Continuing on our journey into the land of bread... here is the second loaf, a Polish poppy seed swirl cake called Makowiec. We used the recipe from Taste.com.au - this is a great website, kind of like the Australian equivalent of the equally great BBC good food.

You can see from the photos that we decided not to smother it with lemony icing sugar. This was because, pretty much everything that could go wrong went wrong! And when it came it, we couldn't be bothered (It was the right decision in the end anyway...)

First in a series of bread-related posts is the sweet and slightly over powering Finnish Pulla bread. The recipe is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's and was in the Guardian newspaper, but is also available online as part of his Cardamom recipes.

Hugh describes it as a brioche-style bread (Light and rich), but our attempt proved extremely dense and quite dry. Still delicious don't get me wrong - and the smell was amazing... enough to bring my housemates of their rooms!

Whenever I make something with pastry, there's always some left over. Of course I make the obligatory jam tarts with the spare pastry, but this time I decided to make something else. A personal favourite of mine are Egg Custard Tarts, and since earlier on in the day at school, I'd made another tart - I had some left-over pastry.

Some people say never to re-use pastry, but any sensible foodie would never throw it out!

Here's my recipe for a large Egg Custard Tart (not individual portions!)

What you need:

• 4oz Shortcrust Pastry
• 2 medium eggs
• ½ pint milk
• 2 tbsp sugar
• Grated nutmeg
• 7 inch tin

Step 1. Start with rolling out the pastry on a floured surface until it's around ¼ cm thick.

The other day, browsing the internet in a sleepy haze I discovered this Matcha Tea stuff. Apparently it will instantly elevate my mood and raise my energy.

It's a bright green, highly concentrated green tea powder full of antioxidents and nutrients, made from tea leaves grown in the shade (see the wikipedia page as to why). As well as for brewing up, it can also be used in things like cake and pastries, and mousses and ice cream.

My colleagues at work are aware that I'm a so called 'foodie', and 2 years on the trot they've bought me a book of recipes for my birthday. It's very generous of them, but I can't help but think it's just so I'll cook them treats :)
I'm fine with that!

One of my work mates has coeliac disease, and so every now and again I'm obliged to make something nice that doesn't have gluten in. So here is a really quick and moreish recipe called Coconut Pyramids, or coconut macaroons.