Welcome

Reaching the final of Masterchef 2007 was a rollercoaster of emotion, with huge highs and lows, but I loved every minute and learnt a huge amount. I owe a great deal to John and Gregg who had faith in my ability when I did not believe in myself. Since competing on the programme my life has changed considerably. I now write cookery columns for two magazines, give cookery demonstrations and am just working on my 13th cook book - unlucky number for some but not for me!!! I love all forms of country cooking, using seasonal and locally sourced produce. This blog is to enable me to share with you a few of my recipes and baking ideas. Enjoy Hannah xxxx

Monday 10 May 2010

Last week was one of those weeks where everything electronic I touched seemed to go wrong. My camera broke, I lost the battery for my spare camera (even though I had it in my hand at the beginning of the week - I put it somewhere safe and now can't find it!!!), my computer didn't work for the cookery demonstration I gave on Wednesday (thanks so much to the lovely Kathy Brown for rescuing me at the last minute and lending me (and setting up) her laptop about 15 mins before I was due to start). Yesterday the trains weren't working and the website just said "no unplanned engineering work" not very helpful - so I had to drive Sacha all the way to Kings Cross to catch the Eurostar - not quite the afternoon I had been planning but luckily we just made it in time. All in all a little bit rubbish! My camera is now at the menders and, as they said it was going to take a month to repair, I have treated myself to a new cheap camera as a standby so that I can actually take some photos for the blog and for my holiday on Friday. I feel as if life has resumed to normal this week - lets hope so. My good news is that yesterday I finished the final edit of the manuscript for my book Whoopie Pies. It is just being proof read by my friend Jess and will then go to the publishers in the next few days. My favourite recipes in the book are the lime jelly pies which literally wobbly, the croquembouche tower (48 whoopies high in beautiful rainbow colours and ribbons - how I wish I could show you a picture but can't just yet) and Oyster shell pies with sugar pearls. So in lieu of the whoopie photos - here are a few inspirational cupcakes from a wonderful tea room in Bath - such vibrant colours and I loved the little sugar bows made from ready rolled icing - so simple to make and yet they look very 1950 vintage. Is it wrong to want one of these spiral staircases for displaying my cakes on!!!

4 comments:

Julie said...

That spiral staircase is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen! I would LOVE that for my wedding cake. I would also love you to bake my wedding cup cakes but I'm on a budget!! x

Rita said...

Awwww, I love the spiral staircase too - how creative!! Same things happening with me - broke my glasses, my phone charger stopped working ... and I in Spain and can't fix any of it.

The Wandering Pit said...

The spiral staircase is a really great way to display cupcakes!Love it! Never mind, Hannah-hope you have a better week this week! Some good news to cheer you up: I´ve just bought your Big Book of Cakes....in Spanish!!!

Sarah-Jane - SiliconeMoulds.com said...

I had my disaster week at the start of the month.

Forgot to put eggs in a cake. Redo. Forgot to put sugar in cake. Redo. Burnt dinner. Redo. Two days of torture.

Looking forward to the whoopie pie book :-)