Flipping Great Flapjacks

They're golden. They're crumbley. They're firey hot. They're my ginger and lemon flapjacks. The best bit? I didn't have to buy a single thing; all the ingredients were in my baking cupboard already. Just what the doctor ordered on a spending free weekend.

Bellini Cuptail

I have been busy imagining and designing and sketching a series of cupcakes inspired by my favourite cocktails. Hence 'cuptail.' I was going to call them 'cockcakes' but this was renownedly met with disapproval. Lord knows why.

The Bellini Cuptail was inspired by my fizz-fuelled jaunt to Venice, well recorded in my blog. I spent the majority of my time in Venice pretty jolly from over-consumption of bellinis. My motto was 'Where there's a bellini, there's a way.'

This is the first in a series of my Cuptails. It has a peach compote middle, light elderflower icing and crackling space dust on the top to create the bubbling prosecco and sweet peach of the magnificent bellini.

cakes...

125g unsalted butter

125g caster sugar

2 medium eggs

125g plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

2 tablespoons of elderflower cordial

A can of peach slices blended until smooth

icing...

60g unsalted butter

250g icing super

3-4 tablespoons elderflower cordial

Space dust / popping candy crumbled on the top

• Preheat oven to 180°C and pop muffin cases into cupcake tins

• For the cakes : Cream butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add elderflower cordial, then add the eggs one at a time, being careful not to beat too much or it will curdle. Seive the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt and gently fold into the mixture. Divide into the cupcake cases and bake for 20 minutes, or until golden on the top and a skewer comes out clean. Once cooked, leave to cool completely - stone cold.
• Drain the peaches completely and then blend until smooth. Cut holes into the cakes, quite deeply and remove excess sponge. Fill the holes with peach puree - if you see the peach puree sinking after about 5 minutes, top up.

• To ice : Beat the icing sugar into the butter, then add the elderflower cordial to taste. Should be really thick consistency. Squidge into a piping bag, and pipe however you want onto the top making sure to cover the peach pure middles. Make sure the icing is touch set before crumbling popping candy onto the top as it melts if it gets wet.

Merry Christmas from Me!

Homemade

This is the third year of being responsible for buying presents for my family whilst seriously lacking in funds. For the third year running I am turning to the phenomenon of 'making your own presents.' Since Pinterest has gained momentum, this phenomenon has meant that slightly wonky, strange presents aren't scorned at but welcomes with open arms. So the time has come, here are my homemade pressies.

English Rose, Lavender and Coconut Soy Candles

The easiest thing I've made so far. 200g of soy wax flakes off eBay for each 330ml jam jar. Put a wick in the jam jar and hold in place with un-opened chopsticks (from your local Chinese). Heat the wax in a ban-marie or a saucepan over boiling water. Add 10-20 drops of your chosen fragrance. Bobs your uncle, instant candle.

Blackberry Brandy

I only made blackberry brandy because, as you may know, I'm a big fan of aliteration. All you have to do is get an old water glass bottle that can take a litre of liquid or a kilner jar, and fill it with about 300g of blackberries and 250g caster sugar. Shake that about a bit the get the sugar incorporated as much as possible. Fill to the top with cheap brandy - about 70cl. Shake thoroughly to make sure the sugar is dissolved. Then leave for about 3 months to let it properly infuse, shaking every week or so.

Merriment Masterclass

Christmas is the time to be merry but there are many interpretations to the term 'merry.' For me, along with the majority of Britain, merry at Christmas means champagne cocktails and wine drenched lunches until you are positively pickled in the afternoon. But I very rarely experience this kind of merriment as 'merry' in our household doesn't mean ruddy cheeked tipsiness.

The real bringer of merriment in our house - along with King's College Choir's greatest Christmas hits on repeat - is mince pies. And it's lucky my lovely mum has become such an expert. Who needs a hangover when there are trays full of mince pies to keep me going til New Year?

Mum's Mince Pies...

