Easter Weekend

Phew, it has been a busy weekend, my partners Birthday and Easter within the space of three days! The oven has barely been off.

For the past three years my partner has had the same thing for his Birthday! The Humming Bird Bakery's Key Lime pie!

Easter Sunday we held an Easter egg hunt for our daughter, with afternoon tea for the rest of our family.  I have literally baked my socks off this weekend, which at 35 weeks pregnant I think is rather impressive.

I started with the Simnel cake, I had never made a traditional Easter cake before, however I was spurred on by my partners love of marzipan.  I found a great basic recipe on the BBC Good Food website, and I definitely think it will be part of my annual baking routine with the little one.

Next on the list Vanilla Easter cupcakes, as we had some relatives of a fussy disposition attending, I thought I should have a simple offering, plus the icing usually goes down well with the toddler.  I used the vanilla sponge and icing recipe from The Primrose Bakery recipe book, which I have used many times and they always seem to turn out well.

Finally, I made a Raspberry Pavlova... Raspberries macerated with mint and ginger, with lovely crisp meringue and Chantilly cream! Simply scrumptious! I used a combination of Delia's meringue recipe and James Martin's fruit inspiration.

It was the first time I had made a Pavlova, as my partner has a meringue aversion.  However as it is my favourite, I have made it my mission to change his mind.

So that was our Easter Afternoon Tea, with the obligatory hot cross buns which I bought (tsk, tsk.) I will endeavour to make them next year... Maybe.  

I hope you all had a lovely Easter, and are all fully stuffed with chocolate and baked delights!

Cooking With Child

For the past six weeks I have been doing a cookery group through my local sure start centre with mini me,  it has been a great six weeks having a designated time to share my passion with the little one.  It lead me to the decision to carry on having a specific time to cook/bake with the wee one.  Don't get me wrong  I have always involved her in food prep, and even as young as she is tried to give her a good awareness of the ethics of food.

Some may say I'm cruel, an example being grocery shopping this week she wanted pears.  However, my local supermarket didn't have any grown in Britain so we had British grown apples instead... Yes it is mean, but who else is going to teach her.  

Oh dear... I'm getting passionate and going of topic, back to the real post.  Here is the recipe for: 

Miss Coraline's yummy sultana and cashew flapjacks.

Ingredients

80g Unsalted Butter
80g Brown Sugar
60g Golden Syrup
40g Honey
140g Porridge Oats
30g Chopped Cashew Nuts
60g Sultanas

Optional
50g milk chocolate
handful of chopped cashew nuts

1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a low to medium heat.
2. Stir in the sugar, golden syrup and honey and heat gently until melted
3. Remove the pan from the heat
4. Put the porridge oats, cashew nuts and sultanas in a mixing bowl and stir.
5. Add the melted syrupy butter and mix well until everything is combined
6. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and spoon the mixture into the tray.  Push it down with the spoon to level it and spread it out evenly
7. Bake in a preheated oven 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for 20 minutes.
8. Allow to cool before cutting into squares, drizzling with melted chocolate and scattering with chopped cashews.

Feel free to switch the nuts to another type or perhaps try some seeds.  Try experimenting with different dried fruit too.

This recipe is adapted from a recipe in Alive and Cooking, a cookery book from Sure Start Children's Centres and Suffolk County Council.

Love Feast

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's day. Every year I like to cook Stephen something special especially with the arrival of my new shiny thing!!

So we feasted on chicken, ham and leek pie made from scratch (yes, pastry too!) with love, and scrumptious brownies. It was lovely, even with the toddler turning her nose up at it!