Sugar Crusted Bara Brith

When my mum mentioned that my step-dad really loves Bara-Brith, I decided to bake him loaf for his birthday as a little extra homemade gift. I love (and prefer when possible) to give gifts that are tailor made to an individual's tastes, I think it shows the receiver just how much you care about them. 

To make my sugar-crusted Bara-brith I went straight to the BBC Food website and I slightly adapted one of their recipes (original here) to include a sugar crust. 

Planting time in some Spring sunshine

Another day of spring sunshine last week found me pushing my books to one side and heading outside to get some potting and planting done, and can you blame me just look at that lovely clear blue sky.

This barerooted Gooseberry bush 'Hinnonmaki Green' was a complete bargain at just £1 from my local 'the original factory shop', and as I'm currently reorganising my back garden borders, I've planted it into a pot for the time being but I'm hoping to plant it into its final home in the next month once I've cleared a space and it's established alittle more. I know it doesn't look like much right now but I have my fingers and toes crossed that in a year or 2, it'll be thriving and I'll be collecting my first harvest of juicy gooseberries from it. 

The great potato challenge 2015

Every year we have a family growing contest and this year the veg of choice is potatoes, 'Maris Piper' to be exact and the winners are the team to harvest the most potatoes.

Maris Piper potatoes are my absolute favourite, in my opinion they make the best roast potatoes and who doesn't love a nice crispy roasting with their Sunday dinner. As they are a maincrop potato March is the perfect time of year to plant these seed potatoes which have been chitting since early February. 

So last weekend we did just that.. 

Miss K & Mr H's Bag

A mini-haul of mini products

I'm a great believe of the 'try before you buy' moto and I love nothing better than receiving freebies, the next best thing though in my opinion is travel sized beauty products. 

I like to have a healthy sized stash at the ready as I never know when I might just fancy trying something new, and as I've been having something of a sample purge since before Christmas my stash is now starting to dwindle.

Thankfully a quick trip to my local boots to enjoy there 3 for 2 on travel sized products has helped me to bandaid my little problem, for now at least.

Today's my birthday.

So as the title suggests today is my 32nd Birthday, so I thought I'd share a few of my pits and peaks (as the kardashians would say) of the past year with you all before my family comes round to enjoy a slice of my homemade birthday cake.

The first peak that sticks out in my mind is Mr H getting his new promotion/job role. I'm so proud of everything he achieves this has however been a double edge sword with the new role come more training courses that eat away at our family time. Changing onto the Psychology degree pathway in May is another major peak for me, it finally gave me a focus I'd been lacking for the past few years and I think I've found my passion. 

My last peak has to be my girls, over the past year they have both blossomed and they continue to amaze me everyday. Miss K has transformed from a shy little girl lacking in confident into a confident cheeky (a little too cheeky at times) pre-teen who now stands up for herself more. While Miss T is just as crazy, bouncy and loving as ever, academically she's come on so much. It's hard for me to process that from Sept both my babies will be in Junior classes, they need to stop growing up. 

The pits seem to have been few and far between but the few we've had have really stood out. Miss K had us worrying for a few months as she was suffering from frequent headaches, thankful after a ton of tests the root cause has been found, she suffers from quite a few allergies that cause her sinuses to inflame, causing headaches. She's now on medicine but at the time it was terrifying watching her struggle.

Another pit of the past year is my weight gain, I've piled on the pounds while studying as I tend to comfort eat when I get stressed which happens whenever I have a deadline looming. I've made alittle progress in the last few weeks to loss a few pounds but I have a long road ahead of me to get back to post baby size. My first goal though is to lose between 1 and 2 stone before June, when my besties is having both her daughters christened and I'm a godparent, and as her girls are like nieces to me I want to be able to look back and treasure the moment without obsessing over how fat I look in the photos. 

So there you have them my peaks and my pits of the past year. 

I'm now going to put the kettle on and relax with a quick brew before my family descends on me. 

x B x

Easter Baking: Devil's Food Cake

Ever since the gorgeous Easter themed Chocolate & Hazelnut Loaf by RedVelvetBaking popped upon on my Twitter feed earlier this week I've been itching to bake my own little Easter cake. This weekend I got my chance as we decided to spend our weekend enjoying some quality family time celebrating both my birthday and Easter early as Mr H is away at work for both. As Miss K is allergic to tree-nuts chocolate/hazelnut loaf is a no go so instead i decided on Devil's Food Cake, it's a firm family favourite!

Recipe wise I just used a simple Devil's Food Cake recipe I found online but for the icing I cheated and used a ready mix Chocolate Fudge Icing I already had in the cupboard. My icing making skills aren't that great and I just didn't fancy spending ages making sure it was totally smooth, which for me never seems to happen. 

Chilli Jam Making.

I've been wanting to try this recipe out ever since I saw it on a Nigella Lawson special but no matter how many times I watched Nigella throw this jam together I had convinced myself it was going to be an epic task that I would easily mess up until the other weekend when I decided to just go for it. 

If it's a failure then at least I could say I tried right! 

I sterilised my kilner jar by sitting on a sheet of newspaper in the cooker (preheated to 140 degrees), it takes about 10minutes or so. To sterilise the seal I just popped it into my smallest pan and pour boiling hot water over it and left it there until the jar was done. 

With that done I started on the fun part, the jam making!