Saturday 30 March 2013

smoked mackerel dippy eggs

Smoked mackerel dippy eggs

Well I got quite busy with my Easter baking yesterday, after posting the sourdough recipe; I then went on to make hot cross buns and orange marmalade loaf. I wanted to make sour cherry and chocolate hot cross buns but my Mum didn't like the idea of starting the day off with chocolate so I settled for plain and used Paul Hollywood's recipe but added sour cherries and cranberries instead of sultanas and next time I'll be adding more cinnamon as I like them a little more spicy. I also made a marmalade loaf because when my parents made their stock of marmalade for the year they made a tad too much (we'll be using it until the 22nd century at this rate!) so I found this recipe. It ended up using quite a lot of marmalade and being quite orangey because I read the recipe wrong and put an extra 3 table spoons in the cake by mistake, tastes okay though.

Paul Hollywood definitely not chocolate buns
So anyway, on with the real recipe I'm going to post: smoked mackerel dippy eggs (or eggs en cocotte if you want to be posh/ french about it). I know I said yesterday at the end of my sourdough post this accompaniment to sourdough toast would have an Easter theme, and it does, to an extent. It uses eggs, chicks and chickens are Easter related so I figured it could be called Easter themed, also it uses nutmeg which is a spice. I absolutely love smoked mackerel, it's saltiness works great with the sour bread and this would be great to have for tea after a big Sunday dinner or for brunch if you're having a big Sunday tea.

Smoked mackerel dippy eggs (serves 4)



  • butter to grease
  • a bag of spinach
  • a pinch of nutmeg
  • 5 tablespoons of double cream
  • smoked mackerel (about 2 slices)
  • 4 eggs
  • 4 medium tomatoes halved 
  • 4 slices of sourdough
  1. preheat the oven to 220oC/425oF/gas mark 7 and grease 4 ramekins with the butter
  2. put the spinach in a pan with a little water and place over the heat until wilted. Stir in a tablespoon of double cream and a good pinch of nutmeg before splitting and putting some in the bottom of each ramekin
  3. flake some of the smoked mackerel on top of the spinach (skin removed) try to leave it is fairly largish pieces
  4. crack an egg on the top of each and put on the tomato halves before grinding on some black pepper (you won't need any salt because of the mackerel)
  5. place in a bain marie in the oven for 12 minutes until the white is cooked but the yolk runny. While at the end of cooking remember to pop your sourdough in the toaster too!
  6. carefully put the ramekins onto the plates, butter the toast and enjoy!


Smoked mackerel dippy eggs with sourdough toast

Friday 29 March 2013

Simple sourdough


Today, well I started last night actually, I made my first sourdough loaf with Susan the sourdough starter (if I give her a name I remember to feed her!). 
I've made sourdough once before but I think I killed the starter before I baked the bread but I made it anyway, the result was a little flat and dense but tasted okay. I can safely say however that Susan is a great success! 


look at those air bubbles!


While baking her I thought it wasn't going too well though because after the first rise I expected the dough to have doubled in size, it hadn't and when I then knocked it back there was no air to knock out! It was just a huge gunky pile of goo which was virtually impossible to kneed and just had to be dumped in the proving basket without any shaping what soever. When I can back after the second rise this morning nothing seemed to have happened either but I guess there must be a sourdough fairy in our oven or something. 


I looked at a few different sourdough recipes in books and on the web and kinda just mushed them all together into the shortest recipe I could. I was going to use the white leaven recipe from the famous bread book from the award winning baker Dan Lepard but the recipe was absolutely ridiculous to me. I know sourdough is suppose to be a slow labour of love but his recipe took about a week of kneading, knocking, rising, proving. It said to go back every half hour and kneed for 10 seconds, are you serious? Who on earth has the Patience? (Dan Lepard obviously)
After this successful bake with Susan though she has safe and firm place in my heart. I can't wait to try out some more adventurous sourdough recipes, I have a few ideas for sourdough waffles, bagels, crumpets and maybe even hot cross buns! (if you hear no more on any of these ideas you can assume they were all complete failures).


