Strawberry almond cake

I bought a small wooden crate full of beautiful strawberries from the greengrocers the other day, and the shiny red juicy fruit inspired me to whip up this cake - it's incredibly quick to do, but utterly delicious!  The strawberries are pushed into the cake batter with their noses pointing upwards before baking, but when it comes out of the oven they have become completely submerged as the cake has risen, so it's a strawberry surprise when you cut into it.  This has all the flavours of British summer - Eton mess, Victoria sponge, strawberries and cream - and brings a bit of sunshine even to rainy spring days like these.

Salted caramel chocolate tart

I tasted salted caramel tart at a really good Italian restaurant recently, and it was so amazing I had to try and recreate it! This is incredibly indulgent - it uses a lot of butter in every stage - and it looks quite complicated as there are several components (pastry, caramel, chocolate filling, chocolate ganache)... but it's so worth it!

White chocolate florentines

These are really easy biscuits to make and take no time at all - but just be careful to watch them when baking so they don't burn.  I've coated mine in white chocolate but they are lovely with dark or milk chocolate too.

Pear and crystallised ginger cookies

This is the same basic recipe as my peach, pecan and cinnamon cookies, but with dried pear and crystallised ginger.  The mixture makes about 30 cookies so if you like you could divide it in half after stage 4 and make two different batches.

Peach, pecan and cinnamon cookies

We're off to our friend Liz's hen party today and so I've made a couple of different cookie recipes to take along.  This one uses dried peaches that I bought at our local farmer's market recently, which gives them a lovely flavour and nice chewy bits!  Rolled in sugar, the cookies have a lovely twinkly crust.

Mini egg rocky road

I love the excuse of Easter to gorge on chocolate.  This recipe is easy and indulgent - lots of chocolate and colourful goodies (cranberries, mini marshmallows) topped with Cadbury's mini eggs.  These were quickly devoured!

Raspberry, almond and sour cream bread

OK, I have a confession to make. When this came out of the oven, the smell was so good I actually stood over the cake for several minutes just breathing in the delicious aroma of raspberry and almond. It made me chuckle at myself for being so weird... but then I just had to have another sniff! And the taste... it beats the smell.  This is SO good. Try it. You won't be disappointed.

Rhubarb and strawberry upside-down slices

It was the most beautiful sunny weekend and we went for a lovely picnic on the cliffs of Southerndown, before clambering down the cliffs to the beach below for a paddle in the sea with Doug the Pug. On the way we stopped at our favourite deli to pick up some picnic supplies, and I bought a couple of slices of the most delicious rhubarb and cherry cake. It was so good I had to figure out how to make it - I couldn't find any cherries in the local greengrocers so I used some lovely ripe strawberries instead. The cake batter is really just my usual upside-down cake recipe, but this time in a rectangular brownie tin. These are sweet, sunny and perfect for seaside picnics!

Apple, carrot, ginger and walnut bread (with optional cranberries and crumble topping!)

It's a work colleague, Tim's, last day tomorrow and the office has made him a hamper as a leaving present as he's a bit of a foodie. I was asked to make a cake for the hamper that would be a bit 'unusual' so came up with this - a version of carrot cake but with fresh ginger, grated apple and walnut. Unfortunately I have to give it wrapped up whole, so won't get a chance to taste it - but it looks and smells so good I'll definitely be making this again!
                                                                                                                                                                  

Ahem... I am officially a greedy guts.  I was so disappointed not to have tried tasting this, that the next day I came home from work and made another one! Never able to resist 'tweaking' a recipe, this time I added a crumble topping... and some cranberries. (Told you I can't resist). I've amended the recipe with these 'optional' extras (but I recommend them - it was amazing cake!!)

Lemon ginger yoghurt and poppy seed mini muffins

I bought some delicious lemon and ginger yoghurt recently and thought it would make a lovely ingredient for some mini muffins.  I added poppy seeds for some crunch and they add a wonderful speckled texture. These are light and delicious.