Happy New Year - Chocolate Marshmallow Cake

My in-laws are throwing a new year's eve party tonight, and I offered to bake something sweet for their guests. I decided on making a chocolate marshmallow cake because it's sweet, chocolatey and doesn't contain anything that fussy eaters will turn their noses up at. I baked two chocolate sponges, using an incredibly easy recipe I found online (see below), and I sandwiched them together using a mixture of melted marshmallow and cream.

I've seen lots of marshmallow frosting recipes that I could've used to frost the outside of the cake, but I feared that this would be too sickly for some guests and I opted for a candy pink butter icing instead. I finished the cake with an assortment of marshmallows, and lots and lots of edible glitter! In fact, the cutesy girliness of this cake has caused my friend to dub it "Melted Barbie Cake."

Happy new year! x



Incredibly Easy Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

• 1 + 1/4 cup self raising flour
• 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 pinches salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla essence
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup flavourless vegetable oil
• 2 eggs

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 deg F (Gas mark 4 or 180 deg C). Grease a 9 inch (23 cm) cake tin.
2. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, sugar and vanilla essence in a bowl.
3. Add milk/water, vegetable oil and eggs. Mix everything together until smooth, either by hand or by using an electric mixer at slow speed. If the batter is too runny you may add slightly more flour.
4. Transfer to bake tin and bake until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, approximately 35 to 45 minutes.

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Lemon and Strawberry Hearts

Perhaps these little treats are too summery for this time of year, but they're so dinky and light I can't resist knocking up a batch whenever I have some cream that needs using up. Cream usually needs to be used within three days, and if I have no use for it (or in this case - I'm sick of drizzling it over mince pies) I whip it, and stir in lemon juice/zest and some icing sugar. The lemon helps preserve the cream, meaning that you can enjoy it for a few days more. I use it to sandwich puff pastry hearts that I've cut from a ready rolled sheet (and then drizzled with chocolate). Throw in a few sliced strawberries and you have the perfect little dessert.

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One Ham: Three Meals

My Nan is spending Christmas in snowy Scotland, so before she leaves town I decided to invite her over for dinner. Her favourite meat is baked ham, so I bought a large 3kg joint (knowing that I would be able to make a few meals out of it.) For dinner with my Nan, I boiled the joint for one hour then glazed it with a honey-orange marinade. I found the recipe on the the Honey Association website, and it's so easy and delicious.

Combine the juice and zest of one large orange with 1 tbsp of soy sauce and 4-5 tbsp of pure clear honey. Drizzle and rub all over the ham joint, and baste regularly. Here's the finished product:



Served with dijon mustard mash and maple roasted parsnips, it made for a real winter warmer:


We had at least half of the gammon left over, so I used some of it to make pea and ham soup:



And the rest of it, to make ham and cider bake with mustard mash:


The gammon bake was by far my favourite meal of the three. There's no real recipe for it, I read about it on a forum. I lightly fried one sliced red onion and one peeled and chopped apple in a pan, and added the remainder of the shredded ham once the onion and apple were slightly softened. I then added some creme fraiche and a couple of teaspoons of wholegrain mustard. Once warmed through, I added some salt and pepper and a few large sloshes of strong cider.

The whole mixture was then poured into a casserole dish, where I topped it with wholegrain mustard mash and baked until crispy. Delish!

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Sausage and Red Onion Swirly Whirlies

The weather has turned cold and it's really put me in the mood for warm, comforting food. However the long, dark evenings have rendered me far too lazy to want to fiddle around in the kitchen for hours, preparing complicated dishes.

I thought of this recipe one Sunday breakfast time. By mid-morning they were baking, and by lunchtime we were enjoying them with a nice cup of tea. Simple!

Please forgive the laziness of this recipe.



Ingredients

• One pack of Jus-Rol ready made puff pastry.
• One pack of good quality sausage meat.
• One jar of caramelised red onion marmalade.
• Dried thyme.
  

Directions

1. Roll out the puff pastry sheet.
   
2. Spread thickly with the marmalade.
   
3. Press an even layer of the sausage meat over the onion layer. Roll the puff pastry horizontally, until you have a long pastry 'sausage' (see below). Egg wash the pastry flap to the pastry roll so that it sticks.
   
