Week ending 27th July 2013

Another hot week again here in Devon, and once again I decided to increase the heat in my teeny kitchen with some baking, and although today the weather has been a little rainy - it is not any cooler!!

Four different recipes this week, none of which I have tried before, and I also used my brand new Madeleine tin for the very first time..... first picture before baking, second one taken after baking and is minus two which were sampled ;-). These are cherry almond Madeleines. 

I then made some shortbread, trying a different recipe using part plain flour and part rice flour, the result was beautifully short - this could be the way to go for shortbread I think, for me anyway.

I also made some strawberry rose cupcakes - the strawberry part was 4 ozs of jam incorporated in the cake mix and the rose part was rose water added to the pink butter icing - very nice and fragrant too.

And finally I made some chocolate orange cupcakes - orange zest in the cake mix and dark chocolate and cream for the ganache - it should have been orange flavoured chocolate but I couldn't find any in the supermarket on Thursday so I added a little orange essence to the cream and chocolate mix. It was also a huge quantity of ganache so have frozen the rest to use at a later date.

See you all again next week x

Week ending 20th July

Well what a hot week this has been and I decided to make my teeny kitchen even hotter than ever by baking again - who needs a sauna??!! 

I had a go at Mary Berry's Cherry and Almond tray-bake, some mini Dundee cakes from a recipe by Brendan Lynch (runner up in GBBO)  http://www.brendan-lynch.co.uk/, cherry bakewell cupcakes and some more macaroons - I love this and they are sooo easy.

Photos next:-

First the Cherry and Almond Tray-bake

mini Dundee cakes (I substituted the whiskey with brandy as I 

Cherry Bakewell cupcakes

and finally some macaroons before and after the rice paper had been trimmed

That's all for this week folks, thanks for visiting my page and see you again next week

July 2013

Well I have had another week of a little baking and also some batch cooking of meals, while its SOOO hot I thought it would be  good idea to do a lot at the same time - save time and energy too.

This week I have made a lemon drizzle tray bake, some blueberry muffins and some easy flapjacks. The baking recipes all came from Mary Berry's Baking Bible this week.  I have also bulk cooked lasagna, chilli and cottage pie, the latter three all now divided into portions and stored in my freezer.

So here goes with some pictures

Lemon drizzle cake 

Blueberry muffins next

Easy fast flapjacks

And now for my bulk cooking for freezer meals

Lasagna

Cottage Pie

and finally for this week chilli

Week ending 7th July

Well I am back to my baking and blog now after being away on holiday to the lovely sunny Caribbean island of Cuba, had a brilliant time and will put some pics up on my Facebook page very soon. I am also now back looking after my two small grandchildren in Surrey 3 days a week so could be slightly less baking time - well maybe......

So this week I have not done as much as I have only had four days but have made an apple cake, some oat and raisin cookies and my first attempt at naan breads to accompany our chicken curry yesterday. Time to look out my cook books again, maybe before the Murray match this afternoon, could read them in the garden with a nice cup of tea, or maybe even a Pimms? while its so lovely and sunny.


Here are the pics of my baking this weekend

First the apple cake

 Now the oat and raisin cookies 

and finally, for now anyway, the naans