Category Cakes
Dinosaur cake for a fussy madam
So there appears to have formed a tradition whereby every year for my daughter’s birthday I now try to fashion some kind of recognisable animal from sponge cake, with not much of a clue how I am going to do it until the night before. Last year I made a penguin, the year before that […]
Blackberry and almond cake
I wanted to make a delicious birthday cake for the longsuffering man that chooses to live with me – which, believe me is not much fun for him at the moment as I’m incredibly tired and moody, waddling around (pregnant) and doing a lot of COMPLAINING. The other day I cried because of […]
Sugar free banana & marrow muffins
Sugar free muffins? Sugar free? Yup, that got your attention didn’t it. Well, it’s true – it is actually possible to have a delicious teatime muffin that doesn’t taste like pappy diet food, has no added sugar and is REET GORGEOUS. Ok, so purists among you might point out that having dried fruit and mashed […]
Penguin cake
If I went on the Great British Bake Off, my showstopper cake would be a massive replica of Paul Hollywood’s face. I would emulate his lovely year-round tan with butterscotch frosting and stick on silver spray-painted chocolate Matchmakers to get his spiky grey hair just right. I would probably win the whole thing, for sure. […]
Mike’s chocolate cupcakes
Wanted: a good looking chap who can sing professionally, act, write his own opera AND cook beautifully. Hmmm. Nobody out there with such a CV exists, do they? Oh, but wait, here’s my good friend Mike. He can lay claim to all of the above. No kidding. He’s one seriously talented hombre: So no – […]
Danish Coconut Dream Cake
I have quite literally discovered one of the sexiest, most moreish cakes EVER KNOWN: the Danish Coconut Dream Cake otherwise known as Drømmekage. Who in their right mind would think to top a vanilla sponge with a thick, luscious layer of melting ‘flapjack’ pumped with lots of vanilla and SALT? Holy crap, those crazy Danes, […]
A first birthday cake
As some of you will already know, I take cakes very seriously. They are an essential part of life, and if I was a doctor, I would prescribe regular cake injections to everyone as a way to stay content! So when it came to the task of making my daughter’s first birthday cake, it was […]
Berry muffins
What spurred me on to make these here muffins? A near-disaster ending in almost-mutilation! Not to myself, I hasten to add. The other day my lovely friend N was blending ingredients for a butter chicken recipe using a stick blender, and accidentally whizzed her left thumb into the mix while trying to prise out a […]
Anatomy of a wedding cake
I have recently completed a terrifying task – making a wedding cake for my good friends C and M. There was no way I could not take the bait – after all, C made my wedding cake four years ago: a towering edifice in deepest darkest chocolate, decorated with chocolate leaves. It was dangerously […]
Voluptuous Victoria sponge
For months I had wanted to make a really big, luxurious cake – one that, if I was a lady who lunched, I would have positioned on an elegant cake stand when my friends visited for afternoon cocktails. Sadly my life is not an endless succession of tea parties, and the moments I have to […]
Toast & Butter 