Simple Sourdough 

  • 300 ml of sourdough starter
  • 500 g of plain white bread flour
  • a good pinch of salt
  • 350 ml of tepid water
  • flour to sprinkle
  • semolina to sprinkle
  1. First of all mix the starter, flour, salt and about 300ml of water in a large bowl until it forms a dough. Sourdough dough should be really sticky so if it's quite dry or normal bread dough consistency you might want to add all the water (I did).
  2. take out and kneed for 5- 10 minutes so it becomes smooth and elasticy before placing is a lightly oiled bowl, covered in a warm place for 2 hours
  3. Prepare a basket lined with heavily floured muslin for the dough to prove in
  4. this is where I expected my dough to have doubled but it hadn't changed size dramatically so don't be worried! Also it had become SUPER gooey and gunky. Kneed it again to knock the air out, I gave up after 5 minutes but maybe if you carried on it might form a smooth dough again (I am very lazy). Try to place it in the proving basket as best as you can, cover and leave to rise for 8- 12 hours (I left mine overnight because the longer the better). 
  5. before baking preheat the oven to 220oC/ 425oF/gas mark 7. 
  6. place a heavy baking sheet, or even better a pizza stone in the oven to put the bread on. Fill a roasting tin with about 1cm or less of water and place under the sheet to warm up, this will create steam so the bread will have a nice crust.
  7. take the hot pizza stone out and turn the bread from the basket onto it. Dust with semolina, you might want to make a stencil from paper and dust with flour too, before slicing with your own pattern on the top with a sharp knife
  8. place back in the oven for 35- 45 minutes until the crust is nice and brown. I found that the base didn't go solid and sound hollow because sourdough has quite a chewy texture.
  9. take out and leave on a wire rack to cool before enjoying slathered in butter!
paper stencil 
Tomorrow I'm going to make a kinda Easter themed lunch/ brunch idea to have with sourdough toast because it really does make the best toast ever. I hope you have a nice holiday today and get making some sourdough starters!

Sunday 24 March 2013

Lemon and raspberry battenberg made with homemade lemon curd

As I've said in a previous post I really don't know when spring is actually planning to arrive this year but it better be soon as the wind whipping around my house is FREEEZING, we've been waddling about like penguins for the past three days. To try and coax Mr Spring out from hibernation (or Mrs spring!) I decided this weekend to make a fruity battenberg with zesty lemon curd. That's right, this is not your average battenberg my dear friend.





This is a terrible picture, I know, I'm really upset with how the battenberg pictures turned out today, next time I'm either not going to use this blue background or iron it more thoroughly. Anyhoo this is my lemon and raspberry battenberg sandwiched together with a very generous spread of lemony lemon curd and covered in fondant icing (shop bought icing sorry). Now I know raspberries aren't in season but for this recipe I used frozen rasps, which can be cheap as chips, and if they don't taste too good just add a little icing sugar. If your still not convinced on frozen raspberries, read this, this cake is positively healthy!....
First of all I'll give you the lemon curd recipe otherwise you might do what I did and get to the part of assembling the whole cake and realising you forgot to make it. Luckily it's super quick, tastes utterly nom and pretty much uses store cupboard ingredients (depending if  on your stores of course), you will never be reaching for that rip off shop bought stuff again! I found this ammount made enough do sandwhich the battenberg and fill a medium sized jar with about three table spoons left to eat for yourself.




Lemon Curd

  • a steralized jar
  • 2 eggs
  • zest of two lemons
  • juice of two lemons
  • 180 grams of caster sugar
  • 110 grams of butter
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons of corn flour
  1. crack your eggs into a heavy based pan and whisk (not on the heat)
  2. add all the other ingredients and whisk
  3. set over a medium heat and continue whisking for 8- 10 minutes until it thickens, it won't become the exact consistency of lemon curd yet becase it's hot
  4. take off the heat and pour into a jar, save some for the battenberg too!
original recipe from Delia

Didn't I tell you it would be easy?


And on to the Battenberg.....



