Fold in the Flour ...

I love the magic of baking. Particularly when you cut into a fairly innocuous looking cake, and then get this (or at least something like it): Vanilla flavour polka dots, enrobed in chocolate sponge, sandwiched together with chocolate fudge icing, covered in vanilla buttercream, with a final topping of dark chocolate, dripping down the sides. And if all that tastes good, too, then I really shouldn't complain. But, I have to be honest. This cake did not go entirely to plan. And this is version two. And, if I make it again, I will definitely do some tweaking. The idea for the cake stemmed from this amazing cake by Deb at Once Upon a Pedestal . It was doing the rounds on Pinterest in January. Someone at work, who knows about my 'hobby' sent me the link. That was it - I was hooked. I started planning, as the idea of dots in a cake was screaming 'Red Nose Day' at me. I even ordered a cake pop pan so that I could execute my grand design. (And I hate ...

Sometimes, I find that inspiration can be lurking in the most unexpected places. And it strikes at the time I least expect it. I've written recently about my singular lack of baking mojo. So this week, when I got to my day off and had thought that I'd try and get back in the kitchen, I couldn't actually bring myself to bake anything. A weird kind of procrastination  had set in. I pottered around the house suddenly finding other jobs to do. One involved sorting through some of my latest cookbook purchases and tidying and reorganising the shelves so I could fit them on. I have a 'system' for storing like books together, and try to keep my baking books easily accessible. In practice, this meant simply compiling piles of books and moving them around from shelf to shelf until I was reasonably happy with the arrangement. If you have ever read my post for Random Recipes on my cookbook addiction , you'll appreciate that this could take me a while. But ...

I hate to say it but over the last couple of weeks, I really lost interest in baking. And blogging. And doing anything that even remotely involved removing myself from the sofa. I've just had one of those months. It's been full of downs with very few ups (apart from Cardiff City FC finally reaching the Premier League as Champions, and my first Clandestine Cake Club meet). We are still dealing with the aftermath of bereavement, and it is amazing how much there is to do when you least feel like it. Plus I've been ill this week. Scarily ill, in that what appeared to be a minor illness deteriorated rapidly and knocked me for six to the point where my GP began talking about hospital. (That never happens to me so it was a shock but, thankfully, I've improved almost as quickly).  So on Thursday, when my copy of the newly published 'John Whaite Bakes' arrived at my door, I was, like, 'meh'. Interestingly, it's tagged as 'Recipes fo...

In our house, if you want to make something for the boys that will be universally popular, there's really only one thing that will cut it. Chocolate. And lots of it. With a little bit more hidden inside, if possible. I wanted to try and make a plain chocolate cupcake into something that the boys would love. And they loved these. Kerching! These are a soft, fluffy sponge, with a hidden chocolate sauce centre, covered in rich chocolate buttercream. Not too sweet, they really hit that chocolate spot. Even Sam joined in, as I had enough of the sponge mix and buttercream left over to make 10 little bite-sized cupcakes. Just perfect for a toddler's chubby grip. The sponge is my trusty basic chocolate recipe. You can make it as an all-in-one, and chuck the ingredients into a bowl and blitz with a hand mixer. I tend to adapt the method slightly, though, creaming the sugar and butter first. I just think that if the sugar dissolves into the butter properly,...

I really love this cake. I mean really love it. So much so, it's my new best friend. It's like sunshine on a plate. The citrussy aroma tempts you while the sultry lemony pucker hits you full in the mouth. And who can resist anything with 'Limoncello' in the title? The mere mention of the word transports you to to the Sicilian sun. It's one more reason I have to thank Random Recipes for getting me to delve into my cookbooks. This month's challenge had a bit of a twist. Dom, of Belleau Kitchen (who runs the challenge) created a Randometer thingummy-bob to test us. You had to enter how many cookbooks you owned, and then it would generate a random number. You counted along your shelf to that book, and then entered the number of pages, to generate another number and so find your Random Recipe. The gods must have been looking favourably on me this month, as I ended up with this gorgeous lemon cake, from Peggy Porschen's 'Boutique Baking...

I've been a late convert to the joys of coffee. As a child raised in a tea-drinking household, there was a brute strength to the flavour that I just didn't get. And while as an adult I love my daily, frothy capuccino, even now I gingerly dip my toe in anything stronger. But I do love a good coffee cake. And this is a great coffee cake. It's a soft mocha sponge with coffee buttercream, and with a coffee meringue topping and a coffee icing drizzle. Between the coffee and the sugar rush, it's a real pick-me-up. I've adapted the recipe from one I found in the BBC Good Food magazine some years ago. Entered into a baking competition by a reader it came in third. Personally, I think that may have been a bit of an injustice. It looked gorgeous. You can find the original recipe here .  I've thought about that cake for a long time, but never got around to making it. Today was the day, and I decided to mix it up a bit and temper the coffee with som...