Keep the liqueur in the fridge and it will last 3 to 4 weeks, if you can wait that long. It’s much less expensive than the branded Irish Cream liqueur so you could always make another bottle, or two 🙂 Substitute whisky or Southern Comfort for the brandy, if you prefer. They work just as…
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Apple Crumble
Apple crumble is delicious with cream, ice cream, custard or just on its own. Ingredients 2 or 3 large Bramley cooking apples 200g of plain flour 175g of sugar 100g of butter Tsp of cinnamon (optional) 2 -3 Tbsp of water Rub together the fat, sugar and flour until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs…
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Lebkuchen Spices Recipe
It’s September and I’m already thinking about Christmas. I have two fruit cakes made: the fruity-fruity light (er) one I posted a couple of weeks ago and a richer, more traditional one. Now thinking about Lebkuchen…
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Lighter Fruity Christmas Cake
This cake is lighter than traditional Christmas cake but there are enough common ingredients to strike up a friendship between the two. It keeps for months if well-wrapped and stored in a cool place. This means it’s ideal for making around August or September to be properly mature in time for Christmas. Add some pokey…
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Peanut Butter and Raspberry Goo Cupcakes
Made a batch of Jemma Cupcake’s PB & J cupcakes and they turned out lovely. No raspberry goo drizzled over the top but there is a secret, sweet jammy centre. Apple corers are perfect for taking out neat holes from the cupcakes for filling with a nice blob of sweet raspberry goo. The icing nozzle…
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Lifechanging, magical gumpaste tutorials
When you get interested in making flowers and decorative sugar doodahs for cakes you soon realise the shortcomings of plain fondant. You can add some oomph to it by mixing in some Tylose powder but for real, magical modelling properties, you need gumpaste. *Sigh* Gumpaste lends magic to your crafting skills and transforms difficult fondant…
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The Magic of Gumpaste -Poppies and Snails!
Fondant is … well, fondant. But, you want to make flowers it just fails. It develops what is called ‘elephant skin’ and goes all crepey and crinkled and doesn’t have the elasticity to be frilled or fluted. What to use? Gum paste. Take a look at the gumpaste poppies I made last week. I couldn’t…
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Charlie and the cushion
I started painting for the first time in ages this morning. I’d stumbled upon CreationsCeeCee on YouTube and was inspired to get my paints out and dabble (as above). Cats and the vet Jess has had some problems recently and was having a follow-up exam. Turns out she has diabetes and is now on insulin.…
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Fondant Fatigue
Gumpaste is perfect for making flowers and leaves. It has the strength and elasticity to lets you ruffle, smooth and stretch it to make petals and flowers with a realistic look. I am totally in awe of the talents of Nicholas Lodge; check out one of his YouTube tutorials and you’ll see what I mean.…
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Baby Cake
This week’s cake is a chocolate sponge layered with blackberry and raspberry compote buttercream with fresh chopped berries mixed in for added lushness. It was crumb-coated, covered in fondant then dotted with royal icing to give it surface texture and interest. The topping – sugared dandelion seed head (picked from my back garden, well away…
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Three Bees in My Bonnet 