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Breakfast/Brunch

Breakfast/Brunch, General Reference/Tutorial, Sweet Snacks

2026 Strawberry Jam Varieties: Strawberry Vanilla Paste Jam and Strawberry Honey Plum Jam

As long time followers will know, every year (even through the pandemic) I go strawberry picking. I’ve actually been going strawberry picking every year since I was a little girl — my first real “commercial endeavor” so to speak, and my sister and I would always sell them from a stand on the end of the road and that would be our spending money for the rest of the summer. In the intervening decades, both my sister and I started making our own varieties of jams from the strawberry harvest and this year is no different. I made one variation that I make many of the years — a strawberry vanilla (very popular) and this year, also tried a Strawberry Honey Plum Jam, which is also delicious…. a little earthier but still very vibrant.

29. June 2026

Breakfast/Brunch, Sweet Snacks

Strawberry Almond Muffins with Strawberry Glaze

Heya! So, it’s been almost a month since I posted anything and I could give you all sorts of excuses on why, but we’ll leave it as “I needed a break”. While I am generally a hater of the month of January, the end of May to the end of June comes is a close second as bad in the mental health department. Suffice it to say, I AM BACK! I went strawberry picking so here is the first of the Strawberry recipes: Strawberry Almond Muffins with Strawberry Glaze. They are light and delicious and very strawberry-y. Just be careful not to add too many berries, lest the muffins get all mushy!

28. June 2026

Appetizers/Starters, Breads, Breakfast/Brunch, Sweet Snacks

Apricot Chocolate Hot Cross Buns

Happy Easter Weekend! I’ve got company this weekend (my mum is visiting!) which makes finding time for posting a little more complicated, but here are some delicious Apricot Chocolate Hot Cross Buns. Every year, I try to do something a little different with them, so this year, they were apricot and mini-chocolate chips, but add in your mix-ins of choice (cranberries, nuts, raisins, etc). I made them yesterday for Good Friday.

4. April 2026

Breakfast/Brunch

Pineapple Passion Fruit Jam

It’s winter. There isn’t that much fresh fruit around. OK, that’s a fib. There is a lot of fruit around, we don’t live in ancient times where scurvy was an actual concern, but still. Things feel a little dull right now, in the fresh fruit department. Until I made this jam and it is quite likely some of the best jam that I have ever made and I make some pretty yummy jam! I give you, in honor of Valentine’s Day, Pineapple Passion Fruit “Sunshine in a Jar” Jam. It is tart, it is sweet, it is bright and I could eat it by the spoonful. Absolutely perfect cure for the mid-Winter blues.

5. February 2026

Breakfast/Brunch, Desserts, Sweet Snacks

Easy “Fruit on Top” Mixed Berry Cobbler

Let’s talk about this “Cobbler” for a sec. First of all, it’s delicious. It’s modified from an America’s Test Kitchen / Cooks Country recipe, which described it as a “cobbler”. So, in my mind cobblers have the fruit on the bottom, no bottom crust and then a top crust of crumble, biscuit dough or a batter. So, it’s not really a cobbler. It’s also not really a pie, which would have at minimum a bottom crust and this has a bottom batter. I don’t really know what to call it, except yummy.

I also don’t really know when to eat it. It would be a great afternoon tea or coffee thing. It would be a great dessert thing with some ice cream and it would even make a fantastic breakfast casserole with maple syrup. So, I guess that is up to you. It comes together in a flash with mostly pantry ingredients: sweetened condensed milk, milk, butter, flour, baking power, salt and a touch of vanilla for the base. I used mixed berries, but you could also use just one berry type, or cherries or even chopped up peaches. Frozen berries / fruit work great here (bake 10 minutes or so longer) and best of all, it isn’t overly sweet.

Perhaps one of the easiest and quickest recipes I have done in a long time. I had it ready to go before the oven had even preheated.

2. February 2026

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