After my brief foray into stitch yesterday I'm back with the baking!
 

A few months ago, Cathy posted about a rather splendid looking book by Lily Vanilli called "Sweet Tooth". Not only did she give an excellent review, she also very generously had a copy to give away. I didn't win the giveaway but I knew I had to have a copy... if only for the fabulous colour on the edge of the pages!
 


 
But the book is not just an aesthetically pleasing object but packed full of the most amazing looking recipes...

 
Fabulous photography... (I so want to make those little cherry bakewells)

 
and plenty of really useful baking advice, including some of the science behind baking.

 
I tend to agree with Cathy that many of the recipes seem to be "special occasion" baking rather than everyday pies and cakes, but it is certainly a must have book for any keen baker.

 
And there are dozens of things I want to bake. I thought I would start with something simple and opted for these Biscuit Brownies.

 
Mine didn't come out as shiny as Lily's, nor did they crack... in fact they didn't look anything like the picture in the book at all. But to be fair, my oven tends to be a bit unpredictable and I had added white chocolate chips which weren't in the original recipe because I always mess about with recipes (such a rebel!)...but they still tasted pretty good. (Although I think it is time to follow Lily's advice and invest in an oven thermometer)

 
Given the choice I would probably just bake Brownies  rather than Biscuit Brownies as we are big Brownie fans in our family...

 
But they were declared a success and they are being gobbled up pretty quickly. I'm looking forward to trying an awful lot more a lot more from this book... Lemon and pistachio shortbread is next on my list. I would also like to thank the lovely Lily Jones (aka Lily Vanilli) who replied very promptly to my request to feature pictures from her book on my blog. A beautiful book full of wonderful recipes... and I really wasn't paid to say that!