Chocolate Courgette Cake

Last Thursday I got offered some lovely home-grown courgettes from someone at work, as they had far too many to use themselves. Never one to say no to free food I happily took them.

Thats right, bigger than my keyboard!

I had seen Simon from the Great British Bake-off make a chocolate and courgette cake so thought I would give it a go! I did ask around for some recipes and was told by a few people on twitter that the BBC Good Food recipe was the best! So here it is...

Re-design

Decided to spiff things up around here, although it also gave me something to distract myself while my chocolate and courgette cake is cooling.

Let me know what you think of the new look, good or bad? Discuss.

Chocolate Cookies

Chocolate-y goodness!

I am always on the hunt for a really good biscuit recipe, something easy yet delicious that I can make over and over again. Last weekend I had a wonderful baking day with the lovely Sacha. She came armed with this recipe from Yummly.com so we decided to give it a go.

Milk with one.

Milk and one sugar if you please.

Apparently I have stopped taking sugar in my tea.

In my teenage years I was strictly a milk and two sugars girl, in fact the brew was probably 85% milk and sugar and 15% actual tea. I have evolved over the years and now prefer a stronger cup of tea, with a dash of milk and one sugar (heaped).

This is how I have been taking my tea for at least the past 5 years.

Just now I was happily drinking my third cuppa of the day when my co-worker said:

"So, your liking tea without sugar then?"

To which I replied... "Eh? What are you on about?"

"Your tea doesn't have sugar, I have been making it without all week."

I hadn't even bloody well noticed!

On the plus side each heaped teaspoon of sugar contained 24 calories, so if you multiply that by the 6 cups I have a day I am saving myself 144 calories a day!

Probably doesn't equate to much of a difference seeing as I ate two slices of Victoria sponge, 3 brownies and a shed load of chocolate cookies yesterday!

Back to basics - Victoria Sponge

Well I definitely got my baking Mojo back this weekend! With a vengeance!

I spent Saturday shopping with my lovely sister and she bought me two new cookery books! The first was the Great British Bake-off
book, which accompanies the TV show that was on BBC2 and the second was Gizzi's Kitchen Magic which is not only gorgeous to look at but full of great tips and delicious recipes.

Oh the possibilities!

I spent most of my Saturday night immersed in these books, trying to decide which recipes to try, there was far to many to chose from.

In the end I decide to ease myself back into this baking game with a simple Victoria sponge. The bake-off book had a recipe which they dubbed "the perfect Victoria sponge" so I decided to try it and see how perfect it really was.

Long time no see...

Hello, my name is Helen and it has been over a year since my last blog post...

*hangs head in shame*

Sincerest apologies to the blogosphere, has been a long old year and I literally don't think I have baked anything in that time! *gasp*

I am happy to announce that I am moving to a lovely new house in just 3 short weeks! I am hoping a nice new kitchen will spur me on to get back to baking.

I have a list of recipes as long as my arm that I want to try, so please watch this space for upcoming deliciousness.