Cupcakes for Breast Cancer

These were my Cupcakes that I made for the breast cancer charity tea, over £400 was raised and I won the best cake and won lots of lovely skin care products. It was a lovely afternoon and loved the way my cakes looked on the cake stand. Sorry I haven't posted sooner, unfortunately my computer is broken so I've managed to use another one today.

Hi everyone,

Well I've been in the kitchen for 2 days now, baking cupcakes and today putting butter icing on them, for a breast cancer charity event for QVC on Friday, my 1st attempt and not blowing my own trumpet they are not half bad, maybe I'll be baking lots more cupcakes in the future, it was so much fun and I enjoyed every moment of it, I even made some gluten free cakes too.

Well I found this film today in the shop and didn't really know what it was about but bought it and watched it, How uncanny this film was, and it really made me think. I work full time and don't really get a lot of time to blog as much as I'd like, but wondered does anyone actually read this?????.

I work to pay the bills but my one love is to cook, it makes everything feel so much better, its my biggest Passion, and if no one does read it, just writing about cooking makes me feel better anyway. I don't get enough time to blog regularly but when I can I will be putting lots more recipes on here, so please bare with me.

Well my allotment is coming along nicely, picked a nice green pepper today, and some carrots, even though they don't look much they are so sweet and really tasty.

Spice Cupboard

Before you can really start experimenting you have to 1st have a cupboard full of weird and wonderful things, this one above is mine and I love it. Also above, I have truffle oil that I bought in Tuscany and 25 year Oak aged Balsamic, which is also from Tuscany, gorgeous but I use these sparingly as its very expensive, and right at the top of the photos is Orzo Pasta, fab alternative to rice, this is what I used in my Pasta dish recipe I posted on here the a week and a half ago.

Trio of desserts

My Trio of desserts

Individual Banoffee Cheesecake, Lemon and honey cheesecake, and white chocolate and mint mouse. Recipes to follow.

Moroccan Tagine

Well the dinner party went well lots of nice food Moroccan food is so easy to do, its all about the spice. What I do is I make up my Moroccan spices in a tin 1st, Today I will tell you what spices you need for the blend, and in the next couple of days I'll give you a nice Lamb Tagine recipe you can try at home.

Moroccan spice blend

• Ground Cumin
• Cumin seeds
• Dried Coriander
• Smoked Paprika
• Dried Garlic
• Dried mint (I always add fresh mint to the Tagine also)
• Black pepper
• Salt
• Mustard powder
• Cinnamon

To the actual food I always add fresh cooked onion and dried apricot, but mire about that later.