Last night whilst watching the Great British Bake Off I really wanted to be eating pastry. So whilst the bakers were putting together their fancy tarts I whipped up a slap dash rainbow of jam tarts using up bits of my homemade jam. These are Gooseberry, Blackberry, Raspberry and Plum jam tarts.

To make 24 jam tarts.

1. Heat the oven to 180C.
2. With your finger tips rub together 225g plain flour, 150g salted butter and 25g sugar.
3. When you have breadcrumbs add a few tablespoons of water to bring together the pastry. Add the water a little at a time.
4. Butter two fairy cake tins.
5. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface and cut discs, place into the fairy cake pan.
6. Add a tablespoon or heaped teaspoon of jam to each pastry disc - not too much or the jam will overflow.
7. Heat for 5-10 mins until the pastry is golden brown.
8. Enjoy!

Despite my boyfriend loving ice cream I have never really made it at home. It all seems too much faff! I don't have an ice cream maker and can't be bothered to remember to keep stirring things in the freezer. I have been loosely following Kavey Eats' Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream through twitter and my favourite blogs. Last month was condensed milk ice cream, a particular variety that doesn't involve any stirring!

Ren from Fabulicious Food made hers with blackberry and white chocolate and I had just been blackberrying so I made mine with foraged blackberries and also used the Good Food recipe here. I plan to use the rest of my condensed milk to make fudge.

To make my blackberry swirl I heated up 100g blackberries with 50g sugar and let it simmer. When the blackberries had disintegrated I passed the mixture through a sieve and allowed to cool.  I added this to my ice cream mixture. 

In the hot heat of last Saturday I spent a good hour picking blackberries. I wasn't sure if they would be ripe yet but I missed them all last year so wanted to be quick off the mark this year. I went for a wander to my favourite wild blackberry spot and actually found that there were enough ripe berries to pick. This year looks like a bumper crop and the berries also seem a lot bigger in size this year.

After an hour I was thoroughly nettle stung but had 2kilos to start of my blackberry baking. I plan to make some blackberry ripple ice cream, blackberry and apple cake and try making some blackberry vodka for Christmas presents, and possibly a blackberry cheesecake if I have time. I also found some crab apples so will be whisking up some blackberry and crab apple jam.

Anyone else gone blackberrying yet and what do you plan to make with your foraged berries?

So we were invited to dinner at my friends, and her boyfriend was put in charge of dessert. This is what we ended up with - ice cream and a huge array of topping options. It reminded me of the kids parties we used to have as children at Pizza Hut with the ice cream station. I thought I would blog this because sometimes a foodie lifestyle doesn't always have to be photoshopped plates of food and well planned flavour matches.

Carl's dessert options included: chocolate ice cream, triple chocolate cookies, jelly beans, ice cream sweets, mini milks, chocolate buttons, whippy cream, wafers and toffee sauce.

When I was little my mum always used to put rice krispies on our ice cream. They crackled and popped and never went soggy! I loved this little treat and plan to continue it later in life when I have my own family. What strange topping do you have on your ice cream? 

This is a recipe sent to me by Abbie who has been a firm supporter of my blog right from the start. She sent me this recipe ages ago to try and I have been waiting for the perfect time to try it because it doesn't need eggs. 

Well low and behold, that day finally arrived and I discovered that this is indeed a very quick chocolate cake to make with store cupboard ingredients.

Abbie calls it the 'wacky chocolate cake' and it tastes great. Abbie's ingredients are in Australian cup measurements so I have also given UK measurements where necessary.

Mix together
1, 1/2 cup (200g) of Plain flour 
3/4 cup (150g) of sugar
3 tablespoons of coca
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

Then add

1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 tablespoon of vinegar
6 tablespoons of cooking oil
then 1 cup (250ml) of warm water to the mixture, stir with a fork till smooth.
Bake for 25-30 minutes at 180C. 

Thanks Abbie for letting me blog this and everyone else do enjoy!

I don't yet have a garden of my own but when I do I will be growing roses. Today we visited RHS Gardens Wisley and I took these photographs of some stunning roses (and another type of flower).

I couldn't decide what to bake today so I asked twitter. Everyone came back with 'cake'. As you can see I completely ignored this and decided to bake cookies instead. At the same time I noticed that Janice from Farmers Girl Kitchen was hosting We Should Cocoa this month and had picked cherries as the theme. I therefore settled on dark chocolate and cherry cookies.

Makes 18 cookies

Ingredients
225g softened butter
150g caster sugar
250g self raising flour
1 large eggs
100g dark chocolate broken into pieces
50g chopped glace cherries

Method 

1. Beat together the butter and sugar until soft.
   
2. Now beat in the egg  and a little of the flour.
3. Now mix in the rest of the flour.
4. Fold in the chopped chcocolate and cherries.
5. Shape cookies with floured hands and place on a non stick baking liner.
6. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes or until golden at 180C.
7. Leave to cool and firm up on the baking tray. 

You can keep the mixture in the fridge for a week or freeze for 3 months. Defrost in the fridge before using.

We Should Cocoa was created by Chocolate Teapot and Chocolate Log Blog and this month is hosted by Janice at  Farmersgirl Kitchen.

Makes 18 cookies

Ingredients
225g softened butter
150g caster sugar
250g self raising flour
1 large eggs
100g white chocolate broken into pieces
50g chopped raspberries 

Method 

1. Beat together the butter and sugar until soft.
   
2. Now beat in the egg  and a little of the flour.
3. Now mix in the rest of the flour.
4. Fold in the chopped raspberries and chocolate.
5. Shape cookies with floured hands - you may need to add a little more flour if your raspberries have split and added a lot of moisture to the mix
6. Place on a non stick baking liner.
7. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes or until golden at 180C.
8. Leave to cool and firm up on the baking tray. 

You can keep the mixture in the fridge for a week or freeze for 3 months. Defrost in the fridge before using. 

I recently made gooseberry jam and having been thinking for a while about using it in a Victoria Sponge. It worked really well and tasty absolutely lovely! My colleagues were very pleased when I brought it into work!

Ingredients
225g butter softened 
225g caster sugar
4 large eggs
225g/ self raising flour

For the filling
200 ml of lightly whipped cream
Gooseberry jam

1. Heat the oven to 180C
2. Butter and line two 8 inch tins.
3. Beat together the butter and sugar.
4. Mix in the eggs and a little flour.
5. Add in the rest of the flour.
6. Divide the mixture evenly between the tins and bake for 20-30 mins until cooked. Check they are baked by inserting a skewer. if the skewer comes out clean your cakes are done!
7. Let the cakes cool in the tin and then place on a cooling rack.
8. Spread one of the cakes with gooseberry jam and add the lightly whipped cream.
9. Sandwich together and dust with icing sugar.