Happy blog birthday to me!

Rainbow Cake

Not a recipe this one. Just a bit of a thank you, really. I’ve been writing this blog for a year now, and it makes me really happy. As much as anything it’s a great way for me to keep my recipes, but I do enjoy sharing my baking and this way I get to share it with all of you who read it.

Along the way, even before I started, there’ve been some people who’ve been super supportive and encouraging. I want to say a little thank you to a few. They’re all lovely folk, and you could do worse than follow them (on Twitter) or check out their blogs.

Firstly, The Ginger Bread Lad, one of my favourite baking bloggers, who was always so nice about my baking on Twitter and suggested I give blogging a go. Definitely one to watch, this one – I expect big things from him in the future. Have a look at his recipes here.

Then there’s Alice. Lovely Alice. Encouraging me to blog doesn’t really cover it. Nagged. Pestered. Bullied. Even came round my house and helped me get it working properly and gave me a 101 in WordPress. If you’re lucky enough to know Alice (and if you live in Brighton, I’d be surprised if you don’t, networking queen that she is), then her generosity of spirit knows no bounds. She’s also a good excuse for me to come up with more gluten-free baking. Check out her Gluten-Free Dining Guide.

The delightful Arusha Elworthy lent her magnificent skills by creating my logo. I particularly love my little pink-haired, leopard-aproned baker (me in cartoon form, even though my hair is no longer pink). Thank you for making me look so adorable!

My most unusual recipe to date has to be my Gluten-Free Bacon and Peanut Butter Brownies, created for the Pork Princess herself, Nicole ‘Snafflepuss’ Healing. She was even kind enough to re-blog my recipe on her blog, where you can find plenty of good stuff to read about all sorts of things. She’s also a marvellous yoga buddy.

Speaking of buddies, Hannah is my good Bake Club buddy. And she’s a dab hand with the old crochet hook, crafty mare, and made me the most amazing birthday present of some beautiful pink lips and a cake, which I proudly wear daily and get lots of compliments on. That’s them in the picture below. See how clever she is?! Oh, and she guest-blogged some tasty little biscuits.

Birthday lips and cake

Endless encouragement and offers of help come from my favourite glamour-nerd on the street, Amy Blackburn. I’ve known and loved her long time, and I’m inspired and delighted by her success setting up her own business. If you like geeky, comic book stuff and super cute clothes then Geek La Chic is the place for you.

A few friends in Twitter-land, who I hope one day to meet for real, also deserve mentions for all their retweets, confidence boosting and even trying out my recipes. Thank you Faye, Dodie, Mike, Jacquie (perhaps better known as Bite Me Brighton) and Julie – you’re all awesome and deserve a huge slice of cake.

Whilst there’s no recipe this time, I did make myself a big old blog birthday cake. I would have blogged it, but honestly, though it looks pretty good in the picture there were a few disasters with this along the way. You’re bound to find a decent recipe for rainbow cake online, and I know that Holiday Baker Man is kindly willing to share his expertise if you are brave enough to give one of these mammoth cakes a go. Still, for all its issues, it didn’t half look impressive when I cut a slice!

There are plenty more people I probably should have thanked (ooh it’s all gone a bit awards ceremony speech), but I don’t want to run the risk of boring anyone so much they never come back to look at my recipes. So to all of you who’ve ever read my little blog – thank you!

Rainbow birthday cake