Into the kitchen ...

It was with trepidation that I made my first foray (for a long time) into our kitchen as solo chef (as opposed to assisitant, photographer, or general nuisance), to test out a recipe from one of my new recipe books: "500 Cupcakes", which was an impulse purchase from Peters of Kensington.

I used the recipe for the Raspberry and Coffee Muffins, but as we didn't have any raspberries, I improvised and made Strawberry, Date and Coffee Muffins instead.

I had my "finished" batter and it was all going smoothly till I realised I had a block of untouched butter on the bench...the book listed butter as an ingredient, but then made no mention of it in the method section!! So I had to melt it up and add it to my ready batter. I also wasnt sure how much they would rise when they were cooking, so I didnt put as much batter in each cupcake as I could have. Still, was all good.

Even my mum was impressed - and she is a tough judge!