baking for a cure...

the bake sale was a success! took time to create all of the baked goods but was totally worth it.

in the end i decided to go for cherryade cupcakes, earl grey cupcakes and PB+J pinwheel cookies.

i nipped out tuesday morning and got all the ingredients today for a mammoth day of baking.

by the end of tuesday i had 72 cherryade made and ready to be decorated.

wednesday morning i made 2 rolls of pinwheel cookies and popped them in the fridge ready to be baked freshly shortly before the bake sale. i then made 32 earl grey cupcakes and began to ice them all!

thursday morning i was half expecting a mad rush to get everything decorated and finished off but it was actually very chilled. 

cookies baked, cupcakes decorated i made my way to work to begin the sale.

i decided the earl grey cupcakes (top) needed a topper, so i purchased a selection of miniature biscuits for people to select and put on top. the first bake sale go'er went for a jammy dodger earl grey cupcake and a cherryade cupcake (bottom).

the middle cupcake was made by my colleague pauline, vanilla topeed with a pink butterfly.

when i left after 4 hours the bucket was rammed with cash and we had made over £175 selling half of the cupcakes.

i'm not sure what the grand total is yet but i will find out tomorrow and let you all know.

i was so pleased to be part of such an amazing event, its a charity that is very close to my heart.

this one was for you both, Auntie Jean and Auntie Sue.

Threadless.com

now its time to put my feet up and have a nice cup of tea!

p.s how appropriate is the t-shirt?! just had to buy it!

Ask John a Question...

...next saturday i am going to a bloggers multi bake day with John Whaite....

its a disturbing fact but i am so excited i could wee! the chance to see a winner of the great british bake off in action and the opportunity to ask questions!

the only trouble is...what do i ask???

whilst i bake myself into oblivion getting ready for thursdays charity bake sale why dont you leave some questions as a comment below for me to ask him, i can then try and ask him as many as possible for you!

a cause close to my heart...

last week i was asked to create some pink cakes for a fund raising event at work. the event is taking place as we have a colleague returning to work after being treated for cancer. all money raised will be donated to Cancer Research UK.

they asked me to think of some ideas for baked goods that i could sell, including a pink cupcake.
i've decided to go for cherryade cupcakes, they went down really well last time i did a charity bake sale. they have ordered 120 of these.
lucky for me they are paying me 50p per cupcake to cover the ingredient cost and they are also paying me to stay at home part of the day on Wednesday to give me some time to bake.

the plan is to bake all of the cupcakes on Tuesday ready to be decorated on the morning of the bake sale. hopefully i will be able to make some peanut butter pinwheels in advance as they are easily stored and can be baked shortly before the sale.

 

i also have LOTS of creme eggs left over from easter which i need to use before July so i hope to make some brownies if time allows!

 

in other news!
i have entered the above cake into a competition! i was wondering if you guys would VOTE FOR ME?

click on the Link and go to the facebook competition APP. the cake is titled "Mad Hatters Tea Party Topsy Turvy Birthday Cake"

the people with the most votes get to the next round of the competition and the judges then decide on a winner. the prize is a Kitchen Aid Mixer. 


thanks in advance guys!

wok on...

...in the kitchen!
dad was away with work the other day and as usual mum and i were trying to decide on something to have for dinner.
lucky for us Ching was on hand (in book form) to guide the way to a delicious meal!

we decided to go for a chicken and cashew nut chow mein and let me tell you...it was YUM!

for the chicken

1 free-range egg

1 tbsp cornflour

pinch sea salt

500g skinless chicken breast fillets, sliced

300ml groundnut oil

for the stir fry

1 onion, sliced

1 yellow pepper, de-seeded, sliced into strips

1 red pepper, de-seeded, sliced into strips

1 carrot, peeled and cut into stripes

3 tbsp chicken stock

2-3 tbsp light soy sauce

2 large spring onions, sliced

4 tbsp roasted cashew nuts

sea salt and ground white pepper

ready cooked egg noodles

 

start by mixing the egg, cornflour and salt in a bowl until combined. at this stage my experimentation head took over and i decided to mix in a small amount of Chinese 5 spice. this is completely optional but i found it gave the chicken a bit of warmth!

pour this over the chicken and make sure to get every little bit of the chicken covered.

"Wok on, oil in" as Ching would say. for this recipe i went for my trusted non stick wok because it has a flat bottom and is steadier than my new one.

allow the oil to heat to a high heat, a great test for this is to throw in a small chunk of bread, if it just sits there the oil is not hot enough, if it sends the oil into a bubbling frenzy...its ready!

next gently place the chicken into the oil, make sure to place it in away from yourself as you will find it will start to spit hot oil everywhere. i did the chicken in 3 batches as my non stick wok is quite small and i didn't want a mass blob of chicken.

once the chicken is golden remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and place on kitchen towel to get rid of any excess oil.

