp milk The finished cake batter was generously spooned into muffin cases, baked and left to cool. When cool, each cake was sliced in half, one half spread in buttercream…
-
I looked at my toddler the other day and realised he was dressed head to foot in Thomas clothes – hat, jumper, tshirt, shorts, socks <sigh>. I love him to bits but his Thomas obsession is everywhere! Fortunately for him we were sent some brilliant sugarettes from JustBake who sell all kinds of cupcake decorations, featuring the little blue engine and two of his friends to use at our next baking session. Hard to believe right now but last week it was raining so we got out the measuring bowl and got baking. We made some simple fairy cakes (using…
-
I mentioned the other day how I really want to make more things for us to eat, less baking and more savoury would be good! The latest challenge from Foodies100 was perfectly timed, to come up with a new recipe for breakfast time using Almond Breeze almond milk. Breakfast is a tricky meal as the children are starving and I find it stressful ensuring they get something nutritious quickly. No matter how much food I give the toddler he is permanently hungry so I thought I would make a savoury muffin which would be equally great for my husband to…
-
As a home baker I love products which make it easy to whip up a batch of biscuits or cakes for the hungry hordes. I love the Dr Oetker range so was really pleased when they asked me to try out some of their latest products. We’re not usually a family who eats pudding but their chocolate brownie mix had a suggestion that it was perfect chopped up with ice cream. It was really easy to bake and everyone enjoyed it, especially the toddler who covered his with sprinkles. I also used some of their decorations to jazz up a…
-
Given my frequent mentions of the Queen of Print, Orla Kiely, it will come as no surprise I fell in love with these the moment I saw them. Paper cupcake wrappers featuring a very Orla Kiely-esque car print. I love this design and already have some luggage and a notebook featuring it so I thought these would be fun to use. I am the Queen of the packet mix so tried a Chocolate Muffin Mix from Tesco which I bought recently. The muffins were huge but don’t look too big in these lovely cupcake wrappers. I’ve only heard of…