What a lovely way to end January, a night at Clandestine Cake Club, Warrington with lovely peeps. Highly recommended to lift the gloom of Winter.

EDIT: Competition now closed, thanks so much for all the entries. Winner is Kirstie Caffrey.

We are now officially in the acceptable timeframe to start to talk and plan for Christmas. I know this as the ‘Holidays are Coming’ ad aired on TV at the weekend.

What better ‘guaranteed to be appreciated’ gift can you give apart from chocolate? Well not much especially if it’s Hotel Chocolat Christmas Chocolate Goody Bag.

It is beautifully packaged with luxury ribbon and includes:

• 6 Billionaire Shortbread chocolates
• Christmas Gift Slab with milk chocolate and dark cookie pieces
• Milk Chocolate Pocket Reindeer
• Mini Festive Wreath

It is sophisticated enough to make a great luxury gift for adults, but is also fun enough to be a delightful gift for a tween/teen on your Christmas gift list.

If you would like to be in with a chance to win one of these gorgeous goody bags for yourself or to give to a very much loved one, just take a look at the Hotel Chocolat Christmas range and leave a comment to let me know what your favourite is.

For an extra entry you can tweet:

I’ve entered @carafreckles comp to win a @hotelchocolat Christmas Chocolate Goody Bag http://bit.ly/uFsHjc

Please leave an additional comment to say you’ve done this

For a third entry please ‘Like’ Freckles Family on Facebook – link over to the right in the sidebar, and again leave a comment.

The draw is open to anyone with a UK postal address and will close at 8pm on 25th November.

Edit: Winner is Kelly Martin, thanks to everyone for the amazing response

When we go on holiday or stay over at a hotel the breakfast is always something to look forward to. Usually because they have huge help yourself servings of fruit. The kids love this and often go up for seconds. So why have I never thought to give them a serving of fruit at home?

Well, we’ve had a few fruity breakfasts over the last week courtesy of Princes. It’s been great to get the kids to have a head start on their 5 a day and it’s also meant they have been keen to sit down and tuck in.

Princes prides itself on offering good value, great quality food that the whole family can enjoy. From canned fruit for your cereal to pure fruit juices for a refreshing morning drink, pack your cupboards with these trusty Princes products and you can whip up a healthy, delicious breakfast in minutes. In the last week we’ve topped cereal with fruit cocktail, and had natural yoghurt with peach slices, mixed the pears and mandarins too.

If you would like to try taking the stress out of the morning breakfast routine I have a great Princes breakfast box to giveaway, which includes a set of six bowls and six tumblers, table placemats, an alarm clock, a colouring book to entertain the kids, a relaxing candle for mum, money-off coupons and, of course, a range of Princes canned fruit – including grapefruit segments, peach slices, pear halves, fruit cocktail, pineapple chunks and mandarin segments – and Princes pure juices.

To be in with a chance to win, just tell me what your favourite five a day fruit is in the comments & leave an email address so I can get in touch. UK postal addresses only. Draw at 8pm on Monday 17th October. Draw via random.org.

… well, not exactly fishing, but swimming, rock pooling, water parking, reading and hopefully chilling.

We are off to Tenerife today, everyone is so excited, including me. Just need to get us all there in one piece.

I’m taking the children today, and my husband is flying out on Saturday.

Had so many wobbles about why I thought this was a good idea, but I’m sure I’ll get us all there including the 40 minute drive from the airport to the villa after a four hour flight with a 2 and 7 year old. I do have back up from my 16 year old daughter and her friend. Between them and the iPad, we should just about be able to pull it off.

I leave you with a little bit of sunshine in the form of Rusty Lee making a trifle with ginger cake. I think I’d leave out the rum and just put chocolate shavings on the top, but it looks really easy, and she just makes me smile with that laugh.

Disclosure: No payment has been received for linking to the video, it was brought to my attention by a PR and I liked it, thought you might too.

My daughter went to a birthday party yesterday. It was the party of my best friend’s eldest daughter. She makes cakes (my BF, not her daughter). My daughter came home with the most gorgeous cupcakes. One for her, one for her sister and one for her brother. I had to share with you. I stop my children from eating/doing all kinds until I’ve photographed them. They were straining on the leash for these.

