Hello readers!

All the very best of the season to you all.

I have been away from here for a good long while, but I have been baking in the meantime. I think it tends to just end up on my G+ page without much story behind it because I'm still such a busy bee!

Quick life-update:
I get the results from my penultimate level of exams for CIMA on Jan 15th, hoping to have reached the final level of one mega-exam in the end-of-February sitting.
Once that is done I will start work on my husband +Ash Wilkinson 's accounts for his self-employed business and start taking more time to post updates on here. I might try to make it a weekly thing.

"Best of the Year" Bakes

The year has been very quiet for craft, primarily because I have spent since mid-February recovering from De Quernan's Syndrome (aggravated thumb/wrist tendons) and only actually got physio at the end of November! But here are some of the Bakes I did not share with you that I am pleased with:

Christmas Cake!

In keeping with the season, The first item on the list is my Christmas Cake.
All decorations are hand-made by me.
It is a dark fruit cake, covered in the traditional marzipan and Royal Icing.

And this is what it looked like in October, ready to go into the oven. It contains no Mixed Peel (food of Satan), nor raisins, nor currants. Sultanas, dried cranberries and glace cherries are the dried fruit.
I also broke with tradition on the fruit-soaking/cake-feeding liquor and went for Rum instead of Brandy. We don't drink Brandy, so I didn't have any to use.






Choux Buns

Fresh from the oven

 In Septemeber my husband bought me the much-coveted GBBO Showstoppers book and I decided to have a go at Choux buns and fill them with Creme Patissiere.

Some plain, some with chocolate on top - all filled with creme pat' and blueberries

Gaining the Husband's Seal of approval

They went down very well and I plan to try the Swans in the book some time in the New Year, possibly for a nice Easter tea.

The addition of fresh fruit to the filling made them a little less-guilty a pleasure, and helped to lift the stodginess that I find choux can sometimes have (when you have 10 buns to eat between 2 people, even if they're airy and light like mine were, there's a denseness comes from plain creme patissiere!)



Husband's Birthday Cake
My husband shares his birthday with his mum and in previous years I have made them a joint cake, but as his mum didn't seem all that impressed last year, I decided I'd just make it for him this time. I did make two separate mini-loaf cakes (each big enough to share between two) from the same mix to have as "her" cakes, but she didn't seem that impressed with those either. Maybe she just wants someone to buy her a cake instead? I think I may never know.
Anyway, Ash's Birthday cake:

As you can see from the piped Chocolate on the Christmas cake, I have learned that greaseproof paper and practising are better than going straight for the cake. It was quite impressive in February, but the standards are always getting higher.



I was certain that I had taken photos of the crown of bread I made the other day for dipping into a baked camembert - it was made with seeded flour, chopped rosemary and serrano ham wrapped into the rolls and it was very tasty.

I have also recently made onion bhajis and samosas from scratch, and hope to get back to making sushi in the New Year when Ash and I get started on our get fit campaign. A stone and a half each to lose by the summer - roll on the veg-packed lunch boxes and soup-filled evenings!

So long, for now