adepdf

A good friend of mine had a knee replacement done about a week and a half ago.  We were going to visit her today to see how she is doing and help break the monotony of being largely immobile and so I decided I wanted to bring her some little treat.    At first I was going to bake her some muffins and then I thought . . . maybe muffins would be too much . . . or they would get all squished in the car, or not be at their best by the time we got there.  I love muffins best when they are fresh out of the oven. That's when I decided to bake her some cookies.  Not kid cookies.  Grown up cookies.   Cookies meant for dunking.   Out of the ordinary cookies.  Not a chocolate chip in sight.  (Although I am a big fan of those myself!)   I decided to make these lovely almond crescents.  They're buttery and crisp  and stogged full of almonds. . . with a crunchy sugar coating of granulated sugar, which bakes on whilst they are in the o...

In Canada they have these really tasty candy bars names Sweet Marie's.  They were always my favourite candy bars when I was a child.  Not only were they stogged full of caramel, peanut butter, crispy cereal and salted peanuts . . . not to mention covered in chocolate . . . but they actually named the bars after ME!  (Don't ever tell me any different!) All in all a very irresistable combination don't you think?   I don't know if they have anything similar over here, but I suspect they do . . . and I suspect that it is probably the Picnic or the Lion Bars.   Or a cross between the two. It's funny how things go . . . how when you can't get something anymore, you kind of crave it.   Things like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese . . . or Velveeta . . . All Dressed Potato Chips . . . Coffee Crisp Candy Bars . . . Lucky Charms Cereal . . . Captain Crunch . . . Sweet Marie's . . . And the longer you have to live without them . . . the more you want them.   The...

I could tell you that this cake is moist and deliciously scrummy . . . With it's lightly spiced and buttery batter . . . tucked beneath a layer of tart blackberries . . . All that deliciousness . . . tucked beneath a crunchy layer of spicy buttery and nutty streusel . . . I could tell you how it tastes even better the day after baking and warn you how difficult it will be to stop at one slice . . . But instead . . . I'll just suggest that you bake it yourself, and find all this out first hand. Bake it . . . soon . You won't regret it. I promise you this. If you only make one cake this month . . . let this be the ONE. *Blackberry Pecan Snacking Cake* makes one 8 inch square cake Printable Recipe A delicious cake, with a lightly spiced batter and topped with lovely blackberries and a scrummy brown sugar pecan streusal. For the cake: 125ml of sour cream (1/2 cup) 1 large free range egg 1 tsp pure vanilla extract 4.25 ounces plain flour (1 cup) 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 ts...

 I had some lemons that I needed to use up today. I always buy too many. I just love the sight of a bowl of lemons on the counter top.  They  just look so cheerful to me, and homey.  A little spot of sunshine on a dark and drizzly January day . . . lemons to me are the the perfect pick me up!   I decided to make some of my favourite slices . . . Lemon and Jam slices.  Or Squares if you would rather call them that.  I like to call them slices . . . sounds even more delicious when you call them slices.  A rose by any other name and all that . . . I love these slices because they encompass three of my favourite things . . . a buttery, crisp baked shortbread crust on the bottom . . . sweet strawberry preserves in the middle . . . a tangy lemoncurd like topping . . .   Oh my . . . but these are heavenly bliss.  I love to enjoy them in the middle of the afternoon along with a hot drink.  They're so good.  These are the type of ...

As a child I used to devour Enid Blyton books.  I love the ones about the fairies and gnomes and wishing trees . . . but I especially loved the adventure books and the ones about kids in boarding schools with tuck boxes and tea time treats and picnic fare which sounded to me to be exotic.   Sausage rolls and pork pies, cherry cakes and ginger beer.  Wobbly blanc manges.   Tinned and potted meat spread onto hugs slabs of homemade bread . . . jam sandwiches, gingernuts, fruit jellies.  Rock cakes.  It was all so deliciously tempting sounding, and I dreamt about what it might be like to gorge myself on such a wonderous feast.  Yes , , , for me it has always been a out the food. We didn't have such things at home.  None of our meat came from tins and we were never allowed to gorge ourselves on fruit jellies and sausage rolls or wobbly blanc manges.   We were never allowed to gorge ourselves on anything.  My mother's idea of a...

    One last indulgence which I made over the Christmas Hols.  It doesn't have to be a holiday to enjoy this tasty cake however, as it goes down a real treat at any time!     This is a recipe I adapted from a cookbook I picked up at one of those Garden/Gift centres one time.  It's entitled Mum's Favourite Recipes.   They usually have a great variety of books to choose from in those places and they're not very expensive.   Most don't cost more than a magazine, and they have some really good recipes in them.     This is a common cake you see in the shops over here in the UK.  Basically it is melted chocolate, butter and syrup with crushed biscuits and dried fruit thrown in.  It can vary from recipe to recipe.   This one uses crumbled digestive biscuits as well as dates and sultanas.   The fruit is soaked in rum first which makes it a bit boozy.   I don't do alcohol so I ...