4. Refrigerate for 15 minutes, then cut into around 20 swirlies with a sharp knife.
5. Lay each swirly on a greased baking tray and egg wash. Sprinkle with dried thyme.
6. Bake a 180 degrees celcius for around 20 minutes.

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Raspberry Creme Patissiere Flan

This recipe is perfect if you need to make a quick dessert but you're feeling a bit lazy. It doesn't require much effort and is stilll yummy! I used a shop bought flan case (lazy as I am) and filled it with home made creme patissiere (vanilla pastry cream to those of us who like things simple). I topped the cream with raspberries and a sprinkling of icing sugar. Simple and scrumptious.




Creme Patissiere

Ingredients

• 1 ¼ cups whole milk
• 3 egg yolks
• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• 1/8 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a small saucepan, warm the milk over low heat until it is just hot enough to steam.
2. While the milk is warming, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, flour, and cornstarch until the mixture is completely smooth.
3. Once the milk is steaming, add half of it, whisking constantly, to the egg mixture.
4. Add the milk and eggs back into the hot milk, continue stirring, and heat it for 1-2 minutes, until the custard reaches 170F on a digital thermometer and is very thick.
5. Remove from the heat, stir in the vanilla extract, and chill before filling pastry.

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Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! All my blogger friends are invited to my virtual Halloween party over at the Bakezilla household. We've been cooking up a storm! Why not try one of these delightful Graveyard Cupcakes.....




....Or perhaps a Halloween Sugar Cookie is more your thing?



We have lots of fun shapes and characters....



...And if you're not too full, we have Chocolate Apples for all!



...The theme is fancy dress. Do you like my tinkerbell costume?



HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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Office Bake Sale - Cupcakes.

Recently at work we held a bake sale to raise money for Macmillian Cancer Relief. I decided to bake a chocolate fudge cake (which I'm proud to say sold out in 15 minutes), savoury palmiers and of course, cupcakes.

I used a standard chocolate cupcake mixture and topped half the cupcakes with an orange frosting and the other half with a peppermint frosting. Both are easy to make by adapting a basic buttercream frosting recipe. Just add green food colouring and peppermint essence to one batch, and orange food colouring and orange juice and zest to the other batch. Add extra icing/confectioners sugar if the mixture becomes too wet.

Please excuse the poor quality pictures:

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Sundried Tomato, Ham and Cheese Palmiers

I made these little babies for a bake sale at work. They're really scrummy and sold pretty well. I didn't really have a recipe to follow. If you want to try them, I'd suggest googling a standard palmier recipe and substituting the filling (usually a sugar-cinnamon butter) for sundried tomato paste, slices of ham or proscuitto and grated mature cheddar. Follow the standard palmier folding technique and slice, egg-wash and bake!

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Plum and Apple Chutney

After making plum sauce, I still had around 80 plums to cook with. I began googling plum recipes and found this little gem. A colleague had kindly given me some apples prior to finding this recipe, so chutney seemed like a great way to use up both fruits. It's great with cheese and cold meats. You can find the recipe here: http://www.waitrose.com/recipe/Plum_and_Apple_Chutney.aspx

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Teriyaki Salmon

I'm a big fan of teriyaki chicken, although I've never made it. I had never tried teriyaki salmon, and as we had a couple of fillets in the freezer I decided to give it a go. I really liked this recipe because it's tasty, simple and healthy. I would probably serve it with brown rice in future to make it even healthier.



Ingredients:

• 2 salmon fillets
• Small chunk of ginger, finely chopped
  
• Small chili, finely chopped
  
• 2 large cloves of garlic, crushed
  
• 5 chopped spring onions (scallions)
• 5 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 5 tbsp clear honey
• 1 lime, zest and juice

Directions:

1. Heat some oil in a pan and fry the ginger, garlic, chili and onions.
   
2. Add the zest and juice of the lime and pour in the soy sauce. Add the honey and cook for one minute until heated through and sticky.
   
3. Meanwhile, pan-fry the two pieces of salmon for 2 minutes each side in a hot griddle pan.
4. When the sauce is reduced add the salmon to the teriyaki sauce frying pan, and coat in the sauce.
   
