KUMPULAN MASTER BLOG

I love ginger cake. I love ginger in general, but ginger cake really is gorgeous, and dark chocolate accompanies it really well. The slightly bitter chocolate taste complements all that sticky golden syrup and sugar, add some chocolate buttercream and mmmmm, you've got yourself a winner! A little while back I made a chocolate chip ginger sandwich cake, for one of my husband's colleagues who was leaving. It went down very well, lasted about 5 seconds according to my husband, but I never remembered to take any photos. I had some time spare this weekend, so I decided to have a bit of a baking/cooking day and make it again. This chocolate chip ginger cake recipe makes a pretty foolproof sandwich cake. The ginger sponge is feather light and just slightly sticky. The only thing you need to watch out for is when you come to turn the cake out. It will stick and crack at any opportunity, so make sure that the tin is well greased and let the cake cool for several minutes before trying to...

Quick Summer Fruit Crumble- a quick summer dessert using blueberries, raspberries and blueberries. Serve it up with ice cream or custard. Use frozen fruit if you can't get fresh. Jump to Recipe I am so ready for Summer to come round the corner, so I can put away my winter wardrobe, plant up up my garden and start carrying my sunglasses wherever I go. I want to eat strawberries, avocados and salad and sit in the garden on sun-loungers. Doesn't seem like much to ask, but summer is being quite contrary... One of the other great things about summer is all the delicious fruit that comes into season- strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, apricots, blackcurrants, nectarines. I love it all! We're not quite in the season for those fruits yet in the UK, although some early British strawberries are knocking around. I use the BBC Good Food Season Table to keep an eye on when I'll be able to find the fruit I want. In my determination to bring summer on, I decided to...

I tend not to be very imaginative when I order starters in an Italian restaurant. I go for the Bruschetta almost every time. I'm so predictable on this front that I could even rank all the chain restaurants by how good their Bruschettas are (Pizza Express- excellent, Zizzi- terrible). Bruschetta is a beautifully simple dish- some type of bread, chopped, sweet, fresh tomatoes, red onion, fresh basil and away you go. I like to use different colours of tomato, like the red and yellow cherry tomatoes, because it looks so pretty when it's served. Some people like the bruschetta topping to be warm, almost like pizza, but traditionally it's cold, with the warm bread underneath. That's the way I like it- it makes me think of summer! Making your own bruschetta is very easy. Take any good bread like French stick or ciabatta and drizzle it with garlic oil or spread it with garlic butter and grill until crisped a little. Then serve straight away with the tomato salad topping and a ...

Slow Cooker Vegan Curry- a low calorie,vegan and gluten free curry packed with veg for a filling meal- butternut squash, potato, peppers and chickpeas. It makes a really healthy meal. Low syn on Slimming World and 217 calories. Jump to recipe This week I have been making vegetable curry in my slow cooker. I love everything about having a curry- all the trimmings that are involved. Naan bread in particular is a hot favourite for me. I would rather have curry and Naan than have curry and rice. If you like a really fiery curry, often a vegetable curry is the way to go. The veg absorbs a lot of the heat from the spices and really packs a punch! The advantage of using the slow cooker (apart from the usual bonus of leaving it to do its thing) is that it keeps the curry lower in calories because no curry paste or oil is needed. Add that to the fact that veg and pulses in themselves are packed full of nutrients and protein, and you're on to a winner all round. It's also accidentally...

Easter Chocolate Fridge Cake- A recipe for an indulgent chocolate Easter treat packed with fruit, nuts and most importantly, Cadbury's Mini-Eggs! With Easter around the corner, I was tempted to make this Easter Chocolate Fridge Cake, or Chocolate Tiffin. There's no pretending that it's anything but a very indulgent treat, but as Easter is the celebration that seems to involve the most chocolate, I think that's okay! Cadbury's Mini Eggs are my absolute favourite Easter goodie, so I added plenty of them to this recipe. If you're more of a Cadbury's Creme Egg fan, you could use the mini ones of those instead. I like those too, but couldn't be faffed with unwrapping them all individually! Chocolate tiffin usually has biscuit inside, but my Easter version doesn't. I used nuts for the crunch instead- almonds and hazelnuts (which are my favourites at the moment), but if nuts are a problem, you could switch them for the more traditional digestive biscuits or...

Easter Nest Cupcakes- classic sponge cupcakes with chocolate topping and Easter Nest decoration using cadbury's Mini Eggs and crumbled Cadbury's Flake. There are so many cute cupcake ideas to make for Easter, but when you don't have a lot of time, or you want to bake with your children, I find simple is best. I made these Easter Nest cupcakes as a variation on my Chocolate Orange Easter Nest Cake . The sponge I use is a classic yellow sponge that makes an excellent base for any cupcake you want to make. It turns out well every time; moist, buttery and delicious. Top that with real chocolate icing, crumbly Cadbury's Flake and the essential Cadbury's Mini Eggs and you've got yourself a classic Easter treat. They don't tend to last long once people try them- the 16 that I made for work lasted until 1pm!

This week I made a batch of one of my favourite slow cooker dishes- Brown Sugar Gammon . We had it for dinner, then the next day in sandwiches, but there was still some leftover! It's absolutely delicious, so I couldn't let it go to waste. I decided to make some ham and leek pies to use it up, as I had plenty of leeks ready to make soup. These ham and leek pies are individual portion sizes with a creamy, garlic, ham and leek filling. The creamy sauce is really what separates them from just any old ham pie. It's essentially a classic white sauce but with garlic and double cream added. I used my leftover brown sugar gammon for the ham filling, but you can buy a ready-cooked bacon joint or use leftovers of any type of ham you have cooked recently. I used ready-made shortcrust pastry but you can, of course make your own. I recommend this recipe: Shortcrust Pastry Recipe from BBC Good Food. The traditional enamel pie dishes with the blue edges are the ones I use for cooking my...