Tree of Happiness!

I'm thrilled to have received a Tree of Happiness award from Beth at Cloth and Fodder. Please do check Beth's blog out - she has some fabulous creations including an octopus cake and even a spider hunting wasp cake!
6 things that make me happy:

1. Dancing in the kitchen with my lovely bf
2. When I bake a cake and it disappears in a flash
3. The colour pink
4. Growing my own herbs from seed
5. Indoor picnics - when the British weather is just too rainy, nothing beats hanging out in the living room with the Sunday papers and picking at cold meats, olives and fantastic cheeses from my local farm shop.
6. Listening to the Puppini Sisters, especially their superb cover of Crazy in Love

Now I'm going to tag...

Caitlin at Engineer Baker, cos she's a geek like me and is even known to produce spreadsheets of her recipes!

Emeline at Sugar Plum - tasty cakes and more.

Bethany at Dirty Kitchen Secrets - Bethany's London based but originates from the Lebanon (and seems to have lived in a lot of other places too), and this diversity really shows in her recipes.

Jeena of Jeena's Kitchen, a master of spices and big, punchy flavours.

Carrie at Fields of Cake, I'd really recommend checking out some of her beautiful creations.

And, last but not least, Kate/Kajal over at Applemint. Check out this blog if you're in need of some food porn...

Please consider yourselves proud owners of the 'Tree of Happiness' award. I really hope you will accept by listing six things that make you happy and then pass the honour on to six other bloggers!

The Princess

5 recipes that are fit for a princess

It seemed fitting that I should share with you a few regal recipes from around the blogosphere so here are my top five of the moment:

1. The Culinary Princess, over in Oz, has some fantastically gooey looking brownies and a fab post about Bangkok seafood market on her site.

2. Food Blogga is a girl after my own heart with her love of high quality ingredients, and she doesn't stint on her saffron-infused Pea Pasta fit for a Princess.

3. Lovescool has a luscious and very sophisticated Princess Cake on her site, plus lots of behind the scenes info from her NYC bakehouse.

4. Fellow regal blogger and Daring Baker the Pastry Princess has a whole blog full of mouth-watering food porn and dessert recipes.

5. Last but not least, Never Bashful with Butter has some delicious Pretty Princess Cupcakes on her site. The icing is flawless and the recipe sounds pretty good too.

New blog discoveries

Thanks to Pim, I have discovered a couple of new tasty food blogs:

Ms. Glaze's Pommes d'Amour - the French write a lot of food blogs, but luckily for me this one is written in English. Ms. Glaze is an ex-teacher who now graces the kitchens of a 3-star restaurant in Paris. She has some fascinating stories from behind the scenes and the recipes are pretty good too.

Foodbeam - a beautifully stylish and girly baking blog, again from France (the Cote d'Azur this time) but written in English.