Crumbs to Crunch

It didn't take me long to think of the best way to spend my Easter weekend. Where better to spend Easter than in the land of chocolate? So I bought myself a bus ticket and headed over to Belgium.  As I headed into the town centre, one of the first things I came across was a giant chocolate version of the Manneken Pis. If ever you need a symbol to sum up why tourists come to Brussels, here it is- a boy peeing made out of chocolate. But maybe I'm oversimplifying things... Next to the chocolate Manneken Pis I had my first Belgian speciality. Waffles are everywhere, so I snapped one up for a mere euro (plus eighty cents per topping). I chose to smother my waffle in strawberries and Speculoos. I think it is fair to say that Speculoos is one of the greatest loves of my life. Originally from Belgium, its purest form takes the shape of a caramelised spiced biscuit that you normally get with coffee. However you can also buy a spread version which has recently become a...

Tucked away in the High Street Arcade in Cardiff above a Vintage shop, Cinnamon Sticks Tea Room is such a find! My sister talked about how elegant and refined French Salons de Thé are in her blog post  here  if you haven't read it. Cinnamon Sticks is on the opposite end of the scale, it's cosy and feels just like somebody's living room. For a start, it is tiny and is decked with leather armchairs, rugs and big bookshelves filled with a variety of old books. The compact feel of the place makes you feel like you're at home without being at home. They even play Marilyn Monroe films softly in the background to give it a vintage feel. Unlike the tiny but beautiful French patisserie, Cinnamon Sticks do thick wedges of the old favourites such as lemon drizzle as well as some more unusual flavours like Rosewater Cake. The slices are absolutely huge and the lady that works there was busy pouring icing on a Lavender cake as I was talking to her. I had some Bara Brith whi...

What do dinosaurs, pith helmets and chocolate eggs have in common? The Hinton Ampner Easter egg hunt apparently! On Easter Saturday, we decided to continue the tradition of taking part in the National Trust Easter Egg Hunt (even though I'm now about ten years older than the majority of the participants)! We went to the grand stately home and gardens of Hinton Ampner in Hampshire. Unfortunately the house was closed as it was damaged during the storms this year. However, the gardens are stunning which makes a great location for an Easter egg hunt. Armed with cardboard pith helmets, clipboards and magnifying glasses, we felt ready to take on the role of explorers in the dinosaur themed Easter egg hunt. With the aid of a map, we located all of the dinosaur eggs and solved the clues. Our prize was a chocolate egg stashed away in a huge treasure chest. The National Trust have excellent tearooms, so I couldn't resist a quick trip to the converted stables tearo...

Everyone loves a good, homely English cake, but it can be interesting to see the differences between our tea time treats and the delicacy of French Patisserie. Tea time in France is an altogether more sophisticated affair. Forget rustic carrot cakes or a lovely, if asymmetrical, lemon drizzle, here cake means precision. In order to explore these differences (it's a hard job, but someone has to do it), I headed to Carli, a Patisserie and Salon de Thé in Nantes.  You've got to love the minion made out of chocolate! As soon as you walk in, you are greeted by a huge selection of miniature desserts. If I could use one word to describe these creations, it would be delicate. Everything is made with such precision that ten absolutely identical cakes can be produced, and every single one of them will look beautiful. I selected a Criollo- a gleaming chocolate and raspberry mousse with a chocolate cake centre. Furthermore, they used delicate little pink macaroons as decorat...

I'm excited that Easter is coming up so it is an excellent opportunity for Easter themed baking! Today I volunteered at an Easter Messy Church event where I helped the kids make Chocolate Easter Nests and Easter Biscuits. It was such a nice event because the recipes are super easy and it's a great way to get kids involved in the kitchen. I used to go to the Easter Workshop every year when I was little so it is nice to continue the tradition. For the biscuits I used a shortbread recipe and then added cinnamon and raisins but you can add anything you like to the basic mixture. 50g Caster Sugar 100g Butter 150g Flour Mix all the ingredients together until you form a ball of dough. Roll out the dough and cut the shapes. Bake in the oven on a lined tray for 10 mins at 180C or until golden. Leave the biscuits to cool before taking them off the tray. The Chocolate Easter Nests recipe I used is on the BBC Good Food recipe, although it's so easy, you could ...

Do you know your neighbours? It seems that where I live, very few people actually know their neighbours, even though our lives are just divided by a wall. I have barely seen my neighbours, let alone met them so I was happy to accept the challenge -  Turn the Cake of Strangerdom into the Crumbs of Friendship  from A Stranger With Cake. The challenge was simple: Bake two cakes. Eat one. Then deliver the other. It's easy. Try "Silly me I've baked too much cake!" Braver still would be to invite them over... My housemate and I decided to make Banana and Chocolate Cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery book.  As we went round to our neighbour's house, we couldn't help laughing about how  seemingly strange the situation was. Although our neighbours were slightly confused about why we  had given them cake, we had a nice chat. It was lovely to get to know the people who lived so close, although apparently so far because we have been living in our house for ...