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In Canada they have these really tasty candy bars names Sweet Marie's.  They were always my favourite candy bars when I was a child.  Not only were they stogged full of caramel, peanut butter, crispy cereal and salted peanuts . . . not to mention covered in chocolate . . . but they actually named the bars after ME!  (Don't ever tell me any different!) All in all a very irresistable combination don't you think?   I don't know if they have anything similar over here, but I suspect they do . . . and I suspect that it is probably the Picnic or the Lion Bars.   Or a cross between the two. It's funny how things go . . . how when you can't get something anymore, you kind of crave it.   Things like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese . . . or Velveeta . . . All Dressed Potato Chips . . . Coffee Crisp Candy Bars . . . Lucky Charms Cereal . . . Captain Crunch . . . Sweet Marie's . . . And the longer you have to live without them . . . the more you want them.   The...

I just love cinnamon.   It has to be my favourite of the warm spices.  It comes from the inner bark of a few different trees, and is great in both sweet and savory dishes.  I think the smell of cinnamon in the air makes a house smell like a home. I was on Pinterest the other day and I found a recipe that looked fabulous.   (Don't you just love Pinterest?)  It came from a blog called Lauren's Latest .   They looked to good that I had to print it out and I could hardly wait for the weekend so that I could make them for us to enjoy. You will want to use the small pretzel twists for these.  You know the ones.  They are about 1 1/2 inch in size.  Lightly salted.   Don't use any that are flavoured with anything else.  That would just be ucky.   Make sure you mix all of the ingredients together really well when you are mixing in the cinnamon sugar so that they all get coated evenly.  I found that  the cinnamon suar d...

  We are awfully fond of doughnuts in this house.  I especially like the Crispy Cremes we can get at the local Tesco and on the Motorway.  Occasionally I will buy a box to treat the missionaries with, and  . . . we have been known to indulge in one or two when we are on a lengthy trip along the motorway.  But deep fried doughnuts are a once in a blue moon treat for us, which is as it should be.   I am not adverse to baking doughnuts however.  I bought myself several doughnut baking pans last year and I break them out every so often.  Baked doughnuts are still a real treat, except they are not fried.  I guess they are a bit like muffins, except they are shaped like doughnuts.  What's not to like about that?  In the past year I have made . . . Baked Chai Spice Doughnuts . Honey Glazed Granola Doughnuts . Baked Chocolate Buttermilk Doughnut s. White Chocolate Drizzled Gingerbread Doughnuts.   Jam Filled Baked Cinnamon Doughnu...

One might be forgiven for thinking that this looks quite un-remarkable . . . boring and understated . . . plain and un-imposing . . . proof positive that you must never judge a book by it's cover . . . for if you were to . . . Judge this particular book by it's cover . . . and give it a pass, you'd be missing something quite, quite wonderfully delicious. For underneath that plain brown wrapper, lies one of the most beautifully moist and delicious banana loaves you could ever want to eat . . . each bite is an explosion of wonderful banana flavour, all moist and rich and buttery . . . and if you have added the toasted nuts (and I highly recommend that you do!) you have the added crunch and extra texture of something decidedly scrummy! It's delicious sliced when cold, and spread with softened butter. It goes down a real treat, I promise you this. But . . . here's a little secret . . . Pop some into the toaster, or under the grill, and toast it until it is gilded b...

As a child I used to devour Enid Blyton books.  I love the ones about the fairies and gnomes and wishing trees . . . but I especially loved the adventure books and the ones about kids in boarding schools with tuck boxes and tea time treats and picnic fare which sounded to me to be exotic.   Sausage rolls and pork pies, cherry cakes and ginger beer.  Wobbly blanc manges.   Tinned and potted meat spread onto hugs slabs of homemade bread . . . jam sandwiches, gingernuts, fruit jellies.  Rock cakes.  It was all so deliciously tempting sounding, and I dreamt about what it might be like to gorge myself on such a wonderous feast.  Yes , , , for me it has always been a out the food. We didn't have such things at home.  None of our meat came from tins and we were never allowed to gorge ourselves on fruit jellies and sausage rolls or wobbly blanc manges.   We were never allowed to gorge ourselves on anything.  My mother's idea of a...

I just love using mincemeat during the Christmas season.   It's one of my favourite ingredients and I am sure I go through several jars.  Each year I try to do something different with it if I can.  There has been a photo circulating on the net and Pinterest over the past couple of months of a nutella bread which is layered and twisted and I got to thinking that the same thing done with mincemeat would be really nice. I decided early on though that I would use puff pastry instead of bread dough however, because I wanted these to be like mince pies.   I also decided that if they were going to work properly I would have to puree the mincemeat a bit so that it wasn't too lumpy. As you can see they turned out really pretty.   Golden on the edges . . . lovely to look at . . . flakey and sweet and spiced just nicely.  I created a thin icing, lightly flavoured with cinnamon (if you want) to drizzle over top once baked and I sprinkled them with some white sp...