Christmas is coming, wooohoooo!!! Check this festive cover out, it is gorgeous:
Brides & Bouquets
Cedarwood Lodge #2
By Rebecca Raisin
Releasing November 24
HQ Digital
Celebrations & Confetti – Rebecca Raisin
Somehow, she has done it again. Everytime Rebecca writes a book, or even a series of books (she is prolific – thank goodness, I can hardly wait as it is) and I don’t see how she can do it better or differently, she does. Rebecca’s books are my happy place. Every single one of them. I love them all. Whilst Cee Cee and Lil from the Gingerbread Cafe will always be my favourites (they were my first Rebecca Raisin books), all over the characters, settings and stories have such a place in my heart. I love them all. This book is no exception. Rebecca’s ability to write down to Earth, relatable and loveable characters amazes me. She is one of those people who just gets people. She also manages to write the type of books where you wish every single one of them was your life. I genuinely don’t know how she does it, or why you haven’t bought all of them yet.
Gianduja Gelato
(Pssst! Gianduja is basically the official name for what we call Nutella) Somehow, it is October! Which may not seem the ideal time of year to share an ice cream recipe but in my opinion there is never a bad time to eat ice cream; breakfast, lunch, dinner, January, July, November. Plus there is something very autumnal about hazelnuts and chocolate. My favourite flavour of ice cream is Hazelnut, there is nothing greater on this Earth. This recipe, however, is for Hazelnut and Dark Chocolate and is pretty damn amazing too. I will be using the method minus the chocolate to make Hazelnut Gelato. This recipe is from my ice cream oracle, David Lebovitz‘s – The Perfect Scoop but I subbed the milk chocolate for dark chocolate, just a personal choice, and make sure it is good quality chocolate with a minimum of 30% cocoa solids, whatever you choose.
Rose and Pistachio Victoria Sandwich
What a crazy summer it has been, Clinical Scientist training finished and today I registered at yet another uni to begin my PGCE. It’s been quiet on the blogging front (and even in the kitchen I am sad to say) due to finishing one training, undertaking a 3 month course ready for my next training alongside and all the fun summer brings. One particularly glorious summer’s day was spent undertaking a morning run with a friend and then guilt free brunch, endless tea and cake and lots of puppy cuddles. This was the cake I made and it was a big hit. I’d been dreaming this up in my head for some time and it was the perfect occasion. I based it on Mary Berry’s traditional Victoria sandwich recipe.
Courgette & Basil Soup
Now we live somewhere with a garden, I decided I wanted to grow my own vegetables this year. I dug up a very overgrown flower bed, bought some seeds and a small plastic green house and had a go (I did save a few seeds from vegetables we’d eaten such as squash, pumpkins and lemons). The spinach and chard are ready to be eaten and we’ve already made a start on the spinach, I’ll harvest a bunch of chard this weekend for next week. The first vegetable to really make an appearance though were the courgettes. I bought a variety seed pack, we had a couple of gorgeous pale green ones first and today I harvested a bright yellow one! It is beautiful!
The Little Antique Shop Under the Eiffel Tower
Rebecca Raisin has written a new book. THANK GOODNESS! I have been waiting for what feels like ages. It was in fact only October last year that her last book came out, ‘The Little Bookshop on the Seine‘ and the observant amongst you will remember that in May the cover of this latest book ‘The Little Antique Shop Under the Eiffel Tower’ was revealed. I haven’t ever read a Rebecca Raisin book I didn’t like love and I cannot tell you how much I enjoy the fact that they connect, all the stories from the Gingerbread Cafe, the Bookshop on the Corner and the Maple Syrup Farm, in Ashford, Connecticut to Paris and this treasure of an Antique shop with its mysterious owner Anouk all are linked in some way. They stand alone but the real magic is in having read them all.
Mille Feuille
Ah, mille feuille, my love affair with these started in Geneva, as all good love affairs should. Actually, I lie, it was just over the border from Geneva in a little village called Prévessin-Moëns, France. I was there with a friend, spending the week at CERN on “work experience”, as all good physics nerds do. My gosh we had THE BEST week: the walk each morning through the fields, over the French-Swiss border, looking at Mont Blanc in the beautiful October sunshine and ending the week with a chocolate fuelled tour of Geneva. Take me back.
Our walk to and from work, pictured here in the evening light.
