Mr O loves jam tarts so I’ve had my eye on this recipe for a while. I made it recently for lunch with his family and it was delicious.
Category Archives: recipes
RECIPE: Sort of black forest cake
Mr O surprised me recently when we were on holiday at Centre Parcs by ordering a black forest waffle. He doesn’t normally like desserts much and especially not creamy ones but it turns out that black forest is one of his favourite combos. Recently when we had friends around for lunch I decided to do a take on a black forest cake for dessert because I knew he would enjoy it. It is made up of a flourless dark chocolate cake, topped with a layer of dark chocolate ganache and cherry compote and then whipped cream, more cherries and some decorative flake.
RECIPE: Mini Egg millionaire’s shortbread
Millionaire’s shortbread is one of Mr O’s favourites so I decided to give this Jane’s Patisserie recipe a go for a Easter treat. It’s not a quick one as there are multiple steps and periods of chilling but it was worth it because it is honestly one of the nicest things I’ve ever made.
RECIPE: Easter biscuits
This weekend Little O and I decided to do some baking. Baking with toddlers is a bit of a mixed bag. It is probably about 75% stress and 25% joy. The pitfalls include a lot of mess, a lot of impatience and potential food hygiene issues. I manage to keep the latter under control by giving Little O a piece of dough to play with that never actually ends up in the oven… so there’s a tip for you.
These super easy biscuits are cute and colourful and manageable even with an almost three year old in tow!
RECIPE: Peanut Butter brownies
I love peanut butter. It is probably my favourite flavour of all time. Nothing goes better with peanut butter than chocolate so when I saw this recipe for peanut butter brownies I couldn’t resist giving them a try. They were absolutely delicious. So if you like peanut butter and chocolate as much as I do, get on it!
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RECIPE: Baked vanilla cheesecake with berry compote
Last week I asked Mr O if there was anything in particular he would like me to bake and he said “cheesecake”. I have a few go to cheesecake recipes for set cheesecakes but I have never made a baked one so I decided to give it a go. It’s a bit fiddly but this recipe from Janie’s Patisserie came out perfectly. Not a single crack and the texture is heavenly. I have absolutely found my forever recipe.
This cheesecake needs to rest overnight so make sure you start the day before you expect to serve it.
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RECIPE: Chocolate chip banana loaf
Little O regularly eats half a banana and abandons the rest or declares a brown banana too “dirty” to eat, leaving us with a lot of random banana bits. I love banana in things but not raw banana on its own so I’ve been making banana bread to use up the bits. This chocolate chip one is by far the nicest I’ve ever tasted.
RECIPE: Brownie crinkle cookies
Since I made the Boy Who Bakes ultimate chocolate chip cookies I have been a bit obsessed with his recipes. One of his most popular recipes if for brownie crinkle cookies, which are halfway between a brownie and a cookie. It sounded like a dream to me so I decided to give them a go. I can tell you that they deliver 100% on flavour and texture.
The recipe is very specific on timings and I would stress sticking to these to get the best results.
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RECIPE: Unicorn fudge
Every year I make different flavours of fudge as gifts for friends and family. This year I decided to jump on the unicorn bandwagon and make some unicorn fudge. It’s essentially white chocolate flavour with lots of decoration but if you have a unicorn lover in your life, this is a quick and easy treat to make for them!
RECIPE: Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies
My friend M recently posted on Instagram about some chocolate chip cookies she made. M is a regular baker with high standards so when she raved about them I decided that I better try them myself to check if they lived up to the hype. They did. I did the 24 hour “prove” of the cookies as suggested and I think it made a difference to the outcome. So if you need these cookies for a specific day make sure to start them off at least the day before.Â
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RECIPE: Chocolate fudge birthday cake
Yesterday was my birthday and I am now officially 38 years old. I had a really lovely day and was showered with gifts, cards, messages and attention. A writer friend of mine even wrote me a poem. I felt extremely loved and very lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life. I have made some great friends at work so I decided to bake a cake that would be big enough to share with them but also for us to have at home. With that in mind I made this chocolate fudge tray bake, which is perfect for big birthday celebrations.
RECIPE: Leftover Halloween pumpkin cake
Mr O and I are big Halloween fans. We love all the silly traditions from pumpkin carving, to getting into fancy dress to preparing for trick or treaters. This year Little O was old enough to help out with the carving and he is old enough to go trick or treating with the neighbourhood children.
