Category: Cakes
Semolina, coconut and marmalade cakes
I could not resist this recipe when I came across it – the title alone has me dreaming of soft cake drenched in sticky citrus deliciousness. It is adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi from their book Jerusalem. I also happen to have an excess of marmalade in my fridge and adore anything with coconut in it so this one had my name written all over it!
A Train Party
- the snacks were served in a train. I painted disposable foil oven trays with blue and green craft paint, stuck black paper circles on the sides for wheels and strung them together with twine. I then used old cardboard boxes to make a train to go at the front (decorated in blue and green of course), lined the carriages with blue and green tissue paper and filled them up with delicious eats.
- a cardboard “birthday crossing” sign with paper lights underneath, and another sign that said “Platform 2”.
- “Thanks for chugging by” party packs displayed in an open suitcase marked “Baggage Claim”.
- the children played pass-the-parcel with train songs as the music.
- A train craft where the children could glue their own train pictures using shapes that I had pre-cut and cotton wool. (Apologies for the terrible photo!)
- I baked two 22cm vanilla cakes. I levelled off the bottom cake to make it easier to stack the other on on top, but I left the top one rounded to give it a “hilly” appearance.
- The cake was iced with a thin layer of pale blue buttercream icing.
- When it came to making the fondant train I referred to this easy tutorial, adding my own touches here and there.
- I also used fondant to make the train tracks (I used a sharp knife to score lines into them to give them a more woody look), clouds, “tunnels” with rocks around them, apple trees and hills.
- I finished the cake off by piping a little bit of green buttercream icing around the base to look like grass.
Fruity wholewheat loaf cake
I have been on a clearing out mission lately. I started in the kitchen, and was happy to get rid of a big box of utensils and bits and bobs that I no longer needed. As for the rest of the house… the clearing out process has been going much, much slower than I would prefer. I am talking one shelf a day slow. Still, it is better than nothing I suppose. As part of “project declutter” I have also been delving into the deep freezer, cautiously prying open tupperwares from the depths and playing “guest the contents” with various unlabelled ziplock bags.
Vegan chocolate nut brittle cake
The lightest lemon squares (with video)

The other day my daughter came home from school and (after proudly showing me the red autumn leaves she had found in the playground that day as well as an energetic, full length rendition of “The Farmer in the Dell” – oh to be four again!) told me that her class had celebrated a birthday that day and that the birthday boy had brought a lemon cake to school for everyone to share. It made me think of this recipe which is one of those that I have had for years, scribbled on a piece of paper and unceremoniously shoved inside a notebook. It is a fantastic recipe and worthy of a more permanent home here on the web and not just on a scrap of paper!
A fairy party (and a fairy cake!)
The ultimate chocolate cake and October cake round up
Continue reading “The ultimate chocolate cake and October cake round up”




















