christmas shopping

With only 45 days to go before Christmas, here are a few ideas for your Christmas shopping.

Gingerbread trees
Why not give your friends or relatives a Christmassy treat? I'll be making and selling these gingerbread star Christmas trees over the next few weeks.


Prices are £10 for a large tree (17 biscuits) and £8 for a small tree (11 biscuits) and all the money will go to Youthscape's Bute Mills campaign.

The trees are made from stacked gingerbread stars, all home made and held together with icing. They can be decorated with chocolate stars, edible glitter, hundreds and thousands or chocolate beans - your choice. Dairy-free versions available. I haven't tried making gluten free but I'm willing to give it a go if you want one. The trees come on a plate and wrapped in cellophane, ideal to give as a gift.

Delivery/collection free in/near Luton.
Please ask if you want one delivered elsewhere. I'm sure we can work something out.

Oh, and if you want one but you disagree with my prices, make me an offer. It's all for a good cause!





Glass Art / Jewellery / Decorations
My sister in law makes amazing glass art pieces, jewellery, decorations, plates, coasters and clocks, as well as brilliant paintings, all of which make beautiful gifts. The kiln is on and ready to create so get your orders in now at www.em-art.co.uk.

Em-Art donates 20% of all their profits to Krasif Aid, who work in Bulgaria.

Toasty Warm Slippers 
If biscuits and glassware don't tick all your festive shopping list items, slippers are always a great failsafe Christmas gift. Marmiñas is a new company producing 100% sheepskin slippers in sunny Buenos Aires. Keeping feet warm is a fab thing, but the Marmiñas crew decided they wanted to do more, so all their slipper products have a linked charity. If you buy their Slippers Against Food Poverty, they'll donate to MakeLunch the equivalent of 5 meals for a hungry child for every pair sold.


Oh and...
It's worth pointing out that nobody asked me to write this blog, and I won't benefit at all from it. But if you do the shopping, the charities will, and that's what it's all about.

having my sweet tooth removed

For Lent 2013 I will mostly be giving up my sanity. Let me explain...

A couple of days ago I had the following conversation with myself.*

Me: maybe I should give up sugar for Lent
Me (the other side of me): WHAT??? Have you completely lost your mind? Since you stopped eating Marmite on toast**, sugar has been your staple diet. You'll die.
Me: yeah you're right. But...

Yeah one of those moments. Where you're sort of pleading with yourself not to do it. But the more you do, the more you realise you need to give it up.

Lent trends have varied around the UK church in recent years.

There's the standard catholic giving up of luxuries (wine, chocolate, caffeine etc***)
Then the subversion - taking something on rather than giving up. 40 days of exercise, reading, learning etc.
Some of it is cause-related, challenges to live on £1 a day, or on a benefits budget, or with a minimal wardrobe, as a way of understanding the life of others.
Or another alternative, encouraging 40 days of service or kindness, with schemes from Stewardship, Soul Survivor and the Church of England sending Lent-ers****

I love the creativity that Lent brings out. It's inspiring to see people consider a slightly different way of life for 40 days, whether that's sacrificial, life-improving, eye-opening, servant-hearted or perhaps all four.

There are, obviously religious and theological reasons for Lent too. Denying one's self in order to better focus on God, giving up something in order to dedicate the time to reading or praying etc. This morning I read about idolatry being anything which we depend upon to provide that which we should be receiving from God.

And the reality is, I depend on sugar.

To be clear, really clear, I don't think food is evil. Or that eating meals is idolatry. Of course not. It's good, necessary and (usually!) enjoyable. A healthy balanced diet is an essential part of human survival and there's plenty of opportunity to be grateful to God as he provides for us through farmers, supermarkets, restaurants etc.

It's definitely fair to say my food habits wouldn't be listed in any textbook as healthy or balanced. My working week is far from routine so there aren't any regular mealtimes or patterns. So it looks like this:

Breakfast - if I'm driving to the office or a school I probably won't have any. If I'm working from home I might grab a bit of toasted soda bread, but I'm just as likely to eat cake if there is any, or chocolate.

Lunch - again, some days I won't have any. Partly through working but also due to snacking so I'm not hungry. More on that later. On a good day I might make cheese on toasted potato farls, or microwave some soup. Or if I'm at the office perhaps a wrap from Boots, or a Greggs sausage, bean & cheese melt, or maybe a jacket potato from the van.

Dinner - this brings my score up a bit! Dan and I cook. We cook everything from scratch and enjoy it. So evening meals are usually healthy and balanced. They do almost always include dessert though.

Snacking - my number one pastime! If there's chocolate in the house, I'll eat it. And given that I love baking, there's often cake around too. It's bad for my teeth and waistline, it stops me from eating proper meals at mealtimes, it's often expensive and sugar is a short-term energy boost.

So for example, yesterday I survived on three homemade carrot cake muffins, two coffees, one chai latte, two glasses of water, three creme eggs^, two lemon and sugar pancakes and a good bowl of homemade tomato and mushroom pasta.

If you've managed to read this far, you're probably urging me to give up sugar for Lent before I descend into a diabetic coma. Quite.

Can I do it? Watch this space...

* I fully believe everyone has conversations with themselves. If that's not the case, please stop reading. You already have enough evidence that I have lost any shred of sanity that I might ever have had.
** Yeast intolerance. Most things can be replaced. Marmite? That's a beautiful, unique and completely irreplaceable thing. I am still in mourning.
*** if your response to that list is "Luxuries? Those are essential life-blood items" I hear ya. Perhaps you should give them up for a few weeks?
**** Is that even a word?
^ in my defence they were spread throughout the day. My autocorrect changed that to Crime Eggs. How appropriate!

caramel macchiato cupcakes

I've been making cupcakes for my sister in law's 30th birthday party this afternoon. The whole process started with me googling for interesting cupcake recipes to suit the occasion. There are loads of fantastic cupcake recipes out there - I chose Chocolate Mud Cupcakes, Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes and Lemon Meringue Cupcakes, as well as the Caramel Macchiato Cupcakes here.

I've modified the recipe a little bit so I'm going to share it here. The original is on the My Buttery Fingers blog.

Coffee Cupcakes
313g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
180ml strongly brewed coffee, cooled to warm
60ml milk
1 tbsp Tia Maria
170g unsalted butter, softened
200g sugar
3 eggs
1 sachet Starbucks VIA instant coffee
Additional Tia Maria to add afterwards

1. Preheat oven to 170c
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
3. Beat in eggs, one at a time
4. Mix in coffee, milk and Tia Maria
5. Add flour and baking powder and mix until fully integrated
6. Spoon into cupcake cases and bake for 15-18 minutes
7. When cooked, remove from oven and allow to cool.
8. Once the cakes are cooled, make a small opening in the top of each one with a knife and gently pour half a teaspoon of Tia Maria into each one. This will enhance the coffee flavour, and give moist cakes.

Whipped Cream Topping
200g (around 1 cup) whipping cream
3 tbsp (40g) sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tsp Tia Maria
Caramel ice cream sauce

1. Beat cream and sugar together until soft peaks begin to form
2. Add vanilla extract and Tia Maria
3. Pipe or spoon onto the top of each cake
4. Drizzle caramel sauce over the top of the cakes.
5. Enjoy!