Kitties and Piggies!

Its so hot here at the moment!! I am trying hard not to complain about it as I know that this good weather can't last! I made some animal cupcakes for a village fete this weekend and had great fun creating them! I knew that I definitely wanted to make a cat one as I am slightly obsessed with cats ( have 2 and a half of my own - the half one isn't mine but thinks she lives with me and my other 2 don't seem to mind her having a sleep over!) and the pig was a photograph that I saw on the internet when I was trawling through pages and pages cupcakes looking for inspiration. I am very pleased with the outcome , the cakes were lemon sponge with lemon icing - the only downside was that as it was so hot they did start to melt a little bit .... but I'm not complaining!

Chocolate Pistachio Fudge

This is sooooooo unbeliveably easy and absolutely scrummy!

It is from Nigellas Express cookery book called Chocolate Pistachio fudge. I made quite a lot of it for the fancy dress party I went to recently but the good news is that you can freeze it ! In fact it tastes a lot better straight from the freezer. However I don't know how long it will last there for as I can hear it calling me whenever I open the freezer door!

You can experiment with different types of nuts or maybe add some dried fruit and it is great as home made presents so thats this xmas presents sorted!

Cheese cakes in shot glasses

I went to a BBQ at the weekend (well it was a fancy dress and I was a Palm Tree!) and thought that everyone would bring sausages but not desserts so I thought about using 25 shot glasses that I have and made some mini Lemon cheesecakes. I didn't manage to take a photo as by the time I thought about it they were being eaten! The base was smashed chocolate chip cookies bind ed together with butter , then I put a layer of chocolate on and then the filling which was marscapone cheese with icing sugar and lemon mixed in. To finish I placed a raspberry on the top. They were delicious - just the right amount as they were quite rich.... The only disappointment was that as I had put them in the fridge the chocolate had hardened and it was difficult to leaver the base out but like true soldiers we all managed to get through!

This is what they should have looked like although I did manage to get chocolate everywhere on some of the glasses... still tasted good!

Cookery Books...

I am addicted to cookery books - I have hundreds of them and feel that there is always room on my shelves for more! I love nothing more than curling up in bed and reading all about the recipes that I could be doing had I got more time/inclination/wasn't in bed.

I read them like you would read a novel ( which I also do and am currently battling my way through The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo , everyone I have spoken to have said it is good but I am struggling at the moment but I don’t like to admit defeat on a book so I will get to the end!) .

Books aren’t my only problem - cookery magazines are also lethal to me - in fact they are worse as they are all over my house, the other day I decided that I need to control these before they took over my life and I ended up being one of those people you hear about on the news ‘Woman trapped in own home by squillions of magazines that she can’t bear to throw out’ that or ‘Mad cat woman found alone with 900 cats for company’ but that is another story! So in the need for control I have started to rip my favourite ones out of the magazines and have a pile of dead magazines for recycling - Clever Claire!!! But now what to do with the cuttings that I have ripped out! How do I organise them? Think I will have to have a lie down with a cookery book to think about it…..