Elderflower and lime cheesecakes with greengage compote

It was our second wedding anniversary on Tuesday and we went out for a lovely meal to celebrate.  For pudding, Lu ordered a deconstructed lime and elderflower cheesecake.  I wasn't such a fan of the 'deconstruction' (blobs of cheesecake mixture on a plate with a shortbread biscuit) but the combination of elderflower and lime was delicious!  It inspired me to make this for dessert this evening for dinner with our friend Kirsty.  I think it would be really lovely with gooseberries but unfortunately couldn't find any at my local greengrocer's.  Greengages are a good replacement though and compliment the elderflower beautifully.  This would also be nice with ginger biscuits in the base, but I just added some ground ginger to malted milk biscuits.

Chocolate, rum and ginger cupcakes

We've just come back from spending a brilliant weekend on a canal barge in Bradford on Avon for my friend Cath's hen party.  As it was pirate themed and I made these rum cupcakes with chocolate and ginger, and made skull-and-cross-bones flags on cocktail sticks to decorate them.  These went very well with copious rum and ginger cocktails!

Raspberry crumble cake bars

As usual, I came home tired from work but with a sweet tooth and wanted something really quick and easy to rustle up for pudding.  We had a couple of small punnets of raspberries in the fridge and two eggs, and this was the result.  I even used American style measuring cups as I'm getting to see how amazingly simple they are - just scoop up the right amount of flour or sugar without thinking about scales!  Unfortunately, my tiredness meant I used only 4oz butter (what the Americans call 1 'stick') when the recipe I was using actually called for '1 cup', which is 8oz.  It seemed to turn out perfectly though, so I think I can therefore call this a healthy dessert as it has 50% less butter!

Banana, yoghurt, honey, oats and walnut muffins

It's my Saturday morning baking session and so I've used up a couple of ripe bananas to make some breakfast muffins.  These fill the house with an amazing smell while they're cooking, and taste delicious!

Lemon and lavender drizzle cake

Along with my carrot and ginger cake with orange ginger drizzle, I've made another drizzle cake for Will's funeral today - a lemon and lavender drizzle.  This recipe only uses egg yolks, and I used the leftover egg whites to make a batch of blackberry almond friands.

Carrot and ginger cake with orange ginger drizzle

Today is the funeral of my dear friend and first love, Will.  After the service we're all gathering for tea and cake, and so this is one of my contributions - a comforting carrot and fresh ginger loaf cake with a lovely orange and gingery drizzle.