Happy 4th July to my American readers. Is it just me who associates American holidays with eating lots of food?

With this is mind, I wanted to share my thoughts on the new recipe book from The Hummingbird Bakery, ‘Life Is Sweet.’

For those of you not familiar with Hummingbird they specialise in delicious American recipes. The new book has 100 original recipes, from cookies to layer cakes to traybakes and everything in-between.

Tarek Malouf who opened the first Hummingbird Bakery on London’s Portobello Road in 2004, followed by bakeries in South Kensington, Soho, Spitalfields, Islington, Richmond and Dubai has ensured all recipes are authentic American and range from easy as pie to slightly more technial, making it suitable for all levels of bakers.

Here are a few of the recipes.

Blackberry Sonker

Grape Jelly Cupcakes

I decided to bake the Lemon Crumb Squares as not only do I love lemon desserts but I already had most of the ingredients.

The base is made with plain flour, salt, baking powder, butter, soft dark brown sugar and rolled oats. And the filling is made with condensed milk, fresh lemon juice and lemon zest.

Half of the base is added to a baking tray and topped with the filling. The remainder of the base is then sprinkled on top before baking for 20-25 mins, cooling for 30 minutes and chilling in the fridge for 1 hour. Although time-wise this is a long recipe, it’s really easy and the actual effort isn’t that much.

This recipe went down well with the family, and kept well in the fridge for days.

For your copy head to Amazon Hummingbird ‘Life Is Sweet

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