A roasting tray lined with foil and covered with mostly whole, hulled frozen Strawberries that I grew in the garden last year and froze for later use.

An 8” square of Strawberry Cheesecake, decanted from the tin in which the base was baked, and placed on a dark chopping board.

A side-on shot of the of whole cheesecake before I start cutting into it. The buttery biscuit base is maybe 1cm thick and the cheesecake layer is several cm thick, topped with nuggets of pie crumb.

Having sliced into the cheesecake I’ve cut off a wedge to scoff right now.

🍓 Used up the remaining batch of frozen Strawberries from last season, in anticipation of fresh 🍓 coming soon.

Made my usual Strawberry Cheesecake with a baked buttery biscuit base, roasted Strawberry pulp slathered on/rippled through, topped with pie crumb.

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

The squares of sliced up Brownies are seen in the background, but a hand holds up one square closer to the camera so we can see the crusty top, squidgy middle, and smooth baked bottom.

🍰 Tada! We got a result. One squidgy Brownie, as ordered. I seriously doubt that these will last very long 😝

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

An 8” square tin lined with greaseproof paper that has been clipped down on all four sides. The brownie batter has been poured in and filled out to the sides, smoothed off on top.

After baking the brownie mix has formed a crust on top, still in the same 8” square tin.

The baked brownies have been decanted onto a white chopping board and cut into about 16 square-ish pieces.

🍰 The mix was by now quite thick when I scraped it out into my prepared tin, which I baked for just shy of half an hour.

I really wanted them to come out squidgy rather than cakey, so I timed it slightly short. A skewer came out clean so I next sliced in…

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

A silver bowl filled with a whisked up sugar and egg mixture. Next to it sits a Pyrex bowl filled with a melted chocolate and butter mixture, slightly cooled.

I’ve now stirred the melted chocolate and butter mixture into the large silver bowl and stirred it around with the yellow spatula that’s sticking out of the mixture.

Next I folded in the dry ingredients - flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt - to form a thick chocolatey sludge, still in the main silver mixing bowl.

🍰 Decided to bake some basic Brownies with a few ingredients that needed using up.

Prepared a wet mix with some melted chocolate ⬅️ which I stirred in ↗️ before folding in the dry ingredients ↘️

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

🍪 I was so utterly delighted with these Biscoff Sandwich Biscuits that I decided to have another go with the remaining Biscoff Spread.

Learnings from last time meant I filled them fuller and dunked them in much more liquid melted 🍫 for a better finish.

Nom!

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

4 loaves of Irish soda bread

Today, baking Irish soda bread, yum. two more loaves to go... :)

#ambaking #irishsodabread

A yellow plate placed on a table and stacked high with sandwich biscuits with a cream filling and a chocolate coating on half.

🍪 I almost forgot to enrobe them in some melted 🍫 and sprinkle some Biscoff Biscuit dust on the sticky end as it set 🤦‍♂️

Still working on getting a good liquid chocolate to dunk things in. Tried some sunflower oil this time as it was too thick otherwise.

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

A yellow plate placed on a dark chopping board, filled with completed Biscoff Sandwich Cookies - two biscuits with a buttercream and Biscoff cream filling.

🍪 Tada! A plate full of Biscoff Sandwich Cookies!

Spiced biscuit cookies sandwiched together with a Biscoff Buttercream filling.

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

A yellow plate sat on a dark chopping board, filled with multiple layers of freshly baked cookies mounded up in a heap.

A clear Pyrex bowl filled with Buttercream. A couple of large dollops of Biscoff Spread have been added to the top, about to be mixed in.

A dark chopping board covered with paired biscuits, one facing up the other facing down. Some of the biscuits have a snake of Biscoff Buttercream and a dollop of Biscoff Spread added into the middle, and a few biscuits have been paired and squished together.

🍪 Baked all of the biscuits in batches, mixed up a bowl of buttercream which I added into a piping bag before piping out snakes of Biscoff Buttercream. Finally popped bonus Biscoff into the hole in the middle.

Squidged the biscuits together to fill them out.

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

Six baked cookies sat on a sheet of greaseproof paper inside a baking tray. The cookies are flat and golden, and crucially didn’t merge together. Winning!

A vegan cookie dough - sugar, oil, water, flour, cinnamon - in a silver mixing bowl. It has been chilled for a few hours and looks quite moist, which is perfect for rolling out.

Six round balls of biscuit dough, all the same size because they’ve been measure out, arranged in two rows on a sheet of greaseproof paper sat inside a baking tray, ready to go into the oven.

🍪 Okay, I left the dough ↗️ to chill for a while, but wanted to crack on with my plan.

Weighed out 30g balls ↘️ chilled harder in the freezer for 10min, then baked for ~15min ⬅️

I’m staggering them in batches and I’ll find out how many I can make shortly…

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

🍪 Planned to bake some sandwich biscuits today. Reading the recipe beforehand reveals… “cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight.”

😐

Unlikely to get a full overnight set on the biscuit dough mix. Will give them as long as I can.

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

A silver mixing bowl sat on a dark chopping board, filled with Macaron mix which has been mixed with the yellow spatula stuck into the mix.

