Love is all around (well nearly)

Preparations have been under way for a Valentine's Day bake sale at work on behalf of St Luke's Hospice in Sheffield.  Each year, the firm I work for chooses a charity to support and this year is St Luke's.  A strange coincidence as I did volunteer work there many year's ago,starting as a sixth form thing an then into my early twenties.

So, what to cook?  Having tried heart cookies last weekend, I went a step further and turned them into cookie pops.  using flood icing and taking the opportunity to practice some piping, this is what I came up with:

Valentines day also reminds me of the many single years I spent under the duvet each February 14th.  I know not everyone wants hearts and slush on this day so I thought I would come up with something a bit more light hearted for those singletons out there. What better than froggie biscuits?  The saying is, "Sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your Prince".  Whatever shape, size, age or gender your prince may be, I made these as a sign that you should never give up hope of finding love - whatever form that love may take.

And finally, because tradition still has a part to play, a set of old fashioned, heart-laden chocolate cupcakes.  I got the Hummingbird Bakery cake Days cookbook for Christmas and this is the first recipe I have tried from it.  I was a bit sceptical as 80g of butter to 200g of sugar was very different to any other cake recipe I have come across but they turned out very well. Really light and much less faff than my previous go-to chocolate recipe from the Primrose Bakery cookbook.  I didn't abandon primrose completely though and used their buttercream recipe.

And finally, I have to show that it sometimes takes practice and a scatter-gun approach to getting a decent finish - piping hearts is not easy!