Tea & Art

Hooray it's UK Bank Holiday, does mean I have to go back to work tomorrow after an ultra long 6 weeks of nothingness, fabric and baking but I am kind of ready now! I apologise in advance for my lack of posting for a few days, we have guests and I always get a bit snowed under when going back to work.

Anyway, yesterday we took my lovely mans parents to London to have a look at the BP portrait competition in the National Portrait Gallery and for some lovely food in HIX. Both are highly recommended, will certainly be going back to HIX for some drinks soon, they have an amazing underground bar, really relaxing and serves punch! How fun :)

I really so many of the portraits, these 2 (by Tony Noble and Miriam Escofet) stood out, although I ended up voting for an amazing Oil on Wood by Raphael Rodrigeuz, if I could find a decent picture I would show you it too! Our guests are total tea addicts, so I also made them some tea flavour biscuits, they taste like you have just dunked them in tea and control their withdrawl symptoms pretty well! If you want to make them just whip up any standard shortbread recipe and add the contents of 2-3 teabags when adding the flour! Earl Grey and Chai are amazing, still need to try the rest of my tea collection!

Charity Shop Finds

Hello all, has a nice last holiday day charity shopping and baking! Black forest cupcakes and new jumpers make me very happy!






Are the stars amazing or what!

Strawberry & Cream Cupcakes

Yum!

I Love Summer Pudding

Got it right this time! So, as well as making odd little chequebook holders I also made my favourite food ever...SUMMER PUDDING!!! It's amazing, if you have not made it look it up NOW although you will have to wait overnight before you can eat it!


Lot's of my family and friends have summer birthdays, so have had loads of fun wrapping, here's my current favourite, the prezzie is a secret though...

My garden even managed to survive our holiday unwatering (must have rained), I love my pretty herbs and my runner beans are so so tall. All for now xxxx

Amazing Cake

Is this not the most amazing cake ever made??? It was not created by me, but my lovely London friends for my partners birthday (lucky guy). What's even more amazing is it arrived with a massive pork belly (which made the most incredible sandwiches) and a surprise hidden inside!!!

If you can't tell btw this cake it huge, over a foot long and containing 16 eggs. Inside (after baking before someone odd tries this) there is a bottle of something very special hiding, as soon as I steal the pics of the other PC I will show you!

A Few Things

Hello all, here are a few little makes for this week. I bought some really thick nice woolen style red fabric from a really nice antiques and crafts place near my parent's house a few weeks ago, as it's so lovely I want to make lots of smaller things from it, so I started with this tiny purse as a gift for a family friend!

I had to iron it a ridiculous amount to get it this flat, I think it's just one of those puffy type things but hey-ho! I also made a coffee cake yesterday and grabbed a couple of charity shop bargins, I have wanted a tiny cross stitch hoop for ages and love the odd shape of this one!

I still only have a tape player in my car, so to keep me sane on the way to work I try anbd listen to stories, I wasn't quite up for this on when driving in the dark, but now it is sunny in the mornings I thought I would give it a try!

Custom Front Notebooks

I was shopping with my brother when I went to visit last week and we were admiring some plain front notebooks which you could draw your own cover on! Instead of buying I decided to make some for him with squared, lined and plain pages. The front was thick card cut 2mm wider than the paper pages on all edges, I then stapled them shut and used bias binding and superglue to make the seams, croc clipping them whilst they dried:


Here's the finished books in a little bag (trying to be pro, or just colourful)

I also used the gift giving excuse to make some Nigella Choc Cookies to take home too, they are simply the best chocolate thing ever and very easy!

For more ideas check out the link below:

Lemon Meringue Pie Cupcakes

Yet more tasty cakes from my new 'Eat Me' book, these are a little complicated to make yet so worth the effort, really tasty! You start by making a simple cupcake base with lemon juice and rind, half fill the cases (these ones are new from JOY in London), bake until just done and then make a dip in the middle and fill with lemon curd. Top with meringue and bake until done!

Amazing Few Days

LOOK AT THE WEATHER! It has been the most amazing few days, I have had a lovely time with my favourite London people going to museums and shopping (will show exciting purchases in another post) and eating lovely food and today was so sunny and productive!





I felt justified in wearing exciting and impractical clothes to go to the garden centre as it was sunny, so I wore my new London bought shoes and my favourtie straw hat! I went shopping and then bought lots of fruit and made my favourite lunch with some innocent smoothie.

After eating my lunch I did MASSES of gardening, including over an hour weeding, but the results look good so far, lots of blank well turned earth for vegetables in a few weeks time. My blubs all flowered today too! Hooray!

