out with the old cake, in with the new...

Happy New Year…I’m not sure how it can be that we are hurtling towards the middle of Feb….I still haven’t packed away the Christmas decorations yet..!

The past couple of months have been a veritable cakefest of buttercream layered proportions.

All of my immediate family {husband aside} have birthdays in December or January. It’s exhausting, to say the least. Especially as this time round, two of those birthdays were sorta special ones. A 40th and a 70th. Mine was not the 70th {although it’s beginning to feel a lot like it was}.

The kids are less than two weeks apart and with birthday cakes and parties to prepare for it’s a bit of a stress …

The little lady had requested an Ariel cake. 

I made a vanilla sponge cake {Peggy Porschen recipe} for the bottom tier and a chocolate sponge {Brooklyn Blackout cake recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery} for the top tier.

I’ve never really had a lot patience with the decorating bit of cake making, it all just seems like too much hard work!!! Only to then be eaten…

Last year I left the beautifying of the cake to the very last minute. 

Having spent the entire evening stitching an Aurora costume for the princess potty birthday girl,

frantic and covered in threads, I called out whimpered to granny of the icy north {who, luckily, was just in the kitchen} at about midnight to see if she could take over the rolling out and laying on of the incredibly important pink fondant icing.

Earlier, in a haze of supermum big headedness, I had just assumed that at some point I would take on the persona of Jane Asher, and that I would find myself {obviously not at some ungodly hour} daintily sculpting figurines of all the Disney princesses my little poppet was so enamoured with out of fondant icing…

But in reality, I found myself, at about 2am ish, creeping into her room in the dark dead of night searching for small plastic figures that I could plonk on top of the cake.

I lucked out and found Sleeping Beauty with the three fairies…I got away with it. 

But this time round I didn’t have granny waiting in the wings, so I just had to bite the sugar paste bullet, as it were.

It helped enormously that this year I didn’t have a costume to make, and that the husband took the kids out to the aquarium for the day. 

What began as a neccessity to cover up some cracks and lumps and bumps in the icing, ended up becoming a tour de force of sugar paste sculpture. And the thing was, once I relaxed, took my time, realised that simple shapes and strips of fondant could be simply twisted and shaped  to look like seaweed and coral, that little balls of white fondant and shimmer powder could look like bubbles and simple circles could be placed to look like a mermaid tail scales …..

I   HAD   FUN!   I   REALLY   DID!!*

Although it hadn’t occurred to me, that when it was all finished, it would require a fork lift truck to shift it….

I really didn’t plan on creating such a beast of a cake. It just sort of happened. With 35 kids coming to the new 5 year olds party, I panicked. I thought, 

‘What if there isn’t enough cake…?’

I don’t know what I was thinking….We were still eating that cake two weeks after her birthday.

In fact right up until I had to start making the next kids birthday cake….!

Alfie’s rainbow sponge dino cake.

If you invite dinosaurs to a party, they will come.

{and when you put little party hats on them, they just instantly look so happy!}

* But won’t be rushing into creating another quite so soon...

who's wonder woman?

Last year there was a bit of a run on 'superhero' themed birthday parties that the little lady was invited to.

Obviously I made her a little superhero outfit. I asked her if she wanted to go as Wonder Woman { having gone through a surprisingly short list of female super heroes I could think of before drawing an absolute blank}. 

"Who's Wonder Woman?" she asked.

I thought for a moment of how best to describe a 1970's cult tv show.

"Hhhhmmmm..." I replied "I think, deep down, we all are". 

Yay. Well done me, for such a deep, philosophical message to send to my 3 year old daughter. 

She thought for a moment, then answered,

"Can I go as a princess instead?"

To all Wonder Women {and princesses}, 

Happy International Women's Day!

starry

I was almost on the point of turfing out the broken and deformed bits of crayon at the bottom of the little lady’s pencil tin. 

I say tin, but ’skip’ would be a far better description judging by the amount of pens and pencils with Disney Princess labels I find scattered around the house. Those little nubby ends of crayon that fill up the pencil tin or, more likely, get wedged into the base of a lego block...well, they annoy me.

Anyway, I remembered seeing on another blog {forget where} an idea for melting down a collection of broken crayons in a cupcake case and making them into new, multi coloured novelty crayons...clever.

I used  some star shaped silicone moulds and melted them in a low oven {about 140 ºC}for about 10 minutes until all melted. 

