Since graduating a month ago i have returned home to my job at the Rocket House Cafe. It is a place that is beautifully situated on the Norfolk coast and through the enthusiasm of my boss Vivi and my past colleague and friend Elliott, my love and knowledge of food has undoubtedly blossomed.
This month has seen me really test my baking skills, first mastering mass catering. I do not care what anyone says it is bloody hard to cater for 70/80 people, even with the simple theme of a mad hatter's tea party! My poor friend Liv came for a visit and ended up being roped into making millions of chili jam sandwiches, mini stilton and walnut scones and icing a moustache cake.
All in all we made some really delicious quiches, heart shaped sandwiches, scone canapes, cupcakes, meringues as well as many other things. Seeing it all on the table made all the hard work worth it and it was especially lovely as it was for my friend Vivi's 30th birthday allowing her to enjoy her party without the worry of all the cooking. 
Although the heart-shaped chili jam sandwiches looked beautiful, i did feel slightly guilty when one or two children went to take a bite, what they thought was a sumptuously sweet raspberry jam sandwich and then got a large dose of chili!
This was only my second weekend home and my baking has continued in the form of pasties, millionaire shortbread, rocky road and more. My wednesdays see me take myself away from the cafe and dedicate 9 hours of my day cooking 35 cakes for the cafe as well as a selection of treats to tempt the summer visitors to Cromer. One of the treats i created was our 'Cake of the Week', a orange and almond cake with pistachio and crystalised rose petals. I am completely in love with this cake as it is beautiful to look at and incredibly flavoursome. As many of you have seen from my previous recipes i really love using pistachios in my baking and i will be posting the recipe for my cake very soon.
I once again delved into Dan lepard's 'Short and Sweet' recipe book and found a great recipe for a bread dough which he used to make pasties. By using tomato paste in the dough the colour of them was amazing once they were cooked and gave a great flavour often lost when overpowered with interesting fillings. I always think as much care should be taken with pastry and bread as taken with the ingredients you put with them.
As you can see it has been an incredibly busy month for me, hence the large gap in my blog but i have an abundance of recipes from these experiences which i am looking forward to sharing with you all. Despite my culinary experiments this month, many who know me well would not say my creativity has been limited to my cooking, my creation of a jellyfish costume for the party using only a sombrero, scraps of material, newspaper and LED lights was pretty special. Not only did i subject my friend Liv to an obscene amount of cooking, i also forced her to look like a complete fool with me for a whole evening!