A lined baking tray filled with small blobs of piped Macaron mix with a small amount of space between each blob.

A plastic measuring bowl filled with chocolate ganache that has been blended with a handheld stick blender. The business end of the blender sits half out of the chocolate mix in the bowl, a big glob of it stuck to the whizzer end.

A small pile of chocolate filled Macarons, dusted with cocoa powder, placed on a dark chopping board while they are being moved into a storage container.

🍪 Attempted to make some Chocolate Ganache filled Macarons for the first time.

Unfortunately mistakes were made, baking was botched, but lessons were learned.

Still, I got a large batch of bite-sized morsels to shove in my gob, so I cannot complain too much!

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

A silver mixing bowl filled with roughly mixed cookie dough. A yellow spatula is sitting inside the bowl to help me extract some of the mix to shape into palm sized balls.

A hand holding a weighed out portion of cookie dough above the mixing bowl. An array of Biscoff Balls are sat on greaseproof paper to the right, in the background. A thumb-sized hole has been pressed into the cookie dough and one of the Biscoff Balls has been placed into the middle of the cookie dough ball.

A clear plastic tub filled with prepared cookie dough balls, ready for freezing overnight.

🍪 Froze some balls of Biscoff Spreads for a few hours while I prepared some Cookie Dough - using Milk Chocolate drops instead of White Chocolate after my failure ☝️

Wrapped my Biscoff Balls 🤭 in Cookie Dough, which I’m now freezing overnight.

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

🍪 Was planning on trying to caramelise some white chocolate to make some cookies. However, it did not go according to plan!

I’ve had trouble melting this white chocolate before, with it simply ‘seizing’. Recipe mentions this when baking it, but mine split 🫤

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

A dark chopping board on a white kitchen worktop. The “S’mores Brownie” cake has been decanted from the square tin, base and greaseproof lining removed, to sit on its own. It is ready to be cut into cubes.

A wooden chopping board placed on a table and covered in cubes of sliced “S’mores Brownie”.

A slightly closer in shot of the sliced up “S’mores Brownie” which finally reveals the fudge brownie layer that is a total delight to scoff.

🍰 Finally added a Chocolate Ganache and crumbled digestive biscuit layer on top to finish things off.

Decanted from the tin it reveals a weighty slab of delight that’s awkward to cut. I did my best and ended up with cubes of biscuit-based squidgy-brownie & meringue.

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

The baked brownie tin is on the left, while the metal mixing bowl has been filled with an Italian Meringue mix that is forming stiff peaks on the whisk that is being held over the mixing bowl.

The Italian Meringue mix has been scooped out of the mixing bowl and spread across the top of the baked brownie layer in the square tin.

Finally some chocolate ganache has been drizzled in a haphazard manner over the meringue, and crumbled digestive biscuit dotted about the top of the cake.

🍰 Next I added an Italian Meringue layer on top of the baked Brownie layer.

This needs egg white whipped up while I pour in a sugar/glucose/water mix heated to 118ºC, then whipped until cool.

Forms a stiff peaks mass that’s hard to get off implements. Licked a few 🥄

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

An 8” square pan on the left, lined with greaseproof paper that is clipped around the edges, filled with a buttery crushed biscuit layer that has been pressed flat inside the tin. On the right is a metal bowl with a lightly mixed chocolate brownie mix, with the edges scraped down.

The 8” square tin has now been filled with the raw brownie mix.

After baking the tin has a risen brownie within it, and is placed on a wire rack for cooling. A few cracks have emerged around the edges of the brownie crust.

🍰 Baking a “S’mores Brownie” cake.

First I prepared a buttery biscuit base with some Digestives, then made a brownie mix that I poured on top before baking in the oven for 30mins.

Thought I’d over baked it, but it eventually came out all fudgy and squidgy 👇🤤👌

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

A white chopping board placed on a table, filled with Chocolate biscuits sandwiching a Marshmallow and Raspberry Jam fillling, with half of the biscuit enrobed in chocolate that has now set.

🍪 Not sure how long these will last 🤔

A few things to try again - I didn’t have enough liquid glucose in-stock so had to scale down the Marshmallow ingredients. Then I was far too reserved while piping blobs onto the biscuits, so I had plenty leftover 🤦‍♂️

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

A round of chocolate pastry rolled out between two sheets of greaseproof paper.

Smaller rounds of dough are cut out using an 8cm cookie cutter, as seen on the left here, then placed on the waiting baking sheet on the right, which is now full with 6 biscuits.

A white chopping board filled with stacks and piles of cooked chocolate biscuits.

The biscuits have been separate out into pairs (one upside down to receive the filling). In the foreground a silver mixing bowl is full of freshly made Marshmallow. A hand is holding the whisk above the bowl to demonstrate the stiff peaks of glossy mallow.

🍪 Baked some “Mallow Wheels” today.

Rolled out some Chocolate Pastry, then used a cookie cutter to make individual rounds of dough.

Once baked I filled pairs with a dollop of freshly made Marshmallow, piped in some Raspberry Jam, then dipped in melted 🍫

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

A loaf of cake placed on a cooling rack position on a white kitchen worktop. The top of the cake is decorated with many thin, round ribbons of smooth dark chocolate, and Pistachio nuts are dotted on top.

