Crumbs to Crunch

One of my favourite parts of Christmas is baking while singing along to Christmas songs. Get your apron on and spoil your loved ones with homemade presents this Christmas! Baking Everyone loves receiving cakes and biscuits. Why not make a your loved one's favourite cake and wrap it beautifully? Gingerbread men are a classic gift and a great way to get children baking. If you're feeling adventurous, try former Great British Bake Off winner, Frances Quinn's adorable gingerbread robins . For bite-sized treats, try making these chocolate and ginger cookie cup cheesecakes . Keep up with the Scandi trend by making these Swedish saffron lucia buns . Drinks When it's cold outside, there is nothing better than a warm brew. Settle down with the ultimate hot chocolate and a good book.  For arts and crafts fans, make a festive Christmas tree table decoration made out of teabags! Chocolate In my house, Christmas would not be Christmas with...

Japan. A country where amazing, quirky ideas become realities. Take the universe of the themed café for example. Tokyo is abounding with cafés themed around every possible interest. There's cat cafés, owl cafés, cafés that give you pastries in the shape of Totoro, cafés in which you can be served by butlers, animé themed cafés... The list goes on and on. When searching around for our perfect café, we came across a concept café that we immediately fell in love with. The Moomin House Café. Situated at the base of Tokyo Sky Tree (right next to the Sky Tree station) The Moomin House café is the perfect stop off point when you need a break from your vigorous schedule of touristing. Just in case you have yet to encounter the joy that is the Moomins, let me give you a brief background. The Moomins are a series of books and comic strips written by the Finnish author Tove Jansson in the 1940s. With their large snouts and big eyes, they quickly became a huge internationa...

Tis the season of Christmas Fairs and the cake stall is always the most popular. I recently volunteered to sell baked goods at my local fair so I thought I would share my tips to make your cake sale the best ever! Advertise your event - you have awesome baking skills so you need to let the world know! Get your arty friends to make posters. If you are doing a cake sale for a well known charity, they often have ready to print posters and other resources on their websites such as AmnesTea for Amnesty International or Macmillan's Coffee Morning. Variety is the spice of life - have a good selection of cakes and biscuits to cater for all appetites and tastes. Ask your friends to pitch in so you have a good spread without the stress of baking for a hundred people! Keep it simple - if you are providing lots of cakes, you can;t spend hours perfecting your showstopper like you're in the final of The Great British Bake Off. Simple home baking is best.  Batch baking ...

When I think of castles, I usually think of stone turrets. portcullis and battlements so I was quite surprised when I saw a white wooden castle looming in the distance. Of course Japanese castles would look different from British ones, I just had never thought about it before.   I visited Tsurugajo Castle in Aizu Wakamatsu which was once a stronghold for Samauri. Built in 1384, the castle was home to the feudal lords who ruled the area.  However, it was destroyed in 1868 during a rebellion that marked the end of the feudal era. The castle that stands today is actually a 1960s replica but is impressive nonetheless. I climbed to the top of the castle and got a feel for how the feudal lords felt surveying their kingdom.  In the castle grounds there is the adorable Rinkaku tea cottage which was built by Sen no Shoan specifically for tea ceremonies. In fact, his father invented the ritual that we know today as the tea ceremony.    Nowadays they...

Halloween is almost upon us and when you think of Halloween, you think of pumpkins. While I do love carving them, I hate eating this mushy vegetable or so I thought till I tried pumpkin bread at yumchaa at Camden Lock in London.    Pumpkin bread with Chilli Chilli Bang Bang tea I think spices are the flavour of autumn. At this time of year, I love making apple pies and crumbles with lots of cinnamon so I decided to try pumpkin bread as it is also full of spice. In the UK, putting pumpkin in desserts is less common so I was intrigued to see how it would taste. I was pleasantly surprised, the pumpkin bread was quite dense yet smooth and packed full of flavour from the cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. To continue the spice theme, I had a pot of the amusingly named Chilli Chilli Bang Bang, a rooibos tea with a kick of ginger, red peppercorns, red thistle and cinnamon. The spices in the tea were very warming without being overpowering. Maple glazed spiced p...

This is a Crumbs to Crunch first, today we are going to talk about poetry. Recently, I came across a little booklet called Ten Poems about Tea that explores how a simple brew can affect our lives such as inspiring love, memory and comfort. The collection begins with Carol Ann Duffy's poem Tea where Duffy makes tea for her lover. I particularly liked this line: I like the questions - sugar? milk?- This seemingly simple question creates a certain amount of intimacy as she learns something personal about her partner. Making tea becomes a gesture of her love and devotion and she is willing to do this 'any time of day'. In Thomas Hardy's At Tea love plays a different role. A married couple invite a lady for tea. Over a steaming cup of tea, the husband reflects on how their guest was the one that got away. The guest sits smiling and sips her tea, And he throws a stray glance yearningly. Instead of tea creating intimacy, in this scene, tea ...

I've always wanted to live in a castle. I would people watch from my battlements, scale my towers and wander through my extensive grounds.