melktert/ milktart

Milktart or "melktert" as it is colloquially known is a rich, custard tart usually in a soft pastry shell (not biscuit). It's served slightly warm or cold. The commercial offerings are usually about an inch high and cream coloured. My product was at least 2 1/2 inches high and a rich eggy yellow. You dust it with cinnamon before serving. I produced 2 of them (using 7 eggs in all) - one for (what I thought was...) International Book Week at Calvin's nursery, and the other went to the office with HRH. All devoured.

Beetroot and chocolate cupcakes

We've been reading Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale at bookclub. As I was hosting the evening, I thought it would be appropriate to serve something RED. I proved a little harder to do than I'd anticipated, but the finished product was delish.
I trawled through the recipe books and websites, and settled on this one : http://www.britishlarder.co.uk 's recipe (click on the link)
250g of 70% cocoa chocolate is a lot to go into making 16 cupcakes, but they are fabulous.
A positive: the paper wrappers came away really nicely too.
I made the chocolate fudge spread, but must say it was more like a jelly by the coooling stage, and didn't pour like the photograph shows. It looks to me like crumbly jelly-bits ontop of my cupcakes now. Not to say that it isn't yummy (and oh-so-light), but it could have been more of a "spread".
All in all however, a huge success.

chocolate fudge cake, take 2

You'll possibly remember that I made this cake for Zack's 3rd birthday last year, and you can't go wrong with a chocolate cake. So here it is with different decorations for Calvin's 2nd birthday this weekend.

syruppy lemon cake trifle

One of those Nigella wow-ers. This is her lemon syrup loaf cake, sliced up (with double syrup to drench the cake), fresh raspberries on top and then a lime syllabub poured over, topped with toasted almonds. Lovely. Just found the syllabub a bit too bitter with the lime zest.