Packet sweet short-crust pastry
A jar of finest, nicest mincemeat
Large glug of port or brandy
Grated apple
Chopped clementines
Flaked almonds
Cubes of marzipan

• Oven to 200°C, get a cupcake or muffin tin out of the cupboard.
• Roll out pastry to a couple of millimetres thickness and cut into rounds big enough for your tin and into stars or holly leaves as toppers. Place the pastry rounds into the tins.
• Empty jar of bought mincemeat into a bowl, grate the apple in, chuck in the chopped clementines, glug in the port or brandy and give it a good mix up. Fill your pastry rounds with the mixture. Bury a square of marzipan into the pie and sprinkle flaked almonds on the top.
• Top the pie with its pastry holly leaf or star and sprinkle demarera or golden caster sugar on top.
• Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes until the pies are golden on the top.
• Serve with brandy butter.

Curiosities

An incredible collection of curiosities at Pertwee, Anderson & Gold gallery in Soho.

All I want for Christmas...

Now it's December, it's all systems Christmas agogo. I'm more excited this year for the holiday season than I have been in quite a few years; it really is going to be an excellent couple of weeks. Everything has clicked into place for the first time and, being incredibly understated and modest, my life is pretty flippin' great. As such, I don't really want anything for Christmas but if I HAD to have a present, this is what I'm coveting at the moment.

1 M.A.C Lipstick in Captive 2 Agent Provocateur Katherine bra 

3 Knitted cashmere hoody 4 Tatty Devine country mouse brooch

Brockwell Winter

Flourless Chocolate Dream

With 40 minutes before I had to be at someone's house, and tasked with creating a desert suitable for a coeliac yet good enough for the rest of the party, I donned my Heston Blumental goggle glasses on and turned to desperate experimental cooking. This constitutes throwing chocolate and ground almonds into a bowl and heating it up. Turns out random ingredient cake mixture thrown into a bowl makes the best brownies I've ever made. Gooey, stodgy, rich and chocolatey with a marzipan aftertaste. Can you get better? Definitely not.

I only managed to get a photo after the party, what you see there are the limited remains.

cake...

100g salted butter
250g dark chocolate (good quality, at least 70%)
150g icing sugar
150g ground almonds
4 eggs separated

• Preheat the oven to 180°C and line cake tin with greaseproof paper.
• Place the butter and chocolate in saucepan balanced over a pan of simmering water, keep an eye on it otherwise the chocolate will split and become grainy and bitter.
• Whisk egg yolks and icing sugar until thick and considerably paler. Whisk the egg white separately in a really clean bowl until stiff peaks form and it doesn't fall on your head if you
• Pour the melted chocolate and butter into the bowl with the egg yolks and sugar, mix in the ground almonds then immediately fold in the egg whites gently, using a metal spoon.
• Pour the cake mixture into the tin and cook in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes.

Taxidermising Hubert

If you have wandered around by blog, you will know that I have a little (some say peculiar) obsession with taxidermy; Wilfred is my most treasured possession. Rather like tattoos, I wanted to grow my collection and luckily for me taxidermy is becoming increasingly fashionable (and sadly hipster). So I hotfooted it down to the London Taxidermy Academy and taxidermised my own mouse, Hubert.

I'm not going to lie, my hands shook a lot as I peered down at the dead body and when I tried to make the first cut with a particularly blunt scalpel. Fascinating as it was to see everything in miniature, my stomach was turning and vom was perilously close to my mouth pretty much the whole time. As soon as I cut through the skull at the nose and the skin was separated from the...rest of it, you can't begin to imagine the relief. 

I wanted to do a step by step taxidermy post, but obviously when your finger deep in a mouse's perforated belly (to far?), sanitary camera usage is pretty difficult. So enjoy the photos I did take. In particular enjoy Merlin, the Academy's worse stuffed mouse ever. All legs lost, totally overstuffed, charming, jaunty and boss-eyed.

Hubert is now sitting happily next to Wilfred. I wonder what my next stuffed creature will be?