A round up

It's been a busy few weeks since the start of February. And here we are already halfway through March. I wish I could tell you I had been immersed in some fabulous creative activities but alas for the most part it was a slog of redecorating, putting Ikea wardrobes together and other such exciting pursuits. 

There were some highlights.

Some welcome and wonderful early Spring Sunshine. As the sun gets higher it means my washing has a chance of actually drying instead of hanging lifeless in the shade. This makes me feel enormously happy. Probably more than I should admit in public.

I rediscovered my bread making mojo last week. Some simple white bread rolls along with bacon and cheese rolls courtesy of BBC Good Food and Paul Hollywood

There was a new line in silly hats.

A beautiful cake just for me made by my mum <3

To make myself feel less old I chose to go visit things that are significantly older than I am.

Old Wardour Castle where hubby pretended to be Robin of Loxley and I pretended to be Maid Marian and re-enact scenes from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.

You don't get much older than this in the UK. We didn't sadly visit the new exhibition (the pups had their fill of giant stones by this point) but I must say the timed ticketing worked well. Obviously we weren't the only ones there but it wasn't heaving. Even managed to bump into a foreign gentleman who seeing me in my rather charming hat (Pup2 and the man in the ticket office insisted I wear it everywhere) delighted in telling me it was also his 40th that day too. Clearly he did OK as he got a foreign holiday for his birthday whereas I got a ride in the car for an hour to Salisbury Plain.....

And finally KC aka Mia the Killer Cat sums up how I feel right now, tired enough to sleep on the bed using a laptop bag as a pillow. And I am sure turning 40 has nothing to do with it at all ;)

Looking forward to Easter and slowing down the pace of life a little. 

Can you dig it?

Apologies for the lack of blog activity. I would really love to be able to say it was because I have been doing lots of amazing things. That would be a lie. Blogger being a complete PITA about uploading photos has made the last few blog posts a sheer nightmare. Uploading pictures off camera to computer, having to email them to myself to download said pics to a tablet so I can blog via there. Needless to say it sucked out the joy of writing a post. As I type this I am praying its been fixed......

End of September it was Pup1's birthday. Having swore I wouldn't make a 3D cake again he requested a cake for his birthday. A Minecraft cake. Well Minecraft is all blocks and squares.....how hard can that be.

That will teach me for being so naive! Cake and fondant icing isnt as easy to get dead square as it would first appear. So I opted for a Minecraft inspired cake. That way I could tweak the design to suit my needs and not have Pup1 questioning why it didn't look exactly like all those Minecraft videos hes addicted to.

I used one of Pup1's figures for handy referencing

A Creeper. Thankfully this one doesn't self destruct ;)

No cake would be complete without a Minecraft animal.....I give you Pig in case you couldn't tell.

Cutting the hipster beard for Steve was quite frankly a bloody nightmare. I kept cutting them too large.

The finished article. 

As you can see I decided to use different shaded squares to give the impression of that classic Minecraft block shape. I initially tried cutting individual tiles but quite frankly they only highlighted the fact that the cake is anything but a perfect square.

6 hungry boys however declared it a success and devoured it in a way only 9 year old boys can. Messily and with a huge amount of excess noise.

Roll on December when the annual Christmas cake decorating will commence......

Let it go, let it go!

In case you have been living in a cave for last 6 months Frozen the Disney film has taken the world and countless small children by storm. Pup2 is no exception. My lovely sweet girl is going to be 6 on Friday and I rather stupidly promised to make her a cake for her birthday. She chose Frozen and she wanted Anna, Elsa and Olaf on the cake (really child just how big a cake do you think this will actually be?!).
Being the sort of person who pretends to be organised but generally flies by the seat of her pants I decided to get started early on making the figures so they will harden nicely by the time it comes to the actual cake making. However a serious clash of 4 birthday parties on the same day (out of a class of 30 - you can see how catastrophic that would be) I brought Pup2's birthday party forward a week. Whilst this gave some breathing space to the other party girls it mean my attempts at being the early bird catching the worm came to nil.


