I haven’t posted in ages… I almost feel like I need to reintroduce myself… My name is Nic. It’s short for Nicola, which you can call me on formal occasions or when you’re frustrated that I’ve sold out of your favourite brownie before you make it to the market. Please don’t call me Nicky… it isn’t my name.  I don’t have a problem if your name is Nicky, that’s fine, lovely in fact, but it’s not MY name…  My name is Nic.

Anyway, formalities over and done with, I’m back.  I haven’t posted because if I’m honest I’ve been pretty uninspired – of course I love what I do and appreciate the freedom and flexibility that come with working from home and running your own business but buying the same ingredients day in, day out, and making the same products day in, day out sometimes takes it’s toll!

I have an entire bookcase filled with what I can only guess is every recipe book ever written in the history of time which I haven’t even glanced at these past couple of months let along made anything from, so today I’m going to pick a book, pick a recipe and bake it.  For fun.  Because it’s my day off and baking for me started as a hobby and, inspired by the Bake Off (I literally live for that show) I’m going to bake!  Just because.

I warn you though – I’ve broken my finger.  Ok, I’ve sprained it.  Ok, fine, I’ve got a bit of a sore finger and I’m a drama queen.  But never fear, I will battle on and post my results, good or bad, later.

Have a tasty Monday :)

Nic (or Nicola.  Not Nicky.)

As you all (hopefully) know, I bake. And I sell what I bake. It’s only fair to let more of the masses munch on my kitchen delights so I also supply a few coffee shops and farm shops.

I’m actually just home from delivering to Windmill Farm Shop in Mereworth and after encountering every idiot driver out there driving onto their gravel forecourt was sort of refreshing.

It’s a very pretty and calming place to be and being as hot-headed as some people seem to think I am that’s never a bad thing for me! Now we are well into May the flowers and plants available are in abundance and create a colourful display around the nursery. The highlight for me though, I’ll be honest, was when I saw this lone crate filled with punnets of the best looking strawberries I’ve ever seen. Now I do have a strawberry addiction which at this time of year really comes into it’s own, but these seriously looked good. They had that smell, you know that sweet yummy smell that English strawberries have?

You can practically do your weeks shopping at the farm shop if you want to – they have everything covered from juices to veg, sauces and oils to bags of sweets. Everything is sourced as locally as possible and it’s just a beautiful haven for all things rustic and Kentish.

I couldn’t leave without a couple of punnets of strawberries and was assured they came from just up the road – what could be better than a strawberry with practically zero carbon footprint?! I feel like I should mention I’ve devoured the majority of the strawberries in this picture already… And I’m not even ashamed.

So if you’re around Kent this bank holiday weekend then pop in and say hi! Grab a cuppa and something sweet and peruse the plants and the local produce! Take a little bit of ‘me time’ and support local while you do ❤️

Find Windmill Farm Shop on The Street in Mereworth, Kent, ME18 5NA or contact them on Twitter @MereworthShop

I’ve been a proud stallholder at Chislehurst Farmers Market since the very beginning, when we were stuck in that little car park behind the Indian restaurant and getting cars and vans in and out was something of a challenge to say the least. But it was fun and the few stallholders that the market started with had a brilliant comraderie that is something all markets should aim for. From humble beginnings the market came on leaps and bounds with more stallholders joining the mixing pot to provide a fabulous offering to visitors. A new location further up the High Street also bettered the market.
Unfortunately all good things must come to an end, and whilst the farmers market continues to thrive I am sad to announce that The Chocolate Hut will no longer be able to attend. I really do want to thank all of you loyal customers who came and bought your chocolates and then your brownies and bars, month in, month out. It is super appreciated. ❤️I’ll still be out and about in the area, next month we will be at Chislehurst Rocks for a start! More info on that closer to the time.
Thanks again, and see you soon Chislehurst people!!

Tomorrow find me at Rochester Farmers Market, Corporation Street Car Park, 9am – 1pm. I’ll bring the tea and the snickers slabs. And the salted caramel brownies. And the granola bars. You just bring your appetite ❤️

I don’t know if I’ve told you before but I love Mary Berry. I’m one of those people who easily gets down or stressed and I find Mary comforting and calming in a ‘Nan’ kind of way. I think if I sought her out and told her I was feeling sad then she would give me a quick hug, tell me everything is going to be ok and bake me a delicious cake which we would eat on the patio with a pot of Earl Grey and maybe some cucumber sandwiches.

I can’t wait for her new show tonight – for me, her recipes exude a classic simplicity that can’t be beaten. There’s nothing worse than opening a recipe book after being tempted by maybe the worlds greatest foodporn photo only to find that you don’t even recognise half the ingredients let alone have them to hand in your kitchen cupboard!

For example, today I made Mary’s banana loaf cake. Actually I made two, because why not? The recipe is so easy, the ingredients so basic (and I don’t mean that in a bad way, definitely a good way) and the results are always perfect.

Most of my own recipes that I sell at markets are derived from a few recipes that I’ve learnt from and tweaked and built upon along the way until they are exactly how I want them to be. This one never gets tweaked.

(That’s a total lie. I add a very generous sprinkling of Demerara sugar to the top before baking – because who doesn’t want a sweet and crunchy crust on their banana loaf cake?!)

Anyway, the recipe is below, it’s from Mary’s Foolproof Cakes book, and is all over the internet if you want to read other peoples thoughts on it. I first read about it on http://www.queenofeverything.co.uk/

Happy baking!

Mary Berry’s Fabulous Banana Loaf Cake

Ingredients

175g caster sugar
100g soft butter
2 large eggs
2 tbsp milk (I use skimmed because that’s just what I have)
2 ripe bananas, mashed up (don’t be scared. As long as they haven’t literally turned black on the inside or grown legs and started running away then use them!)
225g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
Some Demerara sugar
Preheat oven to 160degrees (mines a fan)

Dump everything in a nice big bowl, get ur mixer on and mix for a couple of minutes til it’s all beautifully combined.

