Valentine’s Day Pouches and Biscuits

I can’t believe it’s Valentine’s day tomorrow and I haven’t done a thing for it yet. Not that I’m an active Valentine’s day pooper but I do like to mail sweet tokens of love and gratitude to my dearest and nearest.

So I quickly baked lemon, lavender and rose petal biscuits and popped them in these pouches I’ve made.

Trace the xox onto sticky paper and punch a hole with a puncher or perforator to make a circle in the middle of the O as in step 2. Use textile paint for the xox. You can download the instructions for making the pouch and the template of the xox right here.

Here’s the recipe I used for the lemon, rose petal and lavender biscuits:

200gr golden caster sugar
2 tbsp dried lavender
1 tbsp dried rose petals (option)
zest of 2 lemons
245gr plain flour
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
180gr unsalted butter (chopped in small cubes)
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 egg yolk
½ tsp vanilla extract

  1. Put the sugar, lavender and rose petals in a bowl mix with a spoon. Add the lemon zest and put aside.
  2. In a food processor or blender, add the flour, baking powder and salt, mix. Add the mixture as in 1, mix . Add the butter and mix until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs,
  3. In a small bowl, mix together the lemon juice, egg yolk and vanilla extract. Add the mixture to the rest. Stir and knead until you have a firm dough.
  4. Roll the dough into a cylinder and cover with plastic wrap. Chill in the fridge for one hour.
  5. Preheat the oven to 175 °C. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
  6. Remove the dough from the fridge and remove plastic wrap. Dust the surface and the rolling pin with flour and roll out dough in a circular shape about 5mm thick. Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes and transfer to the baking tray.
  7. Bake for 10-15 minutes until slightly golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
  8. Dust with icing sugar and dried lavender.

Have a lovely Valentine’s Day tomorrow.

A Sweet Lunch

Just before we left to have dinner at my sister we had a sweet lunch at my home. I made scones and blueberry muffins with cream cheese.

And picked fresh sweet peas from my wet garden.

For the Blueberry muffins I used the recipe from Fresh & Easy: What to Cook & How to Cook it

Short & Sweet

Two posts in a row about cake … well I just love my cakes and as I’m mentally preparing, for Meet the Blogger tomorrow, I need cake and lots of it. Cake is my power food. Some people like to smoke, chew on gum … I like to eat cake.

I used the ‘Sticky lemon and poppy seed cake’ recipe on page 138 from Dan Lepard’s (Bible) Short & Sweet. It’s gorgeous, I had to share.

So wish me luck as I have to limit my speaking tomorrow to 30 minutes. No not at all scared of talking to 100 people, just scared that I have to fit the speaking in 30 minutes.

Have a lovely weekend and I hopefully see you tomorrow.

44 Summers Old

Bo turned 44 today and the man wanted cake but couldn’t decide what specific kind of cake so I’ve made him 4 different kind of cupcakes. It took me a good day and now I can feed a village. I’ve been feeding cupcakes to at least 14 people over the past few days.

We are not big on birthday bashes as we are quite big on random day bashes, but we do like to get together with the people we most love over numerous days. On Sunday we had a birthday dinner with our friends, Roel and Ruud and tomorrow my mum will be here – from Suriname, via Uganda and through Amsterdam – she’s 74 bless her heart for still being that adventurous. We mostly have about one dinner in and two dinners out and so the birthday lasts a whole week. It’s so much better than getting a bunch of the same old people in a room and listen to the same old stories you’ve heard a lot of birthdays before.

For the Sunday dinner I served the men calzones with a bean salad and cupcakes for dessert, obviously.

And the festivities will continue as we’ll have BBQ weather this weekend and BBQ people coming over, although I’m not sure if they know it is the Bo’s birthday.

A Royal Party

Tomorrow Queen Elizabeth will celebrate her Diamond Jubilee. Can you believe it, 60 years in the same job? It’s quite impressive …

Although I am not British, I do feel a bit British. I’ve spent a great deal of my life living and doing things in England. I went to a very British college, I went leafleting and voted for the Labor party in 1997, I had my very first smear test in England (I so clearly remember opening that letter and telling to the people I lived with “they find me bloody everywhere”), I had my heart brutally broken for the first (and last) time when I lived in England and I’ve had my first cleaning up a carpet after throwing up a chilli con carne with red wine mixture in a friend’s loo – why is there carpet in bathrooms England?

I travel almost monthly to the UK and I’m quite sad that in 2 weeks it will be the last for a while as I want to avoid the Olympics. I might still go back to Oxford to visit my surrogate family as they haven’t seen me for a while. I love the UK and one day I’ll move back and grow old there.

To celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, yes I’m a Royalty supporter and trustworthy fan, I’ve baked a Victorian Sponge Cake or today an ‘Elizabethan Sponge Cake’.

As I’m still on quite a strict diet, I’ve tried to make this classic cake a bit thinner but I failed as the cakes turned out a bit wobbly. They did however taste delicious so I’m pleased and didn’t bother to hide my wobbly cakes as the flags are pretty awesome. I love a good old Union Jack.

You can download the flags (in pastel) here.

Cut them out, fold and glue them on to twine.

You can find good sponge cake recipes over at Jamie Oliver and Primrose Bakery. I’ve mixed my butter cream with strawberry jam and stuffed loads of real strawberries between to two layers on top of the butter cream, it’s gorgeous and not too thick.

Have a wonderful weekend xox

Falcon Enamelware

I’m really excited to introduce you to a new blog sponsor, Falcon Enamelware.

I bought one of the Falcon Enamelware Bake Sets, in the white & blue rim, over a year ago. Ever since the day those dishes arrived everything else I used for baking went out.

Falcon Enamelware was kindly enough to sent me a Pie Set, in Pillarbox Red, to promote on my blog. I’m so delighted to now have
both sets as I have the perfect array for baking, cooking and grilling.

All Falcon Enamelware products don’t burn, don’t fade are dishwasher and oven proof up to 270 C. They can also be used on gas and electric hobs. The extra bonus is that they look amazingly rustic and are so easy to clean. They are also unbreakable, boy do I love this product.

I’ve made a really simple apple crumble in the large dish of the Pie Set and ate it, with some lemon sorbet ice cream, out of the smallest dish of the Pie Set.

Follow Falcon Enamelware on Twitter and Facebook.

Disco Dip Valentine’s Cookies

Happy Saturday!!

I’ve been baking cookies, initially for sending them along with the cards but it got rather messy so they are in a cookie tin for us to eat now.

Someone over at Instagram asked me where I got the plastic cookie cutters from but I can’t remember. I think I’ve bought them on eBay as there’s Japanese writing on the box they come in. So maybe you should try eBay. I don’t eBay as much as I used to so I’m a bit out of that scene ; )

The recipe card is a new feature, drag and print or click and save and print, or don’t print ; )

Have a lovely weekend xox