GBBO week 7 – vanilla and speculoos roulade with strawberries and cream

It’s already week 7 of the Great British Bake Off, and the latest challenges were based around desserts. Options were a signature roulade, a technical marjolaine, or a showstopping range of petite mousse desserts. Once again I had to cater to Andrew’s fussiness so couldn’t make a marjolaine which is meringue, nor mousse – Andrew […]

It’s not easy being greedy – especially if you are a cat

If you don’t own cats (or, rather, if a cat hasn’t decided to make you its personal slave), then you probably think that cats eat cat food, right? Wrong! What cats most want to eat in the world is whatever you are enjoying at any particular time. And they will do anything they can to […]

GBBO challenge week 7 – Religieuse

Find out more about my Great British Bake Off challenge. If I wasn’t already an athiest, making Religieuse this week would have turned me into one.  These little choux bun towers, named for the nuns they are supposed to resemble (you’d have to be on drugs to mistake mine for nuns), represent what I dislike […]

GBBO challenge week 3 – trifle

Find out more about my GBBO challenge. Ooooooh, desserts. Well I love them, but Andrew pretty much hates them all … and he has a particular hatred for meringue which meant that week 3’s technical challenge of Iles Flottant was a definite no-no for me. I was tempted by the idea of petit fours, but […]

Sausage rolls and brownies make a party (plus booze, obviously)

It was my birthday last week, and so slightly depressingly I had to update my ‘about’ page on this blog to aged 37. But getting another year older has great advantages, most particularly of the present variety. Oh how well my friends and family know me – almost every present was food-related, and every card […]