These are my latest embroideries back from the framers - a nice Christmassy Santa (although personally I think he looks a bit like one of the 3 Kings) with lots of pretty gold beads and a picture for my friend Maren's Norfolk seaside holiday cottage (I think I may have to stitch this one for myself at some point as I do think it is quite pretty)!  Feeling slightly festive now and looking forward to Christmas xxx

My lovely Muffy cat - just relaxing all weekend on the sofa (is it me or does she have the most ENORMOUS paws?).  Sadly I was not relaxing with her as I was working on my Aga book retesting the few last recipes - including these pumpkin muffins - what a bright orange colour they are and they tasted yummy!  I am glad to report that the book is now submitted - hurrah and yippee!!!!  So very happy and can now relax a little (although the proofs of my cheesecake book are arriving on Friday - no rest for the wicked - am very excitied to see all the pictures for the first time!)

Just had a nice interview on the radio with Elliott Webb this afternoon taking all things honey as part of National Honey month and gave a speak preview of one of the recipes from my new Cheesecake book (out next spring with Ryland Peters and Small) for Salty Honey Cheesecake.  You have to trust me on this one (I know it sounds an odd combination) - it is yummy and one of my favourite recipes in the book.  It is inspited by Four and Twenty Blackbirds - a delicious pie shop in Brooklyn where my brother lives - all they sell is pies, including their famous salty honey pie!  All this talk of honey reminds me that I would love to keep bees....I have so many books on bee keeping that it is high time I bought some hives of my own!

 

 

Can you spot the difference?  The lego model of the stadium in John Lewis at Stratford almost looked like the real thing.  You have got to love Lego!!!  Below is Mum (looking very patriotic) with C3PO and a Dalek - both made of lego - can you imagine how long they would have taken to make!!!

 

Last night I was lucky enough to have a ticket to the Paralympics closing ceremony.  What a night!!!!  Mum and I had one of the most amazing days of our lives.  To say it was EPIC would be an understatement and it was such an honour to see all the amazing Athletes.  I can't tell you enough how brilliantly organised the whole thing was.   It is a night I will remember forever!  Here are a few photos but they really don't do it justice.  It is incredible to think that each little colour dot represents a person as we all had a light paddle on our seats - the effect was incredible.  They even burnt a crop circle into the sports field!!!!

 

 

 

A 6am visitor to my garden - who stopped to admire the bunting!

I thought I would share these delightful pictures of my niece Hunter with you - isn't she growning up fast.  It is good to see that despite living in New York she is being taught the traditional English values of the importance of a good cup of tea!  In November I am finally going to meet her properly (Skype is brilliant but not quite as good as an in person cuddle) so I am really looking forward to my trip.

A few weeks ago, I spent a lovely evening with Kathy Brown learning how to properly crystalise edible flowers.  Before learning Kathy's tricks mine never looked very dainty and always had clumps of sugar on where I dipped the petals into the caster sugar (dipping was where I was going wrong I now know).  So here is what I learnt - whisk an egg white until light and foamy.  Using a clean fine paint brush, coat the petals in a thin layer of egg white, painting both the front and back of the flower.  Hold the flower in one hand and sprinkle a light dusting of caster sugar onto the flower using your finger tips at a height of about 20cm above the flower so that the coating is very fine.  Leave somewhere warm to dry overnight (on top of my Aga was ideal) on a silicon mat or a sheet of greaseproof paper.  I was so proud of the pretty results.  We used the sugar flowers as decorations on our desserts that evening.  Thanks Kathy for teaching me so well xxxx

Two new books of mine are now available to buy - Cake Pops and Doughnuts - both came out in the same week which was amazing for me!  They were such nice projects to work on and I hope you lovely blog readers approve xxx

My poor neglected blog and blog readers.  I am so ashamed not to have posted in such a long while.  My excuse is a new laptop and ipad, neither of which seem to want to work with Blogger, so I have had to revert to my old laptop to be able to log in.  Not ideal when I have so little free time!  Anyway - I have very nearly finished my next book - Sweet Things from the Aga which Absolute Press (an imprint of Bloomsbury) are kindly publishing for me. Here are my two favourite "tastebuds" Joshua and Rosie, tasting the giant sweet and salty pretzels from the book - you will be pleased to know they got the thumbs up!  I am just finishing the final write up now and introduction and then will be moving on to another nice project - will be able to hopefully tell you about that very soon.  This year is flying by in a whirl of recipe writing and baking!  Christmas will be here before I know it!

This was our lovely beach hut in Wells last week - you can just see my Mum reading on the balcony!  It was so quaint and a really good thing that we had somewhere to shelter from this endless rain.  Luckily the sun shined a lot as well and I was able to make a sandcastle and sunbathe a little.  More photos to follow!

