Cheesy Bakes.

These are cheese, bacon and apple muffins that I made for this month's Random Recipes.  When I first saw the recipe I had to do, I thought I would manage to kill two birds with one stone as our baking club Pinnies and Petticoats was having a cheese themed evening this month.  I soon realised, however, that I would have to make my bake for P&P the night before and transport it to work and I really felt these muffins wouldn't be very tasty a day and a half later. The recipe is from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries II and he says in the recipe that you must eat the muffins the same day as they are cooked so that made my mind up for me.

So, for Pinnies and Petticoats, I decided to do a recipe I have made before - Chilli and almond biscuits from Dan Lepard's Short and Sweet.  These are fairly cheesy and with a bit of a kick.  I forgot to take any photos of them but have found some old photos on the computer of a previous batch I made - not sure if I have mentioned them on the blog before.  They really are very tasty nibbles to have with drinks so I have made them a few times and Steve has made them a couple of times as well.  The recipe is on the Guardian here.

The Fromage Fest was just brilliant. I didn't have any tea beforehand and stuffed myself on cheesy treats.  We had a lovely mixture of savoury and sweet things.  I'll try and list what I can remember - 

Savoury:

• lamb and stilton pasties (amazing!!!)
• pear and goat's cheese tartlets
• feta and olive samosas
• cheesy monkey bread with homemade mozzarella and apple & chilli jelly
• parmesan shortbread
• parmesan and chilli stars
• cheesy feet 
• blacksticks blue and poppyseed sables
• bacon and cheese twists
• goat's cheese puffs with a chutney surprise
• stilton puffs
• homemade oatcakes and celery seed hearts served with cheese
• a cheese and pickle hedgehog
• basil and feta cupcakes
• cheese and bacon cupcakes

Sweet:

• basil and mascarpone tart with a walnut base (also amazing!)
• summer fruits cheesecake
• rhubarb crumble cheesecake
• lemon and poppyseed cake with cream cheese frosting
• chocolate cheesecake
• dark chocolate and mint mini-cheesecakes

If anyone fancies joining in with Random Recipes each month, go along to Dom's blog and have a look - he gives us a new challenge on the first day of each month.

If anyone in the Aberdeen/Aberdeenshire area fancies coming along to Pinnies and Petticoats, we are a very friendly, non-competitive baking group and wee meet once a month on a Wednesday evening at Tiger Tiger.  You can get full details on the facebook page.  Next month we are doing a Eurovision theme.  Everyone picks a Eurovision country and makes a bake from there.  I will be doing a Slovenian bake and will post here when I do.