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!