Cranberry and pear loaf

For this month's Stamford Clandestine Cake Club, the theme was 'C is for Christmas, cake, and...' I couldn't help but want to share the recipe for cranberry and pear muffins with the group, but obviously couldn't make muffins. So I crossed my fingers, made the mix, bunged it all in a loaf tin and hoped for the best.

It turned out really well, very tasty, and everyone approved. It didn't have the lightness of the muffins, and I ran out of icing sugar so it didn't have as much as it should have, but I was quite pleased.

I also made a Christmas tree out of Renshaw's sugar paste. I learned this technique while at the CCC 3rd birthday bash up in Liverpool at the weekend. A lovely lady from Renshaw gave us a demonstration on how to make an icing Christmas tree and I was excited to try it out. Easier that I thought it would be, it made a cute addition to my cake. Thank you, Renshaw, for the skills!

The cake at the CCC birthday bash was amazing - featuring models of founder Lynn Hill and three other founding cake club organisers. It was a great afternoon, spent eating lots of cake and meeting other organisers and members from around the country.

Read my guest post on the CCC website: Why we love Christmas cake

Cranberry and pear muffins

We went to a friend's 30th birthday party last month, where said friend got a little bit merry. At midnight, she decided we should pick some pears from the tree in their garden. In the pitch darkness, I managed to pick about 10 pears, but goodness know how. They weren't even ripe, and only became edible last week. They turned quite suddenly, so I needed to find a fun recipe to use some up. Cranberry and pear muffins sounded perfect. I'm entering these into the Calendar Cakes December blog challenge, hosted by the fabulous Dolly Bakes and Laura Loves Cakes.

These are quite festive and Christmassy, you could even decorate them with fresh cranberries and some foliage to look like holly.

300g self-raising flour
1/2tsp bicarb
150g caster sugar
2/3tsp mixed spice
2 eggs, beaten
100ml yoghurt
75ml milk
100g marg, melted and cooled a bit
3 pears, peeled, cored, and diced
60g dried cranberries

Preheat the oven to 200C (180C fan). Line a 12-hole muffin tin (I used some fancy muffin cases from last year's Good Food Show).
Mix the flour, bicar, sugar, and spice and sift into a big bowl
Combine eggs, yoghurt, milk, and butter. Add the pears and cranberries.
Stir the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
Spoon into the muffin cases
Bake for about 20 minutes.
Decorate with a little plain icing and a few dried cranberries.

Gym biscuits

Today was my first real workout at the gym since before my hip surgery last year. Needless to say, I'm somewhat knackered now! But in a good way. Luckily, to ease the pain of all that exercise, I have some home-made chocolate and cranberry biscuits to hand.

I used half plain chocolate and half plain chocolate with orange and spices (using up leftover ingredients) and the spice is a little overpowering, but still yummy. Possibly should have flattened them more before baking to get them flatter and looking more like biscuits...