Category: Miscellaneous

Find below some pictures of what we offer for a “freezer fill” service- these delightful pictures were taken yesterday by Paul Johnson of Copper Mango Photography,

After a long and busy week, at last I have had a chance to sit down and put fingers to keyboard. The week began with an invite to join up with some fellow Edinburgh Cake Ladies- Lea Harris (@BakersBunny), Susan MacNaughton (@2edinburgh) and Alison Leslie (@EdinburghCake)- we all sat and chatted whilst Lea baked a cake for BBC Kitchen Café. The show can be heard on Wednesday 23rd May at 1.15pm on Radio Scotland.

Whilst Lea recorded her whisking, mixing and described the smells and texture of her cake, we quietly chatted and ate wonderful Fennel pollen and cheese scones.

While Lea’s cake was in the oven, Gillian popped across to have a chat with us, and Alison, claiming to be shy, decided not to speak, so Susan and I chatted about Edinburgh Cake ladies, it was great fun to take part in a conversation with such delightful companions.

On Tuesday I got a call from a friend to ask if I had ever respectfully catered – she asked if I would be able to cater for the tea after a family funeral. It was the first time I’d done this, so I was a little bit nervous but I was delighted to help out and glad I was able to.

I spent the rest of the day carefully planning the tea and baking – the next day was going to be a busy cake day, since I had 4Networking in the morning. I was planning to bake a carrot cake, banana loaf, walnut and fruit loaf, Gluten Free Corn bread and raspberry cakes. One of our group is cycling from Edinburgh to London raising money for Mind – to read more his planned trip and how to help, visit http://www.biggestjourney.com/ From now until Stuart sets off, I will be helping to raise funds for his cause.

I also had Edinburgh Cake Ladies event on Wednesday – the event title was Towers of Traybake- I was planning on baking a coffee cake with pecans.

After an early morning networking meeting, I did the shopping for the funeral tea, dropped off the crockery and checked the final numbers- the weather was terrible and was set to get wetter. Soup was the answer- in this case, lentil soup and sweetcorn chowder. I also had chocolate cake to make and my coffee cake to ice.

I headed off to the Edinburgh Cake ladies event – read more about the event at http://edinburghcakeladies.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/evening-report-towers-of-terrific-tray-bakes/ – it was a great night.

The next morning was a busy one, spent making sweet scones and savoury dill scones, served with smoked salmon. With all the dishes ready, I packed up the car just as the heavens opened. I was to arrive just after the family left to get set up for them returning. I was glad I had suggested soup to be served when everyone returned- they all appreciated the mugs of lentil soup, and the tea went off well.

Saturday was a big day – it had little to do with food, as it was the Scottish Cup final, Hibs versus Hearts- my family are long-standing Hearts fans – dad and I have had season tickets at Tynecastle for a long time. We headed off to Glasgow just after 9am; we where meeting my brother in Glasgow he was getting the train down from Pitlochry. Dad and I arrived in Glasgow and head to find somewhere for coffee – John Lewis dad was impressed with the selection of scone, I had fruit and he had treacle the nerves where kicking in. We met my brother and head to Hampden, my brother and I where feeling very nervous. The atmosphere was amazing both sets of fans had turned up, to get behind their team.

90 minutes later Hearts had won 5-1, my brother and I headed back to my mums for dinner, she had to make her and dads dinner stretch to feed us all we then headed out to the pub, where we were lucky enough to watch Chelsea win the Champions League.

The last week has been a busy and exciting week for Inside Out Chef and this is my first real chance to sit down and write something about it – it started with a photoshoot with CopperMango Photography to take pictures of products for afternoon tea, then the next day an invitation to make canapés, salads and pudding for ten and lunch for eight for Saturday, and the day afternoon, coinciding with my son’s tenth birthday, an invitation to participate in the BBC Scotland Kitchen Café – you can find the podcast here and the others in the series here.

As you might expect, since this was the first time I’d done something like this, I was wee bit apprehensive on the day, especially when I turned up and found The Proclaimers sitting having coffee – they kindly invited me to join them as we were all waiting to record shows. I was joined in Edinburgh by Fiona Burrell, Principal of Edinburgh New Town Cookery School. The hour of the live show passed enjoyably and far more quickly than I thought it would and any nerves I had before the start disappeared once we got underway. I returned home to help arrange my son’s birthday party and take him and his friends off to see the new Avengers Assemble movie.

Then the day after, it was the council elections and son was off school as it was being used as a polling station- a friend and her daughter joined us for lunch at Craigies Farm, where we had wonderful meat and vegetables. The kids went off and visited the lambs, piglets and chickens there. On our way back to the farm, we noticed that Craigies Farm have an extra service, a fish van from St. Monans every Thursday, so we stopped and stocked up on some fish.

The day after, I had a chance to do some food shopping for the meals at the weekend and made cheesecake and panna cotta. It was up early the next day, making the salads and the canapés to be delivered by the early evening. Fortunately I was able to take the next day off and go to afternoon tea at Teadelicious, which was held at a secret location in Leith. I think I might be able to post a picture or two of some of the delightful baking that was made for the occasion. The theme was “Retro Sweets” and I really enjoyed the dib-dab marshmallow and raspberry ripple marshallow and I think my husband really enjoyed the rhubarb and custard tarts that I brought back, and my son was really taken with the mint and choc chip cake.