Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 29 Comments

Stars

It’s been a few weeks since the Great Bloggers Bake off happened. It was wonderful and so much fun. Along with all the great baking bloggers, two people need a real shout out for all the work they put into this. Mel (CrushedCaramel) for putting this all together and Jeanne (A Jeanne in the Kitchen) for judging the entries.

You can check out all the fabulous entries on Mel’s site. So many fabulous entries and a few other rogue ones……

Sometimes going rogue works….

The Bake-Offs awesome judge Jeanne has awarded me an effort star. That feels like a Michelin Star to a baker like me. I am on the United Nations Baking Crimes list. So a star is a huge win for me even though it might technically not have been awarded on baking talent in my case. 😂😂😂😂😂 You can check out all the true baking stars here.

The next star I need is in POETRY. Again I am on the International Poetry Crimes list. I am Bad at poems, real BARD. I have been asked by the authorities to Cease and Desist on rhyming. Who am I to argue. I have tried to stop but as a one off, Mel asked if I would write a poem with her for the Bake-Off.

So can you spot the lines that someone with talent wrote (Mel) and the ones that a truly appalling poet like I did’eth pen.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 38 Comments

Ice Cream

It’s time to dream. Dream big.

As I dream then what better time can there be to try to make some homemade ICE CREAM. So after a hunt I located one of those random impulse purchases that never made it out of the box. An Ice Cream Maker. Then the panic. How on earth am I going to fit that big bowl which needs freezing for 8 hours into a rammed freezer. I can’t remember that bit on the glossy advert. It just said make delicious ice cream easily at home….. So an hour later the freezer is bursting at the seems. The lid is weighted partly down with my heaviest kettlebell.

Wait patiently for 6 hours….. I’m sure two hours won’t make that much difference.

So in went the dairy and gluten free ingredients. Lots of tinned coconut milk, vanilla, decaf coffee and maple syrup. That kinda thing. Plus cookie dough….. why does my attempt at cookie dough look like rabbit droppings 😳😳😳😳😳

Then the press the machine button and it stirs…..why didn’t I just use my food mixer and save the money.

The end result…..

Not sure the famous ice cream brand will be too happy being associated with my attempt. But it is recycling….

Whisper it. It was nice……. WOW.

We would love you to take part in the Great Bloggers Bake Off Festival of Love. Please send your baking photos and baking ideas into:

CRUSHEDCARAMEL@GMAIL.COM

Already Mel is receiving so many fantastic submissions and the occasional disaster 😂😂😂😂.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 35 Comments

Bananas

It’s almost upon us. Time to show that baking love.

But first. Time to dive into those panic rooms. I’m baking. I’m baking something new. Banana Bread. How difficult can this be. Even for me. So I carefully measured out the gluten and dairy free ingredients. I had everything accept Bananas. Unbelievable.

So a rapid tour of the local stores yielded NOT ONE single yellow fruit. Have bananas been banned from Yorkshire. How can bananas be so difficult to get round here. But undaunted, I wasn’t going to let the lack of bananas spoil my banana bread. Didn’t some big bloke once say ‘I am inevitable’. 😂😂😂😂😂

The only alternative to the funny shaped yellow fruit I could find were a few mini satchels of a banana recovery protein gel. The stuff long distance cyclists use. Needs must. The evil smelling gel was squeezed into the dough. The gel was also out of date……

The end result was…..

And the smell. Not so much bananas. More I guess akin to something being stuck in a cyclists lycra for several months. The taste – challenging…..

Which self respecting cyclist will reach for a plastic covered recovery gel when they can have recovery cake like this….

We would love you to take part in the Great Bloggers Bake Off Festival of Love. Please send your baking photos and baking ideas into:

CRUSHEDCARAMEL@GMAIL.COM

Already Mel is receiving so many fantastic submissions and the occasional disaster 😂😂😂😂.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 23 Comments

Bread love

Time for more baking. Yes time to play some ominous Hammer Horror music. It started off as just a standard gluten and dairy free loaf of bread. Then I remembered, it’s all about LOVE.

What could I add to the bread dough.

Without enough thinking time I went for it. Sunflower seeds. Ok that’s sensible. Dairy free cream and Strawberry Jam. Not so sensible.

So I give you Strawberry Jam Bread….. Looks ok. Tastes different but not unpleasant. That almost worked and I do love a Cream Jam Scone. So yes bread love.

Do you feel the baking love.

We would love you to take part in the Great Bloggers Bake Off Festival of Love. Please send your baking photos and baking ideas into:

CRUSHEDCARAMEL@GMAIL.COM

Already Mel is receiving so many fantastic submissions and the occasional disaster 😂😂😂😂.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 49 Comments

Socks and Cakes

There is nothing better than sneaking into the open washing machine as it’s being loaded with clothes. Select a lovely sock and then leg it outside. Once the sock is outside then it’s lost to the wilds…

If only some other things could be lost to the wilds.