5. Serve with salad and noodles/rice.
   

Serves 2.

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Plum Ice Cream

My mother in law has a lovely plum tree in her back garden, and a few weeks ago she noticed that several plums had started to drop from it. My younger brothers in law decided to climb into the tree, and after giving it a good shake, hundreds and hundreds of plums fell from the tree! After the inevitable plum fight, my MIL gave me a hundred or so plums to take home and thus began my plum recipe week. The first thing I made was this yummy plum ice cream. I found the recipe on a great blog called Pink Parsley. You can find the recipe here: http://pinkparsleycatering.blogspot.com/2010/08/plum-ice-cream.html



So far we've only eaten it on it's own, but I imagine it would go very well with a lemony dessert.

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Banana-Chocolate Cookies

On a recent family holiday to Devon, my younger brother in law and I decided it would be fun to bake cookies. We added chopped banana to basic choc-chip cookie mix and rolled the mix into balls. We baked them for a little longer than needed due to the added moisture from the bananas. The cookies are naturally gooey, so it's best to leave them for about 10 minutes after taking them out of the oven, so that they can firm up. Unfortunately, we were all too impatient and ate them straight away!



And here's the plate 60 seconds later...

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Leeds United Cupcakes

The football season kicked off last month, and Leeds' first game of the season against Derby was aired on television. My in-laws had us over for nibbles, and to watch the match. I decided to bake some Leeds cupcakes for everybody. The sponge is a simple, rich chocolate recipe and the icing is just coloured buttercream...

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Rainbow Cake

Recently, a friend and colleague of mine turned 22. She had a birthday barbecue to celebrate the occasion and I decided to make her a birthday cake. She told me that she likes the colour purple so I decided to make what looked like a basic birthday cake, iced purple. Inside however, I thought I'd make it extra special by baking a rainbow sponge!


I made four rainbow sponges by dividing a basic sponge mixture between five bowls and colouring each one a different colour. Then I blobbed spoonfuls of mixture into the cake pans until covered.

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Father's Day Sausage Rolls

Today is Father's Day, and to celebrate I made my Dad some sausage rolls. I've made these for him before, and he seems to really like them. I think it's sweeter to give a homemade gift, so I knocked up a batch of these sausage rolls last night and gift wrapped them in a cellophane bag with ribbon early this morning. Unfortunately, I received a message from my Dad a couple of hours ago saying that the whole of his household are suffering from a sickness bug and that he therefore won't be able to see me today. I feel really bad for him, and will be sure to bake him a fresh batch of sausage rolls, ready for when we next meet. This of course meant that my husband had to eat the batch I baked last night - but he didn't need much persuading!

Hope you feel better soon Dad. x


Recipe:
http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries/index.jsp?bmUID=1277102698297
I use a sweet tomato chutney instead of mango chutney.

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Chili Stuffed Peppers

I love this recipe because it's yummy, filling and very low in carbohydrates. It takes a little time to prepare, so it's a perfect weekend meal.



Ingredients:

• 4 large bell peppers (yellow, orange or red)
• 400g lean beef steak mince
• 150g can of cooked and drained kidney beans
• 2 x 390g cans of chopped tomatoes
• 1 large white onion, diced.
  
• 2 crushed garlic cloves
  
• 2 tbsps tomato puree
• 2 tbsp light brown sugar
• 2.5 tbsps ground cumin
• 1 tbsp hot chili powder
• 1 heaped tsp ground cinnamon
• Large handful of roughly chopped fresh basil
  
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese.
  

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit / 180 degrees celcius. Cut the tops off of the peppers and remove the white pith and seeds from the inside of the peppers. Ensure that each pepper can stand up freely (cut a very thin slice from the bottom of each pepper if they cannot stand).
   
2. Rub each pepper with olive oil and place in a roasting pan. Roast the peppers in the oven for around 20 minutes.
   
3. While the peppers are roasting, you can begin to make the chili. Heat a little olive oil in a large frying pan. Fry the onion and garlic in the oil until soft and translucent.
   
4. Break off clumps of the mince and toss into the frying pan. Fry the mince until brown, and then drain off any excess fat. Stir the chopped tomatoes and tomato puree into the mince, onions and garlic and warm through.
   