After seeing a friend of mine’s post, I decide to get in on using the leftover pumpkin to bake a cake so I thought I’d share the recipe for anyone else who might be considering doing some carving over the next couple of days. This cake is super easy to make and reminiscent of a carrot cake. Little O loved helping out with the baking although he declared the cake “yucky”, like almost everything we offer him to eat.
RECIPE: Carrot cake tray bake
As those who know me on Facebook and Instagram will be aware, I am leaving my job after almost 14 years. I have worked in a number of different roles for the same company but it finally feels like it is time to move on and try something new. So in a month from now I will be starting over. Yikes! When I announced to my team a few weeks ago that I was leaving, their biggest concern seemed to be who was going to feed them. I bake a lot for work. To make them feel better I agreed to bring something in weekly… and to take requests. I have been delving into my old faithful recipes but someone requested a carrot cake recently. I do have a carrot cake recipe but it’s a layer cake and transporting a layer cake across multiple train journeys at rush hour is not easy. Instead I decided to go for a tray bake. It was very popular and I will definitely be making it again.
Things I have been cooking lately #178: Halloumi and lentil salad
I used to do loads of cooking but since we had Little O most of the food preparation in our household falls to Mr O as I tend to be trying to wrangle the little fella into bed at prime dinner making time. Â I decided I was definitely going to make at least one meal this week, even if it was a quick one. Enter this easy salad. Of course just as I finished making it Little O woke up and refused to go to bed for another two hours so I didn’t get to eat any until 10pm but it I enjoyed it none the less.
Things I have been cooking lately #177: Dinosaur birthday cake
When I was a child growing up my mum always made our birthday cakes. She’s extremely creative and they were really elaborate affairs. There were trains, tractors, princesses, umbrellas, monsters… my brother even had one based on the band U2. I am nowhere near as skilled or patient as my mum is but I really wanted to make Little O’s birthday cake. With some help from Pinterest and a recipe from my mum that I adapted, I think I pulled off something passable that pretty much anyone with a couple of hours of spare time could manage. The sponge cake method used here is an oldie but a goodie and makes a really light fluffy cake.
Things I have been cooking lately #175: Quick, easy brownies
I have made loads of brownies in my life and my go to recipe is always Hummingbird Bakery, but there isn’t always time for all the melting and the long cook time especially when trying to bake around a small human. Plus with all that high content cocoa dark chocolate, they’re really expensive to make. This recipe is quick, easy and a lot cheaper and they are sooo good and sooo gooey. I am definitely making these my new everyday brownies. (Disclaimer: I don’t eat brownies every day and I am not suggesting that you do either…)
Things I have been cooking lately #174: Banoffee pie
I am not a fan of bananas and never have been but as I have gotten older I have started to enjoy banana flavoured things as well as things with bananas in them. Mr O hates bananas to the point of being almost phobic of them but he’s very conscious of passing on his food preferences to Little O, so recently he decided he’d like to try something with a little banana in it and requested a banoffee pie. This combo of caramel, banana and cream is a British favourite and I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately Mr O’s verdict was that he could still taste the bananas and it wasn’t for him. Back to the drawing board…
Things I have been cooking lately #173: Mini Egg cookie bars
Being back at work means a willing audience to try out my baking on. I didn’t do much baking on maternity leave because it’s quite challenging with a little person constantly needing your attention but also because Mr O is not particularly interested in sweet things and with nowhere to take what I have created, I end up eating far too much of it myself… or ending up chucking bits away once they’ve passed their prime. As Easter is around the corner I decided to to some themed baking for my colleagues.
Things I have been cooking lately #172: Super food salad
Last week it was really warm so I got very excited and decided it was spring. I was so excited that I decided to buy a whole lot of ingredients to make salads. It turned out it was not spring. It was basically spring teasing us and then deciding to hold off until a yet to be named date. Fortunately even though it was cold and windy when I made this, it was still delicious so we didn’t feel too sad that we had to eat it wearing jumpers.
Things I have been cooking lately #171: Tortilla quiche
I really love a good quiche (plus they make good baby led weaning food) but making crusts is tedious, especially when you are trying to wrangle a little person. When I spotted this idea on the Tesco website of using tortillas to make a crust I was skeptical. I figured the tortillas would go soggy and the filling would go everywhere. I was pleasantly surprised that they actually went lovely and crispy. I have already made it twice and Mr O and Little O are big fans.
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