My two year old was very pleased when we came home with cake for him. The wait was worth it.

Are you ultra organised? Do you remember to buy all the birthday presents early and get them to the recipient on the big day?

I have a confession. I try. I really try to be organised. I have all the birthday details of friends and relatives on the calendar, I know they are coming up, and then whoosh, the big day springs up faster than a toddler in a morning.

Well, I have now discovered that Hotel Chocolat have a birthday range which if ordered before 2.30pm and you use their Gold Delivery is guaranteed to get there the next working day. Standard delivery is 3-5 working days if you can get your act together a little quicker than me.

We received the Nibblatrons to try out, and as we didn’t have a birthday in the household they made a great treat for my 16YO who has just finished all her exams. She did share them with her brother too – he is a bit of a chocolate connoisseur.

So would you like to get your hands on a tasty box of Hotel Chocolat’s Serious Dark Fix – “a collection full of dark chocolate adventure and exciting flavours. Uncompromisingly dark!”

Just leave a pick me in the comments. Names in the hat on Friday 8th July. Go on you know you deserve them.

Disclosure: We received the Nibblatrons for free to review

This weeks Gallery theme from Tara at Sticky Fingers is Green. I expect there will be lots of clever takes on the theme e.g. eco friendly green, green with envy. I went for the pure obvious, I give you green zingy limes – summer is coming.

Joining in with Amy and this months Bake It Club. I’ve never attempted carrot cake before, although it is one of my favourite cakes. I knew Amy wouldn’t have chosen anything that was too complicated or required ridiculous ingredients, so looked forward to giving it a try.

I decided to make it last Sunday as a welcome home for my husband, who had taken the two youngest to the Lake District for the weekend for a spot of kayaking (a whole other post). I had every intention for the odour of domestic bliss to be wafting around on their return.

I’d made the cake and it was cooling in the tin. I decided to try a cream cheese frosting for mine, rather than glacé icing, so nipped out to buy some cream cheese. When I got back they had returned already, just in time (no coincidence) to watch the football match. My husband was busy hacking a slice out of the cake whilst it was still in the tin, to go with his cup of tea! I couldn’t believe my eyes. All intentions of calm, serene welcome homes greeted with cake, flew out of the window.

I told him to put it back, he was so rude, it wasn’t finished, needs frosting, rant, rant, rant. Photographic evidence is below. I did consider reporting him to the cake police, I’m sure Mary Berry would understand my plight. But with a bit of frosting on top you couldn’t see the join. He should know by now that we don’t eat anything unless it has been photographed for blogging purposes, so hold off on the divorce papers.

So back to the recipe.

Ingredients

• 200g plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 150g light brown sugar (or light muscovado sugar)
• 150ml vegetable oil
• 3 eggs
• Juice of 1/2 an orange
• Finely grated rind of 1 orange
• 225g carrots, coarsely grated

For the icing

• 100g cream cheese (I used Philadelphia) I used a full 200 g tub and it was way too much so have put to use 100g
• 175g icing sugar (Don’t add it all at once, you may need a bit less or a bit more depending on how runny the orange juice makes it.
• Juice of 1/2 an orange

Amy suggests that all ingredients are prepared (grating etc) before starting the recipe as you need to mix the wet and dry ingredients together and get them in the oven quickly. Which worked great, it all came together very quickly after the initial preparation.

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C and line a 7 inch (18cm) round cake tin. A loose bottomed tin is best as it makes it easier to remove the cake, but any lined tin will be fine.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a large bowl or the bowl of your food mixer. Add the sugar and stir to combine, breaking down any large lumps of sugar.

3. In a separate jug, mix together the eggs and oil.

4. Add the orange juice to the dry ingredients then gradually stir in the oil and egg mixture until it is all combined.

5. Add the orange rind and grated carrot to the cake mixture and stir until it is evenly distributed.

6. Pour the cake batter into the prepared tin and bake in the centre of the oven for 1 hour – 1 1/4 hours until the cake is firm and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Baking away in my lovely oven from Appliances Online (see below for lovely Fairy Hob Father wishes being gifted)

7. Leave to cool in the tin for 20 -30 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Keeping guard at all times so no one can hack a slice out of it before it is finished.

