An end, a beginning, an anniversary and a cake So I've been blogging at Cardigangirlverity for over three years now; I remember reading early on that the average life of a blog is 18 months, so I have more than doubled that. The blog started out as a way for me to talk about books with other like minded people, it moved on into baking, and more recently I've talked about gardening and sport. It's become a bit too much of a miscellany really and I think the fact that I haven't been happy with this is partly why I've been absent from the blog so much recently, along with the fact that work has been so super crazy that I have no headspace for bookish thoughts, and my increasing focus on swimming and now triathlon. I have exciting plans for the latter in 2013, so have set up a new blog to record my progress and thoughts on this topic; of course I know that a lot of my readers here have absolutely no interest at all in sport/triathlon so it seemed sensible to start a different and separate blog, and focus my time on that.

Of course it would be lovely to see readers from here over there too especially as I'll not be deleting any of the blogs I currently follow from my Google reader. So without further ado, I introduce you to Tuna To Tri, the explanation for this name is on the blog!

I couldn't possibly close without some cake, so here is a rather wonderful cake that I have made to celebrate one year of being married to Mr W (yesterday) and five years of being together (tomorrow). It's an Austrian hazelnut cake, given our nuptials in Austria, how could I resist choosing this from Peggy Porschen's latest book "Boutique baking". The cake is made from ground hazelnuts and dark chocolate (and butter, eggs, sugar) and topped with marzipan and chocolate ganache. Definitely one of the most involved cakes I've made so I got out the gold leaf that Hayley gave me for my birthday and used it on the top! Thank you very much for following me over the last few years :-)
Posted by verity at 20:40 Do leave a comment - I love to hear from people who read my blog. Baking plans Autumn 2011

Here's the list of things that I am planning to bake over the Autumn :)

Robot Mars Bar Crispie Cake (Fiona Cairn's Birthday Cake book)
Stripy coconut and chocolate cake (Fiona Cairns)
Banoffee cake (Fiona Cairns)
Earl grey cupcakes (Fiona Cairns)
Stripy sandcastle bucket cake (Fiona Cairns)
Marmalade Cake (Fiona Cairns)
Church malt loaf
Gluten free pear crumble
Gluten free ginger and chocolate brownies
Dark chocolate and marmalade loaf
Ginger and dark chocolate cookies

(I am sure that this list will be added to, and I will probably make things from my regular repertoire along the way, especially for Mr W's packed lunches, but I need some focus for my baking!)
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