I have a confession

Baking is a little therapeutic for me. I may convert the kitchen to absolute chaos every time I enter it (the baking that follows resulted in a sink full of glucose syrup and a broken candy thermometer...), but the process of creating things out of sweet stuff is absolutely calming for me.

Pretty much, when I'm baking, I like to listen to things like this:

Pretend I have a kitchen like this:


And make things like this:

Frankie recipe: Cream Caramels

Oh. And like this:

Chocolate and vanilla shortbread

Happy Wednesday everyone!

xCB

Sweet treats recipe: Shuku Shuku

I have to say when I first read the recipe for these sweet Nigerian cookies I was a little skeptical. Consisting of only caster sugar, egg yolk and desiccated coconut (plus flour and icing sugar for rolling) they didn't sound like anything too special.

I was pleasantly mistaken!

These little gems are super tasty, a little chewy, and SO easy to make. Simply mix 60 grams of caster sugar, 3 egg yolks and 80 grams of desiccated coconut into a firm dough-like consistency, work into marble sized balls, roll in a little self raising flour and bake on greaseproof paper for 10-15 minutes until golden. Once they've cooled you roll them again, this time in icing sugar.

And the very best thing? They take about 25 minutes to bake all up, and I only made 3 dishes the entire time. Going to have to remember these ones...

xCB

Sweet treats from my childhood

Last week I finally made it into The Yellow Brick Road and was SUPER excited to find this amazing book - Sweet Treats by Frankie Magazine.

Filled with well written, easy to follow recipes of old school sugary treats (including candy hearts, marshmallow cones, and honey joys...!) as well as being illustrated with beautiful photos and fabric prints to make me wish I was living in the 50s, I had to buy it. Not to mention it has the same name as my blog!

Since having a flick through I've taken it upon myself to make all 39 recipes by the year's end. With 49 weeks left I'm sure that will be more than doable, allowing for study/assignment breaks, laziness, and of course other exciting baking adventures.

This evening I got started by making two of the simpler recipes - Coconut Ice and Chocolate Crackles. Both of these scream childhood to me, and eating them (a girl has to taste test, after all...) reminded me of school galas and pony rides.

Sugary sweet!

Coconut ice

Chocolate Crackles

Can't wait for my next trip down memory lane!

x CB