It’s a slippery-slope that first hot cross bun of the season. A steep descent towards carbohydrate-induced haze, but one I happily slide (earlier, and earlier) each year.

Introducing ‘The Plain-Cake Appreciation Society’ – a club for connoisseurs of uncomplicated bakes, simple cakes the general appreciation of pausing daily for tea and cake. Sound good?

Our lime and lemon trees are laden with fruit at the moment. This is making me feel quite smug – as I can duck out to the courtyard and pluck a few juicy limes or lemons whenever the fancy strikes. O is making the most of it, managing to consume her own weight in fresh lemonade most days, and Kip is not adverse to eating them straight from the tree…

In an inverse relationship to their size, small cakes hold a big place in my heart. For me, there is just something immensely likeable about them. Maybe it has something to do with nostalgia and the fact that they so easily transport you back to childhood – when the ultimate treat was a cupcake with pink icing, or better yet, a butterfly cake – or maybe it is that being small in size you feel less guilty about eating them and can therefore eat them without constraint…

‘And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If this rain doesn’t stop.”‘

As I sat with the rain drumming on the roof, gutters over-flowing and big fat drops splattering the windows, this John O’Brien poem kept running loops in my head.

Up in the mountains, winter has hit in full force. This week it has felt not so much like a cold ‘snap’, but a cold whack in the face. It’s decidedly nippy and the wind has been fierce…

I’ve never really been a fan of the ice cream sandwich. Too much fanfare and cross-pollination for my liking. The promise is big, …