A Weekend of Baking...Baked raspberry and lemon cheesecake

As a present for friends birthday, I decided to make a baked lemon and raspberry cheesecake, perfect for the lovely summer we have had already this year. When I showed the recipe to my mum, she looked so put out that I wasn't making one for her, I decided to make two, one to give away and one to keep. I also haven't made many cheesecakes before but as I have been very good recently, I was looking forward to trying one out to see how it would taste!

The first thing I have found that you have to get over with cheesecakes is the amount of full fat dairy that you have to use! However, I have never been one to shy away from butter, so it was a definite yes from me! The second is when you remove it from the oven, unlike a cake, a practically liquid appearance is normal! With the recipe I used, you cook the cake for 45 minutes at 120C, then turn the oven off and leave it for an hour. After that take it out of the oven and leave it to cool further, then one it is completely cool, put it in the fridge. Throughout all these stages of cooling, the cheesecake will start to firm up from the outside inwards and at the end of its chilling time it will resemble a cheesecake you will recognise! You need time to make a cheesecake. I would say if you wanted to serve this as a dessert on Saturday evening, make it either on Thursday night or Friday morning to make sure that you give enough time to set completely.

The Base Top Tip: When you have mixed your crushed digestives with the melted butter, start to press it into the base with the back of a spoon. When you have got it mostly flat, use a masher to compact the crumbs even more, get right into the sides and make it completely flat. This will help to keep it in one piece when you slice it to serve.

When you fold in the raspberries, squish them slightly against the side of the bowl so that they start to release their colour into the mixture.

Once you are ready to serve your cheesecake, remove from the loose bottomed tin and remove the paper. You may want to leave the paper on the bottom on the plate as it's not like you can turn it over to peel it off! Just make sure that you don't serve it to your guests. Sprinkle over the reserved Raspberries and then dust liberally with icing sugar and you will have a fabulously light, summery dessert bursting with juicy berries.

Tip: I found that this cheesecake leaked, a lot! I would suggest serving it in in one helping as nobody wants a leaky cheesecake sitting around! Despite that it does taste delicious and if you want to have a go, this link will take you to the BBC Good Food website.

Dunlem Mill - Candy Rose

Whilst in Dunelm Mill yesterday shopping for an ironing board and iron for The Nest (I know, I know how to live!) I stumbled across their Candy Rose range that I hadn't seen before. They had some really gorgeous pieces for the kitchen, home and also the bathroom, but I was particularly drawn to all of the gorgeous colours and patterns on the pieces for the kitchen and also at how reasonably priced everything was. Have a look at some of my favourite pieces below, and next time you're there, I would definitely recommend going to have a look.

Blue Batter Jug - £9.99

Blue wavy rectangular roaster tray - £4.99

Large Mixing bowl - £9.99

Set of 2 Hanging tags - £3.99

(No, I don't know what you'd do with them either but they're so cute!)

Rectangular Roaster - £6.99

Ceramic Rolling Pin - £14.99

Country Living bookazines

I recently purchased two Country Living bookazines, entitled 'Handmade style' and 'Create your own Country Home'. Both are 292 pages of glossy beautiful photographs, brilliant articles, excellent sourcebooks and useful tips on how to create your own dream home no matter what you budget. Avid readers of the magazine may notice some repeats in the photographs or the articles, but for the casual reader I would definitely recommend these fantastic magazines to keep as they encompass all areas of styling and decorating a country home.

I've picked some of my favourite spreads below to show the fantastic photography, articles and layouts, perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon read out in the garden.

How to guides show what to do with fabric scraps or an old battered suitcase

Beautiful photography highlights colour schemes, household items or beautiful florals and how to use them in your own space.

Decorating ideas give you tips on how to use colour, fabric and texture to create your perfect look

Articles on english craftspeople who take you inside their studios and show you how they create their beautiful pieces

Gorgeous layouts and complimentary photography to tempt you in to each article

Gorgeous inspiration pages for each room in your house

A Day Trip to Oxford

My friend decided that for her Birthday she wanted to take a day trip to Oxford, so that is what we did! We drove to the Park & Ride at Peartree, and the got the bus from there (I would really recommend this as parking and driving around Oxford is notoriously difficult, plus you get to see some of the lovely houses for a bit of a snoop on your way in!) 

Once there we didn’t really have a plan, and set off for a wander around all of the fabulous buildings including the Bodelian Library, Radcliffe Camera, Ashmolean museum and the English version of the Bridge of Sighs, Hertford Bridge.

I have never really spent any time in Oxford, and to get the opportunity to have a wander and look at all of the fabulous buildings. Usually you can go in and have a look around the colleges, but we found that some of them were in the middle of the end of year celebrations, and saw several students wandering blearily around dressed in their robes and garbed in silly string!

There are also some fabulous shops in Oxford including Blackwells bookshop, a haven for anything wordy, a great artshop containing an excellent selection of prints and art and design books, a great covered market selling everything from leather satchels to the catch of the day and The Grand Cafe, England's first coffee house according to Samuel Pepy's Diary of 1650. It really is an amazing looking tea room however unfortunately we were too full to partake, but pressing our noses up against the windows, the baked goods looked amazing!

