Rainbow Cake

I haven't updated my blog for a few weeks. It has not been due to the lack of creative process - just lack of time! I am lucky these days if my body makes contact with some form of chair - life is busy! Fortunately, I love busy - I hate being at a loose end!

Last week my big girl turned six (sob!) - where DID the time go?! I can't quite believe it! We celebrated on her actual birthday with a meal out at Castellamare and then a small tea party with three friends last Saturday. It was the most civilised party I have ever hosted - the girls needed very little entertaining and played happily together (with a little bit of help from husband who instigated a game of 'find the daddy').

I have been wanting to make a rainbow cake for ages but have either lacked the time or occasion to do so. A certain big girl's birthday was the perfect opportunity. Firstly, I baked 6 thin yet colourful sponges

Admittedly, a real rainbow has seven colours but I thought it might be difficult to differentiate between indigo and violet so I settled with six colours instead. I basically made a double batch of victoria sponge mix, separating the mixture into six bowls and colouring accordingly.

Secondly, I sandwiched the layers with vanilla buttercream before covering the whole cake.

Thirdly, the cake was covered with sugarpaste and decorated with a 'Hello Kitty' figure I made from sugarpaste, and lots and lots of flowers.

It was very much admired and consumed by four hungry little girls!

A Royal Day!!

I can't claim to be a Royalist or Monarchist in any way, shape or form. I do, however, enjoy a bit of pomp and circumstance and tradition - and I especially enjoy a wedding! With this in mind, yesterday was a wedding marathon as we watched Prince William and Kate Middleton get married - I confess that I had the television on from 6.20 am (my excuse is I had to feed the baby!) til the end of the BBC coverage. I also watched the highlights later in the evening! The whole thing was just beautiful and I felt quite privileged to have witnessed, albeit by television, a very personal event in their lives.

In honour of the day a teaparty was most definately in order consisting of my Big Girl, my friend Bev and myself. Baby Boy was also present intermittently but my husband found sanctuary at a fishing lake instead - in fact, from his description, every other male in the city had done the same. Curiously he seemed to know a lot of wedding details when quizzed...

We had a selection of finger sandwiches (egg and watercress, smoked salmon, ham), homemade scones with clotted cram and jam, tea in china cups, pink bubbly and some 'Royal Wedding Welsh Cakes' - my own invention! After the recent success of the white chocolate and cranberry Welsh cakes, I decided to add some dried blueberries to the mix to make them red, white and blue!!! They were cut out with a heart shaped cutter in honour of the wedding and will definately be made again - delicious!

Happy Easter Day

I've had a lovely Easter Day with my family and Church family today - celebrating this wonderful day has been very special.

Eggs - the real sort ...

Eggs - the chocolate sort ...

Chickens - the bean bag sort ...

I made these out of stash fabric, based on the tutorial here. These were a joy to make and very quick - a big bonus when there is a new baby around! I stuffed them with dried pulses and wadding and the little chickens are lining up around the house!

Let's not forget the true message of Easter amidst eggs, chickens and chocolate:
Christ is risen!

Happy Easter all!

Pottering

It's the Easter school hols here and we're being spoiled on two fronts. Firstly Dr husband is taking his belated paternity leave, and secondly the weather is warm and sunny! In the past I've felt a bit of a failure on school holidays and weekends if I've not managed to accomplish something fabulous every day. Generally this results in very grumpy, stressed and tired people inevitably leading to a wasted day and an argument. Far too slowly I've come to realise we all have far more fun if we try not to climb a mountain, but rather spending the day simply and together instead. The last few days have been spent pottering in and about the house and garden, playing and chatting. The glorious sunshine is set to extend into the weekend and hopefully beyond meaning we can expect a lot more pottering before the end of the holidays!

Sowing seeds...

Crocheting in the sun...that lovely cotton yarn is being used for a blanket!

My new herb garden in a lovely wooden wine box ...

Tea Time

The start of the week had more glorious sunshine but sadly by today its a washout - just in time for the school holidays as always! This week has involved a lot of baking, but I'm also pleased to announce that my sewing machine has been out this week for the first time in 10 weeks!

I've experimented with an old family favourite for this week's tea-time treat. Being Welsh, the traditional Welsh cake is a family staple - I can't remember a time without them. For those who don't know, the best way I can describe them is somewhere between a scone and a cookie. Traditionally they are cooked on a bakestone or griddle, best eaten warm and in my house slightly burnt! I always put sultanas in mine, but recently, inspired by an episode of The Hairy Bikers Mums know best I have deviated from the unadulterated form. The Cardiff mum who was featured shared a recipe in which she replaced the raisins/sultanas/mixed fruit with ... white chocolate and cranberries! Admittedly such a combination is a marriage made in heaven in my book, but in a Welsh cake? I was dubious, especially as it seemed to be meddling with an age old recipe! Tried - I did. The result - I ate my words.

I used my own trusted recipe rather than the version from the Hairy Bikers BBC webpage, replacing the sultanas with, quite literally, a handful of dried cranberries and a handful of white chocolate chips. In a word - divine!

New Wool

I am not getting on with the previously mentioned acrylic yarn - I intend to complete the stripey blanket though, and I may surprise myself with the end product! I have in the meantime aquired a brand new cotton yarn from my favourite wool shop First4yarns - Nature Classic Cotton by Adriafil. I've used Knitcol by Adriafil several times in the past for sock knitting so I fancied trying out their cotton, especially given the fabulous colours available. The 5 balls I ordered have sat unused for the better part of three weeks while I contemplate what to do with it all. I had considered a 'patchwork' granny square blanket or a ripple. However, during night-time baby feeding web-based research I came across a possible candidate - the Copenhagen cushion. I LOVE it!!! I ended up ordering 2 further balls of the classic cotton this week in a 'natural' colourway in order to make a start. It's a little yarny gift to myself - I had hoped to get to Wonderwool this weekend, but after a manically busy week for all of us, I think it's probably unlikely. Hey ho, there is always next year and some online wooly retail therapy instead!

Sunshine in a jar!

The glorious weather has come to an end for the time being. Yesterday and today have been dull, dreary and rainy. Breakfast time yesterday morning was grey and miserable and to add insult to injury there was no jam in the house to have with our toast! Madam Sophia was not best pleased but was pacified with some of my mother-in-law's crab apple jelly, normally reserved for sunday roasts. While frantically searching for something to put on madam's toast, what do I find in the cupboard but a little bit of leftover summer - homemade lemon marmalade, unopened and intact.

While on holiday last summer I sampled the most divine lemon marmalade in a small B&B. I am not a big fan of marmalade as a general rule, but in my then pregnant state it seemed like nectar. On our return home I searched high and low for lemon marmalade with no luck - everything was either orange, grapefruit or lemon with lime. Nothing else would do and so to satisfy my craving I made my own - finding a recipe proved difficult so in the end I adapted an orange marmalade recipe. I can't remember how long the craving lasted but obviously not long enough to open the very last jar. In the miserable rain it was a little sunshine in a jar.