Week 23 & 24: Baking for the win

I wasn't able to post last week as we had friends over for the weekend and I didn't want to be a poor hostess, spending more time behind my laptop than talking to my guests. To be fair, it would have been a short update anyway as work took up a lot of my time so it works out well having this update covering two weeks. 

Among our visiting friends was a birthday girl, so naturally we had to bake her a cake. One of my favourite cakes ever is the traditional red velvet. I know it's wrong, all that colouring just can't be good for you, but I really like the taste of it and the dramatic effect when you cut through it. The weekend before, Simon Rimmer was presenting his version of the red velvet cake on Sunday Brunch (Channel 4) so I thought I'd try his recipe. As I was making it, I couldn't help but feel the proportions were all wrong. The cake came out looking ok but when I tasted it, I was quite disappointed. It was quite dense and quite dry, not at all what I'd want from a red velvet. In saying that, it was perfectly edible and our birthday girl loved it but in our household, baking is a skill and we're pretty critical. I certainly won't be using this recipe again. 

While I was baking a cake, hubby did what he does best and baked a bread, but not just any bread, a "Fries Suikerbrood" otherwise known in English as a Frisian sugar bread. I used to have a craving for these during pregnancy but we hadn't made any since. As you can imagine, this is loaded with calories but it is oh so moorish and delicious! Especially when made by the master baker himself.

I mentioned in my previous update that I was preparing for a baking competition. Well, the time came this week. I can't remember if I've said before that I'm a member of the WI but this was our local WI's bake off. I'd planned to put in two entries: red velvet cake pops in the shape of apples and the rhubarb and custard cake I'd been practising. As there was a category for jams and chutneys, I made the last minute decision to enter a pot of the grapefruit marmalade I made a few weeks back.

The baking prep actually started with some... painting. I knew how I wanted to present my cake pops and I'd gotten these flower pot shaped holders online but they needed a touch of colour so I spent an entire evening experimenting with watercolours then building up the layers until I had the result I wanted.

The following day/evening, I baked and decorated my cake pops. As experimenting with a new recipe hadn't paid off, I went back to my old and trusted red velvet recipe. I reduced the cocoa content and increased the red colouring slightly for effect and everything turned out perfectly. It was a hot day however and the candy melt coating gave me an awful lot of grief. I'd planned on making red and green apples but I messed up the red candy melt so badly it became unworkable and I was left with just the green. Looking back, it probably wasn't such a bad thing, the effect of biting in an apple green pop to discover a bright red cake inside was really quite dramatic.

On the day of the competition, I bought a load of organic rhubarb, the pinkest, prettiest one I could find and set to work making custard and baking my best ever cake. After I'd finished, I was left with quite a lot of the pink stuff and just enough time to spare to bake another entry, so a rhubarb crumble traybake made it into the oven.

As I displayed my entries and looked at what I was up against, I hoped I'd get at least one prize (runner up was good enough) and that none of my entries qualified for the "epic fail" (good effort but didn't quite hit the mark) prize.

But I didn't win just one prize, I won three! OK, so clearly the jury wasn't as enamoured as I am with rhubarb because none of my rhubarb bakes got a mention. My cake pops however hit the home run. Not only were they best in their category (Small but Perfectly Formed), they also raked in the "Showstopper" prize which was picked by the jury out of all the entries. I think I did quite a few leaps of joy when my name was called out. The biggest surprise for me though was that my marmalade won the runner up prize. Considering this is only the second time ever that I've tried my hand at jam making and that I didn't actually follow a recipe, that's a fab result and one I'm still pretty chuffed about!

This win means I'm now a bona fide baker in our house and I no longer have to hide in my husband's shadow. We're officially a baking power couple :-)

In other news, I've been playing with plastic beads these past two weeks. I'd seen somewhere that by baking cheap plastic beads for a relatively short time, you can melt them and create accessories. I had a first go and it really worked. I chose to glue the little flowers to hairbands for my daughter but you could easily turn them into rings, brooches or hairclips.

I also had my nails re-done and opted for a 3D design. I'd been oggling those for a while so it was time to give it a go. I was worried I wouldn't be able to stop picking at it but so far I've been really good and a week in, they're still intact.

I'm currently working on a number of yarn based projects but you'll have to wait until next week to find out more. Have a lovely week folks!

