Four places I'd love to visit on a cruise holiday

Planet Cruise never really appealed to me until the last few years - now I love the idea if being about to tick so many things off my bucket list in one holiday. It seems like river cruises are my thing. So many incredible cities are located along riverbanks. Here are four different types of cruises I'd love to go on...

1. River Danube cruise
We spent time along the River Danube in Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna but there is so much more I want to explore. Starting in the Black Forest of Germany, the river flows through ten different countries. This time it'll be great to visit during the winter months to see more of Germany along the river. Catching the Christmas markets at Nuremberg, Bamberg and Wurzburg are all top of my list. Alternatively, it'll be great to see the Balkens - a region of Europe I'm not too familiar with but am keen to change. I've heard so many good things about the slightly undiscovered Serbia.

Image credit Lily Lipstick

2. River Mekong cruise
The world's 12th longest river is based in south-east Asia. But the two countries I've most interested in seeing along the route are Cambodia and Vietnam. Angkor Wat is top of my list! I'd love to see the rural floating communities as well as the big city of Ho Chi Minh City.

Image credit Bow Dream Nation

3. Iceland, Norway and Faroe islands cruise
This part of the world always seems like it's from another planet and I think that's part of the reason why it appeals so much to me. All three countries are brand new to me and all high on my list of places to visit. I've spent many hours looking at blog posts about the beautiful Bergan, Reykjavik and Torshavn. I can imagine the scenery on the cruise will be absolutely breathtaking.

Image from Planet Cruise

4. River Nile cruise
My nan did this a few years ago and the pictures looked amazing! I don't think you can fully appreciate these ancient wonders of the world along the longest river in the world until you actually see them in person. The Valley of the Kings have been on my bucket list for ages and I'd love to finally tick it off.

This post was written in collaboration with Planet Cruise - one of the largest independent cruise agents, offering deals to over 3000 different ports.

Read more

Restaurant review: Yuu Kitchen, Whitechapel, east London

As soon as I looked online at the menu at Yuu Kitchen I knew I was going to take up their invitation to try their new dishes. It looked delicious! Located on Commercial Road in the East End, the Pacific Rim inspired restaurant specialises in sharing plates. The best kind of restaurant in my opinion because who doesn't like to try and sample everything on the menu?

To help stop our rumbling bellies as we pursued the menu, my BFF and I decided to order some addictive salted edamame beans and crunchy pork chicharron (pork scratchings) to wet our appetite. They were the perfect introduction to the menu and left us craving more. Our stand out items included the moreish sweet & sticky aubergine which left us desperately needing more as soon as it was finished, tender salt and pepper calamari, twice cooked pork belly bao with the perfect accompaniment of BBQ sauce and cucumber pickles and baby back ribs with a decent amount of heat, they just fell off the bone. A deep fried bao filled with creamy pistachio ice cream was such a game changer. It was probably one of the best things I have eaten in a long time. A revelation!

The menu was fun and inventive. It fully deserves its place in the London restaurant scene. We got to sit at the bar which I highly recommend. It was great fun watching the busy chefs work their magic and they were so helpful, answering any questions we had about the food. In fact all the staff couldn't be any more helpful. A Friday night very well spent - thanks so much for having us Yuu Kitchen. We had a blast!

Read more

Recipe: summer fruit drizzle cake

It feels like it's been an age since I've had time to do some baking so I took advantage of some free time on Bank Holiday Monday. It's made me realise how much I've missed locking myself away in the kitchen and just concentrating on the task at hand. I wanted something simple with ingredients I didn't need to do a big shop for. The end result was this delicious summer fruits drizzle cake from Good Food. It came together wonderfully and couldn't be easier to make.

Ingredients
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
175g of strawberries, halved and blueberries
140g granulated sugar
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
175g of Stork baking margarine
175g caster sugar
250g self-raising flour

Method
1. Heat the oven to 180 degrees / 160 degrees fan oven / gas mark 4. Line a loaf tin with parchment paper and grease liberally with butter.

2. Put the butter, caster sugar, flour, vanilla extract and eggs into a large bowl or stand mixer. Beat until pale and creamy. Keep in mind the mixture will be quite thick so don't worry!

3. Scatter 1/3 of the cake mix into the tin then scatter a small handful of fruit evenly. Then pour over another 1/3 of the mixture and repeat the fruit process. Finally pour over the remaining mixture before popping in the oven.

4. Cook for around an hour - pop some tin foil over the top if it starts to go too brown too early.

5. Once cooked, leave it in the tin on the side while you make the drizzle mixture.

6. Put the remaining fruit in a bowl with the lemon juice and sugar. Give it a good stir, slightly mashing up the fruit as you go. It should turn into a pink paste.

7. Pour over the top of the cake and leave it to set in the tin and fully cool down.

8. Once it's all cooled down, cut yourself a slice and tuck in!

I'd really love to know if you attempt this at home so please do drop me a tweet. Happy baking!

Read more