 

drain all but 2 tablespoons of the oil from the wok and place back on the heat. throw in the garlic, ginger and chilli and give it a quick stir. quickly throw in the onion for a minute or so then add the peppers and carrot and stir fry until they have softened slightly. throw the chicken back in the wok and stir fry for a few minutes.

next add the chicken stock and the soy sauce, allow it to simmer for a few minutes.

at this point add the noddles, cashew nuts and a hand full of spring onion. stir fry for a few more minutes to allow the noddles to loosen up. season to taste and serve!

 

AMAZING DAY.....

....for the last couple of days i have been looking into different things baking related and otherwise.

after purchasing a copy of John Whaite's book in london (autographed as well) i decided to follow him on twitter (@Johnwhaitebakes).

shortly after following he sent out a tweet about a Food blogger multi bake day so i decided to take a look. at first i was a bit unsure because of the price and the date, i wasn't sure if i would be able to get the time of work in such short notice. however after a lot of thinking i decided i would look into going.

amazingly i found some train tickets for the total price of £59 first class return from my home town to London Paddington (booking first class singles rather than a return). I thought about staying over night on the friday and then returning home after the day of baking as it was originally due to run from 10am to 3pm.

today i had another look and sadly the hotel i usually stay in is fully booked BUT! the times had been changed to 1pm-6pm which ment i had time to travel up on saturday morning and return the same day, saving myself £65 on hotel costs.

i had gone over it all in my head and decided to go for it. 

as i went to click on the link that would take me through to purchase i realised that the price had gone down from £140 to £100! i transfered money out of my savings account instantly and clicked on the link!

you are now reading the words of the proud over of a place at a food bloggers paradise, a day with a Great British Bake Off winner!

HOORAY!

shortly after this my phone lit up and i had an email. i recognised the name as one of my followers on twitter.

the email read as follows:

XXY magazine would like to invite you to this event we are hosting on tuesday next week, at Mahiki.

We hope to see you all there at the after party in collaboration with designers Joseph Turley and L.Lipop.

Also, we were wondering if you would want to collaborate as well with us making black cupcakes/or a cake with white icing spelling XXY.

Tell us if you're interested.

i feel completely honoured to be invited and so completely gutted that i cannot make it! what a great thing to be asked to do.

i had to email back and tell him i couldn't make it due to work and travel arrangements. 

kind of feels like one of those what if moments that i will probably regret for a very long time. 

but thank you so so much Pierre! 

london : mother, the market and me.

...so this weekend mother and i visited london, and i have to say i really enjoyed myself...even if we did reverse roles and i some how became the parent!

we arrived 10 minutes late due to signaling errors in swindon but thats nothing to get angry about. we clambered onto the tube and made our way to Portobello Market. i had read up before planning the weekend but i was not expecting this...

as we turned the corner onto the beginning of the market we entered a sea of people, so many faces eyeing nic nacs and enjoying the glorious weather.

of course my eye was instantly drawn to the hummingbird bakery shop but i was very strong willed and stayed away! partially because of the queue but manly because i am not a fan of the cakes from their bakeries.. 

don't get me wrong the recipes are amazing but they always taste better home made. something about the bakery made ones feels like it should be a long life product.

as i wandered down the market gazing at stalls i felt myself drift off into a harry potter inspired day dream, Diagon ally was calling my name!
at university one of my favorite lessons was the letter press and i stumbled across these beautiful sets! i don't know about you but i think there is something really special about these little gems. more to them than just a computer generated piece of type, a depth if you will...

i was very tempted to buy some but they would be wasted on me.

as if by magic the stalls then became a food bloggers paradise, the house elves of the market had been hard at work creating piles of doughnuts.... 

...breads and cupcakes...

i might get shunned for saying this but i always seem to find more fresh produce in london than i do anywhere at home in somerset! maybe its just because when i am home i'd either be working or recovering from working....who knows!

the vibrant colours were enough to get my creative juices (and my saliva) flowing. i wanted to grab everything and nibble a corner off.

had this of been on the second day or closer to home i think i would of been bankrupt within 10 minutes. my obsession with food and cooking is becoming more and more...well... obsessive...
i am constantly looking for ideas and ingredients and its getting quite costly haha.

maybe i chose the wrong career path?

mum got quite excited by all the olives, bucket after bucket of tasty little morsels that take you to a land far away where the sun is shining and the clear blue sea is lapping at the perfectly white sand.

did i mention the food? THE FOOD!

i love markets and i would recommend Portobello market to anyone visiting london. all i would say is make sure that you plan it so that you go near to the time you are going to be returning home as there will be things you want to buy but cant carry around london! we missed out on a very nice chilli plant sadly because of this.

more to come tomorrow!

mother, london and I...

