Surprise!

A friend asked me for my lemon drizzle cake recipe a few weeks ago and I happened to remember that I had a version somewhere that was substantially better than the list of ingredients and a baking temperature which is scratched in my cooking notebook.  I happened to remember that I once upon a time blogged on an almost frequent basis.  And that blog contained a fully documented lemon drizzle cake recipe.  Three years ago. 


So in the process of finding the *actual* post, with the list of ingredients and the instructions, I re-read a few posts, looked at a few photos and remembered that I quite liked baking and blogging.  And then Rose released her new cookbook Rose's Baking Basics.  And after two odd years, I think I could just about qualify as a basic baker again.  Well, at least a basic baker with a lot of baking tins, baking kit and a lot of recipe books.


A few things have happened in the past few years that I haven't been blogging.  For one, we decided that it would be a good lark to uproot our family from London to see if we could successfully replant in Northern California.  We have now just passed one year in Silicon Valley.  One third of the children was very sad to be leaving London and all their friends, the second third was very excited to be trying something new and the last third was sad because the first third was sad.  Now all three seem to be quite happy about their NorCal lifestyle.  Friends have been made, surfboards have been purchased, skiing has been experienced, the sun seems to always shine and even when the surf isn't great, two thirds of the children plus their Dad love the beach every weekend.  The last third is okay so long as there isn't any sand.  So while we continue to miss London, we have been doing our best with what we have available (which is a ridiculous bounty)... there are definitely much worse places to live in the world.  Even with the current political climate.


So now that we are settled, we have neighbors on which to offload baking, a never ending supply of all things American and the release of Rose's new book I thought I should breath life back into this blog.


On a yet to be defined, but mostly infrequent basis, I will be baking recipes from Rose's new book.   Rose's new book has over 100 recipes with more than 600 photos and meticulous instructions.  I am sure the icing on the top of that book will be my interpretation of those meticulous instructions.


As I flicked through the recipes, I noted a few recipes from Rose's previous books.  The name of the recipe may be scaled back, the ingredients are the same.  The layout of the recipe and instructional description is very different and of course there are all those photos.  I remember as a very new baker being quite intimidated by the lack of photos in the Cake Bible.  It was in this same book that I realized that no photos was a gift.  There was nothing to compare my version to, nothing to measure up against.  I am sure there is something very poignant in that sentence in relation to the current insta society we live in.  Moving right along, I am very curious to see how this new layout changes my baking ways.  This older dog is always keen to learn new tricks...

I have already baked two recipes from the book (and learnt a couple of new tricks).  They will be coming in blog posts very soon...


Up first : My Best Brownies closely followed by Pizza Rosa


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