I wont lie. I have HATED making this cake. Well some of it. Elsa was a chore to make in a size appropriate for the 8" cake. For some reason I can do enormous sized figures but weeny ones not so much. Olaf was a breeze to make, he's so simple it's untrue. I attempted Anna but quite frankly I made her torso/tits so enormous she would have given Dolly Parton a run for her money and she (sitting down) towered over her sister. So Olaf and Elsa it was because by this point I had given up the will to live.

Yes Elsa has a slight black eye. She channeling the spirit of Amy Winehouse and her eyeliner choices. Dont judge OK? ;)

Olaf sans body. Not freaky at all.....

I was originally going to be lazy time efficient and buy a ready iced cake. But they were all TINY. So I decided to bake one (in previous cake make escapades my mum had always been in charge of that department). So I Googled and found this recipe and it cooked fine (albeit a bit longer than the timing said but my oven is naff). 

Can you wait while I just drool over the perfect flatness of this cake. 

I invested in a cake saw (purchased from Sainsburys of all places) and it allowed me to evenly cut the cake to jam and cream the middle and to level it off to perfection :)

Some "ice" was needed to add a touch of realism. Glacier mints. 

The aroma of hot mints made my eyes water a bit!

Elsa has been at those frozen fractals again.

Olaf just wants to give a nice warm hug.

Be careful you don't cut yourself ;)

The (nearly) finished article. Pup2's name needs to be added.

Lessons I have learned from this experience.

1. I am not sure I have the patience any more to make 3D models. Flat pictures it is from now on.

2. Don't leave your figures to harden off on the window or you might find the likes of Elsa have added highlights to their hair.

3. Fake ice looks better against a coloured background. As you can see I had to artistically drape a sheet so I could get a half decent photograph.

4. Four packets of Glacier mints is WAAAAAAAAAAY too many for making fake ice!

Pup2 is thrilled with her cake. Which I will need to remember when I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat thinking about the stress of making it.

Long time.....

.....no see. Its been 14 months since my last post. What a 14 months it's been. We packed up our troubles and relocated to Wiltshire. Have been in this stunning county now for over 5 months and boy oh boy do I love living here :)
The mammoth task of redecorating the entire house, redesigning front and back gardens is looming infront of me so I ask myself why not try and shoe horn in a bit of blogging too. Because clearly my life isn't busy enough already.
Actually I have missed being creative. Writing posts. Taking pictures. Hubby bought me a lovely DSLR camera for Christmas and it's a crime not to use it. Not suggesting I am actually good at any of those things but it made me happy. So here I am. Back in the saddle again.

The eagle eyed among you may have noticed I've changed the name of the blog. I'm flighty like that. It may change again, who knows. I shall keep you guessing.....

Anyway back to business.
Cake. I like cake. Generally I like the unfussy kind but I decided to make myself a pre birthday "birthday cake". Huh? I hear you cry. I originally planned this cake to be my actual birthday cake. But the Pups are planning a surprise for me which I believe involves them decorating a cake for me. So rather than rain on their parade I thought I'd make this cake anyway but before the main event.

I have always had designs on making something like this.

(Courtesy of Betty Crocker site)

 

However I don't have a small enough tin to cook the layers. My usual tins would revolve in layers too thin and too dry. And I couldn't really be bothered with the faff of mixing orange and purple. So I decided to make a marble cake instead.

Its nothing special. Just a plain old Victoria sponge. But I decided to liven it up a bit.

Subtle no?

Feel like I am back in nursery playing with poster paints :)

As you can see smoothing icing isn't one of my talents......

 

Its like an RTA of colours. Garish. Bright. Bold. Slightly disturbing to have food this colour. But I love it. Not something I would eat every week but for those moments when you want to feast your eyes as much as your belly I think it does a pretty good job :)

I am teetering on the edge of being another year older and supposedly another year wiser. However my baking resembles a 3 year old's day at the paints. I should let loose my inner child more often :)

Snow White

Its coming up to Pup2's birthday. Which means birthday cake time. Having flicked through this book Pup2 decided that she wanted Snow White. Who am I to argue?

Rustic Cottage

One wicked stepmorther, complete with facial wart.

