White Chocolate & Cranberry Cake

You have to try baking this. I wasn't expecting anything special with this simple-to-make-cake, but I was blown away by it. It has a wonderful moist texture, and the combination of sweet white chocolate with sharp cranberries is just awesome. A simple white chocolate drizzle on top and a sprinkle of cranberries make this cake perfect for an occasion too. If you don't have a nice round bundt tin, just use a large loaf tin or two small ones. You may need to adjust the cooking times accordingly. I bet this would be nice with dried apricots too.

Luxurious Carrot Cake

Oh how I love a nice moist carrot cake with cream cheese icing. My version of carrot cake is packed full of extra ingredients that give it a wonderful texture and a fantastic taste. Crushed pineapple and orange zest for fruityness, chopped roasted nuts for crunch, and sultanas for... well, just 'coz I like them.

Of course if you're fussy you could leave the extras out, but you will still need to add the carrots! There's no escaping the "hidden vegetables" in this cake!

You can decorate the top of your cake with a sprinkle of cinnamon, orange zest, walnut halves, chopped nuts, or just leave it plain.

Banoffee Bread

Is it me or can banana bread be a little boring at times? I thought, I know what would spruce banana bread up a bit, how about chucking in a whole tin of Carnation caramel? Did it work...oh yes! So here I present to you, "Banoffee Bread".

Oh, and don't even think about chucking away those old brown bananas in the bottom of your fruit bowl. The browner your bananas, the sweeter your cake will be.

Triple Chocolate Chunk Muffins

I have never been too impressed with homemade chocolate muffins as they usually come out dry, boring & surprisingly not very chocolately  considering how much chocolate goes in them. But this is by far the best recipe I have tried. They rose beautifully for me with the classic muffin-top. I still reckon you could add more chocolate chunks than the recipe states though! Supermarket value chocolate works fine in this chocolate muffin recipe.

Hot Cross Bun Bread & Butter Pudding with Dark Chocolate

Have you been over ambitious with the Hot Cross Buns this Easter and bought more than you know what to do with? Here is how to get rid of them in the most deliciously possible way... How about bread and butter pudding, made with hot cross buns and dark chocolate! It's so easy and so scrummy. Go on, give it a go this Easter!

Sticky Ginger Marmalade Loaf

I had a slice of a marmalade cake at a coffee morning last week and loved it, but I really wanted more marmalade, so here's my own version which is stuffed full of marmalade, ginger and walnuts, with a really thick sticky layer of marmalade on top. Try to find a thick cut marmalade with loads of orange rind in it if you can. I used a posh looking ginger marmalade which I found in M&S.

Raspberry Crumble Top Muffins

Why do muffins look so much more appealing when they are covered in a generous sprinkling of nutty crumble! These raspberry muffins are made with frozen raspberries and natural raspberry yoghurt. Crunchy on top, soft and fluffy inside, with gooey explosions of raspberries. Great for breakfast.

Milk Making Cookies

For those of you who haven't had children you may find this weird, but for those of you who have had babies and chosen to breastfeed you will understand how hungry breastfeeding makes you! Women have to eat at least 500 extra calories a day to keep up a good supply of milk. Now these cookies are just stuffed full of good stuff which can help with boosting your milk supply, but for anyone who isn't nursing, they are still an awesome cookie and are full of health benefits! They are also ridiculously tasty and fill you up for ages.

The three main whole-food super ingredients in these cookies are oats, brewers yeast, and linseed (also known as flaxseed). All three ingredients are packed full of fibre, which has been known for centuries to boost milk supply. Oats are a great source of iron, which new mothers are frequently in need of. Brewers Yeast is one of the best natural sources of B Vitamins, which are essential to your overall health and also give you an energy boost.  The oil from the Linseed is packed full of Omega-3 which gives you all of your essential fatty acids - a crucial part of a nursing mothers diet. You can find more information on these cookies and their health benefits on Drmomma's website, where I found the original recipe first created by Kathleen Major, a pediatric health specialist from the US. I have slightly adapted the recipe to fit in with standard English metric measurements and common ingredients found in the UK. I hope you enjoy it!

Red Nose Day Cupcakes

Red Velvet "Red Nose Day" Cupcakes for Comic Relief this Friday. Making red velvet cupcakes is like playing with a chemistry set, the fizzing reaction between the bicarbonate of soda and the vinegar is what makes these cakes so ridiculously fluffy. A cream cheese icing is the perfect partner, but not too much, the sponge is so delicate you don't want it to get squashed under the weight of the icing. Add a little decoration on top for fun too

Recipe coming soon...

Apple Crumble Cake

Mmmm, my favourite pudding in cake form. I think I prefer this to an apple crumble, as there's more cake and a lot less apple peeling to do! This cake takes less than 15minutes to prepare, then 40minutes to bake - perfect timing for getting a meal ready in the meantime and serving it warm for pudding with vanilla icecream. Simple and yummy, this is one that I bake again and again.

Gooey Chocolate Chunk Cookies

When making cookies, I always strive for the perfect texture above anything else - gooey in the middle, crunchy on the outside, with oozy bits in between. The key to this is to ever so slightly underbake them and to use partially melted butter. Here is a nice and easy chunky chocolate cookie recipe for you to try.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

I know... it's beautiful right? Elegantly simple doily inspired cake decoration for an elegantly simple (gluten-free) chocolate cake. Now, this cake is not a cheap one, so make sure that you really like your gluten-free friend before you go baking them this. Ever tried a bain marie? I was a little apprehensive about "bathing" my cake but it works! As there is an extreme absence of flour in this cake, you'll be needing an electric whisk to get lots of air into it.

Steamed Treacle Sponge

Now, who said that the steamed pudding needs re-inventing, I like it just the way it is! Here's a good old fashioned "proper" English pudding that's great when you don't have much time, or when you don't have anything in the way of exciting ingredients in the cupboard. It's one of the few puddings that is loved by everyone from young to old, not to mention the added bonus of only taking 10 minutes and a couple of quid to make. You really can't go wrong with this all-in-one recipe, just make sure that your butter is at room temperature before you start so that it's nice and soft. RHN2ZG2Z6CGJ

Very Lazy Banoffee Pie

This is a pudding that you can literally whip up in about 10 minutes. There isn't even any baking involved. Despite this, it's still a delicious last minute dessert that will definitely impress. My version uses cream cheese to make it a lot less sickly than a regular banoffee pie.

Mini Victoria Sandwiches

Brilliant. Lakeland make a mini victoria sandwich tin with which you can create cute little versions of the English classic cake. It's quite a hefty tin with loose bottomed bases and straight sides. I might even make some mini cheesecakes in it. My mini victoria sandwiches are filled with buttercream and "Turkish Black Cherry and Madagascan Vanilla Soft Set Jam"... with that kind of elaborate description it was of course from M&S. Make your own jam though if you really want to impress.