Pinoy Hubby

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. The most popular post ever on my blog is still my pigs in mud cake from 2013, followed by this strawberry and cream fraisier and thirdly jap cakes - which I am being contacted about by people from all over the country even three years after writing this post. In terms of posts from 2015, here are some of my highlights: This Konditor & Cook Curly Whirly cake was amazing - and is on the front cover of their cookery book. I also posted this Bertie Basset Liquorice Allsort cake which I made a few months previously f

  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 23 rd and 24 th and were at three different houses on the 25 th and 26 th 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 this month was N, we decided we would accept Christmas – or Noel – recipes as well as things actually beginning with N!   The first entry came from Dom at Belleau Kitchen who made this very festive Christmas blend tea cake bundt though he didn’t eat it himself – he donated it to a charity bake sale. It contains dried fruit and candied peel, orange, cinnamon, grand marnier and all sorts of Christmassy flavours as well as a special blend of tea.      Suelle at Mainly Baking made this Norwegian apple cake which she said worked best as a des

This recipe is from an idea I saw on The Pink Whisk and I want to give a giant nod to her and encourage you to visit her site. It’s such an original idea I can’t claim any credit for it, but it was so good I wanted to make it and share a picture with you all. This is a great recipe to share with friends particularly if you are having a dinner party on new year’s eve.   The idea is relatively simple but something I would never have thought of! Bake a bundt cake – a ring with a hole in the middle – make a chocolate ganache, and pour the liquid chocolate into the hole in the middle of the cake. Slice off chunks of cake and dip into the chocolate, fondue style!   If you cut around the cake working from the outside in, you can leave a ring of cake that will keep the chocolate ganache contained. I also added marshmallows for dipping which looked pretty around the cake as well.   I used my own recipe for this and following a friend’s suggestion did a marble cake; I had some oranges to use up

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 have chilli, garlic and lime salmon with prawns from this recipe and he can have chicken. Wednesday – day off Lunch: tuna nicoise tortillas based broadly on this recipe Dinner: Sausage ragu with butternut squash ‘spaghetti’ for me from Inspiralized, with tagliatelle for him Thursday - day off. New year’s eve Lunch: smoked salmon pasta Dinner: steak and chips (with prawns as surf and turf for me) Friday – day off (bank holiday) Lunch: naan bread pizzas Dinner: roasted sausage and potato tray bake Saturday Lunch: on the

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 for Haagen Dazs ice cream recently and made this amazing dessert ; I had one voucher left to use and an arctic roll seemed the perfect idea. Making the Swiss roll part was very easy; I then looked up online how to do the decoration on the outside which I changed slightly and then used a much better alternative than the traditional jam between the sponge and the ice cream - dulce de leche caramel! So I guess I can call this Decorated Salted Caramel Arctic Roll - an original recipe by Caroline Makes For the cake: 3 eggs 100g caster sugar 100

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 of a rough guide. I used: 2 cups leftover cooked ham, chopped 1 pork stock cube (you could also use chicken or vegetable) 1 onion, chopped 1 carrot, chopped (I used a raw carrot but you could use leftover cooked veg) 1 cup leftover mashed potato, cooked (you could also use leftover boiled or roast potatoes, or raw potatoes cut into small cubes) 1 cup milk 1/2 cup sour cream (you could also use leftover single or double cream) Place all the ingredients in your slow cooker apart from the milk and cream, and add enough water to cover the veg. Cook on high