10 January 2010

Winter Baking - Recipes for Bread Rolls and Jelly

08 January 2010

Recipes - Oranges And Lemons For Really Great Homemade Biscuits

While snowed in in the cold countryside of Northumberland, we enjoyed some warming chai as well as delicious mulled wine using our organic Fairtrade mulling wine spices.  I also concocted a couple of citrus based biscuits, with one of them coming fro...

01 January 2010

Recipe For Luxuriant Chocolate Chai Latte

The snow is still here and it's a white and cold Christmas and New Year period.  We've travelled to Northumberland, my home county, where we have observed the traditional first footing in a harshly, cold and rural climate - I love it. 

20 December 2009

Recipe For Snowy White Mince Pies

19 December 2009

White Snow... White Icing - A Recipe For Royal Icing

16 December 2009

Recipe For Egg Free Marzipan And Baking For Christmas Fairs

It's the time of the School Christmas Fairs, Nativity Plays and Carol Concerts and we are always being tapped for products or being asked to do some baking. 

09 December 2009

Recipe For Oxtail Casserole

I made a delicious oxtail casserole the other day.  Sophie brought a pack of oxtails - there were about 5 decent sized ones and 4 smallish ones. 

06 December 2009

Recipe For Sweets At Christmas Fairs

Inspired by marzipanning the Christmas cake yesterday and acutely aware of the looming Christmas Fair after the Carol Concert at our children's school, I decided to experiment with some sweet making this morning.  Also, chidhood memories of Niederegg...

05 December 2009

Recipe For Marzipan For Christmas Cake

I love marzipan, which is often called in a highly industrial way almond paste (an honest but bland name). 

02 December 2009

Time to check your Christmas cake etc

It's been so wet and miserable over the last few weeks and we've had a tsunami of orders at Steenbergs so I've had no time to think about my blog, but it's 6 in the morning and I'm up and awake. 

22 November 2009

A Christmas Traditional Craft - Making A Pomander

Today we’ve had a ago at making pomanders.  Pomanders were used in England from the medieval period until the 18th century as a way of perfuming the air.

15 November 2009

Recipe - Quince & Ginger Steam Pudding

A good friend of ours - Jane - gave us 8 large quinces the other day and I have been racking my brains as to the best way to use them.  They have a gorgeous light green-yellow colour and an almost eye-like shape, but finding recipe ideas for them is...

08 November 2009

Recipe - Making Your Own Christmas Pudding

We have had a brief hiatus from Christmas preparations with Halloween and Bonfire Night, but this weekend I've got back to the task of preparing for Christmas.  This weekend was the turn of the pudding.

06 November 2009

Bonfire Night and Delicious Parkin Recipe

Another symbol of the passing year.  Another memory of cold, dark evenings.  Another thread perhaps back to simpler times, perhaps even to pagan times.  Bonfire Night has a special place in our annual celebrations, even though I know it’s not very PC...

03 November 2009

Recipe For Sweet Chestnuts Foraged At Fountains Abbey

We (that's me and my 2 kids) have been enjoying a few walks this half term break - in the deer park at Studley Royal which is at the lower end of Fountains Abbey and at Brimham Rocks. 

02 November 2009

First Attempt At A Coffee Cake Recipe

We all like coffee cake, and Sadie in the office has been demanding one for ages (and without walnuts on the top), so we’ve decided to try various recipes to see if we can come up with our favourite recipe.  After all the effort of making it, she sai...

01 November 2009

Recipe For Pumpkin Pie

What to do with all that lovely pumpkin that you've got after scooping out your pumpkin, or just because they are such good value discounted in those shops that have overstocked.  This year we've made a classic pumpkin pie - which was deliciously ind...

31 October 2009

For Halloween let's enjoy Calan Gaeaf

It’s Fright Night which seems to be the name that Halloween is now being marketed under.  This is not its first branding makeover as All Saint’s Day was shifted from 13 May to 1 November, and so All Hallows’ Even to 31 October, to hijack and repress...