An irish shindig with a few cupcakes for good measure

David and I arrived home from Sydney yesterday afternoon after a delightfully warm and indulgent trip.  The reality of work is with me in my lacklustre office on this chilly Monday morning hurry up summertime but my memories of the glorious engagement party we attended on Saturday are getting me through the day. 

We flew to Sydney on Thursday and grabbed a quick bite in Chinatown before heading over to several spots around Sydney to catch up with family.  David and I headed to Manly on the ferry on Friday; it was a perfectly lazy day which started off at the Guylian Belgian Chocolate café right beside the Sydney Opera House.  Check out my JUG of praline hot chocolate.  My first experience of praline hot chocolate certainly hit the mark. Ten out of ten Guylian – I’ll be back for more.

The JUG of Praline Hot Chocolate

Crusty Bread Rolls

Bread. How amazing is bread? A simple combination of flour, water, yeast and salt and voila…you have a loaf in your hands.  At the patisserie course on Saturday my hands got stuck into making these….



Leave the bread to rise



Freshly baked bread

Jaffa Choc cupcakes with Jaffa buttercream

These little Jaffa delights turned out brilliantly. Ta da!




Jaffa Choccie Goodness

Oat cookies and track pants

This week has seen an incredible effort on my part to go to the gym everyday. I’m proud (if somewhat knackered). My gym efforts are to work off the delicious desserts and good I have been savouring at my pastry chef course on a Saturday. I’ve been working out so hard my track pants have a small hole in the leg (don’t know how it happened) so that means tonight I will be gym clothes shopping.


D & I are museli bar fanatics but our cupboards were museli bar bare so I resorted to an old oat cookie recipe which I hadn’t made in ages. I was itching to bake – you know how it is. The cookies have just enough flour (gf flour) to hold them together whilst they bake. I will endeavour to make another batch, simply so I can take some pictures.

Ice Cream Sandwich’s

Today I’m thinking about Ice Cream Sandwich’s

A cracker of an ice cream sandwich I think you will agree