When I first moved to the UK, on my second day here, I discovered British book stores. They're beautiful and big, and filled from top to bottom with glossy covers. There are hundreds of different book stores - from the amazing £2 store (The Last Bookshop) in Oxford to the big brands of the market like Foyles, Waterstone's and W.H.Smith. And lo - it was good. Moving here wasn't so bad, after all.

And I bought my first cook book, too. I began baking.

It was an Australian's Women's Weekly book. The recipes, at the time, were beyond my ability and packed from cover to cover with beautiful pictures that looked like they belong on the the shelves of a la-di-dah cake store. That was two years ago. Arriving home with a baking book was like uncovering the holy grail of kitchenry, and I started a blog (which has since migrated here after my original hosting closed down) to document my progress.

So, when I decided to find a good cake recipe for the wedding, I turned to the Women's Weekly again.






















Ooh, pretty. Now, for some reason, the recipes mentioned on that image aren't the same as the ones in my book. Think: scones, cakes, tarts and sandwiches. Proper British Afternoon Tea. I also couldn't resist adding Cakes, Biscuits and Slices and The Cake Stall to my shopping basket - more on that later.

I've never particularly like scones, and I've only very recently starting sampling whipped cream - occasionally - with strawberry jam on scones/crumpets/buns. But, when I saw the recipe for Pumpkin Parmesan Scones, I knew it was time to expand my baking repertoire.






















They're not exactly wedding cake, but they were oh-so easy to make, so it was a pleasant (and rather tasty) aside whilst I mixed up Marbled Chocolate Mud Cake (which I'll show you very soon, once I've managed to take a picture of a slice without gobbling it up first!).

















The dough is crumbly, but I remember from my mom's scones that this is normal. You knead together to make a flat disc which you then cut into rounds for baking. It is a little bit squishy in places - especially if you're a little lazy with your pumpkin-mashing.
















... and a little sprinkling of parmesan and pepper goes a long way! The scones bake into a golden yellow colour (thanks to the pumpkin) and the crumbling cheese on top is deliciously baked in. Served with butter and cheese for lunch - yum!

I've typed up the recipe for you from the book, and I'd definitely recommend buying your own copy too. I got mine from Amazon for £4.33. It has a lot of good recipes in it (and also in the two other books that got packed up with it!), and I foresee many baking weekends in the Bakercourt household.

Pumpkin Parmesan Scones

30g butter, softened
1/4 cup icing sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup cold cooked mashed pumpkin
2 1/2 cups of self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/3 cup of milk
2 tablespoons finely grated parmesan cheese
pinch of cracked black pepper
pinch sea salt flakes

1. Preheat oven to 220'C and grease a cake pan/tray.
2. Beat butter, sugar and egg in a small bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Transfer mixture to a large bowl and stir in the pumpkin. Add the sifted dry ingredients and milk. Use a knife to cut the milk through the flour mixture to a soft, sticky dough. Turn dough onto floured surface, knead gently until smooth.
3. Press dough out to 2cm thickness and cut out 5cm rounds. Place rounds just touching on the cake pan/tray.
4. Brush scones with milk and sprinkle with the combined cheese, pepper and salt.
5. Bake scones for about 20 minutes and server with warm butter.
6. Scones can be frozen for up to 3 months, if you have any left. They should be thawed in the oven, wrapped in foil.

Now, I know I said I'd bake a cake for the sugar roses and share photographs with you but I was a little distracted (forgivably, I think) by these:


Can you handle your excitement at my teapot shortbread biscuits? Maybe it's just me, but there's something so very satisfying about the pastel shades of royal icing on shortbready goodness.






















I made teapots and scalloped circles, miniature heart biscuits and giant hearts. I made some cupcake-shaped biscuits as well but The Mister didn't photograph them.
















I lined the hearts with white piping icing and filled with with a soft lilac icing (you can see in the image above) but they're oh-so-nice without any filling, too.






















And just so you know that I didn't forget you all completely, I whipped up a batch of strawberry swirl sweetheart cupcakes and iced them with light strawberry buttercream. This one is topped with one of the miniature sugar roses I made this weekend.
















You can see the strawberry swirl cake here (a bit) with the layers of vanilla and strawberry sponge showing through the white cases. I used a catering-sized piping nozzle to make nice layered buttercream swirls (yum) and topped with edible roses and glitter.






















I made a selection of pink and white hearts from sugar paste as well, and sprinkled those with pearl dragees (why aren't they just called pearl balls?). I like this one best - simple, pretty and yum. As you can see, I had a bit of buttercream left over so I popped it into one of my icing squeezy bottles and popped on a star-shaped nozzle to pipe little flowers on top of the scalloped circles.






















The roses turned out very well, I think, and they're quite easy to make once you get the hang of them. I love these colours, the two-toned sponge cakes, the almost-transparent edible glitter... I think we found a wedding winner! The only thing now is to figure out how to display the cookies and cupcakes at the actual wedding. Cake stand? Pretty antique plates?

Here's my rather fool-proof sugar biscuit recipe from this website:

Shortbread sugar biscuits

So - it's official. The wedding countdown has begun. There are only 49 days until we get married. 

I've been zooting around London these last few weeks covering some interesting stories and reviewing restaurants (ah the life of a freelance journalist!), and I thought I'd share this one with you. I had to head down to Battersea this week to review Cake Boy - Eric Lanlard's patisserie and cake emporium.