Mother's Day Treats

These are the Strawberry Chocolate Fudge Bars I made for The Coffee Tree yesterday, part of their Mother's Day weekend offerings! I have to thank the wonderful Jaz of October Farm who posted this amazingly delicious and easy recipe on her beautiful blog on Friday. Her description caught my imagination immediately, and I had to try it out. I used a different frosting, as you'll see...I wanted an all-chocolate cake, so the shiny dark chocolate ganache seemed appropriate. But I'll be using this recipe a lot - and I urge you to try it too, it's sticky and intensely flavoured and, above all, quick!!

Have I convinced you to try it yet?!

So that was my chocolate fix dealt with - and now I wanted to make something vanilla-y and light...fitting for a gorgeous Spring weekend...

You may not be able to see the glitter, but these are Vanilla Cupcakes with Meringue Buttercream frosting...as you can tell, I eschewed the traditional pink colouring for violet...which I adore! The frosting recipe was taken from Sarabeth Levine's Bakery book...another discovery that I'll be making a lot from now on! Despite being full of unsalted butter, the gorgeously light, whipped texture means that the frosting isn't at all sickly or sweet. A real winner and so versatile too...

I made a few extra to take to MY mum today...I'm very lucky to have a mother who's also a wonderful friend and I love her very, very much!

Have a wonderful Sunday, whether you're celebrating Mother's Day or not! Blowing a kiss to you....xo

Baking Round-Up!

I'm sorry I've been AWOL for the past couple of days...I've been so busy with work and writing that I haven't found a minute to spare. BUT I did remember to take pictures, so I can now post a mammoth catch up from the end of the week!
Above is the Coffee & Walnut Cake I made...a real English favourite that always sells amazingly well.

The plain cake is made with ground walnuts, which mean that the cake is never dry and has a wonderfully deep flavour. When it had cooled I cut it in half...

and sandwiched it together with coffee buttercream...

making sure that there was plenty left to swirl on top. Then I finished with a generous sprinkle of broken walnut pieces..

I could actually do with a big slice of this right now

as we've just returned from a freezing but beautiful long walk with Alice and I'm having a cup of hot Earl Grey as I write. But, in fact, it's all been sold already...I'm pleased to say!

I also invented a new traybake (I think I invented it, at least I've never seen it before!)

It had a crisp, buttery polenta shortbread base, studded with dried sour cherries and topped with a light vanilla sponge cake baked with fresh cherries. So a sort of soft yet crunchy vanilla double cherry delight!

I did manage to sneak an edge as I cut it up (just to consumer test, you understand) & the sour/sweet tenderness was delicious...it's now going in my book!
Another old favourite were Buttermilk Raisin Scones....first I rubbed the butter into the flour& sugar until it was well mixed and added the raisins...

then I mixed buttermilk & eggs, poured it over the dry ingredients and mixed lightly with a blunt knife to form a soft dough...

patted the dough out and cut into rounds which I glazed with more buttermilk and sprinkled with demerara sugar..

before baking in a hot oven until well risen and golden brown...

at The Coffee Tree they were served warm,with a little dish of softened butter to spread. Yummy!
So that's a round-up of the baking adventures.. I also splashed out and bought two new baking books. One that I've wanted for a long time...

Rose's Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levy Beranbaum. It looks wonderful - a real encyclopaedia of cakes, which I sometimes need when I run out of inspiration. The other is one that was recommended to me by my dear friend Kary at My Farmhouse Kitchen who received a copy as a Christmas present

Sarabeth's Bakery, by Sarabeth Levine. I've only had a chance to have a very quick look so far, but it seems just my sort of thing and I can't wait to try some recipes out. Hopefully, Kary & I will ve trying out the same recipe on our blogs soon and comparing results in our posts, which will be so exciting!

So that's the end of another week. I'm looking forward to the next one already. I have my monthly stall on our Farmer's Market on Tuesday, which means a lot of work but is always fun (and cold!) I hope that you have a wonderful weekend. Thanks so much for reading, and for your lovely comments which mean so much to me xo