Given that I’ve been ill in the past week courtesy of the H1N1 virus, it seems appropriate that my first foray back into the kitchen be to make something healthy. I have a confession. I am a dietary schizophrenic. The outcome of which is that I have intermittent Gillian-McKeith-come-Gwyneth-Paltrow-esque spells of healthy eating sandwiched between […]
A Weekend in St Remy de Provence
Too sick to to cook this week, I am taking you a weekend mini break in my favourite town on earth, St-Rémy-de-Provence. As you might expect by the name, St Rémy is at the heart of Provence, southern France around 20km between Avignon and Arles. It has been home to Romans, Nostradamus, Van Gogh and […]
Passionfruit Chocolate Cakes
Passionfruit, chocolate and cream are a heavenly trio in this cake recipe using carrots. These passionfruit chocolate cakes were a variation on a roulade recipe. I’d attempted to remake my pumpkin buttercream previously seen topping the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes. It went the way of the Hummingbird cream cheese frosting so I frantically whipped up […]
Chocolate Macarons with Beetroot Chocolate Fudge Filling
Chocolate macarons are just as delicious even if you don’t get them right. These were made from a David Lebovitz recipe but before I’d perfected how to do them! Beginner’s luck is a terrible thing. My first macarons, pecan pie with salted caramel fudge filling were a rip roaring success and I’m afraid to say […]
Chocolate Aubergine Cake
Eggplant recipes and chocolate cake are not normally something you’d expect to find in the same sentence but the beautiful cake you see above is made with aubergine (or eggplants depending what you call them). The Heartache Chocolate Cake, featured in Harry Eastwood’s Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache claims to be the new healthier way to console yourself […]
Orange Saffron Polenta Cake
You may be familiar with Harry Eastwood from her Channel 4 series, “Cook Yourself Thin”. Her book Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache is full of cakes made from vegetables. I’m not going for obvious Hallowe’en references this year but I can promise you this blog post features bleeding and stabbing. If you can’t face the full […]
Scandi Kitchen Food Photography Class
Scandi Kitchen is a lovely Swedish cafe a few steps from Oxford Circus. It’s where I went for a one-off food photography class organised by Helen from A Forkful of Spaghetti. I’ve often thought that relationships only survive visits to Ikea because men look forward to the hot dogs on the way out to the […]
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes
Can pumpkin puree be used to make frosting for cupcakes? Absolutely.See below how I was inspired by this Harry Eastwood (of Cook Yourself Thin) recipe. Going away on holiday is terribly inconvenient when you’re a food blogger. In the last month I’ve had both a weekend away to Provence and a week in Montenegro. In […]
When I was excited about a food blogging conference
This is pathetically short and ill-composed post considering how excited I am about this. So much has happened in the last couple of weeks whilst I had no broadband that I’m suffering a bit of a blog-kage and back(b)log. I must however share details of the very exciting Food Blogger Connect event which is taking […]
Appearing in Panto… Montenegro style
Anyone following me on Twitter will be sick to death of hearing this. I have had no broadband since I got back from our holiday in Montenegro earlier this week. I am therefore posting from my mobile which is a bit fiddly. Normal service should be resumed next week. In the meantime I share […]
When I had a yard sale before jumble trail existed
You know that feeling you get after having taken some exams and you get home and don’t know what to do with yourself? I feel a bit like that this afternoon. My house is suitably de-cluttered after this morning’s yard sale and I am not pressurising myself to make any more cake this weekend. Yesterday […]
Mini Blackberry Cupcakes
These Mini Blackberry Cupcakes have little vanilla bases, richly-coloured buttercream flavoured with juicy blackberries and a fresh berry decoration to finish. Updated 2026 · Now with a printable recipe, the original 2009 post is preserved underneath. These blackberry cupcakes followed an earlier recipe for Crushed Raspberry Cupcakes; the two recipes are very similar. The raspberry […]
