Our tree and my super easy swag over the fireplace (with Christmas decorations hung on a string of dried hips). I really like my new felt toadstool Christmas decoration and have also wound tiny floristry toadstool decorations onto some of the branches of the
tree - they look very cute!

I love Christmas - it is my favourite time of year and this weekend I finally feel like Christmas has begun in our cottage, with the tree up and the house decorated. Being busy I have ordered a lot of presents on line and so every day parcels are arriving. This morning I had a nice surprise though when I parcel arrived for me that I hadn't ordered. Christmas cookies and a chocolate hamper from my friend Victoria. The cookies are totally me and so cute (the reindeer is my favourite) - I just can't believe how well they travelled as I would never dare to post biscuits. Needless to say I have already tried one and they are delicious. The chocolate hamper is full of lovely goodies too - mint chocolate, chocolate covered mango, cocoa and a delicious swizzle stick for making hot chocolate. I will have to bake some chocolate treats soon with the contents of my hamper and will post the recipe for you! Thank you Victoria xxx I know that some of you will love these as much as I do and so, if you are interested in sending them yourself they are available from Interflora! (actually having had a look they have lots and lots of lovely hampers - for a link to the full range of Christmas hampers click here)

It is so long since I last posted that you must be wondering if I ever made it back from Birmingham. I did but a work trip to Germany and a really bad cold have kept me away from my computer. The Good Food Show was amazing fun. The demos went well - I had a moment when I was trying to roll my roulade from the paper onto a serving plate when a little voice in my head said "remind me again why you are demonstrating a roulade when they always crack" but luck was on my side and it turned out beautifully. There was a strong breeze across the stage and every time I sifted icing sugar there was a large plume of white dust - the same with the edible glitter - but I am sure it all added to the effect! I had a whole two pages in the show brochure with my recipes for Toblerone Tiramisu, Chestnut Roulade and Coconut Cream Cloud Cake which were my demonstration recipes along with tropical mincemeat. After my demonstrations I then appeared on the Masterchef stage, mentoring the invention test which members of the public were taking part in. I found a new level of appreciate for John and Gregg as we were served quite a few plates of raw chicken to taste - uuuggggghhh! But overall the standard was really good and it brought back so many fun memories of the show. I was working with Thomasina Myers and Nadia Sawalha but of whom were lovely and a real inspiration. At the end of day two I found myself in a Masterclass making trifle sharing a bench with (and competing against) Derek Johnstone who won professional Masterchef last year and is now working at La Gavroche (my custard was definitely the best!) .

Sorry for the lack of posts this week - I am frantically getting ready for the Good Food Show tomorrow and Masterchef Goes Large. I have just used 42 eggs to prepare cakes and meringues for demonstrating recipes from my book. Demonstrating baking receipes without an oven was never going to be an easy task! I have butterflies in my stomach but keep telling myself that this is meant to be fun. Fingers crossed it will all go OK. It will be so nice to see everyone involved in Masterchef again and to see what everyone has been up to. On Friday I received my badge for the show which said "Hannah Miles, Celebrity" - how exciting is that! Not quite sure that I class myself as a celebrity but as the pass gets me into the VIP area (with lots of proper celebrities) I am not complaining!!! If any of you are coming to the show do come and say Hi - I will be in the Rangemaster Theatre at 10.45 and 12.45, book signing at 2 and then in the invention test theater for the rest of Wednesday and all of Thursday. So off now to pack the car and I look forward to reporting back to you on my return!

If you ever wondered where I got my baking skills from -judging from these Pudsey Bear cookies she made today, the answer is clearly my Mum! She is selling them to raise money for Children in Need. So cute - well done Mum xxx

You can tell it is November and the run up to Christmas by the rate at which I am stitching - very fast!!! It is always my busiest time of year trying to finish presents in time for Christmas. These are two projects I finished at the weekend and I am pleased with them! Although the strawberry fields one is very out of season, I love the strawberries and little white flowers. Still plenty more stitching to do before Christmas though! With the Good Food Show Live next week, several trips to Germany before Christmas and New Moon coming out at the cinema this weekend (we have already booked tickets for Friday and Saturday - with my friend Maren flying over from Germany to watch - a definite Twi-Hard Fan) I may still end up finishing stitching on Christmas Eve as usual!

