I passed my driving test!

Hi,

I have no recipes or exciting pictures I just have something to share!

As you can see by the title I passed my driving test, third time lucky! Whoop!

I have some Christmas puds, a tagine and some purple cupcakes to put up so watch this space.

Happy Thursday/almost friday guys!

xxx

Tea Time Treats - Chocolate Ginger Macaroons

Lavender Lovage and What Kate Baked have teamed up to start a new monthly challenge called Tea Time Treats - obviously the best time of the day!

This months theme, chosen by Karen from Lavender and Lovage, is GINGER and BONFIRE TREATS.

As you may have noticed, I love autumn and winter - they are my favourite seasons (minus the rain!). The food is so wholesome and rich and I love snuggling up and eating it all! So this months theme is so me. I have already made a Ginger Bundt Cake so needed to think up a new idea. I know it doesn't have to contain ginger but I really wanted it to. I haven't put up any macaroons yet so thought this was a good opportunity.

This is the second time I have made macaroons, all the horror stories from other people had put me off, but not one to shy away from a challenge I finally tried them. Now they mostly turned out fine which I was pleased with. They weren't perfectly even and a few cracked on the top. They were crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside and had feet and everything! But after making them the boy and I realised neither of us had had macaroons before so we weren't sure if they were suppose to taste like that. Either way they were all eaten so I'll just avoid making friends with a macaroon connoisseur. I made them bright pink just because I love this colour.

I used a recipe from pink whisk here, then I used the chocolate ganache recipe from here. I substituted ginger instead of orange extract. I couldn't get the ganache to harden up, to use as a filling, so in the end had to add a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of icing sugar. I'm sure you'll have better luck.

The boy and I went to dinner with my parents, sister and niece and nephew then went to my parents local firework display which was great. 25 minutes long with ohhing and ahhing all the way through. We gobbled up the macaroons whilst waiting for the show to begin.

Just before they said "yuk" - possibly a ginger macaroon was too much for immature taste buds - ah well more for me!

Happy Halloween - Spiced Pear Cupcake Fun!

I came home today, turned the light on and the fire alarm had fallen off the ceiling and smashed... bit strange but anyway............

move in to the living room and ALL the paintings have fallen off the walls..............

a coincidence or super creepy?? I'm going with creepy! 

I rang the boy, no answer so I ring my dad (obviously!) he says very strange but is concentrating on all the "trick or treaters" knocking at his door. I can hear them giggling and growling and it cheers me up! 

If there is a ghost living in my house I'm sure he or she is nice so, obviously over my scare, I potter off to make a Halloween chilli soup with sweet potatoes (which incidentally is yummy!).

Last Friday, after work, I ran a little Halloween cupcake decorating class. I modelled a spider, a cobweb, a ghost and a mummy. Then I let the team loose on the sweets, icing, squeezy tubes, piping bags and sprinkles. They either had a go at the ones I made or let their imagination run wild, and wild it ran!

 Here we are with all the goodies, concentrating hard!

My super quick mummy, ghost and spider (who has lost two legs)

The lovely Ros with her ghost, her son Montel would be proud!

Charlotte with her spider in a web!

My favourite! Super cute scary spider by Kinnery.

Colourful cobweb by Nicola

 Creative Diana with her grave and a dead hand sticking out.

Squished frogs by Catherine

I'm slightly speechless at this one!

It was a lot of fun and I hope the team enjoyed it!

The cupcakes underneath are spiced pear, I thought this was a nice autumnal recipe for Halloween cupcakes. They were moist yet fluffy (which is tricky to get), definitely a repeat recipe, I highly recommend them with a cream cheese icing. 

Spiced Pear Cupcakes

Recipe can be found here.