In the meantime I have some exciting news about a new book that I have just started working on.  It is called "Sweet Things from the Aga" and will be published by Absolute Press/Bloomsbury next Summer.  The recipe list is very lovely (if I say so myself) with lots of new and delicious ideas and very excitingly the photos for the book are to be shot in my cottage!!!   I now have the perfect excuse to buy lots more cake stands and pretty plates - so that I can use them in the photos of course!

Last week I met one of my top food heros - Galton Blackiston after a delicious dinner at Morston Hall - The menu - Canapes: Herb mousse with smoked salmon, tomato spheres with basil oil (served in the herb garden!) followed by warm summer vegetable salad (so simple but delicious) with chanterille cream and a poached yolk (poached at 62 degrees for 1 1/2 hours (I asked!!!)) delicious skate which had arrived off the boat 3 hours before, duck with peaches (delicious), rhubarb jelly and lemon grass pannecotte for dessert and then coffee and chocolates!  It was all so utterly yummy.  Galton came to say hello after the meal and I was literally speechless - luckily Maren was on hand to talk to him whilst I regained my composure.  All in all it was a truly magical night and hopefully I will get to go back again one day!

It was Rosie's 6th birthday this weekend and her Mum asked me to bake cupcakes for her party.  These were my offerings - cookie monsters, rainbows and some pretty meringues (these were an experiment to see whether sugar sprinkles on the meringue kept their colour whilst baking and it worked - am sure I will be able to use this idea in a book at some point!)  Happy Birthday Rosie xxx

 I do hope that you all had a lovely Jubilee weekend.  It has been a non-stop celebration in our village, finishing with a firework display last night.  Despite the rain the whole village turned out for our historical parade, complete with vintage tractors and land girls, Queen Victoria and our current Queen on horseback!  It was a great site to see.  The Gingerbread Buckingham palace was won in the raffle and I also made this Jubilee cake which raised £100!   It was a new recipe that I made especially for the jubilee with lots of coconut, coconut rum, cinnamon and cherries and was topped with a crown candle. Sunday saw me making canapés for about 100 people which was a lot of work but definitely worth it as everyone loved the concert and stayed for a long while afterwards to enjoy the food and Pimms.    Even baby Hunter got into the spirit of the Jubilee all the way over in New York with her Emma Bridgewater mug!  She is such a cutie pie!

It is only a few weeks now until my new doughnut book goes on sale.  I haven't seen my advance copy yet but from the proof pages I know I am going to love it!  The doughnuts on the cover are black forest, tangy lemon, coconut ice and triple chocolate - I could definitely eat a few of these now!  Thank you lovely Ryland, Peters and Small peeps for, as always, making such a pretty book xxx

 A few days ago I had meetings in London and managed to take these snap shots of the jubilee bunting from my cab window!  How lovely - it makes me so proud to be British

The Jubilee weekend is finally here and I have put up my bunting.  Most houses in the village are decorated now and it is looking very patriotic.  I am busy planning my canape menu for the concert on Sunday - mini yorkshires with roast beef, tomato and white bean tarts, smoked salmon pate, quails eggs with sumac - yum yum!  Yesterday my palace made a little appearance in the Times as part of their cake competition.  They described it as an "immense buckingham palace made of gingerbread, complete with waving monach and electric lighting" - how lovely is that!  I am looking forward to putting it on display over the weekend for everyone to see and eat!!  Hope you all have lots of fun this weekend!

The icing had set on the Palace and so last night we moved it for the first time and hurrah it stayed in tact!!!!  It looked lovely in the sunshine and I am confident now that we will be able to carry it up to the village church for the concert on Sunday without the roof collapsing.  What good news!

To say that I have spent a few hours this weekend baking would be an understatement!!!! After 10 hours of solid baking and icing, I can now proudly unveil my gingerbread creation - hopefully you can tell that it is meant to be Buckingham Palace!  It is a meter long and is completely edible other than the cardboard Queen and Prince Philip on the balcony.  The windows are made of sheet gelatine which give a very pretty stained glass effect (future church gingerbread house is planned - but that's another story).  The crown decorations were made with ready roll icing and sprayed gold and the bunting is cut from union jack sugarettes.  I am hoping that it will still be OK by the weekend!!!!  My village is fully entering into the spirit of the Juliblee with 3 days of events!!!!  Quite inpressive given the limited number of houses in the village - with a parade, organ recital of Coronation music with Pimms and Canapes, fireworks, dog show, cake decorating competition (I am the judge and no my Buckingham palace is not entered!), hog roast - I can wait!

Lovely Kim from Naturally Gluten Free blog has very kindly published a nice interview with me about my Gluten Free Baker book.  To read it click here