Rose and Violet is one of my favourite flavour combinations. I know to many people this conjures up images of gray haired ladies/draw liners/floral perfumes, but to me they are the best flavours for delicate dreamy desserts - ice creams, panne cottes, sorbets, jellies. These butter cookies were an experiment this morning and I think they worked and looked quite pretty too - if a little rustic!!

Rose and Violet Butter Cookies
Makes 18

180g butter
225g caster sugar
1 egg
280g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp double cream
1 tbsp rose water or rose syrup
1 tbsp violet syrup
crystallised rose and violet petals

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4/180F/350C and grease and line two baking trays. Whisk together the butter and caster sugar until light and creamy, then add the egg and whisk again. Sift in the flour and bicarbonate of soda, add the cream and floral syrups and then whisk again. Fold through some crystalise rose and violet petals (they are not cheap so just as many as you can justify!) The dough will be soft and not suitable for rolling. Using two spoons, place spoonfuls of the mixture on to the trays, leaving a little gap between each as they will spread. Press each cookie down with the back of a spoon and decorate with a few extra rose and violet petals on top. Bake in the oven for 10 - 12 minutes until pale golden brown, then transfer to a rack to cook.

I am sure if I ever had the time to trace back through my ancestry I would find that I had German roots. As my friend from Hamburg Maren will testify, I feel a natural affinity with Germany and love everything German. When I was studying German at school I went on lots of German exchanges to stay with families in a bid to improve my language skills. My overriding memory of my stays with the Hammel family is the delicious food cooked by Suzannah's mum - my favourite dish was pineapple sauerkraut which until this weekend I have not eaten since. This is my own version with bacon and a fragrant hint of star anise - served with large slices of spiced roast pork - it evoked so many memories of my trips to Germany and was just as good as I remember. It is about as good a comfort food as you will ever get! Don't be put off by the fact that it is cabbage - this is really a white version of our braised red cabbage with lovely sweet and sour tones.

Pineapple Sauerkraut
Serves 4
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp butter
1 large onion, peeled and finely sliced
3 slices smoked back bacon, rind removed and cut into small strips
400g jar sauerkraut (available in most supermarkets)
2 star anise
227g tin of pineapple rings in juice, reserve the juice.
100ml sweet sherry
salt and pepper to season

In a large saucepan, gently fry the onion and bacon in the oil and butter until the onions are soft and translucent and the bacon is cooked through. Add the sauerkraut and star anise and cook for a further 5 minutes so that the cabbage absorbs the flavour of the bacon and onion. Chop the pineapple into small pieces and add to the pan together with the juice, sherry and 250ml of water. Simmer over a gentle heat for 30 minutes, season with salt and pepper and then serve with roast pork or sausages.

Last week I received a copy of this book in the post - link here. It is written by lovely Katie Ledger who works for BBC Click amongst other things. The reason I was sent the book was because this little blog is featured in it! Katie has written about the art of portfolio careers - which is apparently what I have - combining blogging, food writing, cooking with being a lawyer - and also about branding yourself which is where this blog comes in. So in honour of this, a big Thank You is due to you - my friendly blog readers - as without you this blog would definitely not exist! I am so grateful to you all for your lovely comments. I know that I rarely get time to reply to them, but I do read them all and really appreciate your thoughts and comments and knowing that you will pop by to read gives me the incentive to keep going. So give yourselves a pat on the back - a heartfelt thank you from me to each and every one of you xxxx Katie concludes the section on my blog by saying "If you are a secret cake lover, we strongly suggest you visit Hannah's blog. It's incredible what she can do with a Victoria sponge..." Thanks Katie - too kind!

I hope that you all had a lovely Bonfire Night - we managed a quick few fireworks and sparklers (see pic!), with comforting chilli and guacamole before I took a 5am flight to Germany this morning. A flying visit, landing back this evening! Completely exhausted and so glad it is the weekend!

This is a little sampler I finished last week. I really love the colours and the words and am so pleased with it. It is stitched on antique effect linen which I think works quite well and close up makes it look like someone stitched it along time ago (although the 2009 date is a bit of a give away!)

