Marks & Spencer’s - Macmillan Coffee Morning*

Unless you’ve been living under a rock then you’ll have no doubt seen posters and adverts galore about Macmillan Coffee Mornings happening as we speak all over the country. I’ve certainly seen a few bakes sales this week at work and its fantastic to see lots of events taking place all over to raise that all important money. Having a coffee morning is the perfect opportunity for a catch up with friends and have some delicious cake all for a good cause. One in three of us will face cancer and the money raised at Macmillan Coffee Mornings will ensure that no one has to face it alone.

This year is the 7th world’s biggest coffee morning in partnership with M&S and all the stops have been pulled out to ensure this is the best one yet. Since 2010 thanks to the support of M&S customers and employees an incredible £6 million has been raised. By 2020, almost 1 in 2 people will get cancer at some point in their lives but you can help be there for even more people by taking part where you can. The Birmingham store is even inviting shoppers to join them for a coffee and a slice of cake on Friday 30th September.

Whether you’re baking or faking it this year you will find a fantastic range of treats in M&S stores this September including a delicious selection of cakes, biscuit and a new range of 13 flavours of cake and cookie mixes. I was lucky enough to receive a few goodies including this ‘Hot Stuff’ mug, Tatty Devine Pin Badge, Pure Ceylon Teabags and Thumbprint Cookie Mix. Whenever you treat yourself to coffee and cake in the M&S Café, a donation will go to Macmillan Cancer Support. I decided to make these strawberry and white chocolate thumb print cookies and bring them along to our Macmillan Coffee Morning at work where they were sold and eaten for charity. They tasted really delicious and went down a storm with the buyers. All I had to do was add butter and the rest of the mix was provided - 10% of the sale of this product is donated to Macmillan Cancer Support.

So if you have a work bake sale or the chance to attend a coffee morning, please pop in. Think of the lives you could change, grab a slice of cake and a cuppa and get involved. Remember – calories don’t count if it’s for charity! If you would like to learn more about Macmillan’s partnership with M&S, please visit their website.

*I received some items from M&S free of charge in exchange for this blog post. All opinions are my own and I was not influenced in any way.

Love, Tanya - Tanya Burr Cookies

I recently went cookbook shopping when I spotted Tanya Burr's new book Love, Tanya half price in WHSmith. Upon reading other reviews, it seemed I might be a little bit above the target age range but I decided to flick through.

I really liked the layout of the book and it seemed like a nice book to read. The cover is very similar to the last book I reviewed by Gayle Forman don't you think?

Tanya is from Norwich, as am I and I actually remember the days when I would see her and Jim vlogging around Norwich before and she has done amazingly well in the past few years to build up her brand.

I love that there are so many different chapters in this book ranging from Tanya's favourite products, top tips and bits about her life. My favourite section has to be the baking section and as soon as I got to this part, I raided the house for baking ingredients and low and behold we had enough to make the milk and white chocolate cookies.

There are a lot of photos in the book and that's another thing I love about it. The pages are broken up nicely and there isn't walls and walls of text. The recipes were really easy to read through and follow and the photos of the finished products complimented them nicely.

I'm pretty sure the recipe said this makes 10, but I made my cookies extra chunky.

The cookies were absolutely amazing. They didn't even last the night! Tanya was right in saying to take these out even though they look like they need longer. I ate mine straight from the oven and they were crisp on the outside and gooey on the inside. Perfect!

Overall I really like this book, the design is nice and it's very interesting to read especially as Tanya is from my hometown. I almost feel a sense of pride! It's the type of book you can pick up and open at any page and find something interesting to read. It's also a nice book to read with a cup of tea snuggled up in bed.

Tanya has done a video on how to bake these cookies which you can find here if you wish to make these yourself. 

Have you bought this book? What do you think?