I can't believe it's a whole year since opening up my presents last Christmas and discovering Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights amongst them. (That sounds really weird when I read it back!)

H and I both bought each other cupcake recipe books this year, which was a coincidence and fun because we had a baking day with everyone else that was around, before she went back to London.

She got me the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. You may remember me telling you about the scrumptious chocolate cupcakes I had at their Portobello Road shop last year. They are made using devils food-cake recipe which is light and moist and delicious. I can't wait to try out the Chocolate Cheesecake and Brooklyn Blackout Cake recipe, and whilst I'm in my current hippy mood, Green Tea Cupcakes. Just as soon as we've eaten up the Christmas cake and plethora of chocolates we've been given.

I got her the Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery book, produced by another great shop in London. She made the lemon ones with American frosting and decorated them with sugar stars, whilst I was making up a batch of brownies.

They look fun books with great illustrations but everything is copyright so I can't reproduce them here. Both books are now on sale and if you click on the links above you can actually have a brief browse through.

I'll let you know how I get on with mine.