Hello blog. I won’t make any rash promises to take better care of you - but I have found something for you to keep track of for me.

Baking is a part of Christmas - it’s much nicer to whip up a tray of mince pies than it is to rip open a shop bought box - and every year it surprises me how easy it is to bake things rather than buy them. But somehow I forget that from January until mid-December. This year I’m going to remember. I baked a quiche on 4th January and quickly decided to call it the first of fifty-two baked things in 2013. Not quite a new year’s resolution, but a bit like it, only yummier.

This is what I came up with in January. If the recipe is online I will have linked to it from the flickr page.

• Asparagus & Smoked Salmon Quiche
  I buy shop bought quiche quite a lot - I will be making them from now on!

• Baked Mincemeat Doughnuts
  These had been on my ‘make at Christmas’ list but I hadn’t got around to them. Very nice and I will be making them again with another filling (or perhaps mincemeat again). Next time I’ll leave them to rise a bit longer and get rounder.

• Yorkshire Pasty
  I tried to make pasties years ago and they were a disaster. These weren’t. I have every intention of making them regularly now!

• Orange Self Saucing Pudding
  I wouldn’t have tried this one without the challenge. Needed cooking slower and longer I think, though nobody objected to it being a bit batter-y.

• Banana Tarte Tatin
  These were nice enough, but the ginger got stuck in the caramel on the tins (maybe it was overcaramelised?) and they weren’t worth the bother of buying ready-made puff pastry for.

• Tricorn Pasty
  I made some more pasties already! Flying without the recipe this time I ended up with not enough pastry and too much filling. And somehow they ended up as triangles. I didn’t use as much pickle or cheese - next time I will think about making the filling a bit more exciting. They make a good meal all the same though.

• Peach & Raspberry Bread
  This wasn’t what I was planning on making yesterday (which involved a shed load of ground almonds that will keep for another time) but the market had cheap raspberries and peaches and this looked like a nice recipe. Basically it’s a muffin in loaf form. I think I had a bit too much wet fruit in it but I think it’s nice.

I’ve realised I also made another small batch of mince pies with the leftover pastry from the tarte tatin, but since they obviously weren’t important enough to get a photograph I won’t include those.

I’m quite pleased with all this, and have plenty of plans for other bakes during the rest of the year.