Ingredients

1. 125g chilled butter, diced, plus extra for greasing
2. 225g self-raising flour
3. 175g golden caster sugar
4. 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
5. 200g or whatever you have of mixed frozen or fresh berries. I mostly used blueberries and raspberries.
   

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190C
2. Grease a 900g loaf tin and line with baking paper or a paper loaf tin liner.
3. Rub the butter, sugar and flour together with your fingertips until they resemble breadcrumbs.
4. Add the eggs and mix until smooth.
5. Spoon half the cake mixture into the loaf tin, then scatter with half the berries. Don't worry if the cake mixture doesn't look like much, it will spread when it cooks.
6. Spoon over the remaining cake mixture, then scatter with the remaining fruit.
7. Bake for 45mins or until risen and firm. You may want to bake with foil on top as I find mine often goes brown on top before it is cooked in the middle. To test whether it is fully cooked, insert a skewer into the centre – it should come out clean.
8. Let the cake cool and then ice.

For the icing
100g butter softened
250g icing sugar
1-2 tbsp yogurt I used Activia vanilla pouring yogurt but strawberry or raspberry would also be lovely

Method

1. Beat the butter in a large bowl until soft. 
2. Add half of the icing sugar and beat until smooth.
   
3. Add the remaining icing sugar and one tablespoon of the yogurt and beat the mixture until creamy and smooth. 
4. Beat in the rest of the yogurt if necessary.

For the icing
100g butter softened
250g icing sugar
1-2 tbsp yogurt I used Activia vanilla pouring yogurt but strawberry or raspberry would also be lovely

Method

1. Beat the butter in a large bowl until soft. 
2. Add half of the icing sugar and beat until smooth.
   
3. Add the remaining icing sugar and one tablespoon of the yogurt and beat the mixture until creamy and smooth. 
4. Beat in the rest of the yogurt if necessary.

Basil is my favourite herb, it goes with everything and I absolutely love its scent, so much so that I am wondering whether I might keep some on my bedside table. Now, I am in no way an excellent gardener and am rather neglectful of my plants. I don't have an outdoor space to call my own and therefore just have a small indoor kitchen herb corner. Some plants are happy to be kept indoors and others just don't grow well in my kitchen. 

My basil seeds failed this year and so in my hour of cooking need I bought a plant pot of basil from the supermarket. These plants don't keep well as they are forced and often only have a short life. I have however found a successful way to keep the basil going, make it stronger and re-pot it. I tried splitting the plants out when I got the pot but they just weren't strong and didn't seem to take hold. One day I took the pot, chopped some of the healthy stems off, and stuck them in a glass of water. I forgot about them (see - neglectful gardener) for a bit and a few days/ weeks later realised they had begun to grow roots. I left them and eventually potted them out. They have been really healthy strong plants since.  I have done this a few times now and it works brilliantly.

A friend gave me a sourdough bread starter and I am now hooked. I have seen sourdough appearing on many blogs and I won't reinvent the wheel only tell you that you should try it at least once.  At first it all seemed too much faff but then I tasted my first sourdough loaf and I can't turn back. I am using Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall's recipe and it seems to be working fine for me. A few tips I have gleaned. I always keep my dough quite wet and usually only make my 'sponge' when my sourdough smells nice and sweet. If you want to make your sourdough more sour use wholemeal flour when you feed your starter. 

Make up and feed your starter as per Hugh's instructions. Sometimes you will find it bubbles over and you will need to use trial and error until you are happy feeding and using your starter.

I am really getting into the hang of making this bread now. Let me know if you try following Hugh's recipe. Next up I need to try a rye version. Someone on twitter has already given me a recipe so no excuses!

As my gooseberry jam went so well I decided to try some gooesberry and elderflower jam too.

The elderflowers are currently in bloom. Make sure you pick flowers that are fully open. You only need 3-4 heads for this recipe.

Before you start make sure you top and tail your gooseberries. I do this with scissors to make sure I keep as much of the berry as possible. You will also need to sterilise some jars. Do this by washing them in hot soapy water and leaving them to dry in an oven heated to 100C  

Recipe as follows:

1. Weigh your top and tailed gooseberries.
2. Weigh out the same measurement of sugar.
3. For the water, take the weight of the gooseberries and half it. Then measure out this amount as mls in water. For example I had 500g of goosesberries, 500g of sugar and 250mls of water (this made 3 jars).
4. Add 3-4 heads of open elderflowers.
5. Heat everything in a big pan and stir.
6. Meanwhile place a plate in the fridge.
7. When the jam becomes thick and gloopy it is ready to pour into the hot jars. You can check this by dropping a teaspoon of jam on the cooled fridge. It should set and wrinkle when you push it with your finger.
8. Once the jars are filled, seal with wax circles and cellophane.