Week 21: Friendship

This week has been a bit of a "blah" week. Even though I have been very busy, it feels like I didn't achieve much at all or maybe I just didn't stop long enough to appreciate whatever I did accomplish. The week started well enough but somewhere down the line I ran out of puff.

I think the best example of how it all went down is in the meals I've served up. I normally take great pride in cooking healthy meals for my little family on a daily basis. So, on Monday we had a lovely homemade pasta salad full of fresh, colourful, tasty ingredients. By Saturday I was plating up Ikea hotdogs, with a portion of broccoli on the side just to assuage my guilt. That pretty much says it all.

But, the good thing about blogging more regularly is that it forces me to take long hard look at my life. All the time. And by taking another look at my "blah" week, I realised I'm actually a very lucky girl. I have friends. Many lovely friends. And I'm so grateful for it.

I live in a pretty cool neighbourhood. What I've found here is a real sense of community and I love it. I've bonded with my really lovely neighbours (we're currently planning a street party - watch this space) and we often have fun stuff happening right on our doorsteps. Last Sunday there was a mini springtime festival in the local park where we made the most of the gorgeous weather in the company of our friendly neighbours.

Chilling in style

As we have no family living nearby, I'm reliant on my friends to help me in times of need, especially with hubby away for work so often. And yet another friend came through for me this week when I really wanted to attend my monthly WI meeting but had no one to look after our daughter. I'm always a bit shy about asking for babysitting but this month's meeting was about furniture upcycling and I really wanted to be there.

I made a batch of shortbreads so my friend had something to munch on while babysitting for me. I use Mary Berry's recipe for shortbread, it's simple but efficient. I like that.

These came in handy too when I welcomed another friend into our home on Friday. My friend Lotte is a fellow blogger with a daughter the same age as mine. Part of her house is currently without a roof, you can read all about her woes on her awesome blog. Despite a migraine plaguing me that day, it was great having her around, I just loved the company. And it's always fun to watch our daughters interact nicely together, or thoroughly ignoring one another as the case may be.

So there you go, I have friends and they definitely make my life a lot brighter, even on a "blah" week. And that's why it makes me extra happy to see my daughter building friendships of her own. Currently, she and her childminder's daughters are fast becoming BFFs and I can't hold back an "Aaaaah" every time we arrive there and they toddle off together hand in hand. Cute or what?

On another note, I did manage to make more than just a batch of shortbreads this week. I've blinged up another pair of trainers for my daughter. The lucky girl now has her own personalised high tops. It's taken me a stupid amount of time to figure out how to best transfer the N onto the canvas (freehand calligraphy isn't one of my strong points). Eventually I settled for cutting the outline with a scalpel and then following the cut with a pencil. Worked a treat!

N for Nimue 

I've also made some pink grapefruit marmalade last night. Earlier in the week, I'd bought some pink grapefruits from our local greengrocer and they're the most delicious, sweet, juicy grapefruits I've ever eaten. They inspired me to try my hand at marmalade and it payed off. Just one of these beauties produced 4.5 pots of marmalade. At 40p for the grapefruit, I'd say that's a pretty good return on investment! And it is delicious too. So delicious in fact that I keep trying to find excuses to eat some.

So, with this lovely marmalade to fuel me, let's hope next week will be a whole lot less "blah" and a whole lot more "wow".

Week 20: Baking, bling and cycling

This week started with a tea party for Contact the Elderly. My husband and I became volunteers for the charity last year and agreed to host a tea party twice a year for lonely elderly people. Since January this year I've taken on extra responsibilities as our local group's coordinator.

Contact the Elderly is a charity really close to my heart. In this day and age, having children really doesn't guarantee there will be someone looking after you or keeping you company in old age. Hubby and I are a prime example of that, we've both moved abroad and while we love our parents very much and will do as much as we can to assist them, we're not exactly grow old in loneliness. That's why we volunteer.

Homemade sausage rolls

Usually hubby is the baker in this house but with work calling him away earlier than expected, it fell on me to do most of the baking this time. Hubby did manage to make a mean lemon tart before leaving though, even if it did give him quite a run for his money!

Hole in the otherwise perfect tart was courtesy of a curious toddler...

This time, the rest of the grub on offer included sandwiches, homemade sausage rolls, waffles, carrot cupcakes and meringue nests.

As always, it was all well received and our elderly guests had a lovely afternoon being entertained by our cat making somersaults trying to catch insects and flying leaves while our toddler was being all round cute as only she can do.

