One of the things moving out of the family home has given me the chance to discover is that cooking can actually be fun and rewarding. I guess the enjoyment comes from the fact that I'm naturally a creative person and that cooking is something you can be creative with - like painting, you end up with something that's much more than the sum of the parts used to make it. And best of all - you can eat what you make!

The biscuits in the leading photo are sprinkled with vanilla-flavoured sugar and sprinkles, a light taste but delicious!

These aren't your normal instant hot chocolates, as you might be able to tell from how frothy they are! These are made to a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe using real chocolate and an egg yolk - handy if you've just made a recipe that needs only the egg white.

Lemon drizzle cake is a really nostalgic recipe and though it might not be the prettiest cake to make, it's great for soothing a sweet tooth!

Cupcakes, the basis for many a kid's party cake. Or for us, the basis of butterfly cakes that didn't quite end up looking how butterfly cakes should!

Macaroons seem to be popular as of late and since being inspired by Raymond Blanc, decided to have a go. Ours are nice and simple - no fancy colours here. They're tricky to make, so don't look quite as good as on the TV but were still delicious.

These coconut crisps were simple to make, with just a few ingredients and mainly consisting of egg white and desiccated coconut. And, even better when dipped in melted chocolate!

We tried making this "Kringel" recipe from the Hairy Biker's cookbook, but instead of turning out like a platted piece of art, turned into more of a stodgy chocolate-topped bread.

Ah, Hugh's muffin "volcanoes" - a rare innuendo from him. Despite the cheesy joke, these lemon-curd muffins didn't explode everywhere and were just as tasty as they looked.

These raspberry coolis and white chocolate mousse desserts were a treat from me this Valentine's, and boy were they treaty! They were even richer than they looked and really filled us up - on top of starter and mains!

This cute little reindeer cake was inspired from a supermarket recipe - and looks right at home on top of a Paperchase Christmas reindeer plate!

I hope seeing these treats spark your interest in cooking, even if you try something simple to start off with like biscuits. I'll happily admit that I had no concisous interest in cooking before moving out and that building up the motivation can be hard with so many other distractions - but if you can have a go at it, I highly recommend it!