Butternut Squash Soup with Pain d'epi

In the past few days I've been in contact with a fellow blogger who is making her way through Mary Berrys Baking Bible. I have the upmost respect for both the Lady Berry and also the blogger for what she is undertaking http://risingtotheberry.blogspot.com/. She has over 250 recipes to get through and I think all of them are sweet. When I was making my way through the first book the biggest problem I had was to somehow get rid of all the sweet stuff so that I wouldn't have to eat it all myself. Thank fully I have lots of very willing friends who are prepared to sample my bakes, but what amazes me most is she makes everything look so pretty. Just looking at the photographs of my food, I'm just so pleased to have got another out of the way that I just grab the photo and tuck in.

So as you can see from the photographs above, I don't suddenly have a new career direction when it comes to photography. Thankfully though I do enjoy my labours and I got the chance to make bread. Since watching the bake off I've been desperate to make bread again and there's always a reason not to. Children being one, planning to do for school, laminating, cutting out, report writing etc. But by undertaking a project like this it means you have to do it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not being forced into this I really enjoy it and I loved making the bread. Apart from the very pointy ends I was quite pleased with it too. So often I think I've killed the yeast in the past but after a top tip from Paul Hollywood I'm getting past the salt/ yeast fiasco.

As for the soup, well it was really yummy, warming and tasty with a hint of ginger, even Zoe lapped it up so it must have been ok. So to work on for the next few weeks are my presentation skills. Been a bit lacking, won't see the results for a while as I'm so behind on updating the blog. This whole back to work and lots of cooking is not always a great mix.