Festive flapjacks with candied fruit and cherries and some brandy!

I absolutely adore flapjacks, or 'jackflaps' as my friends call them and I do tend to make them quite frequently. They are ever so quick and easy to make and are ideal for snacking on. The great thing about this recipe is you can always add different variations. I find that sometimes with all the fruit and syrup it can be a bit 'too sweet' for some or I'm rather conscious of the amount of sugar used so I use honey instead of syrup to try to convince myself its a bit healthier...

My first ever gingerbread house!

Working in central London sure has its bonus points, being a stone throw's from Fortnum & Mason is an example. I simply love their Christmas decorations this year, they've gone all Moulin Rouge with their corsets and costumes and irresistable chocolate thrown in around the scene.. So I went and had a proper look at all the food and gift sets you can buy. Bearing in mind, this is way out of my league budget wise, I still like a nosey around.

..and they had gingerbread houses, but small ones (!) - so I decided I was gonna do one better than them, lol. We shall see..

I wanted to make this with my nieces but it ended up being myself and my big sister on Christmas eve ... and we had so much fun with this, with a glass of wine or two I might add.

A Penguin's Christmas Cake

So, I've never actually really made a proper Christmas cake from start to finish, I've done in between bits 'n pieces, but never the whole shebang! So this year, I'm going to do the best one ever.... haha!  And to decorate it, well my sister and my nieces have a thing about penguins... something about that movie Happy Feet perhaps. Well I decided to combine the two.

Having never actually made a fruit cake from scratch before, I decided to consult the oldest and best recipe (apparently) from the one and only Delia -  its only fair! So this is my take on her classic Christmas cake.

Boozy Sunday Tea Party

So for my friend's birthday, she decided she wanted a boozy tea party - ooh yeah, I like it already. So I wanted to make it something more than the usual tea party.. a concoction of gin and tonic and sambuca cupcakes, something you can eat EVEN with a hangover, which we did!!

I think these are actually best eaten the day after they have been made as the alcohol has really settled into the cake and you get the full flavour, but still tasty on the day they're made!

Perfect hangover cure

Ingredients for gin and tonic cupcakes:-

115g butter
130g castor sugar
3 eggs
195g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
40ml Gordons gin

20ml tonic water

Method:-

Preheat the oven to 180C or gas mark 4.
Line a muffin tin with 12 cupcake liners.

Using an electric beater or whisk, beat the butter and sugar for a few minutes until light and fluffy and the sugar and butter lighten in colour. Add the eggs, one at a time beating quite thoroughly after each addition.

In a separate bowl, sieve the flour, baking powder and salt and add half of this to the egg mixture. Beat until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and pour in half the tonic water. Beat again until combined and repeat the flour and use the gin until finished, alternating between the two.

Immediately, fill the cupcake liners and bake for about 20 mins. Don't forget to rotate the tray about half way through if you have a gas oven, to ensure evenly cooked.

You should have enough mixture to make 24 small-ish cupcakes or 20 decent sized cupcakes.

Remove from oven and leave in tray for a few minutes. Remove and then place cupcakes on a wire rack to cool. Don’t forget to remove from the muffin tray!

1st birthday duck and flower chocolate cupcakes

Ok, so its not every day your boss - a senior partner in a firm asks you to make cupcakes for his daughter's first birthday, so naturally I was over the moon excited as they chose my cupcakes over a well known bakery in London! The brief was ducks and flowers, which personally I thought is just too cute!

Bubble bath duckies

The cupcakes are chocolate but with vanilla icing in a variety of colours. For the fondant icing, you can purchase a box of multicolour fondant icing which makes life so much easier, or you can use white and use food colouring to create your own variety, for this I used purple!