Firstly, let me apologise as I have been a bit quiet on my blog as of late and I can only put this down to life getting in the way. Being a mother to four children, a wife, a home baker, a student and the general jack of all trades in my house sometimes takes over and the blogging has to take a back seat for a while. Packing up things for the imminent house move takes up a lot of the weekends, so much so, that when I sit down on a Sunday afternoon all I want to do is watch Christmas films and veg out. As of yet, we have no definite date for the house move so it is all just a waiting game and we need to be prepared as I still think it will happen before Christmas?

Yesterday, was a morning of last minute Christmas shopping for my husband and myself so I now have the job of getting everything wrapped and hidden away till Christmas Day.

On the baking front, I started baking larger loaf cakes for a customer a couple of weeks ago and after sourcing the paper cases for these cakes I am going to add then to the webshop as they are a much better size than the small 1lb loaf cakes. This will involve a price change, as well as, some flavour changes, so this is another job to add to my list.

Milk Chocolate Loaf Cake

My baking has been all things chocolatey so far this week, as I baked a lovely (even though I say it myself) Milk Chocolate Loaf Cake with a deliciously rich melt in the mouth chocolate frosting. We ate some of it for our treat after a lovely practice roast dinner, last Sunday – although I don’t really need to practice but it made up for the rubbish weather we had here at the weekend. Also, I baked some Chocolate Cookies, over the weekend, which tasted wonderful but were way too thin so I will be using the recipe again but changing the method slightly to stop the overspreading of the cookies when in the oven. A bit of chill time in the fridge is definitely needed with this recipe.

For customers, I have baked Empire Biscuits, Chocolate Baubles and some Sweet Mince Tarts so I have been kept busy in the kitchen as in between baking I have been finishing off the Christmas Cake orders which have been collected and posted off to various parts of the UK, these last few weeks.

Christmas Cake
Christmas Cake (love this design)

My other bake which I want to try out on the family is a Brownie or Blondie with a Cornflake Tart overlay/underlay. An interesting combination which I have seen a few bakers doing that intrigues me. I wonder what it will taste like and if I can put my own twist on it??