Lemon and Raspberry Battenberg

  • two loaf tins (I used 2 lb ones)
  • 150 grams of butter
  • i50 grams of caster sugar
  • 150 grams of plain flour
  • 1 generous teaspoon of baking powder
  • 3 eggs
  • zest of one lemon 
  • juice of 1/2 a lemon (maybe a bit less)
  • 100 grams of fresh or frozen raspberries blitzed to a paste
  • Zesty lemon curd (see recipe above)
  • white fondant icing
  • (for the perfectionists like moi) a ruler!
  1. grease and line your two tins and preheat the oven to 180oC/ 350oF/ gas mark 4
  2. put the butter sugar, flour and baking powder in a food processor or electric mixer and pulse until you get bread crumbs
  3. add each egg, one at a time and blitz well inbetween
  4. divide the mixture equaly between two blean bowls
  5. to one add the lemon zest and juice and to the other add 2 or 3 tablespoons of the blitzed raspberries (you will definately not need all the paste because this will make the batter too wet and won't rise well, the same with the lemon juice)
  6. divide the mixtures into the seperate tins and bake in the preheated oven for 20- 25 minutes (you might find one takes longer than the other, my rarpberry batter was wetter than the lemon so took almost 30 minutes)
  7. leave to cool completely on a wire rack
  8. next cut each of the cakes in half, you might need to do some neatening on the tops and edges with a knife so it will fit together nicely and this means they'll be some pieces of cake to put into your cake hole to put in the bin or make a trifle
  9. roll out your fonfant icing on a piece of baking parchment to about the thickness of a pound coin, if you're like me you might want to measure the deph and width of your cake to check it's gonna fit
  10. get a slice of the cake and cover one side genorously in lemon curd and place curd side down on the icing before covering the side facing inwards too, get your piece which will go next to it and cover one side with lemon curd and again face curd side down next to the previous piece. cover the top of these two before placing another cake slice on top, covering the inward side, and placing the last piece next to it.
  11. Cover the remaining three outer sides in lot of lemon curd and lightly brush the icing with a thinlayer of water to make it nice a sticky
  12. use the baking parchment to help you carfuly and tightly roll the icing around the cake (like a swiss roll)and use a damp finger to neaten the ends to the icing
  13. brew a cup of tea and enjoy!
adapted from Lorraine Pascale's baking made easy


I really hope you enjoy your battenbergs and lemon curd, and that spring arrives soon!

Friday 22 March 2013

Patterned notepad tutorial

Wow, second post in one day, don't remember that before. However today was a snow day and I got sent home from school with nothing to do, I'm not complaining though, however I would like to know what happened to the start of spring!? Anyhoo....
A while ago my Mum bought some really nice patterned wrapping paper, the problem has been it's too nice to wrap presents in and give to people! So this wrapping paper has been sat in the wrapping paper draw for months until this week where I came up with the thought of making a notepad with it, here it is.



It is reasonably easy to make and you even get to use a power drill.....that's right this tutorial on how to make a nice patterned notepad uses A POWER DRILL. Please don't be put off though! It really is the best way to get through all the layers of paper and card. at first I tried just shoving the needle through but that didn't work, I then tried piercing each piece of paper in turn but that took forever and in the end they didn't line up and the hole wasn't big enough to let the needle through a second time, hopeless! Using a drill with a really small bit (I have been informed that 'a bit' is the proper term for the actual screwy part of a drill)  it means the holes will all line up, you can poke the needle through numerous times and, if you're someone like me, it's quicker!
It really can depend on the number of A4 pages you pick as well, if you pick too many the notepad isn't going to stay closed nicely, too few and, well, it's a rubbish notepad! I settled for 7 and it seemed to work well and you get 14 pages to write on (28 if you count both sides). 





Patterned notepad tutorial 

  • an A3 sheet of plain card
  • a few sheets of white A4 paper (7 works well)
  • scissors
  • patterned paper
  • glue
  • ruler and pencil
  • A POWER DRILL! With a small 'bit' attached
  • white thread and a needle
  • a contrasting piece of coloured paper for the spine
  1. First of all place a piece of A4 paper on top of the A3 card and draw a boarder onto the card about 0.5 cm away from the paper and cut out. This might seem like a strange thing to do but if you use A4 card the paper sticks out of the edges at the end and doesn't look as good.
  2. Cut a piece of patterned paper to the same size as the card and carefully glue together to avoid air bubbles.
  3. Once dry draw a line down the centre of the card using a ruler, score and fold.
  4. Next get an A4 piece of paper, fold in half and mark 6 cm and 2 cm from the bottom at either end (this is where you're going to drill).
  5. Fold all the A4 pieces of paper in half, place the marked sheet on the top so you know where to drill and the card on the bottom of the pile.
  6. Carefully drill 4 holes through the marked areas, through the paper and the card
  7. Next up thread the needle and sew all the layers together by going through the 2 separate pairs of holes a few times.
  8. Cut a a strip of paper in a contrasting colour for the spine, it should be 6 cms wide and the same height of the notepad. Glue over the spine to cover the stitches on the outside.
  9. Voila! A beautiful notepad

variations 

A few extra things you could add to your notepad glitter, stick on gems like the photo above or even a ribbon by placing it in the centre of the book where the stitches are and tying the ends together outside.

