Let them eat cake

I hadn't really made fairy cakes since my children were small. 

These days they're twice the size and called cup cakes but taste just as delicious.

August seems to have been a month for making these little cakes starting with our little Freddie's birthday when my son & his partner put grandma in charge of making the cup cakes for his birthday party.

The second batch were made for a local tea room who hold an annual charity Vintage car and bike meet in aid of  Hope Against Cancer a local charity supporting research into clinical trials.

By the end of the day these were all that were left and I believe they were all sold too.

Its funny what we remember from school but the recipe for fairy cakes was one of them, equal quantities of butter, sugar and flour and as daft as it sounds you then weigh your eggs to more or less the same amount.

Conscious that these days so many people are gluten/dairy free I also made a batch that didn't contain any dairy or gluten by replacing the flour with gluten free flour and the butter/margarine to a non dairy alternative and they still came out perfectly.  

To have ago this is what you need from your store cupboard.

For the vanilla cupcakes:

225g/8oz butter/margarine or non dairy alternative

225g/8oz caster sugar

225g/8oz self raising flour/gluten free self raising flour

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

pinch of salt

For the chocolate cupcakes replace 50g/2oz of flour with cocoa powder and add 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract.

• Preheat the oven to 180/160/gas mark 4
• cream the butter/non dairy spread with the sugar until smooth.
• Add one egg at a time and mix till smooth after each addition. TIP - I break the eggs into a separate small bowl then add to the mixture just in case you get a bad egg, otherwise you would have to start over.
• Add the vanilla extract and/or cocoa and pinch of salt. 
• Carefully fold in the sifted flour so as not to loose the air in the mixture.
• Now add a tablespoon to each cup cake case (should make around 24 cakes)
• Bake in the oven for 15 minutes

For the icing of the vanilla cup cakes you can make buttercream icing using

150g softened butter/non dairy alterative

300g icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Food colouring if required.

As it was a very hot day I stuck with my old favourite of

350g icing sugar 

12 tsps of fresh fruit juice (for these I used pineapple which worked really well)

mix well until smooth but not runny 

drizzle over the top of your cakes

For the chocolate buttercream 

200g milk chocolate or dairy free chocolate

400g butter/non dairy alternative

800g icing sugar

10 tbsp cocoa powder

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

• Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering hot water not letting the bowl come into contact with the water. Stir until melted.
• Cream the butter/or dairy free alternative with the sugar until smooth
• sift in the cocoa powder and mix until smooth
• add the vanilla extract
• Pour in the melted chocolate and mix until smooth

There are lots of toppers for cakes that can be purchased wither on line or in your local supermarket. Supermarkets tend to be limited as to what they have, there is more variety available on line especially if the cup cakes are for a themed party.  

As schools are getting ready to head back it might be a nice activity to do with your children or grand children before they are sat back in the class room.

If you do I hope you have as much fun as I did.

Mx

Her last promise - Kathryn Hughes

Tara Richards was just a girl when she lost her mother. 

Years later when Tara receives a letter from a London solicitor its contents shake her to the core. Someone has left her a key to a safe deposit box. In the box lies an object that will change everything Tara thought she knew and lead her on a journey to deepest Spain in search of the answers that have haunted her for forty years.

Violet Skye regrets her decision to travel abroad leaving her young daughter behind. As the sun dips below the mountains, she reminds herself she is doing this for their future. Tonight, 4th June 1978, will be the start of a new life for them. This night will indeed change Violet's destiny, in the most unexpected of ways...

Violet and Tara are a team they have never been separated since the day Tara was born. Violet didn't have the best of upbringings and when she found herself pregnant at 15 she left home never to return. As a single parent Violet Dobbs did the best that she could for her daughter and when an opportunity comes along to make a new life for her and her daughter she grabbed it with both hands.  When Violet's latest boyfriend suggests a holiday they are so excited but when the day arrives he turns up in a two seater car making it clear that he only intended to take Violet. Tara encourages her mother to go on her holiday. Her 30th birthday is approaching and she wants her mother to be able to think of herself for once and go and enjoy herself to celebrate. Little did either of them realise as her mother left for her holiday that this would be the last time they saw each other. 40 Years later Tara receives a letter from a Solicitors with a key to a safety deposit box. When Tara opens the box she finds an object that may lead her to someone who can finally tell her what happened to her mother. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have read all Kathryn Hughes books starting with her debut novel The Letter in 2015.  As always Ms Hughes introduces you to each of her characters and their stories. At the time you are unsure how all these characters will interlink but slowly and surely they do as the story unfolds. The story is told in the present and the past and all the characters and their stories come together with a few unexpected twists along the way.

