2015: Year in Review

For the past couple of years I've written new year's resolution blog posts but then not really looked at them again, so I've ended up ticking a few things off the list but not many. I thought that this year instead I would look back over some of my favourite recipes and blog posts from 2015. If you didn't see these first time around I'd encourage you to take a look! As of the end of December, page views on my blog had reached more than 1.16 million....

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Alphabakes Roundup December 2015: N

  I hope you all had a happy Christmas and a restful holiday season and did plenty of baking! I spent most of Christmas away from home – we went to my parents on the 23rd and 24th and were at three different houses on the 25th and 26th with my fiance’s family. I had wanted to bake various things to take on each visit but I just wasn’t home! Still, I did do a fair bit of Christmas baking earlier in December. As the letter chosen for Alphabakes...

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Meal Planning Monday 2016 Week 1

Happy new year! Well, almost - 2016 starts on Friday but this is officially the first meal plan of the year. I'm determined to shed the Christmas weight I'm sure I have put on (I haven't actually checked!) and then I do need to lose some more weight as I'm getting married in June! Monday – bank holiday – going to see my sister in Southampton then staying the night at my parents' Tuesday- day off Lunch: any more Christmas leftovers Dinner: I'll...

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Decorated Salted Caramel Arctic Roll

Arctic Rolls were very exciting when I was a child - a rare combination of ice cream and cake that we had as an occasional treat. I haven't eaten it for years - possibly since I was a child - and I've never tried to make one before. But after seeing some beautiful and elaborate arctic rolls on the Great British Bake Off this year I decided I wanted to have a go at baking a cake with the decoration on the outside. I was also sent some vouchers...

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Slow Cooker Ham and Potato Soup

Just before Christmas I made slow cooker ham in Cherry Coke which was delicious. I deliberately cooked too much ham so I would have some left for another recipe the next day; if you have leftover ham from Christmas this is a great way to use it up (and any leftover potato and veg you have as well).   The quantities are easily adjusted depending on how much leftovers you have to use and how many people you are serving so my recipe is more...

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Proper Welsh Rarebit

At this time of year sometimes you want a meal that isn't Christmas leftovers and doesn't involve a lot of cooking, and cheese on toast hits just the spot. Proper Welsh rarebit has a bit more to it than just melting some cheddar on toast, and my fiancé really enjoyed it when I made it for lunch recently so I thought I would share the recipe here. To serve two, you need: 225g grated cheese 1 tbsp. butter 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce 1 tsp English mustard...

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