5. Add the kidney beans and simmer until the mixture is slightly reduced. Then add the cinnamon, cumin, sugar and chili powder. Stir until the spices are combined, and then add the basil. Remove from heat.
   
6. Take the peppers out of the oven and fill each one with the chili (you will probably have a little chili left over - save it for tomorrows lunch!). Top the peppers with cheese and put them back in the oven until the cheese is melted, around 5 minutes. Serve with green salad.
   

Makes 4 stuffed peppers.

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England Cake (England vs USA)

After months of anticipation and excitement, the World Cup has finally arrived. For their first match, England had been drawn to play against the USA, and with football.....or soccer...being the most popular sport in the England, and the fastest growing sport in the US, this had all the makings of a great match. To mark the occasion, my in-laws invited everyone over to watch the game, which was a perfect excuse for me to break out the cake pan!

I decided to make an England flag cake. I've never used royal icing before so it was a bit of a challenge. I made two rectangle sponges and sandwiched them together using buttercream and jam. I rolled out shop bought royal icing to decorate the cake. The finished cake was a little messy, but not bad for my first attempt. And whilst we couldn't say that victory was sweet, at least the cake was!


And here's a snap of myself in all my festive glory:

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Handmade Birthday Cards

The tag line for my blog is, "All things Cakey, Bakey and Hand-makey..." Well I've uploaded a few things cakey, and I've definitely shared a few things bakey, but as yet I've not shown you anything hand-makey! So, this is my first craft related post. These are just a few greetings cards that I made during a few rainy evenings this week. Some people are great at making complicated, fancy cards, but mine are just simple and cute. I'll give them out for birthdays and other occasions later on in the year. It won't be long before I make a start on my Christmas cards!

These are my favourite ones:














I love this one. It's simple yet elegant and it reminds me of Autumn. My Mum's birthday is in September, so I will probably give this to her.















This one is for my husband's niece. She's a real cutie and is turning three in July














This one is really girly, and I love it! In case you can't see them clearly, those stickers say "I love you more than chocolate.... shoes..... diamonds." So cute.

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Super Simple Honey-Mustard Marinade

The recent warm weather here in the UK really put me in the mood for something simple and light, like a nice salmon salad. Being a working gal, I don't have a great deal of time to make dinner when I get home from work. Therefore, I favour simple recipes or meals I can make ahead for my weeknight meals. This marinade is both delicious and simple, and you can prepare it in the morning and leave whatever you choose to marinate (salmon, chicken etc) in the fridge all day long.


Ingredients

• 4 tbsp clear honey
• 3 tbsp wholegrain mustard
• 2 tbsp soy sauce.

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Pour over the meat or fish you are marinating, and leave in the fridge for 4-8 hours before baking. Enjoy

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Roasted Red Pepper Soup

In the very bottom of my cupboard, buried deep under piles of books, is a large, green shoe box. This shoe box holds around 300 recipes that I have cut from magazines and leaflets. Shamefully, I have only actually tried a small percentage of these recipes. Every now and then I dig it out and find one to make, and that's how I found this little beauty! There's nothing tastier than sweet, roasted red peppers. So much better than green peppers. Give it a try!




Ingredients:

• 4 red peppers, halved and de-seeded
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 500ml vegetable stock
• 390g tin chopped tomatoes
• Large handful roughly chopped basil leaves

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius / 350 degrees fahrenheit. Place the peppers on a baking tray, drizzle with a little olive oil and roast for 20-15 minutes.
   
2. Meanwhile, over a low heat, fry the onion and garlic in olive oil until translucent. Add the tomato puree and warm through.
   
3. Once the peppers are roasted, remove them from the oven and set aside until cool enough to handle, then peel off their skins, roughly chop and add to the onion and garlic mixture until combined.
   
4. Stir through the stock and chopped tomatoes and simmer for 5 minutes then season with salt and black pepper. Transfer to a blender and blend until smooth. Top with the basil before serving.
   

Serves 3

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Sticky Pecan Squares

Finally it's the weekend! Two whole days to fill with whatever you like - and in my case, baking! I've been waiting all week long to try this recipe, which I got from http://www.monkeydish.com/
Me and my husband both love nuts, especially pecans and macadamias, and this recipe makes the absolute best of them!


