RAW Baking

Boxing Day at the Dingain household was the venue for the third Dingain-Walls Christmas Cake-off - where Rachel 'RAW Baker' Walls battles it out with with Patricia 'I make one Christmas cake for everyone else and another one for me' Dingain, for baker of the best home-made Christmas cake. These two legendary bakers are usually very good friends, but with one win each to date, the gloves were set to come off for this year's competition. This year there were four judges this year - Stacy and Phill Dunkley joining John and Lee Dingain. Each cake was graded using the same criteria as last year - rating the presentation, icing and marzipan and fruit cake as either crap, poor, average, very good or the nuts. In the interest of fairness, cake samples were given to the judges labelled A and B - very serious stuff this competition! Judge John Dingain Judge Stacy Dunkley As with the last two years, both cakes were baked to an exceptionally high standard

I made my first Christmas pudding this year, using rum bought from Goa earlier this year. I was really pleased with the results as you can see form this photo! It was worth the 14 hours it took to steam in the slow cooker. It lit up marvellously and tasted very good. You cannot make beat a home-made pudding. Rawbaking Christmas pudding

  Order your Christmas Bag- £6 each  Butter shortbread 1. Snow Flecked Brownies. A best seller. Dark chocolate, fudge style brownies filled with white chocolate chippings. 2. Butter Shortbread. Butter shortbread sprinkled with sugar and topped with glitter. 3. Fruity Flapjacks. Delicious flapjacks, bursting with mixed fruit. 4. The Triple R - Rachels Rocky Road.   My favourite! A sticky chocolate base mixed with shortbread biscuit and stuffed with marshmallows. 5. Chocolate ginger slab. Chocolate filled with crystallised ginger pieces. 6. Xmas Jammy dodgers. Biscuit filled with jam and sprinkled with icing sugar. 7. White chocolate & cranberry fudge.  Velvety Smooth white chocolate fudge filled with tasty cranberries. Email Rachel at rawbaking@gmail.com with your order!

Using my popular `Triple R' (rachel's rocky road) recipe I used a skull mould to make a Halloween special. A rocky road skeleton skull.

You cannot beat blackberry jam. Good on English crumpets or add a teaspoon with natural yoghurt. The blackberries were picked on Staines Moor.

My Niece Tia had a princess party in the morning with frozen cup cakes and a Darth Vader themed get together in the evening. I love the two extremes! Happy 5th Birthday Tia.

A two-tier victoria sponge decorated with butter icing swirls and a spinkle of glitter. Happy 40th birthday Kellie!

A coffee cake for Melvyn's birthday, topped with scrummy tasting chocolate covered coffee beans.

We had a lovely autumn sunny day to celebrate Lee's birthday in our garden with family. I made double chocolate filled muffins, salted caramel fudge brownies, apple loaf with cinnamon and my favourite, cinnamon buns.

Here's the selection of cakes I made for my work colleagues today.  Carrot cake with cream cheese topping, Salted caramel fudge brownies and `TheTripe R' aka Rachel’s Rocky Road.

A cake for a chocoholic. The chocolate fingers around the edge worked well despite the nieces and nephews eating them as soon as my sister in law blew out her birthday candles!

Coffee loaf cake topped with coffee beans. Lovely with a latte as a snack in the morning!

You cannot beat homemade jam. This year I had a record level of plums and have made 20 jars to date.

Here's a frozen 2 themed birthday cake for Layla's 5th Birthday with matching cupcakes.  

This is in my top 3 of best English pudding in the world - Lemon meringue pie (or LMP, for short). I made this for my brother-in-law's birthday.

A birthday cake for our best friend, Sam who is back from Ecuador for a couple of weeks.

A butterfly themed 30th birthday giant cupcake with matching smaller cupcakes . Pink and red colour theme with a sprinkle of silver glitter.

I am now on board with the best ever seeling merchandise form afi

My neices will love this Frozen birthday cake I made for Molly's 7th birthday! It is the largest cake I have made to date. I enjoyed making the frozens style trees and snowflakes and of course add ing a sprinkle of glitter on the top.    

I am rather pleased with my version of a giant fondant fancy. Vanilla sponge filled with jam and butter cream and covered in fondant icing. I made this for my father in law's 70th birthday as it is one of his favourite cakes!

You cannot beat home-made meringues, filled with cream and strawberries. An English classic! The in-laws tucking in. Mum and Lee 

I made this chocolate marble cake for my sister, Karens' birthday. It is a chocolate and vanilla `marble effect' sponge covered with lashings of chocolate fudge icing.

Taken from Rachel Allens `Bake' book, this recipe has a hint of lemon and nutmeg together with the main flavours of spinach and goat's cheese. It's very nice with a green salad.

One of my favourites. The tangy lemon together with the soft meringue topping, So delicious. Usually we do not share this but I did alow my mum one slice this time!!

I made this Princess Birthday Cake for my niece, Eden's 2nd birthday! Its vanilla ring sponge with pink frosting and a sprinkle of glitter dust.