I've made this notepad before we had the wrapping paper by using coloured card, a heart stamp and paint which worked really well but you have to wait a little longer for the paint to dry.


Thank you very much for reading and I hope the snow hasn't caused you too much disruption today! Also please let me know if you found the tutorial instructions a little confuzzling, I tried to explain it as best as I could but I don't know if I went a little ott (over the top)?

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Sunday 17 March 2013

My Mum's Mother's day

Mum's presents

So as my family are a la'al bit out of sync with the rest of mankind (see Dad's birthday post for why) my Mum had Mother's day today. My present to her was to cook all the meals for the day as well as the card I made above (you can NEVER have too much glitter in my opinion), a card stating I would made her afternoon tea on a day of her choice, granola, rhubarb jam and cooked all the meals for the day.
the card
 For the granola I used a recipe from bbc good food and only added dried cranberries for dried fruit and no coconut so called it 'cranberry crunch'.  
For the rhubarb and vanilla jam I used an excellent recipe from cook republic, it was incredibly simple but also incredibly delish. We had it on apple scones with clotted cream for breakfast after the granola, I don't think I've ever had scones for breakfast but I think it could be a new breakthrough.
I like to put fabric circles tied with string on top of jar when I give them as gift because I think it makes them look really pretty and homemade. To make them all I did was measure the diameter of the lid, double it, find a plate or bowl with that diameter (I really cannot use a pair of compasses to save my life), draw around it and cut out. Simples!


Rhubarb jam on apple scones, breakfast breakthrough! 
Next up lunch! For this I used my new fabulous baker brothers' cook book. It's a really good cook book in my opinion and has some of the recipes they make in their new series (more 4, 9 pm on a Tuesday) as well as some new ones. They make really different and delicious food, things like creme brulee porridge, mushroom ketchup, how to make your own sausages, viking pizza, pulled pork burgers and looooads more.
For lunch I made 'gunpowder lamb' on rotis (a type of flat bread) with salad to test out some of the skills I learnt on work experience. The recipes used lamb neck fillets (NOT lamb necks like I asked the butcher for, turns out they're completely different!), you marinade them in lots of spices such as cumin, coriander, turmeric and a few more while you make the roti dough. The flat breads were extremely good and very quick because you only need to let it rest for 5 minutes, after kneading, in which time you can start grilling the lamb. I managed to get them really thin ready for shallow frying, all that pizza practise on work experience must have payed off! 
I also decided to put my creative salad skills to the test so made a cous cous salad to have in the flat breads too.

red onion and pepper cous cous salad

makes enough for 3-4 people as a salad
  • flavorless oil
  • 2 tsp of mustard seeds
  • 1 tsp of dried chili (add more if you like it hot!)
  • a red onion, cut in half and sliced
  • a red pepper, cut into strips
  • 120 grams of cous cous
  • fresh coriander finely chopped
  • a lemon
  • a red chili, deseeded and diced

