The Best Savoury Snack: Cheddar and Bacon Pastry Straws

I have always posted a lot of recipes on this site; most of them sharing my love for baking. Cakes, brownies, biscuits and desserts...they all reflect my sweet-tooth! Apart from a couple of Slimming World recipes, I have never shared any savoury snacks on my blog. Well, this is about to change! This cheesy bacon recipe is just absolute heaven; a concoction by Lorraine Pascale who is my baking idol (sorry, Mary Berry!). My mum used to make these when I lived at home and we all used to go crazy over them- these pastry snacks are so addictive and moreish (although not so good for the waistline I must admit!). Ready to eat in about an hour, these are a fab, quick snack idea if you are having 'party food' dinners over Christmas; you can boast about how you made them yourself and the flavours will win over your guests! I have made a few tweaks to the recipe which you will find below or you can check out the original recipe here.

Carrot Cake

I first made this cake for Father's Day earlier this year as a quick present for my Dad. It's a Lorraine Pascale recipe which I have adapted; after watching her TV programme (featuring a lot of chocolate, always a sign of a great show) and falling in love with the beautiful cakes she made, I really wanted to try one of her recipes. It is originally a recipe for a 3-tier cake, but I took off a third from each ingredient to make 2 layers, which I think is more than enough. This cake doesn't need any butter, being replaced with vegetable oil which along with the carrot gives a wonderful moist texture. The orange and lemon in the cake and icing give a really fresh citrus tang to it, and makes what is normally considered quite a heavy cake, very light and refreshing. This cake disappeared very quickly, and like the honey cake I ended up making another one!