A week ago or so I bought my first tub of buttermilk, despite not knowing what I was going to use it for. Since then I have spent time trawling for recipes but none of them really caught me. None of them made me want to get off the sofa (where I have generally relocated since getting the iPad) and actually make something. In the end I had a sudden craving for pancakes and it turned out to be a convenient way to use up the buttermilk, strawberries and creme fraiche I had in the fridge.
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Now please don’t take away my food blogging license – but I am going to tell you a secret. Until Friday I had never boiled an egg.

I’ve fried eggs, poached them, scrambled them, made omelettes and frittatas but I’ve never hard or soft boiled an egg.
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Yesterday in the UK the weather seemed to really turn a corner, there were blue skies, and you could feel the warmth from the sun. It was perfect and long past overdue!

I have been meaning to try these muffins for a while, originally because I thought they might give me a shot of sunshine despite there not being any really sun to speak of. However for once the recipe and the weather aligned and I got a perfect Spring muffins.
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It’s a long time till Good Friday, but these are too good to wait for! I have a special love of fruit bread, especially those spiced with cinnamon, so hot cross buns have always been a favourite of mine.

The supermarkets have been selling Hot Cross Buns since after Valentines Day, but I am yet to buy a single one. I made a promise to try to make more things myself. At Christmas I refused to buy mince pies and instead made my own – and I would never buy them again now. Why should it be any different for Hot Cross Buns?

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I am finally home, and after almost a week away there is only one thing I want. A home cooked meal, and maybe if you’ll give me a second option – some sleep!

Atlanta was wonderful and I met so many great people, including Nancy a fellow food blogger from The Dogs Eat the Crumbs. As some of you may know I am an almost anonymous blogger, so it was lovely to meet another food blogger – to be able to talk about what we do.

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Tattie Scones are thin scones made with Potatoes (or Tatties) that are perfect as a substitute for hash browns or toast in a fry up.

They are also quite good hot out of the frying pan in a roll with tomato ketchup. Back home, right beside my old high school there was an Italian Cafe that sold cheap breakfast rolls to the kids. Bacon rolls were always more expensive, so if you wanted your can of juice, a roll and a chocolate bar, you always went for the cheaper option – the Tattie Scone Roll.

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I am going to let you in on a secret, I love fruit breads! I don’t buy them often but when I do I skip my normal breafast and eat the toasted bread with the tiniest sliver of butter, my idea of heaven. So when I started flipping through my copy of Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread I was overjoyed to see so many wonderful recipes that I could try at home.

Artos Greek Celebration Bread

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So you baked your first loaves in the BBA challenge. You have two fresh loaves of beautiful bread that are wafting wonderful smells through your home, and you just want to try it. Right now. Well go on. The problem comes once you’ve had that first warm slice – what do you do with the rest of it?

A lot of people seem to make it and give one loaf to a neighbour. I wouldn’t know a neighbour of mine if I passed them on the street. Now maybe that’s a bit sad, I am sure I’d like to get to know my neighbours – but knocking on their door one night with a loaf of bread in hand may put me firmly into the crazy neighbour spectrum.
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Following on from my weekend of baking, I decided to try this recipe from For the love of cooking which was one of the first food blogs I added as an RSS feed back at the start of the year. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out you should!

Banana and Blueberry bread

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A couple of weeks ago I was given a copy of Good Housekeeping: Great Baking (the fiancee was worried I wasn’t creating enough cakes, cookies and such) and since then I have been leafing through it’s 600 recipes whenever I get the chance. Again it’s another American cookbook so the conversions are annoying but at least there is a table at the back.

Cinnamon Bun

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