  1. put a really good glug of oil in a heavy based pan (about 2- 3 tbsp I used) and put over a medium heat before adding the dried chili and mustard seeds.
  2. wait until the mustard seeds have begun to pop and the oil has become infused before adding in the onion and pepper and stirring well. 
  3. Leave for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, so the veg becomes slightly cooked but still has a bit of bite crunch.
  4. Meanwhile measure out the cous cous, add a good pinch of salt and cover with boiling water, leave to absorb.
  5. Take the veg off the heat and add in a good sprinkling of fresh coriander and fresh chili (you might want to save some to decorated) add the juice of 1/2 the lemon, taste and season accordingly. I found I needed the juice of almost all the lemon and quite a bit more coriander.
  6. stir in the cous cous, you shouldn't have to add any extra oil or butter to the cous cous because of all the extra infused oil with the veg which should also help flavor it.
  7. put into a bowl and decorate before serving straight to the table, enjoy!
For tea I made a sweet potato lasagna from bbc food by one of my favourite chefs,Lorraine Pascale. I absolutely love vegetarian food because it focuses more on the flavors rather than the huge hunk of meat and this was true to that. I was able to make it yesterday too while my Mum was out of the house, it was really simple as you only have to cook the sweet potato (I left out the butternut squash). The white sauce is mainly ricotta mixed with Parmesan so doesn't need heating and isn't too heavy, it tasted nothing like your average lasagna but in a good way. It was mashed sweet potato, then a layer of chopped rosemary, sage, pine nuts and spinach leaves before layering on the pasta sheets and a final layer of the white sauce before repeating. In the recipe she uses dried lasagna sheets and cooks then for 5 minutes before assembling but when me and Mum make lasagna they always end up sticking together so we uses fresh and save half the time. For this recipe I found whole wheat fresh lasagna sheets from the local health food shop, which really helped add to the whole vegetarian vibe running through the dish! 
sweet potato lasagna with rocket
For pudding I once again turned to the fabulous baker brothers' book and made rhubarb Knickerbocker glory as I've never had any kind on Knickerbocker glory before. I also made part of this yesterday as you roast the rhubarb with rosemary and ginger before draining and use the juice to set a jelly in the bottom. Another layered meal! This one was rhubarb, ginger and rosemary jelly in the bottom, roast rhubarb, ice cream and sweetened whipped cream whipped cream before repeating and topping with pistachios. A great first taste of Knickerbocker glory and a nice way to finish my Mum's mother's day.
I hope you had a nice mother's day last weekend, if you're normal and celebrated it on the 10th, and had a lovely day today too.

Rhubarb Knickerbocker glory!



Friday 15 March 2013

Work Experience at Chesters!



The beautiful langdale fells near Chesters
Monday to Friday this week has been work experience for pupils at my school and I decided I would like to go to the cafe and shop 'Chesters by the River' near Ambleside.Trust me to pick somewhere awkward in terms of location from where I live, it's quite a bit further than the rest of my year's placements, but I've always loved going there with my family. Cafe and shop work is something they sadly don't teach in schools which is a real shame because it's a lot different from all of the subjects they teach (all the subjects I've taken for my GCSEs anyway). It's always been a place I've loved to visit (you should definitely stop by if you get the chance) because it has such a friendly atmosphere, the shop feels really open and light as well as being full of a variety of things to buy. You would only have to walk into the cafe to understand why it's usually heaving! It has generous portions of extremely yummy cakes which you would have to do very well to ignore. It has a pizza oven serving crispy pizzas and flat breads, the chefs even let me make some for my lunchs, as well as exciting salads and much more. I suggest arriving with an empty stomach!


Chesters' crispy pizza
My crispy margarita pizza! 
just an itsy bitsy peak at some of the cakes
My week at Chesters was brilliant and I learnt so much that I now have a headache and feel my brain shall soon explode. It's worth it but I feel tomorrow may be a power nap day, I truly don't understand how all the fantastic staff there never stop. They couldn't have been more friendly and made me feel more welcome, I'm surprised they don't all have sore mouths from their permanent smiles and collapse from exhaustion from their rushing around.
the thank you card
To thank all the shop staff, the cafe servers, chefs and bakers I made a card using their logo (Chester the dog) their moto/ slogan (bad dog no biscuit) and, of course, cake. I also got some flowers and chocolate since I thought all the staff must be sick of cake so bad idea to bake one!
At the end of the day when Ashley (the amazing manager who organised all this, she should be called amazing Ash!) had filled in the extensive forms for my school I was given presents too! (much to my suprise since they were the ones who put up with me all week). I was given a chester top, apron and beaker all with the logo on from the shop, five cakes from the cafe staff, a sourdough starter from the kitchen (I'll have to start trying out some sourdough recipes if I manage to keep her alive, she's called Susan the sourdough starter) and a Saturday job offer.


My unexpected gifts

I hope you had a nice week too and take a visit to Chesters if you happen to be in the Lakes! 

Sunday 10 March 2013

Dad's Birthday

First of all I'm going to tell you as far as I'm aware Mother's day is certainly not on march 10th and is really next weekend (this is not my excuse for forgetting to buy anything) so this blog won't be on Mother's day at all, sorry. This weekend has been my Dad's Birthday but he was away so we celebrated it yesterday, meaning we already had a birthday cake in the house and there was no need for a Mother's day cake (one of the reasons why Mother's day is next weekend). 