🍰 Baked a Brown Butter and Pistachio Loaf, using a ‘grass’ nozzle on the piping bag for the first time. This was for the Chocolate Honey Chantilly and Pistachio topping that I’ve applied 🍫

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

A dark jar of vanilla bean paste placed on a dark chopping board. The jar is opened, with the lid on the right, partially covered with a blue plastic spatula that has streaks of paste over it where I’ve been trying to scrape out the bottom of the jar.

🥄 TFW you realise your jar of vanilla bean paste is basically empty after you’ve mixed up the rest of the cake batter 😐

I scraped out what I could.

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

🍰 Actively trying to avoid baking my next cake since I still have several of these bad boys to scoff 🤢

I do have recipes picked out, and I’ve made some fresh almond flour from whole almonds. Hazelnuts to do later too…

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking (sort of, nearly, thinking about it) 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

A wooden chopping board placed on a table, covered with 11 finished Tahini and Chocolate Cupcakes - cupcakes with two different flavours of Swiss Meringue Buttercream and a shard of Sesame Brittle piercing the top of the cream.

🧁 Tada! The finished result. I might have tried one of them, in case you notice that there’s a gap! 🤭

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

The 12 cupcakes are in the baking tray and have now been covered in Chocolate Buttercream using a star-shaped nozzle on the piping bag. This sits on a dark chopping board upon a white kitchen worktop.

After the Chocolate Buttercream I added some Tahini Buttercream as well. It was difficult to judge how much to apply to not run out and also to use it all up.

Sesame Brittle spread out on a sheet of greaseproof paper, then rippled with zig-zagging lines of dark chocolate.

🧁 Once I had the two differently flavoured Swiss Meringue Buttercreams. Chocolate Buttercream on first ⬅️ topped with Tahini Buttercream ↗️

Then I prepared some Sesame Brittle with two different types of sesame seed and some more melted chocolate ⬅️

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

A tray of 12 baked Cupcakes on a dark chopping board on a white kitchen worktop. One of the cupcakes has exploded a bit outside the hole that it’s in.

A hand holding up a whisk covered in stiff meringue from a metal mixing bowl filled with the remainder of the Swiss meringue.

Melted chocolate has been mixed into a portion of the Swiss Meringue Buttercream. The chocolate covered whisk is in the top-left of the chopping board that it’s all sitting on, and a yellow spatula is poking out behind the bowl.

🧁 Made some “Tahini and Chocolate Cupcakes” ☺️

After I’d baked the cupcakes themselves ⬅️ I made some Swiss Meringue ↗️ then transformed that into buttercream, split it into two bowls and added melted chocolate to one bowl ↘️ with tahini flavouring the other.

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

Freshly removed from the oven, the baked cake is still sat in its cake tin on a wire rack, placed on a white kitchen worktop.

The outer springform cake tin has been removed and the round baked cake placed on a white chopping board, set on a white kitchen worktop.

A slice of cake has been cut, placed on a small yellow plate with a dollop of bonus lemon curd, and placed on a table ready to be scoffed.

🍰 Mmmm, cake ☺️

This bake came out goooood! Tastes moist, lemony and means I’m all set for a Sunday afternoon ‘cake coma’ 👋😛✌️ Laters!

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

A 23cm round cake tin lined with greaseproof paper, placed on a white kitchen worktop, and filled with a thick cake batter.

Three glass bowls arranged in a pyramid shape on a white kitchen worktop. The cake tin with the cake batter has been slathered with half of the lemon curd from another bowl off to the right. The third bowl at the top contains the crumbly streusel mixture.

The prepared cake tin - lined, filled with batter, slathered with lemon curd, topped with a streusel rubble - ready to go into the oven for an hour. Placed on a white kitchen worktop.

🍰 I’m making a Lemon Cake with a streusel topping today.

Prepared the batter in a round tin, smeared the top with some Lemon Curd that I had made from scratch in advance, and then topped that with the streusel rubble.

Into the oven it goes… 🤞🥹🤞

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

🍰 Inspired recently by @rainbowofcrazy.bsky.social to use yoghurt instead of cream, I baked an Orange Loaf Cake since I had some thick Natural Yoghurt in the fridge and an orange.

I used 🍊 zest in the batter and juice for the sugar syrup that I soaked the cake in.

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️

A golden brown loaf of bread on a dark chopping board.

🍞 Baked a little loaf in a small Pullman Bread Tin. Haven’t quite worked out how much dough that I need to fully fill it. Building up cautiously.

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️ #BreadSky 🍞

A long and narrow oval of baked bread, placed on a dark chopping board on a white kitchen worktop. The loaf has several fissures along the top where it has cracked during baking.

🥖 Decided to try using my large ‘Pullman Bread Pan’ instead of the usual round cast iron pot (as a kind of Dutch Oven).

I dont know how much dough I need to fill it, so this was an experiment which produced a pleasing oval loaf.

👨‍🍳 #AmBaking 😋 #FoodSky #Food 🍽️ #BreadSky 🍞