Is anyone else getting a tad excited about the Royal Wedding? I'm not a monarchist by any sense of the word but I am a huge fan of chintzy touristy tatt, Bank Holiday's and the added excuse to throw a shindig. I'll be spending my extra bank holiday checking out Kate's frock with a teacup full of gin and a mouthful of cake, comedy fascinator worn at a jaunty angle and surrounded by a lot of royal junk.
This tatt has absolutely nothing to do with me, but it is amazing and I'd quite like it all please.
My Mum has already bestowed some sugar paper Royal couple cupcake toppers upon me but I thought I'd make some too to jazz it up a bit. Undoubtedly the Post Office will release some hideous wedding commemorative stamps closer to the time but for now I'll have to stick with Her Majesty's delightful mug.
To make these I drew round the bottom of a small glass a few times for my outer circle template on a sheet of thin card , painted them in rather garish Union Jack hues and cut them out. Stick two circles back to back with a tooth pick wedged firmly between them. Add another brightly painted circle of card, with your stamp artfully glued in the middle. If you're like me, it will be with all the precision of a three year old! Tie a pretty piece of ribbon in a bow around your cocktail stick and "TA-DAHHHHHH". One very haphazard but very attractive cupcake topper.
Sadly no cakes to display them on...
If you've get any other ideas for Royal Wedding party makes then please share! I've got the bug.
I made these bad boys to go with my squash soup and I think I may have developed a rather unhealthy addiction to them. My parents have a bread maker so I used that to mix up and prove the dough to save time and to save my hands getting messy but it's easy enough to do without, I'm just lazy and prefer boogeying in the kitchen to BBC 6 Music than pounding dough with my fists.
Ingredients 1 small bag white bread mix 325 ml warm water 100 g roughly chopped walnuts 4 tbsp honey Olive oild to brush on top
Method
Whack the bread mix and water into a large bowl with the honey and nuts and mix until the dough comes together.
Place the dough on a floured surface and rest for five mins, then knead for a further two before resting again for five. (This is why I stick it all in the machine...) Shape into however many rolls you desire, i did 6 but they were flipping massive. You'd easily get 8 or 10 out of the mix. Pop them on a greased baking tray and cover with a damp cloth and leave in your airing cupboard or somewhere else warm for about half an hour, in which time they should have almost doubled in size. (Again the machine does all this for me. Magical!) Now brush with olive oil and pop in a hot oven, gas mark 8-ish for about 15 minutes. Apparently you can tell when they're done by knocking them on the bottom, they should sound hollow. They should be golden brown on the top and smell divine!
Now I've been told eating hot bread can give you indigestion but to be honest, the pain would be worth it to enjoy these oven fresh with some melty butter.
A made soup yesterday inspired by a recipe I saw in The Independent. I don't know why I don't appreciate soups more. They are delicious and can be made out of whatever you have lurking in your fridge/veggie drawer.
Have a go at this one for a vibrant and tasty spring soup!
Squash and Ginger Soup
Ingredients
1 medium butternut squash
1 medium white onion
1 chopped garlic clove
1 fistful of fresh chopped parsley and a pinch more if you fancy a garnish
1 heaped tsp of grated or "lazy" ginger
3 heaped tbsp natural greek yoghurt
Salt and Pepper
4 cups of water
Method
Peel and chop the squash and onion, and place in a large saucepan with the water. Bring to the boil and turn down to a simmer. Throw in the garlic, parsley and ginger and simmer until the vegetables are suitably mushy. Turn off the heat and add the dollops of yoghurt before blitzing the mixture. Serve with a swirl of yoghurt and a few parsley leaves if you want to look fancy! Season to taste.
Enjoy with a tasty buttered roll, unless you're being healthy. Then just enjoy!
Also, I can't make or eat soup without busting a groove to this:
I'm a bit of a cupcake fiend and this week I baked up a batch for my managers birthday. I didn't have the money to spend on gourmet ingredients or decorations so it was very much a store cupboard raiding event. I also needed to suck up a bit: my contract is up at the end of the month but I could really do with them extending it...
Thankfully I had a cupboard full of cooking chocolate and the basics for chocolate cakes and I found a certain something something that would top them off nicely. A bottle of Starbucks black cherry syrup. Delicious in coffee, even better mixed with icing sugar, butter and a splash of milk to make a flipping fabulous frosting! With the chocolate sponge they had a bit of a Black Forest Gateaux vibe going on. Retro! In hingsight I should have plonked a cherry on top. I have a bag in the freezer and everything. Silly me.
I implore anyone who bakes to snap up a bottle in your favourite flavour straight away at your local 'Bucks. Or live dangerously and try one of these bad boys: COFFEE SYRUPS
I made my first Folksy sale today and my little budgie couldn't be going to a better home. He'll be winging his way (ya'geddit?. groan) to Claire from http://theworldofkitsch.com/ first thing tomorrow. Check out her blog, it's quite easily one of my favourites on the internet. Kitsch wonders and bad taxidermy. Perfect!
Not bad going seeing as I only opened my shop on Sunday, and hopefully there will be many more where that came from.
Bye bye Birdie
Tomorrow night I'll mostly be baking so my next blog will almost definitely involve edible treats!
Ive spent a large portion of this morning playing with Shrinkles. They're probably the most fun thing EVER. There must be some scientific explanation for how they work but the one I prefer to use is "MAGIC". Draw a picture on the flimsy sheet of plastic, colour it in, cut it out, put it in the oven and then BAM. A magic teeny pretty piece of plastic emerges. Apologies for the misuse of capital letters but that's just how excited I get about shrink plastic. I remember being less excited by it as a child. I recall a Beatrix Potter themed set for keyrings and what not. I'd appreciate this much more now than I did as a 7 year old.
Here are some pictures I took of my shrinkling adventure.
Teeny!
Cute Blue Tit necklace
Parakeet Earrings
I also learnt today that "chintz" is so called because people used to think it came from China, but get this, it actually came from India! Silly people.....
So I think you should all go buy some Shrinkles now. Here you go. Thank me later.
I am a lazy, lazy maker. And blogger. I'm hoping this time around to stick to it. I'm feeling strangely motivated at the moment so fingers crossed!
Mini Wood Pigeon!
I've listed all of these bad boys on folksy today. Last time I made to sell I wasn't very focused and went off on lots of tangents but this time I've decided to stick to a theme. My favourite theme - birds.
My favourite - The Budgie.
Flamingo
Mr Peacock
So far I just have just made these little embroideries which were a lot of fun. Any one who knows me knows I have a slight (OK massive) bird fetish. It didn't used to be the case but after sharing a house with a pigeon fancier the little blighters really grew on me. Now I snap up anything with a bird on it.
My head is currently chock full of birdy ideas, I have a Magpie and Cockatiel something-something in progress too.
I'm also going to crack out the shrinkles later (blimmin' love shrink plastic!) to make some more earrings like these which I sold a while ago.
Rightio - I think that's enough blather for now but I'll also be using this space to chart my baking and chintz buying endeavors as well as anything else I think may be of some interest so watch this space pals!