Ingredients:

Crust:
6 oz. unsalted butter, cut up
2 cups all-purpose flour
1⁄2 cup light brown sugar
1⁄2 tsp. salt

Topping:
8 oz. pecan halves (2 cups)
4 oz. unsalted butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1⁄3 cup golden syrup / dark corn syrup
2 tbsp. heavy cream

Directions:

1. For crust: Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit / 175 degrees celcius. In food processor, combine all ingredients. Process until mixture just holds together.

2. Crumble mixture into 13in by 9in. baking pan; press evenly into bottom of pan. Bake about 20 min., until golden.

3. Meanwhile prepare topping: Coarsely chop pecans. In heavy saucepan, melt butter; stir in brown sugar, syrup, and cream. Simmer mixture 1 minute; stir in chopped pecans and remaining pecan halves.

4. Pour pecan mixture over hot crust and spread evenly. Bake 20 minutes longer. Cool and cut into squares.

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Soft Brown Sugar Shortbread Fingers

My husband adores shortbread, and whilst I like it too, my favourite biscuit is always going to be something of the chocolate variety! But as shortbread is so simple (especially this recipe!) I have no problem knocking up a batch for him every now and then. I created this recipe by accident whilst making a shortcake base for another recipe. This recipe uses brown sugar, and more butter than usual shortbread recipes which gives it a soft texture and wonderful caramel flavour.


Ingredients:

• 6 oz. unsalted butter, cut up
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1⁄2 cup light brown sugar
• 1⁄2 tsp. salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit / 175 degrees celcius. In food processor, combine all ingredients. Process until mixture just holds together.
2. Grease a 13-in by 9-in baking pan with Butter. Crumble mixture into the pan; press evenly into bottom of pan. Cut the mixture with a sharp knife (one line across the middle and several vertical lines, to make fingers).
   
3. Bake about 20 min until golden.
4. Once cooled, lift the soft shortbread fingers out of the pan.

Makes 16 Fingers.

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Pasta Con Verdure Arrosto

As extravagant as this recipe sounds, it translates to "Pasta with Roasted Vegetables" which means it's relatively straightforward. This dish is one of my favourites, and is especially good in the summer when the tomatoes will be at their best.


Ingredients

• 8 large tomatoes, quartered roughly
  
• 2 red onions, diced
• 1 courgette, sliced
• 2 yellow peppers, de-seeded and roughly chopped
• 380g dried pasta - I used Spiralini
  
• Dash of both balsamic vinegar and olive oil
• Handful of freshly chopped basil
• 1 tbsp concentrated tomato puree

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius / 350 degrees fahrenheit.
   
2. Put the tomatoes, onion, courgette and peppers in a large casserole dish. Drizzle over olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and shake the casserole dish to coat the vegetables. Roast the vegetables for 30-40 minutes, or until very tender and caramelised.
   
3. Boil the pasta in a pan of boiling water for 10-12 minutes, stirring once. Drain the pasta and return to the pan, but remove from heat.
   
4. Tip the roasted vegetables in with the pasta, along with the tomato puree, and a little olive oil. Add a dash more balsamic vinegar and some black pepper and salt. Heat gently for one minute until all of the ingredients are combined.
5. Stir through the basil a few second before serving. Top with shaved parmesan if you wish.
   

Serves 4

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Chocolatey Shortbread Hearts

I've always struggled with shortbread and found it can be a temperamental thing to bake. Sometimes it's too hard, sometimes it's too soft, and when the texture's perfect - it's not pretty! Shortbread tends to bubble on the surface while it's cooking and the only real way to stop this, is to prick the unbaked hearts with a fork. This doesn't look so pretty either, so I always resort to dipping mine in chocolate!



Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 sifted icing sugar (Confectioners Sugar)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cup all purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 100g of chocolate - white, milk, dark - whatever you like!

