Lemon drizzle cupcakes

I've been experimenting! No, not the Dr Frankenstein type of experimenting - well not unless he moved on from creating human life from a jigsaw of deceased spare parts to baking! I've been trying to combine all the lovely, lemony-ness of a drizzle cake with a cupcake. I was aiming for lemon sherbet style intensity with the lovely moistness you get from a drizzle cake. The above is my first attempt.

The result? I'm still working on it but when I get a recipe that works you'll be the first to hear about it. This was a nice cupcake and very popular with Project A (although cat botherer just wanted to lick the icing off) but didn't really have the lemon hit I was aiming for. Think I was a bit shy of putting too much lemon in. I had a bad experience once with a lemon pasta dish - like eating rubber bands dressed in washing up liquid! For my next experiment I'm going to up the lemon stakes and add lemon juice to the sponge mix.

I'll post something next week when I've had a chance to get back in the lab! Don't forget you can still hold a Strawberry Tea to raise money for one's lovely employer (they don't pay me to say that!) Breast Cancer Care. Find out more at www.breastcancercare.org.uk/strawberry

Do you need a reason to bake?

Well if you do this may not be the right blog for you! However, if you want to feel less guilt about a devotion to baking. My employer, the charity Breast Cancer Care, has a fantastic fundraiser which runs across the summer months. Stawberry Tea encourages people to have a party to raise money for people affected by breast cancer. This year we are calling on Queens of Cakes and Domestic Goddesses up and down the country to host a Strawbery Tea party. You bake the cakes and then charge your guests (friends, family work colleagues) to eat them. There is also a brilliant pack full of great ideas you can get hold of at http://bit.ly/ezR4tv

Now in the spirit of a flood blog I wouldn't recommend anything I hadn't tried myself, so me and some of my lovely colleagues did a bit of baking and Breast Cancer Care's central office hosted their own Strawberry Tea this week. My contibution - scones (see above). There was lots of great baking on show including some gorgeous rose cupcakes and a LOT of strawberries. Plus a human fruit machine (you may have to have been there), a strawberry shy and a personal favourite of the Publishing team - guess the weight of the cake competition - which we won!

It's a great event is you like to bake and a lot of fun, plus a great cause.

What happened to the last 20 months!?

After promising myself I would keep my blog up to date - I managed to completely break that promise and not look at my poor, neglected blog for 20 months! The perfect mouthful has been starved! Well I'm back - I hope. The baby is now a very active 22 months old and I should have been happy when she was just having milk back in my early blog days as she now routinely rejects everything I cook, and has taken her sister's place as a cat botherer. My now six year old has ceased to cat bother and has said pets contentedly sleeping on her bed - lets call her Project A - actually me and her dad do call her that! Such cruel parents. Husband is still denied the baked alaska - you have to keep the mystery alive somehow. Hopefully in the days and weeks to come they'll be some pictures of food (mainly cake) and the odd receipe and less of me whittering on.