The crystals for my blinging project arrived this week so I was able to finish decorating Nimue's shoes. I'd originally thought I'd decorate the whole front part of the shoe but I decided against it in the end, I just think it would be too much. Anyway, I've already used close to 500 crystals as it is! I have another pair of high tops which I'm planning to add a little bling to, hopefully I'll get round to it this week.

My daughter was rummaging through my expansive craft stash this week and pulled out a bag of scoobidoo cords so I felt compelled to make her one. Inspired by the weather I picked some sunshine colours. Incidentally, scoobies are really great with teething babies, Nimue loves chewing on them when her teeth are annoying her. I do need to learn to make spiral ones, just for variety's sake.

I have a confession to make, I am completely addicted to manicures and pretty nails. Every time I keep telling myself that they're unnecessary and a waste of money and really bad for my own nails but I always end up caving in. Last month I had some very pretty spring nails with cherry blossoms painted on them, this month I've gone for a more classic, yet still a tad quirky look.

We've gone and checked on the cygnets this week and were saddened to see that three haven't made the cut. I know it's nature and all that but it still feels cruel that they can't all survive. The ones left over are still pretty darn cute and fluffy.

On Friday I received a belated birthday gift in the form of a bike seat for my daughter. I love cycling, it is by far my preferred method of transport, but I hadn't been on the bike since getting pregnant with Nimue. The morning sickness made me too weak and then with baby in tow, I couldn't really go anywhere on the bike, until now. We took it for a spin on the Bristol-Bath cycling path yesterday and had great fun until our little ride was cut short by Nimue falling ill halfway. Life with kids, he! I am very happy to be back on the saddle though and can't wait to cycle some more.

My little stuntwoman :-)

That's pretty much the week wrapped up but it wouldn't be complete without a picture of hubby's baking treat for this weekend. Yes, yes, I'm a lucky girl!

Fresh crumpets, nom, nom!

Enjoy the sunshine folks x

Week 19: sunshine and tears

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm now approaching this blog in a different way. From now on I'll be blogging an update on a (hopefully!) weekly basis, interspersed with the occasional, more detailed post. If you see anything that piques your curiosity in a weekly update and you want me to elaborate, please leave me a comment or drop me a line.

This week started with a fab bank holiday weekend. The sun was shining and with the return of Make Sundays Special, Bristol was at its best. The streets were packed with people and it all had a vibrant festival-like atmosphere. There was even a massive water slide down one of the city's main arteries. Amazing! We had a fab family day out taking it all in.

Our daughter got to explore the great outdoors some more, has carried on caring for her naming tree and was introduced to the art of barbecuing.

Weeks ago, I thought I'd make some coloured rice for Nimue to play with but there's no way I'm going to let her play with it indoors (I'm not a huge fan of the vacuum cleaner at the best of times!) so with the arrival of the sunny weather, she finally had a chance to play with it. It's really simple to make and, unlike the gravel on our patio, I don't mind if she ends up eating some.

I've also started blinging up some trainers for the little miss this week but I've run out of crystals mid-project so all I can show you for now is the start. I should be able to show you the finished article later this month.

Mid-week the weather soured and we received the devastating news that a friend, who played a role in getting hubby and I together, has ended her long battle with cancer. It was a sad day with lots of tears but also many hugs and stolen kisses with my daughter. Life is oh so short and far from fair, it's important to hug the people we hold dear and tell them how much we love them as often as possible. In an attempt at dispelling some of the sadness of the day, I decided to introduce our toddler to baking. We made a chocolate and marmalade cake and an awful lot of mess! But I dare say this little one has already inherited her parents' love of baking.

It's not just baking our daughter is interested in though. Lately, she has been desperate to contribute in the kitchen. Sadly we don't have much space on the counter tops for her to sit on and it makes me really nervous when she is up there. So, my husband, who loves a bit of woodwork, has made her a little helper pod. It was finished last night and Nimue has christened it with enthusiasm today. Hubby has done us proud, it's a beautiful piece of craftsmanship and with some tender loving care, it will make a fab heirloom. The only downside is that with a toddler involved in the food prep and the washing up, we're going to have a whole lot more kitchen cleaning to do!

Tomorrow we're hosting a tea party for Contact the Elderly so there's some frantic baking going on here this weekend, you'll hear all about it in next week's update. Until then, take care x