I am submitting this to Lancashire Food's elderflower challenge.

I have wanted to try macaroons for a while but Greg is allergic to almonds, but then I spotted a recipe that used dessicated coconut instead of ground almonds. The coconut makes these macaroons a bit more rustic and less smooth than ground almonds so they do have quite a grainy texture. I used my recently made gooseberry jam for the filling.

After one not so good attempt (which I may still blog) I managed to produce these. I was really happy with how well the flavours balanced. I only made a few so feel free to scale up the recipe.  

Made 6 whole macaroons and 12 half macaroons.


1 egg white
50g dessicated coconut (I used the unsweetened type)
60g icing sugar
25g caster sugar
Zest of half a lemon

I am submitting this to June's tea time treats challenge hosted this month by What Kate Baked as the theme is summer berries.

I always used to hate gooseberries as a child. They tasted sour, were hairy, and when you picked them you got spiked all over by the thorns. Picking gooseberries was always the job my sister and I disliked most. We used to eat gooseberries disguised in apple crumbles but I never really saw them as a food in their own right.

Anyway this year I decided to help pick the dreaded gooseberries and see if I could make a nice jam with them. Gooseberries are really high in pectin so you can just use normal sugar to make the jam. I was really impressed at how easy this was to make and how tasty the results are. I may have slightly overcooked the jam as apparently it is possible to get it to come out a nice pale pink - anybody got any advice?

Before you start make sure you top and tail your gooseberries. I do this with scissors to make sure I keep as much of the berry as possible. You will also need to sterilise some jars. Do this by washing them in hot soapy water and leaving them to dry in an oven heated to 100C

Recipe as follows:

1. Weigh your top and tailed gooseberries.
2. Weigh out the same measurement of sugar.
3. For the water, take the weight of the gooseberries and half it. Then measure out this amount as mls in water. For example I had 500g of goosesberries, 500g of sugar and 250mls of water (this made 3 jars).
4. Heat everything in a big pan and stir.
5. Meanwhile place a plate in the fridge.
6. When the jam becomes thick and gloopy it is ready to pour into jars. You can check this by dropping a teaspoon of jam on the cooled fridge. It should set and wrinkle when you push it with your finger.
7. Once the jars are filled, seal with wax circles and cellophane.

Ok, I know I have been a bad girl! I have been too busy with work and too exhausted when I get home to blog. As a result I have been terribly lax at writing up May's no waste food challenge which focusses on using bread and breadcrumb leftovers. I feel very bad about this as lots of you spent time blogging items for the challenge, so please take this as an apology. June is also a very busy month for me so I will extend the deadline for June's challenge to 15th July and you are welcome to blog any recipe that uses up leftovers.

Back to bread. First up we have recipes for using bread, then if you still have leftovers you can make breadcrumbs and there are a selection of recipes for using these too.

Mel from edible things made some hearty bread dumplings. Just what we need in this beautiful British summer we are experiencing. Mel got all experimental and tried several ways of cooking her dumplings, settling on two favourite methods, frying in butter and adding to soup. 

Next up we have a bread pudding blogged by Soosie. This recipe is a microwave version and therefore looks perfect to whip up with leftovers in a hurry. The recipe includes all those classic warming flavours of mixed spice and fruit to get us through the Blighty summer. 

This Crete salad was my suggestion for using up stale bread. I obviously blogged this when the sun was shining on us all. The salad is based around stale bread which is soaked in olive oil. 

Next up we have the second option for using up leftover bread, apart from feeding the local ducks of course, turn the bread into breadcrumbs and then enjoy plenty more recipes. Tango took us through the process of breadcrumb making on her blog Tango Like Raindrop and has linked to lots of breadcrumb recipe suggestions.

First up for using breadcrumbs Emma from Emma's Kitchen Diary has shown us how to make these scrumptious looking home made fish fingers. These look so much nicer than shop bought fish fingers and look like they have real crunch. Emma also confesses that this is her first taste of a fish finger ever. I suggest Emma that you next try a fish finger sandwich, they are so good. 

Lastly I used my breadcrumbs for some Portobello Stuffed Mushrooms. These also used lots of other leftovers from my fridge.

Thank you to everyone who joined in. To join in July's no waste food challenge follow the challenge rules and send me any recipe that uses up leftovers. 

I have been so busy at work recently that I haven't had time to do any Jubilee baking or crafts. I also didn't have any time to plan my Jubilee weekend so it ended up being all a bit ad hoc but I did take a few photos.