Iced coffee is one of my favourite ways of enjoying coffee in summer. Iced Coffee is very common drink on the continent, but not so much in the UK. Well, I think, it's time to change that!

Lot of people think, that you need to have a specialist coffee making equipment to make something fancy like an Iced Coffee, but the opposite is true! I'd recommend that you make your coffee the way you normally do and then turn it into an iced coffee. Whether you have an expresso machine, coffee maker with hot water dispenser, or just use an instant coffee, you can make a delicious iced coffee drink perfect for the summer.

I always offer refreshments, when I run my baking courses and this week, I decided to prepare my version of Iced Coffee. I was right that nobody really wanted a hot drink anyway and my iced coffee was a bit of a welcomed novelty.

 Autumn is always a happy season, since it's a harvest time and there is so much colour in the countryside. There is also plenty of fruit around and one of my favourite thing to make is a plum jam. 

We used to make plum jam from plums from my grandmother's farmhouse garden and often mixed different varieties. The flavour was always a bit different and we sometimes added spices or alcohol to make the jam extra special.

I'd say that if you see a 'Pick your own' anywhere where you live, it's worth the efford to collect your own plums, as these will be perfectly ripe and sweet at the same time. You can, of course use a shop bought ones, but I'm often dissapointed with the flavour unless you buy a good quality and then it becomes expensive.

So, today I wanted to share with you my easy plum jam recipe, which I've tried and tested over the years.

For the last year or so I have been thinking of writing a book - a bread baking book that is. And after several months spend in front of computer screen and testing new recipes, I'm really pleased to say, that I'm nearly there!

The book is now being proofread, formatted and I'm finishing setting up all the technical stuff behind the scenes. Did you know how many things you need to work out and connect if you just want to download a pdf? 

This cherry pie recipe is one of my favourite sweets to make for Sunday lunch. It's so easy to make and delicious to eat all of which means it’s my ideal comfort food, especially if you serve it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. 

This version of cherry pie is made with a cherry conserve, instead of fresh cherries. This makes it quicker to bake and straightforward to prepare. You can have the whole recipe done at the same time as you are preparing your main meal.

What I love about this recipe, is that every time you buy cherry conserve, you can choose a different flavour, which changes the final taste of the pie.  

This chocolate sorbet recipe is perfect as a delicious dessert, but also suitable for dairy free diets. Because it's made without cream or milk, this sorbet is very light and the taste is amazing.

Whist the preparation time is very simple, you need to leave the sorbet to freeze for quite some time, so make sure you start your sorbet making the day before you want to serve it.

This recipe is very simple to make, and it's a real energy booster. Unlike normal chocolate brownie, this recipe has chocolate added in rather than mixed in. Because of the oats, this recipe is also slightly on a healthy side, if you can possibly count brownie recipe healthy at all!

My friend brought this recipe back from a recent trip to America, so the recipe is measured in cups. To be honest, I've started to bake more and more using cups as a measure, and it's surprisingly easy! I can even remember a few recipes without getting the cookery book out.

One question we often get asked during our sourdough bread baking class is 'Is sourdough bread good for weight loss?'.

Since we already know that swapping a home baked bread for shop bought is always a good idea, I wanted to find out more about the benefits of eating sourdough bread.

Author: Magdalena Marsden

This article was last updated on 5 May 2020

I've always been interested in traditional confectionery - pretty much all of my life I was on a quest for the perfect sweets, chocolates or bonbons. And I was always fascinated about the process of sweet's making and it was partly the reason why I founded Cocoa & Heartfew years back. All those demonstrations at seaside sweet's shops of how to make a stick of rock got me thinking, that perhaps I could have a go myself. And I did - successfully - made several batches of boiled sweets and now you can have a go too, following my step by step boiled sweets recipe tutorial.