The Great Purple Alpha-Bake...

So I mentioned previously that I had been inspired by Julie and Julia (recently read the book and watched the film) and had set myself a baking challenge...

To bake through the letters of the alphabet, a recipe a week for each letter.

I have trawled through recipe books and websites galore and one of the things I realised is that every recipe needs to have a photo. It is very hard to imagine something based on a list of ingredients and a name. I’ve also had to be creative with some of the names as finding desserts beginning with X etc… was pretty darn difficult.

So, here is my Alpha-Bake list:

• Almond and Orange Cake
• Banoffee Pie
• Cherry & Apple Pies
• Dark & White Chocolate Fondants
• English Apple & Cinnamon Crumble Tart
• Fresh Cream & Strawberry Victoria Sponge
• Ginger Sticky Toffee Pudding
• Homemade Toffee Apple Tart
• Iced Cinnamon Buns
• Jam Bakewell
• Key Lime Pie
• Lemon Meringue Cake
• Macaroons
• Nutty Hazlenut Frangipane
• Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
• Passionfruit Roulade
• Quince & Pear Puffed Pancake
• Rose Cupcakes of course
• Salted Caramel Tart
• Tiramisu Layer Cake
• Upside Down Pineapple Cake
• Vanilla Ice-Cream cake
• White Chocolate and Raspberry Brownies
• Xaggerated Baked Cheesecake
• Yule Log (Choc swiss roll)
• Zalabia

So the challenge begins next friday (17th Sept). I shall post recipe details and photos (whether they are good or bad). All my friends who say they want to taste test can do so under the proviso that they leave a fabulous review :-)

Let the baking begin!!

Ohhh and while I was making my list I whipped up these beauties...

Lemon Meringue & Chocolate cupakes

Banana Cinnamon Pancakes

Sultana Scones

Let them eat CAKE!!!

I haven't blogged for a while as I was ill and then really busy playing catch up at work, but i'm back and i'm inspired...

While I was "under the weather" I spent the whole time on the sofa watching nowt but food programmes. From Barefoot Contessa to The Great British Dish. Come Dine with Me to Masterchef. Nigella Bites to The Great British Bakeoff. Ace of Cakes to James Martin. Iron Chef to Heston Blumenthal. If it was on I watched it. And thought about all the food that I couldn't eat because I was ill!

I was told about a book which was recently made into a film called "Julie and Julia", I have the book and the film but have neither read nor watched either as I haven't had time. I know the story and it has inspired my latest "hobby" I guess we could call it (like I don't have enough to do). The basis of the story is that Julie makes every recipe from Julia Childs cookbook i think it takes about a year.

So i've come up with my own "Purple Version". Once a week I will be baking a recipe for every letter of the alphabet using a variety of different chef's. It should take 26 weeks, but we'll have to take 'life' into account so some weeks it may not be possible. I shall photograph and blog every attempt, regardless of how fabulous it may or may not be.

Sound interesting?? Maybe i'm just using it as a way to feed my incessant need to eat cake and also possibly put on the weight everyone says i'm lacking. Either way i'm hoping i'll enjoy it and hone a new talent, whilst of course indulging in some cake eating which is of course my ultimate life goal :-)

In my next post i'll publish an alphabetical list of the desserts i'll be making over the next 26 or so weeks...

The first day of the rest of my life....

So it's over... And I am successful... And today I plan to go to one of my most favouritest places, to have a slice of my most favouritest, fresh cream and strawberry, Victoria sponge cakes. It will be the best Valentine's Day ever, as I know I will not be disappointed.

A few people have asked what the point will have been if I just go back to how I was before and they have a point... The 21 days was a "test" to prove I could go without, an attempt to break the cycle and bad habit I had eaten myself into. So now that I know it is not necessary (not sure why I thought it was), I shan't be going back to being that girl that eats donuts for breakfast; that girl that'll eat jelly babies while boiling the kettle for a cup of tea in the morning; that girl who'd eat both the Gu hot chocolate soufflé’s with raspberries and half a tub of Haagen Dazs ice cream as a midnight snack; that girl who's handbag always had sweets, biscuits, chocolate and even on occasion donuts and muffins in the bottom instead of loose change. In hindsight, and over the past 3 weeks I realise I was being totally, ridiculously, beyond excessive, and although it wasn't a visible issue, I was literally a walking, talking sugar cube waiting for my dentures to be made.



I understood that I had to change, so rather then talking about it and tiptoeing around it, I grabbed the Bull by both its horns. I rode its sugar coated ass round the bullring holding on for dear life… I slipped, tripped and stumbled and boy did I hurt my ass, but I can hold my head up high and say, hand on heart I didn't fall off. There were times when I was alone, where I was tempted, but in the end I’d only be lying to myself, I was doing this for me and nobody else, so cheating made no sense…. Mini-me's cupcake from the nursery cake sale for Haiti taunted me from my handbag with it’s delicious ‘baked by children’ smell and I thought "if I eat this who'll ever know?" and in the morning while making my cup of tea the jelly babies would be looking at me with puppy dog eyes begging me to stop neglecting them and I thought “one won’t hurt and they can’t tell anyone” but I didn’t concede.

I didn't remove temptation from in front of me and I tried not to drool openly while others indulged in my most favourite guilty pleasure. There were the considerate friends who didn't want to eat sweet things in front of me, but I urged them go ahead; strengthening my willpower would only benefit me in the long run and avoiding sweet things for 21 days would have been unrealistic. Then there were the ‘friends’ who openly taunted me, one even went so far as to order me a Tiramisu in a restaurant and put it on the table in front of me. The joke was on him however, when he had to eat it, as well as the dessert he had ordered for himself when I didn’t succumb, he was very full and shamefacedly defeated...



So where do we (by we I mean me and ‘him’ (by ‘him’ I mean dessert style sweet things)) go from here?? I will admit that at exactly 12.35am this morning (after convincing myself I wouldn't do it) I was frantically warming a Gu hot chocolate soufflé (only 1), which I ate with a moderate amount of ice cream… It was like being embraced by a long distance lover and realising how much you’d missed them, welling up with sheer joy and being overwhelmed with emotion, while being ridiculously happy and wanting to stay in the embrace forever. It was emotional…

But absence makes the heart grow fonder and I am fonder, I have been lost and inconsolable for the past 3 weeks and I have learnt to appreciate ‘him’ more. My partner has returned and rather then spending every single second of every single day together until we tire of each other’s company, we shall enjoy spending well-deserved quality time together. I shall no longer over indulge... The bottom of my handbag will be filled with loose change from now on, which I will use to treat myself on occasion... I will buy a pack of 8 muffins and they will last 8 days. I will have a donut, or a slice of cake, or some ice cream, or a chocolate bar rather then all of those things one after the other. I shall save money (over the 21 days I had a spare £150...). I imagine my skin will stay clearer, which can’t be a bad thing especially as I approach that milestone birthday that started this all off. And I shall put off getting dentures for the foreseeable future…

Right now however, i’m off to get my Victoria Sponge ;-)