Spicy Victoria Sponge Cake

I fancied a change  to the traditional Victoria sponge cake and thought I would try to combine it with the flavours of the ginger thins I made the other day and came up with this cake. I added 2 big teaspoons of cinnamon, 1big teaspoon of ginger and a small teaspoon of cloves to the sponge mixture.  In the middle, instead of using raspberry jam, I used cranberry jam (1/2 jar) and whipped cream (250ml). The only problem was the size of the cake that ended up serving 12 not 2 so had to split it and find some guinea pigs to help out with the eating. I am lucky to have such accommodating neighbours.

Mince Pie Cookies

Mince Pie Cookies

Last year I had some mincemeat left over after making mince pies so I decided to experiment and came up with these cookies. I find that they are a nice alternative to mince pies (almost better) and they are much quicker to make. I will take some into the guys at work tomorrow for their opinion 🙂

Spicy Swirl Biscuits

When I was making my ginger thins my sister sent a photo of a new biscuit she had tried, the ginger thins/marzipan swirl. She had found the recipe on sotasaker.com. As I had some dough left from making my ginger thins I thought I’d give this a go. They are very tasty, they don’t store for very long but the dough can be kept in the fridge for a while or you can freeze the unbaked biscuits and bake on the day you want them. I will definitely try these again 🙂

Ginger Thins also known as Pepparkakor

In Sweden they eat pepparkakor in the winter. The biscuits are really nice to eat with warm glögg or mulled wine. They also work great as crackers and are really tasty with (blue) cheese. I put some in gift bags for my neighbours and colleagues as 150 biscuits is a bit much for me to eat. I took some step by step photos when I made them and have put these on the recipe page.

Ice Cream, not really a cake but still….

I love ice cream (yes all year around) and there is nothing better than proper dairy ice cream none of that palm oil / coconut oil substitute ice cream. I don’t own a ice cream maker but I think this quick (very quick) recipe is very good and the best thing of making your own ice cream is that you can flavour it with whatever you like, apart from vanilla, I find that his is very sweet as it is so bitter cocoa, mint and orange are good flavours to break the sweetness. A few weeks ago my parents gave me liquorice powder so I made some sauce by mixing it with dark treacle and cream, so today I used it and lemon curd to flavour my ice cream. I took some photos of the steps of how I make my ice cream, not that you could fail making this ice cream 🙂

Toffee Biscuits

It was my grandmas birthday last weeks so made a batch of her favourite biscuits. As I had a day off work I also managed to get some step by step photos of the process of making the toffee biscuits so I have put them with the recipe. Hopefully someone else might be tempted to try….

Saffron Buns

Saffron Buns

My mum came to visit and hinted towards some Saffron Buns. My friend Alexandra has also been after some Christmasy recipes so this is a first attempt to satisfy her requirements, these buns also known as Lussekatter are traditionally eaten in Sweden during December. Have a few more seasonal recipes coming soon….