the cake stand

Everybody loves cake. Well, people with wheat allergies may be a bit wary - but you can make wheat free cakes, vegan cakes, chocolate cakes, cheese cakes, cream cakes... and then eat them. All of them. With tea.

The best thing about cake is that you can't eat a whole cake on your own. You have to share it - with friends - and enjoy tea and cake together.

hints and tips

> Click on our hints and tips. Aimed at novices - these are little stupid mistakes you make and then kick yourself for. Hopefully by sharing where we have tripped up, you won't have to...

baking recipes

We don't just have recipes here. We've also got real photos of finished cakes, along with baking tips and a review function. So if a recipe is brilliant - or awful - share your wisdom

> click on our baking recipes section for those recipes...

The Vegan Way - by Kate

"It's not just lettuce leaves"

Kate is a vegan. That's an odd thing to many people: no eggs? No milk, cream, butter, cheese? Yes: none of these. Kate has a healthy diet and she's a great role model for the Vegan way of life not because she tells everyone about how great Veganism is, but rather because she doesn't. Kate is healthy and happy and she loves food; home cooked, eating out, snacks, picnics, cakes, pies, cheese, ice cream, nachos... and she also just happens to be vegan. We'll hand you over to Kate herself to explain how she manages her diet and sticks firmly to her principles without compromising on taste, texture, diversity freedom or flexibility.
> click here to find out more about cooking tasty food the vegan way

Mike's baking alphabet

Ever had a friend you envied?
Because their D&T projects were always better finished than yours, which hung together with glue showing and sagging string...
Because their French homework always got top marks...
Because their bread rose in a perfectly shaped poppy-seed dotted knot, when you'd mistakenly dropped yours on the floor before even getting it to the oven...

But, despite the fact you envy this friend, you don't hate them. Because they are so nice - so helpful - so quite frankly lovely, brilliant, helpful and most of all inspiring that you just feel like you are turning into something like a groupie?

Mike is one such friend. Why? Well, there are a number of reasons. But the reason most pertinent to you, teaandcake lovers, is his baking skill. Mike thinks nothing of whipping up a miso soup with parsnip dumplings for supper. He will happily bring a three cheese and asparagus tart for picnic, with a wheat free pastry parmesan crust for the an who is gluten intolerant. Anyone who has eaten his tart tartin is quite frankly a very lucky person.

Mike has kindly agreed to write a column for all of us here on teaandcake. We are very proud to present the growing work of culinary art.
> click on the baking alphabet section for this...