A realistic baking blog from Scotland

Came across Let them eat cake! today. Fiona’s recipes look practical and I love the tips.We both believe that we should include a few home-made treats into our healthy diets.

Simple rich Simnel cake

Easter, and I was thinking in terms of chocolate. The I realised that many of us have far too much actual chocolate around at this time somehow about making something that would last until we are ready for a different sweet treat, so fruit cake in general and Simnel cake in particular came to mind.

Ginger fruit and nut cake

What to make for a birthday party – but one in a restaurant?

I was carrying the cake on the train to get there, and expected that people would be taking pieces home rather than eating them there and then so I rejected anything with icing and opted instead for a lavish fruit and nut cake with ginger.

There’s nothing economical about this, but it is easy, portable, and lasts for weeks (if you can stop yourself from eating it).

Ginger fruit and nut cake

Serve it in thin slides and it looks beautiful.

Rocky road bars

After grappling with fudge, I thought I’d go for something easy and uncomplicated.

The ideal Rocky Road combines marshmallows and something crunchy in a chocolate coating. Melt the chocolate with some butter and golden syrup, mix in the soft and crunchy bits, leave to set in the fridge.

Rocky road bars

My attempts at Rocky Road started with the recipe in Nigella Lawson’s “How to be a domestic goddess”, where she combines equal weights of marshmallows and brazil nuts. That’s quite a lot of marshmallows to not many nuts, and had the wrong ratio of crunch to squish for my taste.

Then I tried the Rocky Road Bars recipe in “Nigella Express”, and was convinced. Easy, cheap, popular, quick: Result.

Maple and pecan fudge: a step on the way to a fudge recipe that works

In theory, fudge is the perfect fête item:

• cheap to make
• an old-fashioned favourite
• keeps for ages
• easy to pack and transport.

But no-one told me how tricky it is. I’ve made so many batches that didn’t work, that almost worked, that needed to be rescued. Occasionally, the batch of perfection that is smooth, very slightly soft, but still firm enough to cut.

Crunchy fudge

The picture isn’t one of them. It was the crunchy, crystalline sort that was still OK to eat. It set me on a hunt for the repeatable fudge recipe that works.

Getting started

The journey begins:

• the new blog
• sorting out some books on Amazon.co.uk
• figuring out how to make fudge in a way that works, every time.