Raymond Briggs's The Snowman and Father (bloomin') Christmas are my two favourite Christmas films and books. My son even has pictures of them on his bedroom wall all year round. So these cakes from Waitrose may very well be a must. The trouble is, which one?
Each cake consists of vanilla sponge with raspberry jam, buttercream and soft icing. £12.99 from Waitrose Entertaining.
Now, I don't usually get excited about tea towels as I hate washing up but this one from John Lewis is so lovely I had to mention it. It is part of a range which includes oven gloves, an apron, cake tins and more.
Prices from £6.
Chocolate brownies are heaven. That's if they are made the way I like them. Slightly crispy on the outside with a deliciously chewy inside. (Gah. I'm making my mouth water).
The best recipe I've found is in, believe it or not, Annabel Karmel's Feeding Your Baby & Toddler book, which I've adapted slightly to include lots more chunks of chocolate.
Ingredients
Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot.
I have always loved Bonfire Night. As a girl I remember mushy peas in polystyrene cups (with mint sauce for those who liked it - I didn't), a big bonfire and fireworks at my local Scout Hut and my mum's bonfire toffee recipe (ooh, I must find that out).
On the BBC Good Food website there are lots of recipe ideas if you are hosting your own party, including this gorgeous one for Campfire Cupcakes. Which, to be fair, would be proper scrumptious any time of the year.
I feel very privileged to be hosting the Heaven Can Wait blog tour on the birthday of the author, Cally Taylor. Happy Birthday Cally! And look, I've made you a birthday cake.
It’s the night before Lucy’s wedding. She’s marrying the man of her dreams; kind, handsome, funny Dan. Everything’s going to plan and she’ll next see Dan as she walks up the aisle, but then Lucy falls from a ladder and breaks her neck. And, as is the way when people die, Lucy wakes to find herself in Limbo (halfway between Heaven and Earth) and with a decision to make. She can go to Heaven and wait for Dan to die or she can attempt to pass a task which will enable her to live as a ghost on Earth. Unable to accept a lifetime’s separation from her soul mate, Lucy decides that she’ll face the task. But, there’s a problem. Becoming a ghost isn’t as straight forward as Lucy had hoped and she finds herself living in the House of Wannabe Ghosts, which is grotty student-style accommodation in North London. Lucy has only three weeks to complete her almost impossible task. Things are ridiculously hard. And then when Lucy discovers that her so-called friend Anna is determined to make a move on the heart-broken, vulnerable Dan, the pressure is truly on…
Hello Cally and welcome to Simply Bake. As you might expect from a cake blog I'm afraid the questions will be food related.
What is your writing routine? Do you have a particular snack or drink when writing?
I normally write in the evenings and at the weekends. I spend at lot of time at the laptop in my bedroom for my day job and decided to buy a Netbook so I didn’t have to sit in the same place for twelve hours a day! Now, when I write, I sit on the sofa in the living room with my Netbook on my lap.
I used to be a terrible snacker – chocolate was my favourite reward for writing – but that had to stop because I was writing every day, eating chocolate every day and was at serious risk of a bad case of ‘writer’s arse’!
These days I have a drink on the table next to me instead. Normally it’s coffee, diet coke (I’m a bit of an addict) or water. On a day when the words just won’t come it’s a glass of wine!
Continue reading "Heaven Can Wait by Cally Taylor - Blog Tour" »
Over on the Little Stuff blog I have recipes for Bread & Butter Pudding and Eggy Bread which I make for both my children (and husband).
Some recipes make the whole process of baking cakes too complicated. There is the sifting of flour, adding flour to the eggs as you beat them to prevent curdling (or something like that) and lots of other stuff, which, if you're a little unsure, can be incredibly off putting. So any recipe I give on this site will be sticking to the basics. Not telling you how I, or you, should be doing it, but simply how I do do it (and believe me there is a big difference). And it still tastes delicious.
Over the cut is my recipe for a really dense, chocolatey cake. With whipped cream.
But then I saw this one.
And I knew it was The One.
Spray Flowers Cake Stand from Cath Kidston priced at £20.
Bananas. Hmm. Not my favourite fruit. In fact, I can't stand them. Their taste, their smell and their texture. But then, if you put them in a cake. Yum, yum, yum. I find them delicious. (I know I'm weird. I also don't like raisins and raisin type things but LOVE Christmas pudding but conversely can't stand Christmas cake).
My bananas were slowly rotting in the fruit bowl, I'd bought too many, so I decided to make muffins. Looking through my copious recipe books the one that appealed was in Rachel Allen's Bake. They are called 30 day muffins because the basic batter can be kept in the fridge for up to thirty days. You can add anything to this batter - rhubarb and strawberry, cherry and almond or apple and raisin are given as examples. I wanted banana because of the leftover fruit and, surprisingly, because I had some opened maple syrup in the cupboard. (This syrup should have been chucked after being open for more than a month. I'd had it opened for about a year - but it smelt fine to me.)
The results? Mmmm. I liked the addition of bran in the muffins and the sunflower oil gives them a smoother appearance and taste. Definitely one to repeat. I managed to make about 24 muffins, although that could have stretched to about 2. Next time I'm going to experiment with apple and cinnamon (with no raisins at all).
Now I'm not normally one to celebrate Halloween, scrooge that I am, but these lovely cookie cutters (£5.99 from Lakeland) may well encourage me to do a little bit of Halloween baking this year. You can also get Halloween chocolate moulds and cupcake cases.
