another charity bake sale...

so im on holiday :D which is lovely as i look to have chosen a great week off, the sun is shining and my sun glasses are out!

sadly though before finishing work, we were told that one of our regulars had passed away.
he had a rare genetic disorder called friedreich's ataxia and he had gone down hill over the last 8 weeks.

the funeral is next thursday so a group of us are going to go and pay our respects, he was a lovely man.

his mother was his carer and she took him out every day. she's asked that no one donates flowers, but instead donates money to the friedreich's ataxia charity as that would be what he wanted.

so yesterday i got out my mixing bowls and set to work making some baked goods to sell to raise some money for the charity.

these are lemon meringue cupcakes, i was a bit unsure about these at first as i haven't had much lucky with meringue before but they came out perfectly and were delicious! i will post the recipe later in the week.

i also decided to use up my chocolate covered coffee beans from Hotel chocolat and made Espresso cupcakes. again i was a bit worried they may be a tad strong but my god they were good!

and finally...i almost wet myself the other day when i realised that waitrose sell pumpkin puree! i have been looking for it for months and could only find it on really expensive american sweet shop websites. but this was a steal! 
i went ahead and made pumpkin cheesecake. now i know what you are thinking..."Pumpkin cheesecake..really!?"...really...it was goooooooooood!

i was expecting to take a lot of it home after the bake sale because its pumpkin but also because i rushed it at midnight whilst buzzing after eating an espresso cupcake (to check it tasted good obviously...)

to my amazement everything sold!

the bake sale itself raised £61! im fully chuffed and i'm so happy i did it for such a great cause.

i decided to treat myself, after all the sun was shining and i had done my good deed for the day. so i got myself a few bottles of wine to enjoy over the week.. (one bottles already gone so i apologise for any shlurring/typos...hic..)

mount riley is a lovely wine..an easy drink shall we call it? one that you can sip on without thinking its wine.

also as i am so into my cooking at the moment i decided to treat myself to "Kitchen" by Nigella Lawson. i have been watching her programs on TV a lot recently and find myself making sex noises when cooking...so wrong but so right...ummm!

one last thing before i leave you in peace...someone tweeted this on thursday and i literally wet myself and just had to share it.. the tweet was something like "Tomorrow..." and then the picture... brilliant!