Directions

1. Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla until combined
2. Beat in flour and salt. Wrap dough in plastic wrap; chill until firm, at least 2 hours, or overnight.
3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough until 1/16-to-1/8 inch thick. Cut out hearts with a heart cookie cutter. Transfer cookies to an ungreased baking sheet, chill for 30 minutes.
4. Heat oven to 300 degrees fahrenheit /180 degrees celcius with a rack in the center. Press the pricks of a fork into each cookie to make designs. Bake until just beginning to brown around the edges, about 18 minutes.
5. Once the cookies have cooled, melt the chocolate in a heat-proof bowl set over simmering water. Then the fun part! Decorate the cookies however you like - dip them, drizzle the chocolate over, add sprinkles! Transfer cookies to a sheet of baking paper to dry.
   

Makes about 15 Shortbread Hearts - depending on the size of the cutter you use.

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Hearty Chicken and Veggie Stew

Yesterday was miserable, rainy and surprisingly cold for the last day of May. So I decide to cook a generous bowl of comforting stew for dinner. I had never made this before, it's a combination of a few of my staple recipes, and it must've been good - Dan had seconds! The addition of potatoes to this recipe is optional, depending on how stodgy you want your stew, and whether you plan on serving bread. We ate it with crusty rolls, so I left out the potatoes.






Ingredients

• 2 raw, skinned chicken breasts, diced.
• 2 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed (optional)
• 2 large carrots, peeled and thick sliced
• 2 large leeks, sliced
• 1 large white onion, diced
• 2 large stalks celery, diced
• 1 cup petit pois
  
• 700ml chicken or vegetable stock
• 60g plain flour
• 2 tbsps dried thyme
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 50g butter

Directions

1. Put the carrots and potatoes (if using) in a large pan of boiling water and par-boil until tender, but not too soft. Drain and keep to one side.
   
2. Put the diced chicken in a plastic ziploc/sandwich bag with the flour and 1 tbsp of thyme. Shake the bag to coat the chicken.
3. In a large stew pot, melt the butter over a medium heat. Once melted pour in the chicken with the flour, and the leek, celery and onion. Fry until the flour is combined with the melted butter, the chicken is starting to turn white and the vegetables have softened. If the mixture starts to get too dry, drizzle over a little olive oil.
   
4. Tip in the carrots and potatoes and stir in the tomato puree and the remainder of the thyme. Once combined, slowly add the stock, stirring until it thickens. Scrape the bottom of the pan to release any stuck flour. Add the cup of petit pois.
   
5. Leave to simmer for 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Yields 3 small portions or 2 generous portions.

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Maple and Pecan Cheesecake

I love making cheesecakes. Any kind, any time, anywhere. I would probably bathe in cheesecake if it were possible. The great thing about them, is once you've mastered the basic recipe you can make all kinds of wonderful variations. This is a little no-bake cheesecake I invented for two rumbly tumblies.



Ingredients:

• Crushed digestive biscuits / graham crackers (I used 8 to make two individual cheesecakes)
• 3 tbsps butter (To every 8 crushed biscuits/cracker)
• 250g soft cream cheese
• 90ml double cream
• 30g icing sugar
• 85g cushed pecan nuts
• 3 tbsps maple syrup
  

Directions:

1. To make the crust, melt the butter either in a microwave or in a pan over a low heat and stir into the crushed biscuits and crushed pecans. If the mixture is too dry for your taste, add a little more melted butter.
   
2. Press the crust mixture into two ramekins, cooking rings or a small springform pan.
3. In a seperate bowl, add the cream cheese, double cream, icing sugar and maple syrup. Stir until combined.
   
4. Press the cheese mix onto the crust. Drizzle a little maple syrup over top and finish with a cluster of pecans. Chill in the fridge for 2 hours or more before serving.
   

Yields 2 generous servings - perfect for a cosy night in!

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My First Post....

The day has arrived. I finally succumbed and started a blog. I've been so inspired by the many creative blog authors out there, that I decided to see what I can offer back to all of you. So a little about me: My name is Catherine (Cat to my friends), I'm 22, I live in the UK and I'm married to my husband, Dan. We've been married for about 18 months, and together for a little over 6 years.

I love to cook, bake and craft so my blog entries will mainly revolve around these topics, however, I foresee this little hobby becoming a family affair so here's a little pic of Dan and I.




Just a little snap from our honeymoon. I look forward to getting to know you all and making lots of blogger friends!

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