I’m wondering if this technique would work for scraggy soap ends?? Because they annoy me too. Hhhmmmm...

diamond creams

No self respecting {royal} granny is ever without a bag of peppermints stuffed in her pockets ready for any eventuality and occasion ....erm....apparently. Although grannies are getting younger these days and it’s out with the winceyette nighties and in with the spray tans and vajazzles......eeek!

I haven’t made peppermint creams since I was much younger than I am now.....I had forgotten how easy they are to do - basically edible play dough. So perfect for little princes and princesses to make too.

In a nod to the forthcoming jubilations I turned these into {very } rough diamonds and blinged them up big time with an exuberant sprinkling of edible glitter, which really does get everywhere!

Diamond Creams

250g sifted icing sugar {plus extra for dusting}

1 lightly whisked egg white  {powdered egg white works a treat too}

A few drops of peppermint extract

With the icing sugar in a large bowl, slowly mix in most of the egg white and peppermint extract until all combined into a soft and sticky dough. At this point you may need to add more icing sugar until the dough can be kneaded by hand.

Place dough on a chopping board smothered in icing sugar and roll out to the desired thickness {1cm is good}. Using a sharp knife dipped in icing sugar cut diagonal lines across the dough in one direction and then repeat in the other direction forming ‘diamond shapes’.

Place on a lightly oiled {vegetable oil or similar} sheet of greaseproof paper. Brush with a light coating of the remaining egg white and sprinkle with edible glitter. 

Leave to dry out for several hours or over night. Should keep well in an airtight container.

Have a most jubilant weekend! x

chocolate cheerio cakes

We’ve recently spent some quality time at our local Little Cooks cookery classes. 

The little lady has delighted in putting her pinny on and doing some baking! And of course there is always the added bonus of scoffing your creative culinary delights which you just can’t do with a finger painting!

In fact we’ve been doing a spot of baking at home too, although there really isn’t the space here so have had to wing it somewhat with me whipping up a dough mix or cake batter in the kitchen and the little one completing the most important task of rolling and cutting cookie shapes or spooning mixture into cake cases at the dining table. 

But this suits my neurotic baker ways and helps keep kitchen trauma to a minimum!

Anyway, despite having a stock of cookie dough batches in the freezer for rainy day cookie baking {gosh, doesn’t that make me sound organised...?} I decided today that we would make chocolate crispie cakes because I remember them so well from my childhood, and well, they really are totally simples and just a bit yummy, aren’t they?

Although we don’t eat Rice Crispies in this house.....or Cornflakes for that matter....so Cheerios it had to be!

This is how we made ours.....

Chocolate Cheerio Cakes

100g milk chocolate

75g Cheerios

50g unsalted butter

4 tbsp runny honey {or you could use golden syrup}

50g dried blueberries {or similar}

Melt the chocolate, butter and honey in a bowl over a pan of simmering water until smooth and all melted.

Mix the Cheerios and blueberries in a large mixing bowl and pour the melted chocolate mixture over. Mix until all combined.

Spoon into cake cases and chill for about 40 minutes...or not...if you can’t wait, then scoff immediately and revel in your rebellious ways and sticky fingers! 

This is easy and fun for children to make, except, of course for the melty chocolate bit which should be done by a grown up.

Washing up can be fun too.....although best done in the garden and always a good idea to check everything before putting it back in the cupboard!

✴ dough balls

On cold days indoors needing entertainment for my little teenage toddler there is no finer distraction for little fingers...umm..and big fingers.....than play dough.

Play dough is easy to make. My mum made it all the time for me and my sis and now I make it for Ella.

She loves it. Of course you're never going to distract a toddler for very, very long, but it just about keeps her quiet and creatively focused for me to have a breather. Although actually I usually spend that breather moulding and sculpting said play dough and then getting a bit carried away with my dough sculpture and imagining that the Tate might just call offering me exhibition space....

Finally, daydream broken, Ella grabs whatever I've been making and lobs it across the room. Children really are the harshest of critics.

Here is the recipe I use;

½ cup of plain flour

½ cup of water

¼ cup of table salt

1 tablespoon of cream of tartar

1 tablespoon of oil

food colouring

{double ingredients for a larger quantity of same coloured dough}

Mix the flour together with the tartar and salt in a saucepan {preferably old pan}

Add the water and mix until smooth.

Add a tsp of food colouring {or more if deeper colour required}

Then the oil and stir until combined

Put the pan over a medium heat and keep stirring until the dough comes together to form a ball.

Allow to cool, then play!

Keep dough in a zip lock or freezer bag and place in a box or tin to prolong it's life. 

Play dough will dry out and it's highly likely that in a very short time, your lovely neat coloured dough balls will end up looking like this....