Foodie Penpals - November

This month I sent my parcel to Sharon whose blog is here  she said she had a sweet tooth so I sent her some lovely sweet treats, I hope she likes them!

My parcel came from Dawn in Scotland , I was very excited before I even opened the parcel as she had cleverly stuck some recipes on the side - I might steal this idea for a future box!

I was really pleased with all of my treats ..... lots of yummy sweet things....(apologies for the shocking photo I desperatly wanted to eat things and only had my phone to hand and couldn't find my camera.. Ok I didn't look that hard! )

Molly loves it when I have any post and helped to open it for me and went straight to the sweets - there were some more sweets but she had swiped them before I could take a photo!

The only specification I really had was of course shortbread as my parcel was from Scotland and Dawn didn't dissapoint!( I wonder if she gets fed up of sending Shortbread to everyone?) I opened the little round ones as soon as I had taken the photo and they were divine - melt in your mouth little morsels, the packet in the middle was peanut butter truffles and Dawn said she had some as well and as they were so delicious was contemplating keeping them - I am so glad she didn't they were delicious - lovely and rich , one was just enough for me - they have all mysteriously disappeared now....

The museli oatcakes were gorgeous - I ate them as they were and didn't feel the need to add anything to them as I would a normal oatcake. They weren't as sweet as a normal biscuit but still as tasty.
The chocolate had nuts in and was really yummy - I haven't had the olives yet.

These look really interesting.........Hot chocolate with a frothy top - one is white chocolate and the other one is Orange chocolate - I am saving these for an afternoon of Christmas movies!

Looking forward to using this cheeky little chappy.....

Dawn got this from the Good Food festival it is Peppercorn and Tennessee whiskey pour over sauce concentrate - according to their website it is delicious over steak or chicken... mmmm

I saved the best till last - Homemade Raspberry Gin!!!! wow it does have a kick to it! I had a little shot glass of it one evening and it was lovely, fruity and warms your cockles! Another successful swap - if you would like to take part then click here at Carol Annes blog  Foodie Penpals is taking a break for December but starts back again in January.

Another GBBO contestant - Richard Burr

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Henry's 1st BirthdayBirthday

I can't beleive that my little sausage Henry is one already! This year has flown by. He is a gorgeous little monkey but still doesn't like to sleep at night which is driving me crazy ! But otherwise he is perfect!
He didn't have a party but I did make a cake and shared it with some of Mollys' friends ( Henry doesn't have any friends of his age! Poor thing!).

Birthday Boy

I didn't want to do another chocolate cake - not that I don't LOVE chocolate cake but wanted a bit of a change so I made a Carrot Cake this one from Rachel Allen  its a really easy recipe. I didn't have any sunflower oil so used this Rice Bran Oil


.... I have had it on my shelf for ages and have forgotten all about it so when I realised I didn't have any sunflower oil I read up on Rice Bran Oil and realised it was the perfect alternative - it says on the bottle that it is perfect for baking and is good for you! So I convinced myself that my cake was a healthy one ! Not only did it have carrots and raisins but healthy oil!! Win Win in my book. The cake turned out to be delicious and had a lovely nutty flavour - adults and children all liked it. I will be using this oil again.

Happy Birthday Henry!