With the Great Bloggers ‘Festival of Love’ Bake-Off fast approaching it was time for another creation. Yes it was time to move to Def Con 3.

I tried to keep this simple. A basic sponge cake. Dairy and Gluten Free. Well it started well, with carefully measured out ingredients then the first disaster. For some reason my mind mixed up 20ml of tepid water with 320ml…. Talk about a mucky swimming pool. Not quite the smooth batter I was looking for.

I’m sad to say I panicked. I grabbed the flour jar and just poured. But why was the flour brown…. Yes I had grabbed the cocoa tin. Then I checked the next tin, this one had white contents. But as I poured it became clear this was caster sugar. By the time I had found the proper flour tin the cake mic was looking a right mess. Hawklad recommended that the best course of action was now just to randomly add more ingredients. So we added cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, orange peel and maple syrup.

The end result. Well it looks like a cake. Bizarrely it’s feels like a cake. As for the taste….. Well love can take many forms, but this cake probably isn’t one of those…

Do you feel the baking love.

We would love you to take part as well!! Please send your baking photos and baking ideas into:

CRUSHEDCARAMEL@GMAIL.COM

Already Mel is receiving so many fantastic submissions and the occasional disaster 😂😂😂😂.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 42 Comments

Great Blogger Bake Off

Yes it’s fast approaching. Do you feel the baking love.

We would love you to take part as well!! Please send your baking photos and ideas into:

crushedcaramel@gmail.com

Already Mel is receiving lots of recipes, photos, poems and song suggestions. Please remember this is an INCLUSIVE festival. If it’s wonderful baking, we LOVE it. If it’s a baking abomination, we LOVE it.

Talking about abominations it’s time I got going. Baron Frankenstein has erected the lighting rod and has started bringing to life baking monsters.

Today’s horror is a loaf of bread. A cheese loaf. A loaf with the light, moist, tender, soft, airy and springy nature of weapons grade reinforced stainless steel. It might be a bread horror but it’s LOVED.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 67 Comments

Bake-off

Yesterdays announcement of my new signature dish – The Pizza Cheesecake – seemed to be as popular as Trump announcing that he would be starting to model revealing beach costumes…. So I have decided to slightly tweak the dish. Just a superficial change. I’ve kept the base and ditched the rest of the cake. So it’s goodbye pizza and hello to strawberry, blueberry and marshmallow cheesecake.

It might not look much but wow it tasted good. Definitely my new dish.

Warning… if you don’t like this version of the cake then I will may be forced to model beachwear. Trust me that’s a step you don’t want to unleash on the world. The last time I took my shirt off on a beach, I was quickly surrounded by whale specialists. Buckets of water were then thrown over me until the tide came in, so they could attempt to refloat me……

It’s the Great Bloggers Bake-off this weekend. Let’s get baking. All the tremendous creations and my awful ones are appearing on Mel’s wonderful site.

Crushed Caramel

Remember to send in your creations to Mel (CrushedCaramel). Maybe your entry is not baking just something for a picnic like a sandwich, drink or salad….

crushedcaramel@gmail.com

Let’s see if we can literally blow Mel’s and our wonderful judge Jeanne’s (A Jeanne in the kitchen) socks off with our creations and monstrosities (in my case).

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 80 Comments

Signature Dish

All the great chefs of the world have a signature dish. Gordon F###### Ramsey has his Beef Wellington. Thomas Keller has his smoked salmon crisps. Heston Blumehthal has his snail porridge. So clearly I need one. After much thought. Much ‘thought means’ looking at what I’ve got in the cupboards, I may have mine now. It needs tweaking. When I say tweaking I mean it needs to be made edible……

I give you the Pizza Cheesecake. Sweet base, Turmeric whipped cream, Tomato Ketchup and Yorkshire Cheddar Cheese. With a secret spice ingredient. Would tell you but the label has dropped off that spice, so I have literally no idea….

Remember to send in your Great Bloggers Bake-off creations to Mel (CrushedCaramel). Maybe your entry is not baking just something for a picnic like a sandwich, drink or salad….

crushedcaramel@gmail.com

Let’s see if we can literally blow Mel’s and our wonderful judge Jeanne’s (A Jeanne in the kitchen) socks off with our creations and monstrosities.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 5 Comments

Great Bloggers Bake-off

Now what shall I bake……….

It’s the Great Bloggers Bake-off this weekend. Let’s get baking. All the tremendous creations and my awful ones are appearing on Mel’s wonderful site.

Crushed Caramel

Remember to send in your creations to Mel (CrushedCaramel). Maybe your entry is not baking just something for a picnic like a sandwich, drink or salad….

crushedcaramel@gmail.com

Let’s see if we can literally blow Mel’s and our wonderful judge Jeanne’s (A Jeanne in the kitchen) socks off with our creations and monstrosities (in my case).