Dollop the mix into a 2lb lined loaf tin (I use those liners you can buy instead of faffing with greasing etc. Life’s too short…)

Sprinkle with loads of Demerara sugar!

Bake for approx 1 hr in the middle of the oven. A skewer should come out clean when it’s cooked.

Then, scoff!! (And share if you’re feeling generous.)

I shouldn’t have got out of bed today. I should have stayed tucked up, maybe got myself some toast, definitely kept the curtains shut and avoided all contact with the outside world. 

Instead, I got up. Then I poured coffee all over myself and had to make a fresh one. And then I was running late, despite getting up before the birds (how do I always manage that?!). I get in the car, switch the engine on, discover I’ve got hardly any petrol so have to stop off for that too….. And there’s my bad mood, right there. 

It stayed with me all day. It stayed while I moaned about the parked car in the market, it stayed while I whinged about the cold and it definitely hung about while I knocked half a cup of tea dregs into my handbag. 

So I wanted to take this opportunity to apologise to anyone who saw my slapped arse of a face (excuse the French). I’ve given myself a stern talking to, prescribed myself sleep and wine and endeavour to be my usual joyful (ha) self the next time we meet.

Happy Sunday! ❤️

According to my memory that song was playing on the radio every single time I went to my Nan’s house when I was little. It brings back loads of memories of big dogs, evil cats, puréed roast dinners (still crave them now) and fruit pastilles that were always in the drawer in the kitchen. Also red ants. I remember there being loads in her garden down this super cool path that we all loved playing on. 

I love the song but don’t really live by it… I love a good worry… I worry about everything! From where to park when I get somewhere to whether the door is locked (I checked it like 7 times, it’s bloody locked). But today is the International Day of Happiness!  So let’s focus on that. 

After a mildly disappointing total eclipse (damn clouds!) my day was made happy by a little guilty pleasure of mine – some old school proper cheesy pop blaring out from my little pink CD player while I baked all day long. I say blaring out – it kind of goes a bit crackly and tinny up that loud… But it wouldn’t be the same if it didn’t really. 

I got through a variety of pop acts, all from the 90s (of course). When I got onto Boyzones greatest hits I was loving it, in full swing singing away at the top of my voice (appallingly) and dancing like a crazy person (appallingly) to Love Me For A Reason when at a crucial point (the facsimile line) I noticed my next door neighbour just outside my door. We share a drive and he was bringing his garden bin down. He definitely would have heard me. Pretty cringe but I can only hope my happy turned into his happy when he told his wife about my fabulous performance…. 

❤️❤️Hope you’ve all had a happy day too ❤️❤️

Today is Mr Chocolate Hut’s 30th birthday. Yep, 30. I’m being careful not to go too far with the ‘getting old’ or ‘grandad’ jokes as I’m only a few months behind him… Before I get back to my ‘Perfect Fiancé’ duties (making a slap up fry up for brunch, creatively displaying his presents for extra ‘eek’ value, reassuring him he doesn’t look his age etc etc etc) I wanted to share a couple of things I learnt yesterday whilst preparing for today’s celebrations.

The first thing is that balloons terrify me – I experience an acute and very real fear whilst blowing them up that they would explode in my face. Thank god there were only 6 in the packet as I don’t think I could have handled any more. None exploded and I (well, he) has ended up with 6 blue balloons that aren’t quite as big and balloon like as they perhaps should be.

The second thing I learned is maybe the more embarrassing… I am a rubbish baker. Yep. Apparently so. I can make delicious brownies with all their gooeyness and their extravagant fillings, I can make big old granola bars, I can make in-your-face American style bakes, I can boil sugar and make old school treats like crunchy peanut brittle, but for gods sake don’t ask me to make a birthday cake. I don’t do pretty. I do big, ugly and delicious. I can only hope it tastes ok….

Any market trader will know that their livelihoods depend on a number of factors, ranging from the weather, to whether the tennis is on, to how many weekends there are in a month. But the patron saint of all market traders is the lowly gazebo. They come in all shapes, sizes and qualities, from the humble garden gazebo that you have to stick all the poles together to put it up camping style before watching it take off into the sky with one breath of wind, to the crazy heavy duty types that require their own team of men to manhandle.

I am the proud owner of two. One is green, goes up ok but let’s in the wet when it pours with rain, hardly ideal. The other is blue, is beautifully waterproof but is almost impossible to put up. Again, hardly ideal. Both reside in my garage.

Blue Gazebo and I don’t get along too well but with the stormy weather predicted for today I thought he better come with me. I’d already packed Green Gazebo so pulled him back out of his snug spot in the car and prepared to wrestle Blue in his place. As I approached Blue I noticed rather a lot of spider webs all over him. Now, I am Chief Spider Remover in our house so I’m not a complete girl but this was spider mayhem. Loads of those thin but big spiders. I tried knocking them off with a long pair of scissory things and came across what I can only assume was Spider King. A huge hairy beast of a spider who quite simply held his ground and refused to move. I’m not ashamed to admit that by this point I was almost in tears, defeatedly, and hurriedly as I was now late, repacking Green into his car spot, resigning myself to a wet and miserable day and leaving Blue to the spider colony. Ironically, it barely rained and Green did just fine.

It almost feels like there should be a moral to this story, a teaching moment perhaps… But there isn’t. It’s just a story about how the spiders stole my blue gazebo.

Find me tomorrow at Rochester Farmers Market, Corporation Street car park where, thank God, they provide me with a gazebo so both mine can stay at home. 9-1. I’ll be there with brownies and coffee ;)