Snow White. Fear not both her and wicked step mother have eyes but needed to let the fondant icing skin over before drawing them on.

Who wouldn't want to live in a lovely little cottage like this?!

She even has a little storage shed on the side. Perfect for storing the Seven Dwarves work tools.

Ah the infamous poison apple. Thankfully this entire cake is edible :) The only poison is likely to be a sugar rush ;)

I am really pleased with how the cake turned out. My fab mum gave me assistance, she helped make the house (she's better at plonking on icing than me and I am better at the modelling) and Pup2 is highly excited with her cake. Remind me though never to work with black fondant icing.......it's hideous stuff, sticky and soft. Quite unlike the other ready coloured blocks of icing.

Now if the Universe could see fit to send me Chris Hemsworth from the film Snow White and the Huntsman I'd be one very happy mummy ;)

2190

A week today Pup1 will be 2190 days old (give or take one due to the leap year). Or 42 in dog years. A big 6 in human years. Either way it's that time again. Yep you guessed it......it's cake time.
Of late Pup1 has been slightly obsessed with the Toy Story trilogy so I had a look for some inspiration and the workers co-operative of myself and my mum set to work.

Can you guess what it is yet? <said in the style of Rolf Harris>

That was my very first attempt at piping. And I had to do it free hand!! Quite nerve wracking and has a slight upward slant due to my left handedness. The pics aren't quite as good due to being taken in artificial light but you get the gist.
Pup1 is having a party on Sunday at an indoor play centre (thank goodness no major home party prep this time) so the cake is for then. I am afraid I will probably resort to a supermarket cake on his actual birthday. Not even I have enough time to make two cakes in a week.

Me and mum did have a good giggle whilst making it today. At one point I was convinced that Buzz looked a bit like this

Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein. OK I think you needed to be there at the time to see it ;)

Party Prep Part Deux.

So I was told when I got married it was all about THE dress. Well it would appear that when you are 3 years old it is all about THE birthday cake. A workers co-operative between myself and my mum (I seriously can't take all the credit) and voila we have one cake ready for party on Saturday. Pup2 can't keep looking at it so I guess it's a winner with her. The only downside is we're actually going to have to cut into it eek! Not sure I want to now. Anyway enough chatter I'll let the pictures do all the talking :)

Sorry it's a bit image heavy but I wanted to show as many stages as possible. The white bits on the end of the cake have now been painted brown.

So Sleeping Beauty is now complete and after the busy few days I've had making her I ought to sleep well tonight too!

Party Preparation.

So come next Monday it would have been 3 years since Pup2 was squeezed out (thank goodness for gas and air ;) ). Anyway as with most things I don't need much of an excuse to celebrate so given her age we're holding a little garden party at home and inviting some friends and their children round to indulge in some pass the parcel, pin the tail on the donkey (or in this case stick the chameleon on the Rapunzle picture - those of you without little girls will be unaware of the fun that is Disney's Tangled film) and lots and lots of sugary stuff with a bit of carrot stick thrown in for good measure.
So to decorate I have the ubiquitous balloons but I also have a small love affair with bunting. It started a couple of years ago when a friend had a similar garden party and had bought some hand made bunting to hang off the fence. I was entranced. It was so pretty and cute and well..........so pink so I have always wanted to have a go at making some. Now I have my trusty old sewing machine it was now something I was capable of making.

As I am inherently lazy doing a lot of interfacing, hemming didn't appeal so pinking shears came to the rescue.

Sewing it took about 40 mins as there was miles of it. OK I exaggerate but it felt like miles at the time!









Terrible picture I know but I couldn't find somewhere to hang it to take a picture!

One of the party activities will be the kids decorating the cupcakes I baked with Pup2.

I have 4 packs of 4 icing pens AND sugar strands. I dread to think of the mess at the end of that session, I think weather permitting this will be done outside.

Next on the list of prep is making the birthday cake. I shall be making this with my mum so expect lots of cross moments (as perfection rears it's ugly head) but lots and lots of giggles too. It's just like making the Christmas cake all over again, in July. Pics of the cake will follow next week.