Can you see where my husband was caught hacking a piece out of it before I'd iced it.

8. To make the icing, add the cream cheese to a bowl along with the juice of half the orange. Sift half the icing sugar into the bowl  and start to mix. Gradually adding more icing sugar until the frosting is of a consistency which will spread onto the cake without being too runny.

9. Spread the icing over the top of the cake and leave to set. Put the kettle on.

Enjoy with a nice cup of tea.

Check out the other entries over at Amy’s who incidentally has had a Book Published this week. How exciting is that? Of course it had to be baking related and I’m looking forward to getting a copy. This will be courtesy of the very kind Fairy Hob Father from www.appliancesonline.co.uk, who saw my comment on Deer Baby‘s post, and has offered me some Amazon vouchers.

If you aren’t familiar with his work, he hovers over the blogosphere and gifts lovely things to those who comment. So go ahead say hello in the comments or tell me what you would have said if your other half had helped himself you your cake before it was finished.

I can actually personally recommend Appliances Online, as before Christmas I got a new hob and cooker from them as ‘compensation’ for having to cook Christmas dinner for my outlaws (hi Jo, you know I’m only joking). Well ok, it was because the old one hadn’t had a working grill for 2 years, but Christmas dinner was a great lever with my husband for getting a new one. They delivered exactly when they said the would the next day after ordering & after extensive comparisons with other sites, I found they were quite a bit cheaper than anyone else too.

Oh, and in case you were wondering the carrot cake was delicious, even Mr Grumpy admitted it was worth the wait.

I do tend to take things for granted at times. This morning the children were chattering about pancakes for tea – at breakfast. We are doing a taste test between the Teen making pancakes from scratch & the 7YO making them using a Betty Crocker shaky bottle.

Then I read this post from Cheshire Mum – published with her permission, as is, because she wants everyone to take a moment to think about those who eat pancakes made just from flour & water because it is all they have – not because it is pancake day.

It’s pancake day and across the UK frying pans will be heating, batter will be made, some will be ruined, others successfully tossed, fillings will be piled on and fun will be had.  But … they wouldn’t taste very nice without the egg would they?  They wouldn’t be pancakes, would they?

Edit: Now closed, and the winner is

Can you believe that? I counted those comments 3 times, took out my replies, the ones after the closing time & the one who commented but didn’t want to be entered. Pressed generate and it gave me number 1. Domestic Goddesque your powers of Karma (or is it witchcraft/voodoo) should be harnessed for the good of all mankind. I’ll email to get your postal address. Thanks everyone for entering.

Even though Easter is quite late this year falling at the end of April, it is hurtling rather speedily to us.

I think I look forward to Easter much more than Christmas. It is a much more relaxed affair, the start of some decent weather, a chance to get out on family days out, and oh, yes, chocolate!

If you are a chocolate fan you will no doubt be aware of Hotel Chocolat and it’s luxury offerings.  I was lucky to receive a box to review, and I swear my husband could smell it before I even opened the box. He showed far too much interest in a brown cardboard box.

The Sleekster EGG Box Selection is a rather grown up offering for Easter. Much too sophisticated for children (or so I told mine). It is quite a clever design, meaning that it can be posted through most letter boxes, and arrived looking like this:

Opening up to reveal a rather sleek & luxurious LARGE box of yumminess:

That revealed all of these-a huge selection of white, milk & dark chocolate with lovely fillings like vanilla egg custard, caramel praline, blueberry & amaretto.

There are some really wonderful children’s chocolate gifts too for Easter, starting at £7.

However, if you want to indulge in some of these very grown up eggs, then just leave a comment below to be in with a chance of winning a box of your own.

You are under no obligation to Tweet or subscribe or ‘like’ the blog, but if you feel the urge I would be very grateful.

Small print:

• Closes Monday 14th March 2011, 12 noon.
• Open to UK residents only
• The gift will be delivered direct from Hotel Chocolat, and they may substitute the gift for something of same value, dependent on stock.