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Look first time. I am on The cup cake blog so existing to see thanks so much!

Turkish delight and chocolate cupcakes.

Made 32 to put in the freezer. Very satisfying, keeps the man happy when he knows there is cake close at hand. I do love the colour combination of the brown and pink.

Turkish delight and chocolate cupcakes.
Originally uploaded by amooma

Good news bad news.

I have been chained to my computer helping my husband with his new venture, I will tell you about that another day. So much has happened over the last few months, the biggest news being that we had all seven of our hens killed by Mr. Fox.

At least he took them away to feed his cubs. He was kind to leave us with our Araucana cockerel Woody and the mini cockerel Little Roo.

Good news follows bad-we have got new hens. We found this lovely place on the Internet that is about and hour’s drive away, where he had just what we wanted.

We left with three Speckled Marans, then two weeks later picked up three Araucana for Woody to play with. The Marans have not been to kind to the little Araucana.

I suppose this is the way of the chicken, the same as the instinct of the fox. We are now waiting for them to lay some eggs. I cannot wait to start baking again; my cake tins have been very light of late. I have also got some very good friends coming over and was hoping to give them some eggy brioche and crispy bacon with lashings off maple syrup. Yum! I have also been very busy crafting which I hope to tell you about later this week.

So many eggs

I have been baking my own bread for about 8 years in a bread machine, now I have my Kenwood mixer I have advanced to making my bread by hand (well the mixer does all the hard work)

I decided to treat myself to a book dedicated to the world of hand baked bread. After looking at few books I settled on Bread by Daniel Steven No3 in the River Cottage Handbook. There are some really lovely recipes, the photography really complements them, not sure who took them but they have really captured the simple but elegance of the humble loaf of bread.

After making a few white loaf's I thought I should turn the page and fined somthing else to make. I came across brioche and saw that 4 eggs where requied, I thought to myself "ooow if I double it thats 8 eggs, oh yes then I can put one in the freezer. Perfect." You see when you keep chickens you can not look at a recipe without looking to see how many eggs it uses folowed by "that will get rid of a few"

The brioche dough was very soft, so my mixer was very welcome to do all the kneadding. It was quite easy, kneed all the ingredians for 10 muinets, leave in the frige over night. Then in the morning leave to rise for 3-4 houres and cook. Easy!

What we like to do in our house for a nice late Sunday brunch, is to soak the briosh in egg, then bake it in the oven, along with some streaky bacon till the fat of the bacon is golden, and then drizzle over some dark golden maypul syrup, Sunday heaven.

Custard Creams. Part Two

I had so much fun making these custard creams, they were a big hit with the lovely man. I think they will become a regular make. They did not stay in the biscuit tin for very long; have a little look at the finished biscuit and you will understand.

I would offer you one but I just don't think my arm will reach though the internet!

Custard cream. Part one

Is too much Nigella a bad thing? I think not. I have just successfully made a chocolate meringue gooey stack from "How to be a domestic goddess", one of my favourite books. I have now bought "Nigella's Feast" which has many lovely recipes. The one which has really caught my eye is the valentines heart custard cream.

Some people would just go out and buy a nice packet of these biscuits, but it seems as time goes by and I get older, I find myself becoming more of what I like to call "a food snob" so the idea of making something as humble as a custard cream, with ingredients of my choosing really excites me.

I popped all the ingredients into the bowl of my food processor George, and in the blink of an eye it was done and in the fridge to chill. The dough was a bit sticky when I tried to roll it out so I sprinkled a bit more flour on the dough and then cut out the hearts. Into the oven they went until nicely golden. Then onto the wire rack to cool.

I went to get the ingredients for the filling and "oh no, I don't have any icing sugar" So my poor hearts are left on the rack until my lovely man gets home from work with some icing sugar. How sad.

It's time again

The time has come around again for full scale seed sowing. We are going to try and grow all of our own vegetables this year. I have even invested in the biggest chest freezer I could find to preserve the glut. To try and help keep the cost down (now I dont have any money left after buying my freezer) I have been saving the cardboard tubes from my toilet rolls, with the idea of using them to sow seeds in.

I have perfected the use of the humble tube by lightly crumpling some newspaper to use as a plug in the bottom of the tube. Last year the soil kept falling out of the bottom.

I found the use of a dibber helped push the paper down. With the paper in place its easy to fill them with soil. Once filled with soil you can then put whatever seeds you like in.

This method of sowing seeds would work particularly well with plants that don't like bare root planting like runner beans and beetroot. I have sown sunflowers, which bring in lots of valuable insects to the vegetable patch. I will keep some seeds for next year and the rest can be saved for the birds to eat over the winter. Not forgetting they are also such a lovely cheery flower to have growing in your garden.

The Fear

There are many recipes that I would love to make, but many things seem to get in the way, whether it's fear of the recipe going wrong, time, or just waiting for the right occasion. I have decided to overcome my fear; I have found the time and have an occasion - good friends coming over for dinner.

The fear giving recipe I have challenged myself to make is from Nigella Lawson "How to be a domestic goddess", gooey chocolate stack. I was determined meringue and creme patisserie were not going to stop me. (If it all goes wrong I knew I had home made vanilla ice cream to fall back on, another first. Easy)

Here we go. Luckily for me on my 30th birthday last year, lovely man bought me Kenwood. My dream, he is like the George Clooney of my kitchen, smooth, grey, classic and very easy on the eye.

I decided to start with the meringue, thankfully I have a few hens (more on them another day) and lots of eggs that need using up. George and his ostrich egg sized whisk made very short work of my 6 egg whites; soft and peaky in seconds.

Once all the other ingredients were folded in, it was time for the oven. I followed Nigella's advice and left the meringue to cool in the oven over night. Come day break I was there, excitedly opening my oven door. (It was almost as exciting as Christmas day)

Wow, I had made meringue, and it was surprisingly easy, not scary and did not take up as much time as I thought it might. This left me one last task; the creme patisserie. The fear was back, but now I was determined this desert was going to be a great success. I am happy to report, it was!

This has taught me a great lesson, I can do things that I've convinced myself I can not do. I have now decided I should make a list of all those things I think I can not do, and do them!