I decided to try baking some biscuits today and given that it's Anzac Day, I made Anzac biscuits ( Read more... )

I finally got around to making some biscuits today. I'd bookmarked several recipes that I wanted to try but had difficulty choosing one to start with! I went with Shrewsbury biscuits although the recipe is nothing like a Shrewsbury biscuit as I know it. As far as I was aware, Shrewsbury biscuits have dried fruit in but this recipe uses cinnamon ( Read more... )

I made some muffins this morning, which are possibly going to be for breakfast over Christmas and New Year, depending on how cold it is! I used some of the leftover ingredients from the Christmas cake, so they have mixed dried fruit, mixed spice, and a secret ingredient in the middle.


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I have almost finished the Christmas cake. Following the baking back in October, it has been regularly fed with a wee dram or two. I also used some cranberry juice so that it wasn't too boozy for once. Last Thursday, I put on a nice thick layer of marzipan. That was left to dry for a few days and this morning I covered it in royal icing.


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After the Christmas cake, next on the list of Christmas Baking was the Christmas pudding, aka plum pudding, plums being the Victorian word for raisins. Oh, those wacky Victorians. It's supposed to be tradition to make the Christmas pudding on Stir-up Sunday, which is the last Sunday before the first Sunday in Advent. This year that was the 21st ( Read more... )

I made the Christmas cake on Tuesday. It's about a fortnight earlier than previous years but I'm going to be making a Christmas pudding this year as well. I'll be making that around Stir-up Sunday which is the 21st November so I wanted a week or two in between as they're pretty big bakes ( Read more... )

I felt like making some biscuits recently. It's not something I make often, I generally make cakes of varying sizes. When I was in Sainsbury's last week, I happened to see a special Summer Edition Summer Holiday Biscuit Kit. It would make 8 shortbread biscuits with just the addition of butter and water. It was conveniently reduced to £1.50 so I ( Read more... )

It's mid-November which means that it's that time of year again: time to bake the Christmas cake. The dried fruit and glacé cherries had been soaking in whisky since Monday. I'd checked the recipe to make sure that I'd got everything and belatedly realised that I didn't have a lemon. It requires both the zest and juice, so I put in some bottled ( Read more... )

It's Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes Day). A day when Brits commemorate the failure of a plot to avoid religious persecution by blowing up the Houses of Parliament and assassinate King James I, by setting off fireworks and lighting bonfires. One of the traditional foods enjoyed on this day, particularly in Lancashire and Yorkshire, is parkin. It's a ( Read more... )

I made a cake! It feels like a really long time since I've done any baking, I think it was April. That probably explains why it feels a veritable age ago. I saw a recipe for a Pear, Almond and Cinnamon loaf which sounded particularly yummy so I thought I'd give it a try.


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