...this saturday mum and i are going to london for the weekend, kind of a belated mothers day type thing!

we are traveling up first class on the train at 7.30 am and should arrive at 9.45 am.

we are going to start our weekend by hopping on the tube and visiting portobello market. this was more mum's idea that it was mine however i am really looking forward to it! i always enjoy markets are than i do being dragged around the shops. 

i am particularly looking forward to the fruit and veg stalls, it's just a shame that i won't be able to buy much because of staying in the hotel. never mind...i may sneak some fruit in!

after a busy morning of exploring the market we are heading over to Wahaca @ southbank.

i had lunch here with emma just before christmas and it was very nice! i'm looking forward to a nice beer or 6 here.

in the evening we are going to see Viva Forever. now i know what you are thinking..."haven't you already been?"...yes i have..but it was brilliant and mum wants to see it...ahem...

after a night in the hotel at Custom house we are planning on getting the Emirates skyline to the O2. we were planning on going on the London Eye but we have both done this before and want to try something new and the views from this are apparently brilliant.

we are thinking about visiting Greenwich market whilst over that way but thats not set in stone yet, there are a few other things that we want to do.

one thing that mum would really like to do is visit Buckingham palace and the surrounding area. as luck would have its the day for changing of the guard so we are going to plan on getting there around 11 am.

any recommendations would be greatly received as i can only think of things i have already done!

something i didn't have time to mention last week were these bad boys. i decided to stick to a simple recipe and make some vanilla cupcakes. the main reason was to practice pipping icing as i usually use a palette knife and swirl it.

i had lots of compliments about how these turned out but i wasn't 100% happy with them, i think its the perfectionist in me showing its ugly face again!

so... tomorrow morning before work i am going to make another batch of these but use some honey i purchased today (which has the comb inside the jar) as a sort of drizzle. i'm also going to break up the comb and put a little nugget on each cupcake...

i will update you all on how they turn out!

Australia....The big....The beautiful....The dream...

as some of you may be aware my dream is to go to australia. until recently i was unsure if this was a dream of a holiday adventure of between 3-4 weeks by myself to visit my family or a year long working holiday.

i say until recently because the more and more i thought about it the more and more i came to thinking i had nothing stopping me from taking the year to really explore.

since the thought process began i have been saving my hard earned pennies to begin the dream.

talking to people about their own travels has been a great source of advice. the main thing i have been told is to set a date in to travel and then plan for that, otherwise you may never end up going.

originally i was planning on traveling by myself but a close friend has decided she would like to come with me. we went out for a late lunch yesterday and discussed different aspects of going for a year including travel, work, accommodation and things we wanted to do.

here are a few of the things i would like to do....

on previous family holidays i have visited NSW, Queensland and parts of the Northern Territory. the obvious thing is i need to visit Western Australia!

one advantage to having family in Australia is that hopefully i will be able to stay with them for a few days to get settled into new surroundings and get on my feet (jet lag and other wise).

the best thing for me would be to fly into sydney and spend some time with my uncle and cousin Belinda.

one thing i have always regretted is not completing the harbor bridge climb. my uncle got us tickets for christmas when we were there once but because i was young and fooling i decided it was to early and to high to be climbing a bridge.

how stupid am i ?!?

this is certainly on my list!

next on my list is the great barrier reef. on a previous visit the weather was overcast and the sea was extremely choppy, that and the fact that was quite young put me off entering the water.

i would love to return to the lovely area of Port Douglas and visit the great barrier reef.

recently on BBC2 there has been a program called Australia with Simon Reeve. he introduces Australia in 2 ways, a multi cultural country on the edge of Asia and a country with amazingly diverse wildlife.

the thing that excited me most about the first episode was the indian pacific, a train that runs from Sydney to Perth. its the longest stretch of straight track in the world and travels through some amazing sights. the map above shows the route i would most like to travel. this is a very expensive way of getting from one place to another, however i am determined to do part of it at the very minimum.

during this journey i would also like to revisit the red center. in particular Uluru and Alice Springs. when i turned 18 we visited Alice springs and went quad biking, never before had i felt such a rush and been so incredibly dirty! it was like i had visited a tanning salon in Essex... TOTES!

thats all for now...

keep an eye out for more!