Isn't it funny how, as you close a chapter of your life, you immediately start to see things that should have been in that chapter! Last week I bade a fond farewell to my little sundae book, which, after final edits and my first look at the photographs, has gone off to be printed. I am so pleased with the pictures - Steve the styalist did a wonderful job - the plum crumble sundae is my favourite picture of all - pink and duck egg blue/green props and linen and the most enormous sundae I have ever seen! But of course, no sooner was the book finished and gone to print, then I found these perfect dainty ice cream dishes in Norfolk at the weekend - they would have looked so cute in the book and are just the perfect size for one scoop of ice cream or sorbet. With the book done and dusted, I struggled to convince anyone that they were an essential purchase but I bought them all the same! I love the little glass saucer at the bottom - perfect for resting a langue de chat or tuile biscuit on for munching with the ice cream. This is the simple strawberry ice cream from the book - alas if I told you the recipe now the publishers would be cross and I wouldn't want that - but as it is cold and rainy this week, I am sure you won't be too disappointed!

Our little Halloween tea - with scary witches, spiders and cats galore. We ate a fair few
Halloween cupcakes, pumpkin crispy cakes, eyeball biscuits and my gingerbread house was nibbled around the edges - the children loved it!! We all had a lot of fun. Hope you all had a good Halloween xxx

A few weeks ago I decided I was going to try and make a Halloween gingerbread house this year and here it is! It was actually easy to do and made me wonder why I hadn't made gingerbread houses before. The windows were made of peppermint glass and I lit the inside of the house with a short string of Christmas tree lights, inserted into the house before the roof went on with the wire iced in under one of the side panels. Once baked and cooled the gingerbread is very sturdy and was just joined together using royal icing which set enough to hold the house together within a few minutes. Once the house was firmly set, I had lots of fun decorating it with sweets! With the lights on, I think it looks pretty cute and I just know our halloween visitors will like it! I thought you might like to see the before shot too - its amazing what a little bit of icing and some sweets will do!

These are some cute rainbow cupcakes that I made at the weekend for our nephews and nieces. The white clouds were just piped with vanilla buttercream using a large round nozzle on top of a thin layer of blue buttercream for the sky. If you can't find sugar rainbows you could use a yellow boiled sweet or a yellow smartie as a sunshire and pipe thin yellow icing lines for the suns rays instead.

Since my friend Lucy has been diagnosed as gluten-allergic, I have been on a mission to make a perfect cake using gluten free flour that doesn't taste powdery. I find that some times when I use gluten free flour there is a slight texture of the almost squeekyness of custard powder which I think comes from the use of cornflour. Anyway, my latest attempt was I think the most successful I have been and I served this cake up without telling anyone I had used gluten free flour and when I asked - noone had spotted that it was anything other than a normal carrot cake. The coconut I use for this cake is American Baker's Angel Flake sweetened coconut. This is really the best sort of coconut for baking in my view and is available (sadly not cheaply) in the UK from American Sweets (click for a link - I am not on commission - its just that it is the best coconut) or they sell it at the American Food shop Lets Eat in Milton Keynes if you are ever passing. If you can't get this coconut then dessicated coconut will be fine but will give a slighly crunchy topping rather than the softened coconut strands of Angel Flakes.

Gluten Free Carrot and Coconut Cake
Preparation time 15 minutes baking time 40 - 55 minutes

180g/6oz butter
180g/6oz caster sugar
3 eggs
180g/6oz gluten free self raising flour
100g Angel shredded coconut
2 medium carrots, peeled and grated
1 apple, cored and grated
85g/3oz plump sultanas
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground mixed spice
200ml buttermilk

For the topping
100g Angel shredded coconut
2 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp ginger syrup (from a jar or stem ginger)

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4/180/350 and grease and line an 8in round spring form cake tin. Cream together the butter and sugar until light until an electric mixer. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each egg has been added. Fold in the flour, coconut, grated carrots and apple, spices, sultanas and buttermilk ensuring that everything is incorporated. Spoon the mixture into the tin and bake for 40 - 55 minutes until cakes is golden brown and springs back to your touch and a knife comes out clean with no cake batter on. If the cake starts to get too brown, cover with a sheet of silver foil.

