Food Blogger Of The Fortnight – Penelope’s Pantry

Today we are getting to know the blogger behind Penelope’s Pantry Penelope has been blogging for nearly 10 years! Wowzer. Her blog is primarily about food but also her family,girl guiding and disabilities. It makes for an interesting read so definitely go check it out. I especially like her free from recipes as I also have a little one who has allergies. Her Sweet Potato biscuits look really good and are dairy, egg, soya and sugar free so great for weaning or just for anyone who needs to avoid those ingredients. I am a fairly new visitor to her pantry but I don’t want to leave it anytime soon.

Over to Penelope..

I started blogging way back in 2007(!) I belonged to the Food & Drink discussion boards on Handbag.com and was baking a lot – mainly cupcakes back then for friends and family who were asking for my recipes. Initially it was just that, an online recipe log, the equivalent of those scraps of paper my Mum and Grandma have tucked in their cookbooks with the recipe for the Coronation chicken that they ate for lunch back in 1990. Who am I kidding? I still have those – and that recipe for Coronation chicken! Over the next 2-3 years I blogged fairly sporadically – using showtunes as my post title and linking in my love for Musical Theatre with that for food. Guiding and disability also features – I run a Brownie and Guide unit and will often post food related activity plans for non oven based cooking, and celebration/ festival/ seasonal food activities for little ones. More recently, with a home, marriage, and the arrival of little Harry my focus has obviously changed. I definitely write what I live and the blog is now heavily peppered with dairy, egg, soya and strawberry free weaning recipes for my little one who has severe allergies. I still love to bake, but my focus is currently on eating really healthily, reducing refined sugar as well as inclusive cooking and baking. I’ve also started including some of my crafting on the blog – earlier this year I made my first quilt and more recently I’ve taught myself to crochet.

What is your most popular recipe?

My most popular recipe is the Mars Bar cake I made for my husband’s birthday in 2013. It had been a difficult year for us, I’d been unwell since the start of the year, and we were 4 months into a house purchase that was stuck in probate. I make Mark a birthday cake every year, but this year wanted to make something he’d adore as he’d been such a huge support to me. It’s a lovely straightforward recipe, but it’s the icing that makes it something people really enjoy. I still get emails from people who want to scale it up as it’s hugely popular for bake sales and Bake off competitions! I must remake it actually, but obviously it’s not dairy free with all those Mars Bars inside!

And your personal favourite?

My favourite recipe – that’s a hard one, I love all my preserves. Especially now as it’s not something I get the time to do with a toddler running around. It changes regularly but I think at the moment it’s my Chewy apple and sultana flapjacks oats are lactogenic, and Harry’s been poorly since mid August so we’re nursing more than we have been for a while. Flapjacks can be eaten with one hand too which is always a bonus! That said, on a savoury note I made my Super slow cooked brisket at the weekend and had forgotten just how much I adore that. 3 hours to perfect comfort food – and it stretches a £5 piece of brisket to 4 days worth of dinners for 2 and a half people.

Where else can we find you?

Twitter – https://twitter.com/penjy
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/PenelopesPantry
Instagram – https://instagram.com/penjy/
Pinterest – https://uk.pinterest.com/penjy/