whoopie pies!

Expanding the menu at helloisittea.com ...

These cookie-cake hybrids are amazingly delicious, and though not as beautiful as the glorious cupcake, I am looking forward to experimenting with flavours and decorations.  

a dozen roses cupcakes

buttertfly 1st birthday cake & cupcakes

 

 

daring bakers: sussex pond, an english pudding

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

tile cake

peppermint swirl cookies

found these cookies during one of my seemingly endless blog hops...and can not for the life of me find the link, whoops!  but...the idea is fantatsic, the cookies themselves were not pepperminty enough for me and were also a little hard, for me but not for others who tasted them.

I am going to definitely take the concept and rework it again, I think I will use the chunky swirl shortbread recipe from the Green & Blacks Chocolate cook book and adapt it for this.  In fact the possibilities are quite endless so a day of cookie experiments may be needed :D  what larks!

easter baking - birthday berry gateau yogurt & bunny sugar cookies

an easter trip to devon, a place of cherised childhood memories...glorious sun chased away the rain after the first day so many long walks were had before heading back to our cosy cottage for some yummy food and fireside treats, divine.

 

daring bakers: orange tian

 The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

Oh are these yummy!  crumbly, buttery biscuit smeared with homemade marmalade, topped with marmalade swirled whipped cream and caramel soaked orange segments....  sounds like an m&s advert!

never having made the biscuit or the caramel before, this was a great challenge, I love layered desserts and this one is a keeper.

teapot birthday cake

rugby cupcakes

star wars cake: the sequel

slow roast lamb, white chocolate souffles and julie/julia...

after a rather long old time of it at work and a brain full of annoying life decisions to be made, I felt I had rather been neglecting my quest for culinary excellence...and especially after going to this scrumptious restaurant for my mum's birthday, and buying the below pot with special bonus money from work, I had to get out of my funk.

not that I have not been a'cookin..I've had cakes and pie coming out of my ears, but this has meant my dinners have been not so elaborate.  This changed tonight.  ok, that is a bit of a lie, I made chicken kievs on wednesday, but that doesn't count compared to this...

Slow cooked lamb shanks in red wine, served with sweet potato mash, roasted parsnips and flagolet beans...

this in itself, I do have to say, was YUM!  though I do think this is in part due to my new shiny le creuset dish which is not allowed to be put away for at least a month.

but what this blog is really about is the sweet things, and this leads me to dessert...now my mum, for whom this dinner was cooked, is just a little bit fond of white chocolate so I went a little nuts on the white choc front...

chocolate dipped peanut butter sandwich cookies

...another lovely new blog discovery, another recipe I can't make again for at least a year lest the other cookie recipes get jealous.

make these cookies.  eat them.  share them.  but also keep some in a pot in the fridge at home so you forget about them then find them when glaring at the contents willing it to make itself into dinner...and all is right again with the world...

motorbike birthday cake

cheery cherry pie

alice in wonderland cupcakes

1st birthday butterfly daisy cake & cupcakes

purple swirls anniversary cake & cupcakes

ten pin bowling cupcakes

 

The Cupcakes

Chocolate cupcakes topped with coloured vanilla buttercream and mini bowling balls & pins

Sweet!  Such fun to make, and as always putting them together is the best part...although I think my newly found little cupcake boxes are possibly even better!  plus I have some in 'Tiffany' blue, yum!

daring bakers: nanaimo bars

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

So firstly I spent quite a long time trying to work out how to say nanaimo without people saying, nemo bars?  like the fish?  Then I got onto the thinking about how awesome these bars are, custard buttercream! yum. crunchy base, gooey middle and chocolate top. bliss.  lots and lots of complements from my team at work who invariably get to taste test anything I bake on whims or for challenges.