Birthday Baking...Summer Sausage Rolls, Chicken and Sausagemeat Pies and Chocolate and Cherry Birthday Cake

I had a few days off before my birthday this year, and the majority of my time seemed to be taken up with baking, which was fantastic! However I did manage to fit in a few other things such as a spot of shopping, a trip to Oxford and No.1 Court tickets to Wimbledon!

I had quite a varied menu to prepare for, I made Summer Sausage Rolls and Millionaire’s Shortbread to take into work, individual chicken and sauasagemeat pies to take in my picnic to Wimbledon and my Chocolate and Cherry Birthday cake for Sunday afternoon tea along with more sausage rolls and sultana scones.

Summer Sausage Rolls

I found this recipe on the BBC Good Food website and I can thoroughly recommend it. In fact I made a quantity and a half to make sure that there were enough to go around and to completely use up a pack of puff pastry. The flavours are fantastic and only improve the day after baking. Don’t be tempted to put more than one clove of garlic in even if you make a quantity an a half, otherwise the flavour will overwhelm all of the other lovely ingredients. The inclusion of the sundried tomatoes and basil is great and adds a lovely summery fresh flavour. You may think that the rolls may be such a different texture to a sausage roll that you may be used to, but once the chicken and bacon has been diced, it melds into a great texture. One final tip, make sure that you make enough for everyone as it is impossible to eat just one of these!

Individual Chicken and Sausagemeat Pies

For the last couple of years my mum has used a fantastic recipe for a Christmas pie that always goes down fantastically hot or cold. I always enjoy it at that time of year so I was keen to see if I could adapt the recipe so that it could be used all year round. I decided to omit all of the fruit and keep just the chicken and seasoned sausage meat mixed with softened red onions. I bought individual pie dishes from Lakeland (If you want to make a proper double-crusted pie, a metal pie dish is essential) as I thought that their individual size would make them perfect to take on a picnic. I used shortcrust pastry on the bottom, a layer of sausage, then chicken, then sausage then a puff pastry lattice lid. Individual pies obviously take a slightly shorter time to cook than a large pie, so keep an eye on them if you are adapting a larger pie recipe. I worked from the large recipe and found I had enough sausage but too much chicken and pastry, so I will need to work on my quantities for next time I make these. I already have ideas for all sorts of individual pie treats including steak and ale and chicken, ham and leek!

Chocolate and Cherry Cake

As has now become a bit of a tradition over the last few years, my yearly birthday cake as usual had to be something spectacular! I decided to steer away from a sugarpaste covered cake from the last few years, and once more delved into my favourite Mich Turner cookery book and chose a chocolate and cherry cake covered with ganache and decorated with fresh cherries. The cherries used in the cake are soaked in vintage port overnight, and then folded gently into the mixture. The cake comes out of the oven looking almost like a brownie with a papery cracked top, but fantastically flat so great for decorating! The recipe stated to use a ganache buttercream to put onto the cake as a crumb coat first of all, but I thought that might be a bit of overkill, so I stuck with just using the ganache to decorate it.

Tips for working with Ganache: When recipes mention pouring ganache over cakes, it always fills me with trepidation, and because of this I have never actually tried it. I find you get exactly the same effect by allowing the ganache to cool and using a palette knife to spread it over the cake. You get the same shine and the same finish, but without the heartbreak of losing some of it to your counter and your sponge cloth. 

I always try and leave cake and ganache separately overnight before putting the two together. If when you come to spread it over the cake, your ganache is too hard, put the glass bowl over a pan of boiling water poured from the kettle. Keep stirring and watch carefully until it gets to the desired consistency. If it goes too far, don’t worry, let it cool down a bit, better to be too runny than too hard or it will pull crumbs out of your cake. 

When working with ganache, dollop a large amount on the top on the cake, and then using the palette knife carefully spread it and work it down over the sides, this way you wont be in any danger of dropping a dollop on the counter and it can be more controlled.

When piping, the ganache needs to be a little harder. Do not waste money on a fancy piping bag holder, a tall glass will do the job just fine. Add the desired nozzle to the bag, put the bag in the glass, fold the sides over the top and voila, a piping bag stand! 

The Nest - Velux Window and Tab Top Curtains

In my new apartment, we have a mixture of Velux and normal windows. For ease of use and visual interest, we have decided to go for blinds at three windows, tab top curtains for the easy to reach windows and also curtains on the Velux windows. These will be completed by fixing a metal cafe rod to the top and bottom of each of the windows, and sliding curtains curtains onto the poles so that they slide open and closed, with ties on the back to keep them open. 

I roped my expert curtain maker (my mum!) in to help with this project (she's amazing at turning my every fabric whim into reality) 

The below photos show the process of making the curtains for the velux windows, whist the photo on the bottom shows hand sewing the cream pompoms onto the bottom of the tab top curtains. These pompoms will also feature on the blackout blinds that we plan to use in the kitchen, landing and study.

Making the ties for the back of the Velux window curtains

Attaching the ties to the back of the Velux curtains

Measuring and pinning the curtains

Pinning the pockets for the cafe rods to slide through

Hand sewing the pompon trim to the bottom of the tab top curtains