Fold in the Flour ...

If we're being honest, Valentine's day tends to pass me by a bit. As a teenager, I remember getting excited about it, only to face the realisation that it was going to be yet another year without receiving a card (although I gave a few). Heck, it was yet another year without even the merest sniff of a boyfriend, so I suppose fair's fair. But it is hard to stand by and watch others gleefully receiving when you are not. When Mike and I began going out during our uni days, I eagerly anticipated my first Valentine's card. I could not believe how upset I felt when, after handing over a lovingly and painstakingly selected card - just the right hint of intimacy but with a certain sangfroid - and gift, it slowly dawned on me that Mike was standing there looking pained. He had forgotten. He tried to pass it off, as did I, but it was too late. I had a severe case of wobbly lip and was stifling tears. A hastily drawn heart on a piece of card was proffered. It wasn't be

Nothing screams summer in Britain like strawberries. I know it's not yet summer, but with the lovely warm sunny spell we recently had, it was easy to imagine it had arrived early. And so I simply couldn't resist these gorgeous berries from my local supermarket. I do try and buy fruit and veg in season, and local if I can. Marked 'early season', they were at least British, and not too far from Cardiff (as the crow flies), being grown in Somerset.  I must admit though, they had me at 'hellooo ... I'm a beautiful, luscious, red strawberry and I taste divine'. No more, no less. Now I know that some would say it's a crime to eat these any other way than au naturel. But I have always wanted to make fresh strawberry cupcakes. While I've tried some perfectly adequate supermarket ones recently, I thought home made would be miles better. With that firmly in mind, they found their way into my trolley. I adapted Mary Berry's cupcake recipe from 100 C

There are occasional downsides to being the only female in the house. As much as I  probably am, by nature, a bit of a tomboy (alright, quite a lot), sometimes the testosterone is a bit much. There's the perennial toilet seat issue. The amount of sprinkling when tinkling that takes place. There's the fact I have resigned myself to never being the mother of the bride. And there is the absence of pink. Baby boys simply don't do pink. Teenage boys predominantly don't do pink either (unless it is a fairly bright shade in some super trendy t-shirt). Now don't get me wrong. If I'm asked my favourite colour, it is unhesitatingly blue. But I must admit, whether it is mid-life crisis, or what, sometimes I find a bit of pink now creeping in. Whether it is the thinnest of thin pin stripe in an otherwise shades of blue and purple shirt, or some dusky rose lip tint, it is undeniably there. So when Amy of Weekly Bake Off decided that this week's bake should be cupc

I was really pleased with Amy's selection for this week's Bake Off - Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book was the first Baking book I bought, back in 1995 (it was first published in 1994 and by the time I bought a copy it was already on its eighth reprint). The very first recipe I did was her small all in one Victoria Sandwich, and consequently the very first cake tins I purchased were Silverwood 7" sandwich tins. They have seen many, many outings over the years, by way of this cake and the Sunday Best Chocolate Fudge Cake, also from the same book. I still have them and used them for this recipe. Interestingly, in flicking through 'Ultimate Cake Book', I caught sight of an Orange Victoria Sandwich, which is practically the same recipe as this one (size aside), with the exception of the filling, where Mary instructed that it should be 'about 4 tablespoons of orange mamalade and a little caster sugar'. Hmm, not sure about that one. I certainly loved the

I've been playing around with some baking ideas for Valentine's Day for some weeks now, and this was my first attempt at making some of them a reality. It also gave me the opportunity to try out some cute heart shaped foil baking cups I found in my local kitchenware store. These cupcakes are made using the Amaretto Cupcake and Frosting recipes from the Primrose Bakery Book. I've made a few of their recipes before, so was fairly confident the sponge would work (while delicious, the sponge was a bit dense for me), but the buttercream turned out a bit runny, so if making again, I would adapt the recipe to not include as much liquid. The little chocolate love hearts were made using one of my new toys - a silicone chocolate mold from Lakeland in the shape of little 'love hearts'. This was the first time I had melted chocolate to make decorations (I love doing this blog - it's making me try so many new things!). The one thing I learnt from this is the importa