Make this easy Lemon Sunflower Cake for a lazy summer’s day, it’s a lemon flavoured sponge cake with easy decoration to look like a sunflower. The perfect centrepiece for a summer party table! Updated 2026 · Now with printable recipe sheet – originally featured on BabyCentre A quick and easy cake to ease me back […]
Win £500 Canvas Holidays Vouchers
With £500 Canvas Holidays vouchers you could be nearer to Disneyland Paris than you think. I badly wanted to visit Disneyland when I was a child. Disney was the magical treat served up on miserable bank holidays as “Disney Time” clips. Every Easter, May Day and August I craved to see the dancing mushrooms from […]
Naked Wedding Cakes with Lily Vanilli
Unveiling the “naked” wedding cake. Suddenly sugarpaste seems such an old maid. The home spun, home crafted craze is reaching its zenith. I have just attended a day’s Christmas in July media launches and clearly home made is hotter than well, July. Since the credit crunch forced us to make do and mend, our inner […]
Basa Fillets with Bacon and Spinach
These frozen white fish fillets of basa, cooked with strips of bacon and wilted spinach are a budget friendly and healthy home-made meal to feed the family. Updated 2026 · Now with printable recipe, a similar version aimed at families with young children was originally featured on Babycentre Those sum-umm-er ni-iiiiiiiights. Tell me more. I […]
Kids Pizza Express Party
Children love decorating pizzas. Kids’ Pizza Express parties make the perfect birthday party experience that’s easy for parents too. I looked into booking a Pizza Express party for Ted’s birthday last year but instead did my own cupcake decorating party under a wet gazebo. Although the food decorating part was very successful with the children, […]
Sooty Birthday Cake
Sooty, Sweep and Soo were the stars of Ted’s Sooty birthday cake this year.
Vitamix Raspberry Ice Cream
This Vitamix Raspberry Ice Cream can be made in under 3 minutes using fresh raspberries, frozen bananas and a powder blender. Updated 2026 · Now with printable recipe Dessert doesn’t come much dead easier than this and after a month’s hiatus Dead Easy Desserts is back. A round up of the last edition’s entries, hosted […]
Linguine, ham and olives
String style pastas, whether they be linguine, spaghetti or tagliatelle make the ultimate fast kid friendly meals that can be freshly cooked in single portions. It’s Sunday night and I like something easy. I need to cook up something in a hurry and various permutations of spaghetti with sauce are my go-to speedy supper. Pasta […]
Raw Cavolo Nero Soup (Vitamix)
A spicy raw green smooth Cavolo nero soup recipe made with a Vitamix blender. My Vitamix machine was originally gifted by their PR company although this post wasn’t directly commissioned and written some time later. What’s green and goes red at the flick of a switch? The answer – brace yourselves for being grossed out […]
School Tuck Shop Memories With Hope And Greenwood
Today I chuckled to read that school tuck shops selling sweets and chocolate have been banned across England. Not because I’m a gung-ho nutrionist or a sadist but the mere mention of the phrase “tuck shop” took me back to halcyon days of the late 1980s when I was a keen consumer and purchaser of […]
Chocolate Orange Truffles: Paul A Young
A guest recipe for Chocolate Orange Truffles by chocolatier Paul A Young. Updated 2026 · The chocolate class pictures originally part of this post are linked below. Following on from Adventures in Chocolate, Paul A Young has published How to Make Chocolates with Lakeland. Alongside Paul’s book, Lakeland have put together a range of […]
Chocolate Truffle Making Workshop With Paul A Young
Looking back at a hands-on Chocolate Truffle Making Workshop with master chocolatier Paul A Young at Little Portland Cookery School. Updated 2026 · Previously published alongside Chocolate Orange Truffles It’s a hard life, trucking into town on the tube for a Chocolate Event. At least that’s what I tell myself. A mesmerising evening watching chocolate […]
