Brownie experiments

My dreams are slowly coming true and after my latest trip to Asda, I'm happy to report that they are continuing to stock more American classics! Today's find include mini peanut butter cups and tootsie rolls which are both welcome additions to their already expanding Hershey's range.

{Silent Sunday: freshly baked cookies}

Is there anything more alluring than the smell of freshly baked cookies?

Nottingham Contemporary family visit review

Family fun pack

This summer, money and time constraints have resulted in a family 'stay-cation' for me and the boys but I am determined to try and do as many things as possible to make this summer memorable before my eldest starts Junior school in September. So Notts - here we come!

One place that I love to visit is the Nottingham Contemporary, a contemporary arts centre in the city centre. I don't drive and luckily it's positioned right near the Lace Market tram stop so it's nice and easy to access for me coming from Hucknall.

Chocolate glazed biscuits

I've been baking from my Be-Ro recipe book again and this time I found a recipe that reminded me of some biscuits we used to have in our school canteen. We had the yummiest cakes at school, isn't it funny how we can always remember the food we used to eat at school? I'm sure I still crave them...

Classic flapjack recipe

If you've been reading my recent posts you'll note that I'm going against my natural grain over the summer holidays and attempting to bake more 'classic' family treats.

Think; less frosting, more golden syrup.

Back to basics: baking the classics

Vanilla shortbread

Last year my Mother-in-Law very kindly gave me some awesome old school recipe books - within the pile was this old Be-Ro book which contains the simplest and most classic bakes I've ever seen!

Now, like most bakers I have a TON of baking books that I rarely glance at. This doesn't mean I love them any less (Nigella has her own shelf) but once you have mastered certain recipes, your baking books tend to become cake porn which only gets glanced at when you're in the mood.

Zero baking fudge recipe

EDIT: I wrote this blog post a few weeks ago and then saw that Maison Cupcake was running a zero baking event so am republishing with the recipe listed below.

So this week I decided I need to try something a little bit different and expand my baking skills to incorporate a new sweet treat. But what to bake? I have ZERO time in the day and most of the items in my baking cupboard are reserved for cakes this week...and then I spotted a can lurking at the back of my baking shelf...

Condensed milk. The key yummy ingredient in my favourite recipe, Millionaire's shortbread. I decided to have a bit of a scout around Pinterest and see where the evening took me and I low and behold I stumbled across a recipe to make 'fudge' the easy way utilising my can of milk. Huzzah!

PHOTO: Red Velvet cake batter

Loving the red hue of this cake batter pre-baking - can't wait to cut into it after it's baked!!

1st time blondie lover

I am a chocolate addict. There, that wasn't too hard was it? It's not exactly a big reveal from me but I do find that whenever I'm looking for a new recipe to try at home it normally involves copious amounts of the brown stuff in any of it's forms; dark, milk or white.

But one recipe that has bypassed me so far has been the great chocolate-less brownie - the blondie. Now I thought blondies were just white chocolate versions of brownies but it seems the addition of brown sugar gives them a caramelly taste that makes them quite distinct. They appear to be a cross between a brownie in texture and a cookie in flavour and they couldn't be simpler to make.