A friend returned from Norway this weekend with spectacular fjord photos and splendid Viking chocolates.  For PS, my mind was on Pip and I thought how much he would have loved to have played the weed-strewn troll-hound in the fjords!  Imagine the fun if he had happened upon a few vikings to chase as well ( Read more... )

This is the start of our summer season so English strawberries are ripening and are lovely.  Meanwhile, the season of one of the imported fruits that I like has already closed.  I mean the blood orange which we import from Spain and Italy.  It looks strange inside - probably you would think that it had gone bad!:


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Here is one of the latest creations in the window of the cake shop in Oxford's Covered Market, a cake in the form of Tom Tower, the entrance to Christ Church College, famous as the "home" of Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter (well, Hogwarts):


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Oh dear - this journal is beginning to look rather greedy: the last two posts are both about cake.  I know it's a bit early but I thought that you might enjoy seeing how Oxford's cake shop is window dressing for the Halloween season.


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Between the Lakeland poets, Beatrix Potter (creator of Peter Rabbit and friends) and Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons franchise, there is plenty in the Lake District for tourists to buy into.  There is also Sarah Nelson's gingerbread shop in Grasmere; the shop was started in about 1860 by a local cook, Mrs Sarah Nelson, in the former village ( Read more... )

I was out and about in Oxford this morning on a quest for Easter presents for the office - quite difficult as we have a couple of alien life forms who don't like chocolate (no, I don't understand this either!).  The snow here is turning to mush and only a few flowers are toughing out the subzero temperatures but here are some photos of one snow and ( Read more... )

Today I was in Oxford's covered market and noticed that the cake shop had changed its window display.


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Despite the unseasonal and relentless rain of this summer so far, the soft fruit (means fruit without a stone in the middle e.g. strawberries, raspberries, currants) has been delicious.  Between us, my mother and I managed to buy more raspberries than we could sensibly eat so I made a typical English trifle - raspberries and crumbled meringue in ( Read more... )

I'm not one to waste a public holiday so happily joined in the party mood with friends.  I made a pudding with a wonky crown decoration of ginger biscuit crumbs and a red, white and blue jelly bean border (but the blue colouring was very aggressive and quickly attacked the poor pink pudding!):


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I was away for work in the mid-East of England this week.  The weather has been wet, grey, windy, cold so, on my return to Oxford, I thought I'd take a few more shots of the colourful celebration Cake Shop with its funky UK cakes.  This time, there's a St George and the dragon cake (and the dragon is even spitting cake fire!) that I particularly ( Read more... )