Discovering the difference between raisins and currants

I'd never consciously considered it, just thought: currants...gritty...yuk...raisins and sultanas...chewy...yum. However, all is now made clear to me thanks to a new book on around the UK via its regional baking: A Slice of Britain: around the country by cake, by Caroline Taggart (AA Publishing, £14.99). It may seem obvious but raisins are made from seedless grapes, and currants are made from seeded grapes!

Baking: lemon and lavender drizzle cakes recipe

I love lavender, but I'd only used lavender essential oil in cooking (try beating a few drops in to good-quality vanilla ice cream). I'd eaten lavender-topped cakes from Konditor & Cook, and then my mum gave me some dried edible lavender designed for culinary use, and I devised this recipe to use it. They're now one of my favourite bakes – so fragrant – and other people love them too!

These mini lemon and lavender drizzle cakes, made in muffin cases, are a delicious teatime treat.

Ingredients
• 250g unsalted butter

• 225g caster sugar

• 280g self-raising flour

• 2 level tsp baking powder

• 4 large eggs

• 4tbsp milk

• finely grated rind of 2 lemons

• ½ tbsp dried lavender flowers

For the topping:
• 150g granulated sugar

• juice of 2 lemons

• 1 tsp dried lavender flowers

You will need...

16 muffin-sized paper cake cases

Preheat the oven to 150ºC/300ºF. Place paper muffin cases in a muffin tin.

Place all the cake ingredients in a large bowl and beat until well blended. Spoon into the muffin cases. 
Bake for 20-25 mins until the tops of the cakes are golden brown.

While the cakes are cooling, mix the sugar, lemon juice and lavender. While the cakes are still slightly warm, spoon the topping evenly over the cakes.

This recipe first appeared on Allaboutyou.com, where I used to work. It was a great website, with lots of top-quality content, including a few recipes by me. Unfortunately, it was closed in January 2015.

Making chocolate cake for charity

We decided to have a Macmillan Coffee Morning at work. I left it to the last minute to come up with a cake, but thanks to Nigella Lawson I found a quick and easy chocolate cake recipe.

Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake appears in How to be a Domestic Goddess and widely online. Basically you melt butter and chocolate, then stir in a jar of marmalade, eggs and sugar, then fold in flour and bake. I decorated mine with grated orange zest and a nasturtium, which is edible.

And it was very popular with my colleagues at the coffee morning, raising money for Macmillan, which was the whole point.

Baking and taking cake

On Friday I'm finally making it to an outdoor film screening. As well as an unfeasibly large pile of warm clothes, I'm baking and taking a blackberry crumble cake to enjoy with my oldest friend and her daughters. Like many of my baking sessions, this will involve going a bit freestyle. Although I haven't been making cakes for very long, I'm confident enough in my cooking to alter recipes to suit me.
The recipe I used is based on one from Hedgewizard's diary blog. I think I've made it before with apples as described, but now it's customised. Now I just have to avoid eating it before Friday...

Sew cute

Seen in the window of my local soft furnishings shop (also where I arrange to have my sewing machine serviced), this gorgeous cake decorated with a curtain tassel, reels of thread, ruler and pins. Seriously impressive.