So this is the monster Birthday cake! I got the recipe from 'The Great British Bake Off Showstoppers' but I won't be typing out the recipe, sorry, because it would take up a lot of time and space. 
It may just look like an ordinary cake smothered in butter icing from the badly taken photograph, and this is partly true; it is smothered in butter icing, but this is no ordinary cake. Underneath the mountains of butter icing is a almond meringue sandwiched with butter cream to a genoese orange flavoured sponged, sandwiched to another meringue, sandwiched to another layer of sponge covered in almond praline and orange flavoured butter cream and topped with more almond praline. Wow. Weight watchers and the ambulance are now on speed dial and if no other blogs are written you may presume I have died of heart disease. I have to say though, it tastes good.


On to the presents! Well Dad being the modest, practical and not really having an interest in the luxuries of life is really quite hard to buy for. We eventually decided to stick with the traditional annual T-shirt (from Boden) a hankie for each day of the week (from not on the high street, great gift site!)and Mumford and Sons older album, 'sigh no more' (mainly because I wanted it).


I don't think we did too badly this year and finally I just thought I share the Birthday card we bought him. It's not particularly Birthday related but the dog reminded me of one of our three dogs and I loved the illustration, extremely cute indeed! I hope if you decided to be Orthodox and celebrate Mother's day today you had a very happy day too. 



Sunday 3 March 2013

Guess who met the fabulous baker brothers?


The answer to the above question is me, not once but three times in fact!  


All of yesterday afternoon was spent in my kitchen making and baking to enter the Kendal festival of food competitions. After many spillages of food dye, a few minor disaster and lots of taste testing I managed to finish my entries. They had a theme this year from the sponsor which was 'Herdy, the face of the lake district', a really cute cartoon herdwick sheep. They had two categories for this: children's decorated cupcakes and a novelty cake decorated with a herdy theme. I entered for the cupcakes with my Guinness cupcakes but changed the Guinness to a different stout from my town's brewing company which made them taste even nicer than last time. I managed to come first in the cupcake competition  with my knitting themed cakes and a seal of approval from the judges (Channel 4 Fabulous baker Brothers themselves!).  



Here's a picture of the novelty cake winner which I thought was amazing but also very clever.



The other competition I entered was the multi-grain bread competition, I entered pecan and maple syrup bread and managed to come third. I've come to the conclusion that I'm more pleased with this result than the cupcakes because this round had more entries, was more technical, against adults and Tom Herert is a professional baker so I'm guessing knows a whole heap about bread.
We made the bread from one of our many cook books the other week and the flavors go really well together, when my Mum suggested it I was a bit sceptical about it being to sweet but it tastes just great.

Maple and Pecan Bread from 'cakes and bakes from my mother's kitchen' by Linda Collister 

Makes 2 loaves

  • 350 grams of strong wholemeal bread flour
  • 350 grams of strong white bread flour 
  • 2 teaspoons of salt
  • 7 grams of dried yeast
  • 375 ml of warm water
  • 150 grams of maple syrup
  • 200 grams of pecans (we found this too many last time so used 150 grams this time)
  1. Mix the flours salt and yeast in a large mixing bowl and make a well n the centre.
  2. Pour in the warm water and maple syrup and mix until you have a soft, but not sticky, dough.
  3. If the dough is too dry add a little bit of water, if too soft add a teaspoon of flour.
  4. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes until it becomes elastic before returning to a clean oiled bowl. Cover with cling film and leave to rise for 1 1/2 hours.
  5. Oil two loaf tins, take the dough out and punch the air out of it, divide into two and place into tins. Cover loosely with oiled clingfilm again and leave for another hour, or until double in size (this bread is a labour of love!).
  6. Preheat the oven to 200oC/ 400oF (gas mark 6.
  7. Take off the clingfilm and bake for 30-35 minutes, it should make a hollow sound when tapped and be brown on the top.
  8. Leave to cool on a wire rack and enjoy within four days.


The rest of the festival was great fun too, there was lots of made in Cumbria produce stands and cooking demonstrations, even a farm animal tent. We met the baker brothers in waterstones before meeting them a second time for their demonstration, which they posted on twitter. I got to hold the dish they prepared in the front which was 'gunpowder lamb with carrot and pepper salad on roti), 'twas very nom. Lastly I met them when they presented the 5 competition winners and got my picture taken with a signed copy of their new book, a lakeland voucher and a herdy apron. 


the farm animal tent
My signed book

I hope you had a good weekend too and I've inspired you to read up on the fabulous baker brothers if you've never heard of them, I can strongly recommend their new book!