Blogged by mail - a more exciting Monday than most

Today was an exciting day. Not only has there been spring in the air all day, but my blogging by mail parcel arrived! This is another of Stephanie at Dispensing Happiness's initiatives, but this one is extra-exciting because it actually makes real things arrive through your letter box. I posted off my package of 'small favorites' to Katie at Girls on a Grill a couple of weeks ago, and have been hanging on to see what might come through my letter box.

My partner was April at Abby Sweets, and she put together a lovely thoughtful parcel, full of exciting goodies. There were so many little things it was like having an extra birthday - but a surprise one while you were in the middle of some fairly boring data analysis (the post arrives late around here!). Here's what April sent me:


At the back is a lovely apron (with the appliqued flower); in front of it on the left is a cake skewer (which I don't have, so that will be much-used), and a citrus peeler, which will be used almost immediately to denude the lemons which are waiting in the fruit bowl to be made into either lemon shortbread or lemon muffins. In front of them are some funky star-shaped muffin moulds, then some Easter sprinkles and some Nutella. I love it that the Nutella came with some little paddle sticks which seems to endorse you just piling in and eating it straight from the container (which is surely what everyone wants to do with Nutella). The cards at the front are some of April's favourite cookie and bar recipes, which is really sweet. I haven't made any of them before, so will definitely be trying them out. Next to the Nutella are some pink and blue writing icing tubes, behind them some really nice-sounding fruity tea, and some chocolate cake writing paper. Next to that are some Easter cookie-cutters - a bunny and an egg - and in front of them, some raspberry flavoured dipping fudge. It was all I could do to stop myself from diving straight into that (after all, The Scientist would never know it existed, would he....??), but I decided to save it for tonight's dessert. That was accompanied with some dipping pretzels, and next to them are some more lovely herbal teas.

I think you'll agree it's a pretty amazing set of little favourites, and I'm really touched at the effort which has gone into it. As April said in her note, it's hard to know what to put in a package when you don't know the recipient, but she did a lovely job. I am giving myself a mission to use each of them in turn, and have some seasonal baking and decorating plans already in place. We started simple tonight with the fudge dipping sauce and the pretzels (I put my share into a banana which I grilled in the George Foreman. It was too messy to make a nice picture, but it tasted gorgeous!).

So, thank you so much, April - go and take a look at her foodie blog. I had a quick first look today and was very impressed to see that she was one of the very first Tuesdays with Dorie bakers! This is a blogging group who makes one recipe a week from Dorie's Baking: from my home to yours. I keep thinking of joining, but we'd just end up with too many cakes! So I will continue to enjoy April's write-ups instead, and pick the odd one to try when we have guests. Thank you also to Stephanie who must have gone to SO much effort to pair everyone up - it's an inspired idea!

If you'll excuse me I have to go and apply a small spoon to a pot of dipping fudge now.