How To Make Homemade Cherry Bakewell Liqueur

I absolutely cherry bakewells. They're sort of half cake, half tart and go exceptionally well with a cup of tea. I was looking for a new liqueur recipe to make as, though I already had some rhubarb and orange gin and some sunshine fruit liqueur in the cupboard, I wanted to make something a little smoother and sweeter with rich red berry flavours. 

This cherry bakewell liqueur recipe is one of my simplest liqueur recipes and is a satisfyingly boozy take on the real thing. 

Don't Grow Up Too Quickly, My Darlings

I'm going to hold my hands up and admit I cried over a buggy today. No, it didn't roll over my toes - I sold our travel system. And it felt like the biggest milestone yet.

I know it's just a thing, a machine, a collection of metal bits and pieces but there are some huge memories attached to those spokes. Like how I needed to have the car seat at just the right angle to get it to lift out properly. Of feeling pretty damn pleased with myself for fitting three big bags of food shopping in the basket underneath. Mum's first solo trip with it as a Grandmother, down the road. And how it eventually served to transport two little beating hearts instead of just one (hush now, ovaries. Hush.)

Top Tips For Baking With Your Children

Baking with your children always feels like such a good idea to begin with, doesn't it? There's something wonderfully wholesome about donning an apron and showing them how to make food. And if that something happens to be sugary and buttery, then we've already fast-forwarded in our minds to the post-bake sample session that with any luck will involve a hot cup of tea and two minutes peace. To me, that's the point of no return.

The actual process of baking with children though? That's a minefield fit to test the courage of even the bravest soldier. Luckily for you, I've a few brilliant tips from my blogging buddies to hopefully make the experience more #instabaker than a scene resembling the aftermath of a natural disaster, with the attitude to match.

Why I Want My Sons to Know My Welsh Heritage

If you are born in Wales, grew up there, learned the language at school, went to a 'jambori', ate ponchmeip, watched S4C and got soaked to the skin on school trips to Welsh outdoor activity centres but don't have a Welsh accent, does that mean you can't call yourself Welsh? I don't think so. 

Living in the south of England for over a decade means I've lost much of my North West twang, but I am still Welsh, born and bred, and will always consider myself as such. It is easy to make false assumptions about my origins though because, well, I just don't sound Welsh. Sometimes it feels like that part of my identity is fading from view but it's so important to me that my boys know their mother's heritage.

How to Make Homemade Rhubarb and Orange Gin

Rhubarb can be a tricky vegetable to know what to do with. It's sharp, tangy flavour is often muted by oodles of sugar in a crumble and even then, it can be too sharp for some delicate palates. But by combining it with the citrus sweetness of orange in this rhubarb and orange gin, I think the vegetable has at last found it's partner in crime.

I had had a bag of rhubarb in my freezer for some time, waiting for my decision on what to use it for. I didn't have enough in weight to make a wine, but it also felt a bit if a cop out to make a dessert - in which case, I then would have had to much of the stuff.

In the end, I took it to Facebook: rhubarb and ginger jam or rhubarb and orange gin. And, of course, the latter prevailed.

'O' Is For Optimism - Finding My Blogging Niche

I've been having a bit of a blog crisis recently. Perhaps crisis isn't quite the word, but it's definitely some sort of general re-evaluation of purpose.

If you talk to any blogger, they will tell you that a blog needs a niche. "What need do you fill?" "What does your blog do?" It's a really good question, one that has had me tossing ideas into a metaphorical waste paper bin rather frequently on my commute to work recently.

The problem is, it's all been done before. The Unmumsy Mum broke the mould when she first started blogging about real motherhood, when suddenly a million mums across the country rejoiced in their emancipation, in mutual acknowledgement of the fact that motherhood isn't all cotton buds and cuddles. That sometimes it's a bit hard and more than a bit shit.

Advice From A Geriatric Me

Time goes so fast. Before you know it, it's evaporated like a wisp of smoke. Sometimes I forget it's 2018. I can still remember worrying about the millennium bug and if Dad was going to get off the phone in time for me to dial up the Internet.

I realise this even more when I glance at my to do list and see items on it initially pencilled in weeks ago. When will I ever be able to tick them off? Then I start to wonder if I'm worrying too much about the future and if I should be more considerate of the here and now.

What would an 80 year old me have to say about it? What would she tell me to do? Nobody wants to reach their twilight years full of regret. Maybe now is the time to listen to that older and (I hope) wiser me. But what would she say if she was sat next me, probably giving me that look Mum used to give to me, the one I now give to the boys. The knowing look. The 'I'm making a point' look. I think the first thing she'd tell me to do is:

The Mother Next Door

The coiffured banker's wife puts the children to bed, then sits alone in her mansion waiting for a husband who'll be home late again. Her fingers are painted and her handbag Dior, but she risks more than a broken nail if she questions his absence.

She must have the perfect life, thinks the new mum who sits sobbing in the dark, desperately searching the internet for an answer to why her baby won't stop crying. She tries to comfort him, but he seems to sense her anguish and the misinterpreted rejection cuts deeper into her fraying inner strength.

How To Make Homemade Spiced Apple Vodka

Apples and cinnamon - what a match made in heaven. And whilst this liqueur needs some time to mature for the flavours to infuse as deeply as possible, there's no denying it's worth the wait. And it's so easy to make too!

In liqueur-making, apples can be combined with brandy, gin and even rum, but I love the sharpness that comes from a vodka blend. This recipe will make about a litre of the finished liqueur and stores well in a cool cupboard.

Christmas Gift Guide for Grown-ups

I love Christmas. I love it even more now I'm an adult and can enjoy the indulgent delights of booze-soaked Christmas puddings and warming sips of mulled wine. And there's the food too, of course: spiced, fruit cakes, citrus, sweet treats and deliciously steamy puddings covered in custard or a dollop of cool, whipped cream. That's why for this year's Christmas gift guide, I've chosen to feature the kind of food and drink I'd love to find in my own stocking on Christmas morning. The kid's Christmas lists can wait - this is all about us.