Felicity's Bakewell Tart

This is one of my absolute favourites so I couldn't wait to get started!

I used the recipe from The Great British Book of Baking and it was brilliant. I decided not to make the pastry by hand (extra points to anyone who does!) and instead bought sweet shortcrust pastry.

Once I'd rolled the pastry and lined a flan tin, I covered with blackcurrant jam - home-made by mum Pointer, no less!

The filling was straightforward and I beat the butter, sugar, egg, flour, ground almonds and almond essence altogether by hand. I spread it evenly on to the pastry and popped in the oven.

Once cooked I left to cool, then topped with icing sugar and flaked almonds - and voila:

This is, without a doubt, the best thing I have ever made - it was absolutely delicious! Special thanks to my assistant Leanne for her baking/tasting help!

Felicity's Chocolate Peanut Heaven Cupcakes

I love nuts (!) so for January's cupcake theme I chose chocolate peanut heaven cakes from my new Cupcakes & Cookies book from Lakeland (thanks Santa!). It doesn't get much nuttier than this...

The cupcake recipe was a rich mixture of butter, eggs, sugar, flour, cocoa, ground almonds and melted dark chocolate. The resulting mixture was quite thick, but not particularly fluffy like the book suggested.

However they rose well and after 25 minutes in the oven they came out smelling delicious. I left them to cool on my makeshift cooling rack (the upside-down draining board!)

For the chocolate ganache topping I heated cream before adding milk chocolate to melt. After refrigerating for 30 minutes I added (almost a whole pot of) peanut butter.

I forwent the dreaded piping bag in favour of a spatula and covered the cakes in the ganache, topping with crushed peanut brittle. There was an excess of ganache so I heaped a small mountain on to each cake...

My baking buddy and special guest taster Leanne rated them a 7.5 - very rich, nutty and definitely best served chilled!

Felicity's Victoria Sponge...with a twist

Being a bit of a baking novice I reached straight for the Good Housekeeping recipe book and used their tried and tested recipe for the 'perfect Victoria sponge'. Nothing unusual there.

In the beginning there was flour...

Usually I lump all the ingredients in together but this time I followed the recipe by the book; creaming the butter and sugar together, followed by beating in the eggs and finally folding in the flour. And all by hand! Harder work than I first thought. Good job I'd been to the gym this week in preparation. Jokes.

Ye olde fashioned scales

All was looking good and they went into the oven. Now the tricky part - waiting. I've never been one for patience so I peeked and prodded for 20 minutes until they finally came out looking golden brown and cooked through (the knife test - thanks Mrs Stringer!).

I went for a traditional butter icing - couldn't resist a bit of pink food dye - and Mum Pointer's homemade blackcurrant jam for the filling. And to top it off a few dusted hearts.

And the 'twist'? A sprinkling of lemon zest and juice in the mixture and icing to give it a bit of a kick.

And voila:

My tasting panel (the Pointer family) gave it the thumbs up. And a tip from mum - maybe a few degrees cooler for the oven next time.