Weekend Cooking: What I Baked in April

And just llike that it is the end of April! The month seems to have gone very quickly, maybe because we were away for a week of it!

Here's what I baked in April:

Carrot, Walnut and Ginger Cake - This is one of our all time favourite cakes. I was thinking about making something chocolatey for Easter, but we ended up deciding that the Easter Bunny would be happy with a carrot cake right. You can see the recipe for this one here.

Upside Down Pineapple Cake - I have made a bit of a foolhardy decision which is that I am going to make something inspired by each episode of Great British Bake Off this season. Originally the idea was to do the technical bake but on week 3 I decided that might be too hard, so now it is just something from each episode. The challenge on week 1 was to make individual upside down pineapple cake, but I didn't have individual ramekins so I made one big cake using a Nigella Lawson recipe. It wasn't as pretty as hers because I didn't have the right size tin and I think our pineappple rings might be bigger than those in the UK but it was delicious and easy enough to make.

Irish Soda Bread - this is another GBBO inspired bake. The weather is getting colder here, so last weekend we made a Beef and Pepper Stew in the pressure cooker that the recipe says to serve with dumplings. We have done it with dumplings previously, and another time with a pastry lid, but this time we served it with freshly baked soda bread! This is bread that is super quick and easy to make so I think we will do this again.

Spicy Apple and Ginger Self Saucing Pudding - We had friends around for dinner last weekend. we served up this Pork and Fennel recipe and then for dessert we had one of our favourite desserts from last winter. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo but everyone enjoyed it.

Weekly Menu

Saturday: Crispy Skin Pork Belly with Caramelised Apples
Sunday: Beef and Pepper Stew with soda bread
Monday: Zucchini Parmesan and Tomato Risotto
Tuesday: Spag Bol
Wednesday: Pork Nachos

Thursday: Takeaway
Friday: Leftovers from lunch!

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

Weekend Cooking: August Baking

It's the last Saturday of the month and that means it is time to share my baking for this month. I started doing this earlier this year because otherwise every Weekend Cooking post would be about something sweet, which might be a bit much.

This is what what I cooked during August!

Weekender cookies - This was one of the Queen Baking Club fortnightly challenges. They are cookies with currants and rolled in cornflakes.

Apple and ginger self saucing pudding - I made this one last month as well. It is so good it was worth trying again!

Banana cake with cream cheese frosting - I have had a go to recipe for choc banana bread for years, which I still love, but we had some bananas and my husband has a thing for cream cheese frosting so we tried this recipe, and it was good.

Macarons with chocolate passionfruit filling - I was sent a kit to try making macarons. I posted about making them here.

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies - these were another fortnightly challenge, and these were oh so good. You definitely only need to eat one of these cookies per sitting!

Strawberry Eton Mess Cupcakes - The final Queen challenge for this month. We enjoyed eating these,and there was an added bonus of  many leftover meringue kisses, which my husband thought was a treat something like peanuts. You can just eat them and eat them until they are all gone!

Weekly Meals

Saturday: Beef Bourgignon with mashed potato
Sunday: Beef Bougignon with rice
Monday: Baked zucchini, tomato and parmesan risotto
Tuesday: Thai Green Chicken Curry Pie
Wednesday: Bacon, Zucchini, mushroom pasta
Thursday: Steak, mushroom, broccolini, pea
Friday: Takeaway Friday - pizza

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

Weeking Cooking: July Bakes

It's the last Saturday of the month and that means it is time to share my baking for this month. I started doing this earlier this year because otherwise every Weekend Cooking post would be about something sweet, which might be a bit much.

It feels like I haven't really baked very much this month. I do have a couple of things that I want to make but I haven't done so yet. So here's what I did bake:

Last month I made a raspberry and chocolate self saucing pudding. This month, I tried a different version of self saucing pudding. This time it was a ginger and apple self saucing pudding and it was oh so good!

I posted about making the Glamington Cake last week!

This carrot, ginger and walnut cake is one of our favourites. It's a Nigella Lawson recipe that I have shared before. It's always a hit when we make it, especialy the cream cheese icing which has a squeeze of fresh ginger juice in it!

The other thing that we cooked this month was some pastries that we had delivered from a local bakery. They were all premade and we just had to bake them but the danishes we had were so delicious that we ended up ordering some freshly made croissants which we are going to have for brunch today!

Have you cooked anything delicious this month?

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

Weekend Cooking: March bakes

I got a bit shock the other day. I opened the cupboard where we normally keep flour to find not one but two packets of vanilla cake  mix....what the heck. I haven't made a packet cake mix for years. I am not sure if my husband doubts my ability to keep him in the cake which he has become accustomed or is it something else! He said it was in case we run out of flour, but I think I am going to have to go supervise the shopping from now on!

I have been a bit torn about baking for the last couple of weeks. Yes, we need to keep living as best we can, but should we be limiting cooking to essentials given that we are mostly in shutdown, and the shortages we have seen in things like flour in the shops. I do think that we do need to find enjoyment and pleasure where we can though so every now and again should be okay right?

It almost seems surreal to think that it was only early March when everything was normal and yet here we are in a completely different world.

One of the things that is normal in my workplace is cake cart. Every couple of months, one of the teams in my division is responsible for bringing in cake which we then sell to the rest of the division and the funds raised go towards our Christmas party.

My contribution to the cake cart were Carrot, Walnut and Ginger Cake (which I have posted about before here) and Double Vanilla Custard Tarts. Both got rave reviews, especially the cake!

In addition I made this month's Queen Baking Club recipes. The first was a Sour Cream and Apple slice and the second was Raspberry and Almond Friands.

Let's see how much baking we get done in April!

I am sharing this post with In My Kitchen

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.