Don't you just love Christmas..

Well it took me quite a while to get in the mood this year but now iv'e done it..i can't wait!

The stars are handmade by P and S handmadecrafts They're Fab, i love them. I'm sure you'll agree they look amazing on our tree :)

Christmas starts early in our house!

I decided to make my own Christmas cake this year for a change.. I made the cake back in October and it's matured so well. I marzipaned,iced and decorated it yesterday and here's how it turned out!

I was so pleased how the cake turned out i made 2 ickle ones too which will be given as Christmas presents

Merry Christmas everyone, hope you have a yummy time!

Chocolate maniac back again!

Spent a lovely few hours this morning baking with my close friend..

We decided to go for a tray bake..

Its a quick and easy recipe and just look at the results :)

Click here for the recipe

Lake District Loveliness

Me and Deb enjoyed a really lovely and long awaited holiday last week.

Spent 5 night at Glenville House in between the towns of Windermere & Bowness

 Bowness pier on the banks of Lake Windermere

 It was a lovely cruise on a gorgeous day :)

 Beautiful Ambleside

The view from our room

Yummy brownies

I haven't baked in quite a while and Deb was looking through this months BBC Good Food magazine and came across her fav's... chocolate brownies. This is how they turned out..

The whole house smelt gorgeous while they were cooking.. oh and they taste LUSH too

Recipe

150g unsalted butter

225g dark chocolate

3 eggs

125g light muscovado sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

50g fine rice flour (we used plain)

1/4 tsp salt

100g pecans, finely chopped

Melt chocolate and butter over simmering water. Mix eggs sugar vanilla in separate bowl till light n fluffy, fold in flour and salt. Then add chocolate and most of the nuts to the eggs and sugar mixture. Pour out into brownie tray then sprinkle rest of the nuts over the top. Bake for 18 mins 180 degrees C.

Birthday Girl

It was Debs 30th birthday this week. I did think about having a cake made for her from Creative Icing which is where we had our wedding cake made. However i thought go on have a go yourself...so i did.

Fingers were firmly crossed at this point that it was gonna turn out ok

I was so relieved :)

Cake cut and filled with strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream

All done :)

Deb was really impressed and loved everything about it..especially the eeyore

Its so moist too :)

Recipe

Ingredients

• 350g butter, softened
• 350g caster sugar
• 350g S.R. flour
• 175g plain flour
• 6 eggs
• 2 lemons, finely chopped zest

These measurements are for an 8" square cake tin and took 1hr 35 mins to bake at 150 degrees C.

A lovely break in Brid

Last Saturday me and Deb had a 5 day break in Bridlington on the North East coast.

We house swapped with mum & dad and as i'm sure you'll agree it's in a lovely position complete with sea view :)

We spent a lot of time around the harbour mainly because thats where all the fish n chip shops are hehe mmm

We were lucky with the weather yet again..it was a lovely relaxing break which we both needed :)

and the winner is..

Had a very nice surprise the other day. Deb emailed me from work to say she'd won a Thorntons easter egg.
It was a competition on behalf of Marie Curie cancer care where you had to guess the name of the egg!

The winning name was Butterfly :) 

Well done love, ill enjoy eating it all myself! TeeHee

Graze

We started getting Graze boxes a few weeks ago.. heard good things about them so decided to take the plunge and order one. So glad we did too. Debbie loves them especially..she loves to take a pack to work with her to nibble on and they last her all day too!
We got this weeks box yesterday..

For a free graze box feel free to make a note of the code above and enjoy!

Cupcakes R Us

Im really getting into the baking bug again lately.. Today me and Deb made 1 or 2 cupcakes..

Deb wanted them to look good enough for a princess

Only had one so far...23 to go :)

Baking with funkyness

The other day was so much fun..My lovely friend Sarah (funky fairy) & (marmalade files) came up with the idea of a bake along using our web cams.. What a great idea i said! so we decided on a marble cake this week and here is how mine turned out..

It was very yummy!

Looking forward to the next one funks :) x

Sunday roast

I was in town yesterday doing a bit of shopping, thought id pop in to sainsburys to see what they had to tempt me. As i was walking round i thought about a chat i had with my lovely friend Sarah (funkyfairy) She told me they were going to have roast beef on sunday..mmmm i fancy some of that i thought. This is how it turned out..

Look how lean it is :)

Veggies ready

You can't beat home made yorkshires can you

The finished result..looks good enough to eat hehe

Yet more yummyness

I thought i'd do a bit more baking today..fancied doing a tray bake as they're so easy and came up with this..

Deb get away from the bowl..no licking!

into the oven it goes...good luck

oooh looking nice

think it needs something on top don't you?

Thats better..

Cake anyone?