WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, *GHOST NOISES*. HALLOWEEN. DEAD THINGS. VAMPIRES. MURDER. HORROR. MATCHA. Wait, what? It’s everyone’s America’s favourite spooky “holiday” (my parent’s wedding anniversary), and in amongst baking pumpkin into everything possible I’ve actually (accidentally) made something that qualifies as a Halloween bake. I had some leftover Matcha from the cake I baked for my feature in Reveal Magazine and I was just trying to work out what I wanted to put it into. I always knew it was going to be something involving white chocolate, because the two flavours go together so well. I baked these Matcha & White Choc Chip Cookies once and then later that day had an email pop into my work inbox about a Halloween charity bake sale we were having this week. Read more
Pumpkin Cinnamon Buns with Maple Glaze
PUMPKIN RECIPE KLAXON. Since I made my pumpkin loaf last year I haven’t done anything pumpkin-y on the blog. Well over the last couple of weeks I’ve made a few different pumpkin things. And I mean pumpkin here, not “pumpkin spice” which actually has nothing to do with pumpkin and is just a combination of spices used in pumpkin pie, so stop it. With Halloween coming up next weekend (I still don’t know what I’m doing for it…) I felt this was the best time to be putting these recipes up. I’ve got 2 different ones lined up as well as some ghoulishly green (matcha) cookies that’d be great at any Halloween party! Having had that rant about pumpkin spice, one of the main ingredients is cinnamon, so Pumpkin Cinnamon Buns are a very logical step.
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Bake With Debenhams: Temper that Chocolate
A couple of weeks ago I was kindly invited along by the Debenhams and Kenwood to #BakeWithDebs. They’d chosen the great venue of the Jenius Social in North London for a group of us to be talked through a few basic decoration techniques which I’d not gotten around to try myself yet. Hey, decorating just isn’t my thing. No matter how much I love baking, I’m just not great at decorating and by the time I get to it I’m ready to be done and start scoffing down some cake. This means that I’ve still not gotten around to tempering chocolate and my piping skills need some serious work. Alas, piping wasn’t on the agenda this evening, but chocolate tempering, then what to do with the tempered chocolate, along with honeycomb were both on the cards for the evening.
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Triple Chocolate Shortbread Biscuits
Biscuits! Chocolatey ones! And shortbread! Oh and then more chocolate! Yes! I’m struggling to work out how to start this post, so just lots of exclamations about the general core factors of this bake will have to do. A friend of mine was holidaying a few weeks back in sunny Brighton and got robbed from her hotel room. That stinks! And in the spirit of Cake Care Package (want one, pop me an email, the site is coming along at the mo) I decided to send her something to cheer her up. I opted for double chocolate shortbread biscuit then grabbed some white chocolate for dipping (I may have ‘accidentally’ dropped a whole biscuit it…).
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Sweet Potato, Coconut & Chilli Soup
I’ve started on the autumn food. I’ve jumped in head first and I’m as good as swimming in the piles of coloured leaves after a few of the things I’ve made this week (more of those to come soon). I’ve also gone veggie for the month of October (partly in solidarity to a couple of workmates giving up smoking for Stoptober and partly because of wanting to see whether I could). The main issue is lunch options. Most shops have them, but due to my (completely rational) hatred of cucumber and not being keen on cold egg, it’s better to make my own. I’m good with this anyway as I try to make my lunches each week as it is. This is one I’ve made countless times, and when I got to the shop to find they’d not got any butternut squash, it was my go to fall back option. Sweet potato, coconut & chilli soup is warming, creamy and has a nice little kick.
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