Fold in the Flour ...

I can't believe that our little fella turned one yesterday. I have no idea where the last year has gone, but I know that what I have at the end of it makes me very proud and a very lucky mummy. I tried making Sam's birthday cake and then decorating it with sugarpaste - this is the first one I've attempted. I made my normal chocolate cake (find the recipe here ). I crumb coated it using some chocolate buttercream, then used some coloured Regalice in turquoise and orange to create a present effect. Sorry - couldn't get to it to take a decent daylight photo before it was eaten! I was pleased with how I managed to smooth the blue over the whole cake - as long as I used patience and gently smoothed it into place it didn't break. I made spots for the 'paper' and a matching bow and gift tag, which I then painted Sam's name on. It's not perfect I know, but for a first attempt I was really pleased with it and so thought I would share...

This month's Random Recipes challenge, hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen , has joined forces with Tea Time Treats via Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Kate at What Kate Baked . The idea was to randomly pick a tea time treat to cook and then blog about. So for me, the book that this challenge fell to was 'The Tea Time Cookbook' by Valerie Ferguson (although Amazon have it under a different title). It's in some ways an odd little book, with a mixture of recipes covering cakes, cookies, pies and tarts, breads, jams and jellies and then a section on decorated party cakes. Recipes are contributed by a number of authors, including Angela Boggiano, Roz Denny and Jeni Wright. Some of the content seems a bit dated - it was first published in 2007 - but I guess, though, that you'd be spoilt for choice when choosing something for tea. When I opened it, the recipe that the book chose for me was one for Chocolate Profiteroles. I was pretty pleased with this. I ...

Apparently, it's cupcake month. Well, according to Food Network and a few others. (I must be a bit odd then as it seems every month is cupcake month in our house.) Anyway, I came across a new recipe the other day that I wanted to try, as it involved toffee and caramel. Two of my favourite flavours. But it was the salted caramel that really caught my attention. It's something I've always wanted to try making but have never got around to it. I had a bit of a nudge the other week though. Now, I suspect like anyone else that is interested in baking, I have been hooked to the latest series of Great British Bake Off , currently on BBC2 . It's hard not to sympathise with the contestants when they are put through their paces on one of the technical challenges, or are under the pressure of having to produce a showstopping bake against the clock in an unfamiliar oven. Last week's episode had them making cremé caramels for the technical challenge, and there was muc...

It was pretty horrible and grey in Cardiff last week. The rain seems to have taken on an unseemly persistence which is guaranteed only to break as the boys head back to school next week. Mooching about the house looking for something to bake, I decided to try and bring a bit of citrussy zing to the table to pep everyone up. These little cakes are based on a recipe for a larger bundt-type cake. But I wanted to do something a little different with it, and so decided to use some cardboard Baking Moulds from Lakeland to make some little individual cakes. I hadn't used them before, but a couple of weeks ago, I had one of the cutest little lemon cakes in one (at my fab local deli, Deli a Go Go ) and when I saw them in Lakeland thought I had to give them a go. You could always use ordinary cupcake liners though. The recipe is adapted from one of my 'cookbooks of the moment', Cake Keeper Cakes by Lauren Chattman (I love this little book as it has such delicious sounding r...

Back in February, one of Mike's colleagues heard about my baking blog. She kindly offered me some of her sourdough starter, called Sophia, whose origins lay in Chicago some 8 years ago. I didn't know much about sourdough at that point, but what I had was all good, and from that knew that an 8 year old starter was not something you'd come across all that often, so I jumped at the chance. A few days later a plastic tub was nesting  in the fridge with a strange, gloopy substance inside. I'd been given some instructions on how to feed her, and referred to The Fresh Loaf - a website devoted to all things bread related, and which includes a brilliant community forum. The first time I fed Sophia, I transferred about half of her to a clean kilner jar, added the refresher of flour and water, and stirred. I couldn't bear to just bin the other half, so began a second jar (now known as Olivia). I began to read up on how to actually transform the alchemy taking p...

Necessity quite often is the mother of invention. A few weeks back, I actually tried carrot cake for the first time. Yes I know, 40 plus years and counting, a supposed baking enthusiast, and I've only just had carrot cake. I must admit that while I adore carrots with my roast, I was ever so slightly wary of carrots (or indeed any veg) in my cake. Especially when paired with oil - which I understand is normally something used in carrot cake. Anyway, Mike and I were out and about in town with Sam one day, and went for our usual coffee and a little something.  Shock and horror, though, most of the cake and baked treats had sold out. What was left was a bit of a sorry choice between Victoria Sponge and Carrot Cake. I went for the sponge, but then couldn't believe it when the manager (who was serving us) said that he didn't know what state it was in as it had been sitting in the heat, so if it was dry I could send it back and swap it. Apart from reeling ...