helen says…

I love this time of year. There are so many fresh flavours around and some beautiful bakes around. It is so easy to brighten up a cake or biscuits with a vase of daffodils next to them, making food blog posts so pretty to read. Another theme that is very strong this month is CHOCOLATE. There are so many combinations of baking with chocolate and bloggers have excelled themselves with their creations.

Rachel Cotterill shared with us her heavenly combination of lemon and chocolate cookies. I love the idea of making these into mini cookies – surely it just means you can eat more of them?

Sometimes we need a speedy recipe when we just NEED cake. Nova from Cherished By Me has just the thing with her speedy chocolate tray bake.

Slow cookers seem to be getting more and more popular, especially with more and more people using them for baking. This dairy-free slow cooker chocolate cake by Iced Jems. Described as ‘melt in your mouth heaven., I’m sold!

For a special occasion, Chocolate Log Blog’s lavender chocolate cake seems perfect. An unusual idea but with really simple instructions to make.

Need something for the kiddies? Let them tuck into these jaffa marble squares by Utterly Scrummy Food  – mine love the mystery of how you get two different colours of cake into one.

And for those with more adult tastes? Baking Bar has some chocolate and beer cake. It even comes with beer flavoured frosting and lots of it!

For the ultimate indulgence, Over a Cuppa defies us to resist these spectacular individual Cadbury’s Crème Egg sponge puddings. There are hundreds of Crème Egg recipes popping up this year but these are the first puddings I have seen.

The luxury and indulgence doesn’t stop there, Beth at Jam & Clotted Cream, tempts us to make Fudgy Chocolate Brownie.

Belleau Kitchen celebrated Fairtrade Fortnight with these amazing pink coloured beetroot and chocolate brownies. We can pretend they are healthy, right?

As if that wasn’t enough chocolate, Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary tempted us to take double chocolate coconut cookies in our lunch boxes too – Who could resist them tied up so prettily?

And so that is the baking round up for March. Thank you to all the contributors for sharing their stunning recipes. For next month, I will look at baking with fruit – whether just for decoration or as ingredients. Have a lovely April!

HELEN x