I would definitely recommend this and all the other Kathryn Hughes novels if you have not read them before. They do not need to be read in sequence as each novel is a stand alone story.  

I downloaded this one onto my Kindle and is one of their 99p deals.  If you prefer paperback it's release date is the 22nd August and is available to pre order through amazon.

Happy reading 

Mx

The Big One

Isn't this just the most amazing cake???  I would love to tell you it was my own creation but that would of course be a big fat LIE....  It was made by a very talented lady who I just don't think realises how talented she is and I can tell you it tasted just as delicious as it looked.  As you can see it is a toy box with all little animals inside.  The hours that must have been spent making this for our little grandson....  The lid comes off and each of the little animals were made of icing and lifted out of the box leaving the cake underneath.  It was so cleverly made it was shame to cut it. 

We had so been looking forward to the birth of our first grandchild who was due in the November  2018 and of course the knitting needles had been clickerty clackering, the crochet hook had been hooking for all its worth and two cross stitches had been bought and were on the hoop. 

As my DIL approached her 26th week of pregnancy little did we know at the time that our world was about to be thrown into a complete state of flux. Our little grandson Freddie decided that he didn't want to be a the back end of a horse (Sagittarius) thank you very much he didn't want to arrive in the Winter when its dark when you get up and dark when you go to bed. no he  decided he'd rather be a roaring lion (Leo) and make hay whilst the sun shined and arrived 14 weeks early at just 26 weeks gestation and weighing less than a bag of sugar. 

As a parent all I wanted to do was to wrap my son and DIL in a big hug and keep them safe from what may or may not lie a head.   As much as I was worried for Freddie I was much more worried about them as a young couple who were so excited about having their first child and I suppose like most of us you don't consider the things that can go wrong.  

Just that weekend we had been out shopping for bits and bobs for when she would go into hospital including a little out fit for the young sir to come home after his arrival.  What we could not of foretold was just that same evening she would be taken into hospital having been told that her baby would be making their entrance into the world within the week.  

It was with great relief that when he came into the world he arrived kicking and screaming, all good signs.

They got to spend just five minutes with their new baby before he was whisked off to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) .

We take so many things for granted when we are having our babies don't we, I certainly know I did. Being able to cuddle them when ever we want to,  picking out an outfit for them to be dressed in to go home.  All these things seemed so far into the future for them.  To begin with the nearest thing to a cuddle they got was to put their hand in the incubator and let him hold their finger. 

As time went on more small but most significant of milestones were met when they were allowed to have him out of the incubator for short periods of time to give their beautiful boy a much needed cuddle and a time to bond with their baby.   To being able dress him in his own clothes when even the smallest of premature baby sizes were still too big for him to him  graduating from the incubator to a cot

He spent over 100 days in hospital finally coming home just past his due date and from then on he has gone from strength to strength and last weekend we got to celebrate his first birthday a milestone we weren't sure we would get to see this time last year.  

He is now a very plucky one year old who most definitely tore up the rule book before he arrived. Its been a roller coaster of a year for team Freddie but I can't wait to see what you're going to get up to in your 2nd year.

Mx

And the winner is...

August is the month when the annual Festival of Quilts comes to the NEC Birmingham.  I wasn't supposed to be going this year as it was quite a busy time at the day job and I wasn't sure I was going to be able to fit a trip in.  Some weeks ago I had entered a competition to win two tickets to the show being held by  Vikki of Shute Lane a fabulous artist who makes her art into fabric in order to make quilts and cushions. I had completely forgotten all about entering and so was over the moon when Vikki sent me a message to say I had won.  It was a bit of a panic station to arrange at short notice to be able to go but I am so pleased I did.

The exhibition is held over four days. As the name would suggest it is four fantastic days of an exhibition of quilts. Some of which are 100's of years old and others of more modern times. I absolutely fell in love with this quilt with the sheep it made me think of Yarndale which will be here again before we know it. 

As well as the exhibition there were many stalls, but not just for quilters. I did manage to come home with another two cross stitch charts, to add to the many in my stash, two more pairs of embroidery scissors, you can never have enough.

I discovered John James pebbles a few years ago.  They are so handy to keep in your project bag no matter what the project, and how many times have you needed to sew a button on or do an emergency repair and can't find a needle that will be a thing of the past with one of these.

These two are for beading and knitting and once you have a pebble if necessary you can just buy a pack of replacement needles.

And as a cross stitcher you can never have too many needle minders.  There are lots of these on the market these days but I couldn't resist taking these two home.

It was certainly a fabulous day out as always and I look forward to going again next year.

Mx