I made some wigwams for some sugarsnap and mangetout I am growing out of old bamboo from my parents garden, I also built a new arch with some clematis (purple haze!) for some more peas, the garden is looking pretty cool now if I do say so myself!

After all that I had a treat (some birthday chocolate from my nice man) and then made an even bigger treat with this crumble cake with apple and blackberry!

Last but not least I went and picked up some paint and undercoat and some amazing cheap chairs from ebay which I plan to makeover, will keep you posted!

Thai Stir Fry and Round Rice

Hello all! I am so proud of my neat food I just had to share it, I bought some round kitchen things a while back to make crumpets (which I still need to do) but instead have made lots of round posh food, for some reason pretty food certainly tastes nicer, yum!

Marmalade Cakes

I tried out some more baking with my new whisk and made marmalade cakes, which rose a little more than expected hence the dodgy icing on a few! The recipe was modified a bit from my new 'EAT ME' book (see here), it makes a lot more than you would expect from the recipe!

Lemon Overload

Quite often I order my shopping online, this usually means it's a little cheaper and also as we live near the depo so are often the last delivery in our time slot we get 'suprises' (the stuff they have forgotton to give to other people I suspect). This week we got 4 huge bags of lemons, they are currently taking up both draws at the bottom of the fridge.

I asked around for what to do with them and have so far used 10, another 20 to go though so suggestions welcome!

1) Lemon Curd (I made 2 jars) 100g butter, 200g sugar (caster), 4 lemons (rind and juice), 3 eggs and 1 egg yolk.

Melt the butter over a simmering bain marie, then add all other ingrediants and whisk gentley until custard like (takes 10-15 mins). Once done pour into a sterile jar (eg just out the dishwasher but cooled) and stir occasionally as it cools to stop crystals forming! Once cool eat and put in the fridge!

2) Viennese Lemon Swirls. Use a standard biscuit recipe but subsitute 3tbsp of flower for cornflower and add lemon rind and juice of 1-2 lemons (may need to remove some liquid, mine worked as normal though). They will have a very flowery light texture. I made sanwiches of lemon icing (yey more lemons used) for mine, you could make them uber lemony and use cream (yum)!

I got this fab book from my lovely other half for my birthday so expect more cupcake and biscuit posts in the near future! My other birthday books are below, the net is fab for ideas but there is something about books that is very lovely and traditional. I got lots of fab fabirc for my birthday, so cool quilt plans are on the horizon for my Easter holidays. 1 week to go :)

Pillowcase Bag and More Cakes

Today my Parents came to visit and to take my brother home, we went to the local car boot sale, great fun and amazingly it starts at the civilised hour of 11am! I got lots of things (will share in next post) but for now here is a bag I made out of a 20p pillowcase! I went for the Monsoon style slight use of sequins as it looked a little too old 70s bedspread for my liking! Not sure I like it still, but nevermind!

Did you spot the ribbon tag? It looks better in real life I think! My brother also helped me make yet more cakes, these are 'Queen Cakes' which are basically very egg heavy cupcakes with raisins and nutmeg, they have stayed so sticky they are great! My bro is a little more handy with a camera than I, I love the arty kettle shot!

Coffee Cakes

My brother has come to stay and we have done so much in a tiny time, including making these ace coffee cakes (we have eaten most of them, only 1 made it to the iced-photography stage).

Recipe: 220g self rasing flour, 220g butter, 220 light brown sugar, 4 small or 3 medium eggs and 4 tsps instant coffee dissolved in 4 tbsps hot water and left to cool. Cream butter sugar, slowly add eggs, stir in flour, then cooled coffee and mostly fill cake cases, cook for 25 mins at 180 degrees! Butter ice and eat!

Pinboard Present & Pancakes

Twas my lovely friend Eartha's Birthday last weekend and she requested a pinboard to brighten up her house has part of her gift. I had some random primark top fabric that was ideal for this, I had to go and buy a staple gun (something I had wanted for ages) and decided to buy the el-cheapo brand to try out, to my amazement it's really good, I am very glad I did not splash out on a shiny one! I sewed (although you could glue) buttons to the 4 outer crosses for a bit of decoration, the middle I left open for larger items - something I did not do on my own pinboard and now regret a bit! She seemed to like it muchly!

I also tried my hand at making scotch pancakes, they were really tasty and very simple. You need 1 egg, 30g sugar, 1/4 pint of milk and 120g self raising flour. Whizz it with a whisk/processor and ladel onto an oiled pan, medium high heat, flip when the underside becomes golden at the edge and bubbles appear on the top (40 secs - 1 min). I like mine with blackcurrents and icecream!