• Gingerbread Wonderland by Mimi Sinclair
    competition - gingerbread - homestyle

    Win a copy of Gingerbread Wonderland by Mima Sinclair

    April 16, 2016 - By 

    In our house gingerbread is a treat all year round. There’s something about the smell and taste which I find very comforting. I’m always happy to mix up some dough and spend a happy afternoon cutting out shapes, I think gingerbread makes the best after school treat! Ages ago I discovered Gingerbread Wonderland by Mima Sinclair. I’ve tried a few of the recipes and the light and dark gingerbread doughs are lovely. I used the light gingerbread dough to make Clangers and Iron Golem biscuits, both of which were a success. The book contains many more ideas than two different…

  • baking - birthday - crafts - Kids crafts

    10 crafts to celebrate the Queens 90th birthday

    April 14, 2016 - By 

    Next week Queen Elizabeth II will celebrate her 90th birthday (April 21st 2016). She will be in Windsor on her birthday and in the evening she will light the principal beacon which will set in train a series of over 900 beacons across the country and worldwide. More events will be taking place in May including The Queen’s 90th Birthday Celebration (a 90-minute long extravaganza with 900 horses and more than 1,500 riders and performers, held every evening from May 12 to 15, with the Queen attending on the final evening); National Service of Thanksgiving at St. Paul’s Cathedral; The Queen’s Birthday Parade on Horse…

  • The BFG's Grobswitchy Cake
    baking - crafts - Roald Dahl crafts

    The BFG’s Grobswitchy Cake

    April 10, 2016 - By 

    My 6 year old has been working his way through the Roald Dahl books and the latest is The BFG. As soon as we started reading it he asked what crafts we could make, so we looked through our copy of Roald Dahl’s Completely Revolting Recipes and found a recipe for The BFG’s Grobswitchy Cake. “It is a little bit like mixing a cake’, the BFG said. ‘If you is putting the right amounts of all the different things into it, you is making the cake come out any way you want, sugary, splongy, curranty, Christmassy or grobswitchy. It is…

  • baking

    Baking bear buns with a small person (what could go wrong!)

    March 16, 2016 - By 

    Sometimes my children ask to make things which I never think about . This shouldn’t surprise me as they love to craft and bake and it’s always fun to try something new. The other day my daughter asked to make bread which scared me a little as I normally stick to cakes and biscuits. She had found a recipe in her Paddington Annual which she kept asking to make. Thankfully my husband offered to help her as he is the baker of the family. Baking bear buns To make 12 bear buns we needed strong white bread flour, yeast, salt,…

  • baking - days out - Easter - Family Life - Kids crafts

    Getting ready for Easter with Matalan

    March 12, 2016 - By 

    The children enjoy Easter almost as much as Christmas and we love to make Easter cards and decorations, bake Easter treats and go on an Easter egg hunt. This year Matalan kindly sent us a big basket full of their Easter range to show you. Over the last few days we have been busy trying everything out. I usually pop into Matalan to buy clothes for the children. They are always great quality and wear well. I seem to have missed a trick though as I didn’t realise they sell so many other things! The children have already made their…

  • baking

    Tunnocks Caramel Wafer Rocky Road recipe

    March 8, 2016 - By 

    I had never made Rocky Road until recently. My obsession with Tunnock’s products is continuing and, after the success of my last few baking experiments, I decided to add a couple of Tunnocks Caramel Wafer bars to Rocky Road and see what happened. I found a Nigella Lawson recipe for Rocky Road and followed that, you can find it here. I already had all the ingredients I needed so it was simple to make, I just substituted 2 Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer bars for the biscuits. As you can see, they were quite crumbly but that didn’t seem to matter. This…

  • baking - Kids crafts

    Mr McGregor’s chocolate patch cake

    March 2, 2016 - By 

    Did you know that this year we are celebrating 150 Years of Beatrix Potter? She is most famous for the Peter Rabbit stories which she wrote and illustrated, but was also a successful businesswoman, botanist, conservationist and farmer. Later this month we will be taking part in a blog tour to help celebrate 150 years of Beatrix Potter. We’ve been re-reading all our favourite Beatrix Potter tales which inspired our weekend bake, Mr McGregor’s chocolate patch cake. Mr McGregor’s chocolate patch cake First I baked a rather delicious chocolate tray bake with some help from the little people (mainly they…

  • Make your own Clanger inspired gingerbread biscuits
    baking - gingerbread

    Gingerbread Clanger biscuits

    February 5, 2016 - By 

    Did you have a favourite tv programme when you were a child? I loved the Clangers and Rentaghost and I’m glad the Clangers are still around for my children to enjoy. My  5 year old loves Tiny, Small and Major and somehow an episode of the Clangers has made it into his bedtime routine. Make your own Clanger inspired gingerbread biscuits I thought I should whip up some gingerbread Clanger biscuits for him as an after school treat. I used the light gingerbread recipe from Gingerbread Wonderland which I also used for our Gingerbread Iron Golem biscuits and copied a…

  • baking

    Tunnocks Tea Cake Cupcakes

    January 27, 2016 - By 

    A couple of weeks ago I tried baking with my favourite tea time snacks – Tunnock’s Caramel Wafers. The results were pretty special, definitely enough to warrant another baking session with another Tunnock’s products, Tunnock’s Tea Cakes. My Tunnocks’ habit began whilst I was at University and I still have a bit of a soft spot for pretty much any Tunnocks treat. Have you ever tried at Tunnocks’ Tea Cake? They are really yummy with a delicious marshmallow centre. Tunnocks Tea Cake Cupcakes I made my Tunnocks Tea Cake Cupcakes the same way as my previous bake, whipping up a…