Pinoy Hubby

    We didn’t have many entries for this month’s Alphabakes, but I’m certainly not complaining as wedding planning hasn’t left me much time! I have been baking a bit this month though as several people have had birthdays (myself included!). The letter we were using this month was T.   I took part in a chocolate truffle-making workshop with Farfetch a few weeks ago which was good fun (and the cocktails they made us were to die for), so I decided to share the result with this challenge. You can see my truffles and how I made them here.      The second entry into this month’s Alphabakes challenge was also one from me. My fiancé loves chocolate so I made him an indulgent chocolate birthday cake , filled and covered with chocolate ganache, and decorated with Cadbury Twirl Bites (which was my letter T). The cake contained some unusual ingredients – Coca Cola and melted marshmallows – and it tasted amazing!         My mum Jacqueline made ...

Waitrose already provides posh food for the masses and has now gone one step further with the launch of its own premium range, Waitrose 1.       I was invited to the launch event which was a great opportunity to try the foods and speak to some of the product developers and specialists.     Held on the second floor of London’s Oxo tower with amazing views as the sun set over the Thames, my expectations were high. I’d been told it was a drop-in event, so I went after work, and assumed that since I wasn’t being asked to go at a particular time there wouldn’t be a presentation as such. Instead, I found a room showcasing different products on ‘stations’ – first I came to the dessert and cocktail bar (actually, first I was offered a glass of champagne by a waiter proffering a tray) and had a chat with a friendly PR about the amazing cakes. My eye was particularly drawn to a dessert called a 'chocolate and orange wave', which comes in a chilled pack of two.   ...

My last-ditch attempt to lose weight before my wedding involves cutting out as much sugar as possible. A friend who has done this, and seen great results, recommended a book called I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson.  Sarah cut sugar out of her diet and says she has seen improvements in her weight, energy, skin and so on, and has published a book that is part explanation, part cookbook. I liked the sound of these 'coconut fluff' coconut milk pancakes so I made them one day recently for lunch, and served them with stewed apple. You need: 2 eggs, whisked 400ml can coconut milk 2 tbsp coconut oil, melted, plus extra for frying 30g coconut flour 100g buckwheat flour 3 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 50g shredded coconut The coconut flour was expensive (£5 for a bag in Sainsbury's) but I plan to find lots of other recipes I can use it in. These are easy to make: beat the eggs with the coconut milk and the oil, then fold in the other ingredients. I found the mixture thickened quickly, a...

   I was very lucky recently to be treated to afternoon tea at Claridge’s as a pre-wedding family get-together: along with the Ritz, perhaps the most quintessential London hotel afternoon tea. It was a surprise organised by my future mother-in-law: I knew we were going for afternoon tea, but not where. My parents were staying over the Easter weekend so my mum came while my fiancé entertained my dad; my sister came up by train for the day and we were also joined by my fiance’s aunt, cousin and sister-in-law (and briefly by his brother at the end as he was meeting his wife there for drinks!). As we pulled up in the car just outside Claridges I was thrilled – I’d never been there before but always wanted to. We were a little early so sat in the bar enjoying a non-alcoholic cocktail – I was a bit shocked at the price of the alcoholic cocktails around the £20 mark and decided it wasn’t worth it! Afternoon tea is held in the art deco foyer (though by foyer I would normally understan...

            Monday - day off as we have a meeting at our wedding venue (a few hours from home) Lunch: pub lunch near wedding venue Dinner: not sure what time we will be back and will depend what we had for lunch!   Tuesday Dinner: probably working late so will have to grab something on the way home   Wednesday Dinner: pasta with broccoli pesto for me (using spiralized vegetables instead of pasta) and pasta carbonara for him. Was going to do this last week but didn't.   Thursday Dinner: creamy coriander and minted chicken, p165 Slimming World Extra Easy All In One    Friday - my birthday! Dinner: out with my fiancé - we've got tickets to see Sheridan Smith in Funny Girl (which I bought last year!)   Saturday - my combined birthday and hen night! Lunch: quick snack at my sister's Dinner: at a mystery location!   Sunday Lunch: not sure as my hen night is a surprise Dinner: probably something from the freezer or a salad depend...

If someone offers you peanut butter on a burger…. Just say no. Peanut butter on its own I can take or leave. Peanut butter with chocolate is one of the best pairings since the two Ronnies (RIP Corbett). But peanut butter on a burger is just a bit wrong. Strong words indeed from someone who has put bacon on cupcakes , made pizza from sweet potato  and stuck a can of ginger ale up a chicken’s nether regions (a dead one, of course). It was my fiance’s birthday and he wanted to have a takeaway with his family rather than go out to dinner after work in London so I suggested we go out for lunch, since we work fairly close by each other. I knew he’d like a burger so looked on Google to see if there was anywhere new in the area, and as we’d never been to Hache before – and they got very good reviews, including being voted the best burgers in London by the Huffington Post, I decided to book a table there. The décor and ambience was more like a pub – we sat at a small table in the window ne...

I've started doing my shopping in Sainsbury's a lot more - there's a large store only a few minutes' drive from my house, but as I'm still a relative novice when it comes to driving, I only go first thing or I struggle to get into the spaces in their car park! I recently picked up a copy of Sainsbury's magazine at the till and found lots of recipes inside that I wanted to make. As my fiancé loves bacon and would eat a bacon sandwich for lunch every Saturday and Sunday every week if he could, I get rather bored of it (so he gets a bacon sandwich every few weeks). As soon as I saw this recipe for 'bacon and cheddar scrolls' I knew it would be a winner with both of us as it was something different but still within the bacon category! This recipe makes quite a few (I can't remember exactly how many) so to serve two people I would halve the quantity. 400g wholemeal bread flour 100g white bread flour 7g yeast 1 1/2 tsp salt 50g melted butter 1 tbsp light b...

I attempted to make my own mayonnaise recently and it was a disaster - I tried once before and both times I haven't been able to get the mixture to thicken. Does anyone have any advice? Since I'd used egg yolks for this recipe - three, as the recipe said two and it wouldn't thicken so I added another, which helped a little but not enough - I also had three egg whites to use up. I thought about making meringue but didn't want anything that sugary, and I'd just seen something on television where a chef was making a dacquoise - a cake made with layers of almond and hazelnut meringue. I had some dessicated coconut I'd bought for another recipe and wondered if I could make the same sort of nutty meringue bake. Turns out you can! I based my recipe on the coconut dacquoise element of this recipe , but changed it slightly to use coconut flour instead of almond meal (I assume by 'meal' you could use ground almonds). I also halved the quantities, and found it made...