For the topping, melt the butter, ginger and golden syrups in a saucepan until the butter has completely melted. Stir in the coconut and simmer for 2 - 3 minutes until the coconut has absorbed some of the syrup. Spoon the coconut evenly over the warm cake and allow to cool. If you are using dessicated coconut for the topping, try soaking it in hot water for 30 minutes or so and then squeeze out the water and add to the syrup.

This cake can be served warm or cold (my preference was warm straight from the oven but that's because I couldn't wait!!!)

If you've ever wondered what my brother is like - this is him - he is mad but I love him anyway!

Business Health Announcement from Innovation Ninja on Vimeo.

Work has taken over this week - I have so much to do and there are just not enough hours in the day. I have to leave for a meeting at 6.30am tomorrow and then return to do a cookery demo at 6.30 in the evening. I am needing to be very organised but am failing miserably. However a nice thing to look forward to is that my sundae book is arriving for final proof reading in a couple of days - it will be the first time I see all the pictures and I can't wait (I have only seen about 6 so far!) Luckily even though life is a little stressful, Peapod is always on hand for a good snuggle. She has taken to sleeping on my bed every night - I think because it is too cold for her hunting expeditions! I just love these pictures of her "reading" Little Grey Rabbit - one of my favourite books from when I was little. She gave up with the reading in the end and decided to have a little nap instead!

Some windfall apple and pears in our garden gave me a lovely photo opportunity at the weekend - two visiting deer stopped for a snack on Saturday afternoon. Although they visit often it is normally just a passing dash through the garden but this time they stopped and munched outside my office window for a whole 15 minutes. Just so cute!

My lovely "sister-in-law-to-be" (very imminently as my Brother's wedding is on 28th December in New York) Amy sent me a link to the latest in transport fashion - the cupcake car - on sale in New York for the bargain price of $25,000 and capable of reaching 7mph. Can't quite see myself in one of these but it made me smile all the same!

For Joshua's birthday I made Panda cookies - Josh loves Pandas. The clever design for these I found on the internet made by ruthiesaurus - click here for a link. Isn't it a clever design she came up with? I did what she said and re-moulded an old cookie cutter by heating it on the Aga and then bashing with my rolling pin - feeling very much like a blacksmith as I did it. I used 500g of fondant icing sugar to cover the 12 biscuits that my shortbread dough made. Place all the cookies on a cooling rack with a sheet of greaseproof paper or foil below to catch the drips and carefully spoon over the icing. Add a few tbsp of water to the icing - you need it to be fairly runny but not too runny - so that it leaves a good coating on the cookie and doesn't all run off. Allow to dry completely, then colour the leftover icing with black food colouring and carefully spoon a little over each of the ears. Place the rest of the icing in a piping bag with a small round nozzle and pipe eyes and noses. Leave to set overnight. I think next time I make them I will use royal icing as Ruthie suggests as hers had a nice fur effect with the royal icing. Anyway Joshie and Rosie loved them so mission accomplished. We gave Josh this adorable Panda kite as a present (can you tell I want one for myself?).

You may recall a while ago I made a 60th Birthday cake for my friend Lucy's mum. It was a dainty two tiered birdcage cake that Lucy somehow managed to transport all the way to the Scottish boarders on the train! As a thank you present for the cake (and it really really wasn't necessary) Lucy's Dad treated us to afternoon tea at the Dorcester. Oh my! Now I have sampled a lot of afternoon teas in my time at all sorts of places - some posh, others not - but I can safely say I have never experienced anything like tea at the Dorcester's Promenade. It was heavenly. Delicate sandwiches (caraway seed bread cucumber sandwiches were my favourite - the aniseed and cucumber worked so well together), a pannecotte infused with orange pekoe tea, scones with clotted cream and preserves and a selection of dainty cakes (my favourite the tonka bean coconut macaroon - yum yum). The best part of the whole afternoon was the effort they made for Lucy who is allergic to gluten. Not only did she receive plates of gluten free sandwiches but also gluten free scones and a whole plate of cakes - delicious macaroons and semolina cake but also two pots of fruit - one a tropical mango and kiwi salad - the other strawberry puree layered with whipped cream. These last two were just inspirational and looked so pretty and I will definitely serve these to anyone who comes here for tea in the future who is allergic to gluten. It was such a special treat and I really loved it. Thank you Lucy's Mum and Dad! We also popped to Waterstones at Piccadilly and they had my book! It was an exciting moment!