Strawberry Milk

I had bit of a poorly Big Girl at the start of last week - never a good combination during school holidays! What better to ease a sore throat than some homemade strawberry milk.

All you need is some milk and some fresh strawberries - we used half a pint of milk and six yummy strawberries.

Whizz in the blender and, hey presto, a refreshing comforting drink!

It's a mad rush in our house this morning and we are headed off to West Wales for a few days. Everything is nearly packed - just some good books and knitting to organise!



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Matilda cake

My friend Luned is providing the catering at a children's camp at Llanmadoc this week. Part of the theme for the week is Children's books and so I was asked to make a Matildaesque chocolate cake for the final evening. for anyone who is lost, and I must confess I had to jog my memory, this is in reference to the chocolate cake that features in the book Matilda by Roald Dahl. In the novel Bruce Bogtrotter, one of the characters, eats an entire chocolate cake without throwing up. Apologies if I've got any details wrong - it is at least 20 years since I read the book!

A suitably large and chocolatey offering has been gracing my kitchen - a moist and gooey monster of a cake. I have baked two 10" chocolate cakes which I split to provide four layers sandwiched with vanilla buttercream. The whole cake has been covered with a thick layer of chocolate buttercream applied with a spatula and a straight edge and then finished with an icing comb for effect. Not being a great lover of chocolate this mammoth creation is a bit lost on me. Am sure it will be greatly received by a bunch of 10-13 year olds though. This has made me feel a little *ahem* old, as I have memories of similar summer camps and it doesn't feel that long ago!

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Well the little virus I mentioned in my last post turned out to be a bit more than that! With 168 cupcakes to bake and decorate, as well as a sugarpasted cutting cake to make, 48 hours before the wedding I developed a dental abscess! Maaaaan, was I rough! The two dentists at my surgery were on holiday so I was referred to a covering dentist who drained it and gave me antibiotics. All the baking was completed on painkillers and the icing and decorating was all done the day the abscess was drained - the anaesthetic injection wore off with 12 cupcakes left to ice! Thankfully I got it all done.

The pictures aren't the greatest I'm afraid - partly due to the fact they were taken on my iphone and partly due to the fact I felt truly hideous!

The cupcakes were red velvet cake with cream cheese icing. The wedding theme was 'The Movies' so the bride had sourced some Hollywood style cake toppers for the decoration.

A view of some of the 168!

A blurry image of the cutting cake - red velvet cake, layered with cream cheese icing and covered with white sugarpaste. The Star Trek lego figures are a reference to the bride and groom who got married as Princess Leia and Han Solo!

The summer holidays are going swimmingly and I've accomplished quite a bit in the house as well as with some crafting projects. I have finished the Amy Butler knitted cushion cover - I shall refrain from posting a picture until I've decided on a suitable fabric for the backing. I'm off to the quilting exhibition at the Birmingham NEC on saturday so hope to find something lovely there!

Summer Holidays

We are halfway through our first full week of the school holidays and so far we are all a bit under the weather! Why is it that we are the picture of health when we are living life in the fast lane, but come relaxation time the four of us are afflicted by a random virus - how typical.

Still it's giving me some time for knitting, reading and film watching so it can't all be bad. I've put my sewing machine away for the early weeks of the summer hols in a bid to finish some festering unfinished projects. Some of these were discovered in the spare room whilst decluttering in preparation for decorating. These are largely knitted articles and some have, I am ashamed to say, have been on the needles for *ahem* a year - maybe even a leeettle bit longer. Oh dear!

My current finishing off project is a cable cushion cover from Amy Butler's Midwest Modern Knits. I wonder why it got left along the wayside for so long as I love the pattern. The Aran wool makes it a relatively quick knit. I plan to only knit one side of the cover at this point, using fabric, possibly an Amy Butler print for the other.

At the end of the week begins the cake marathon - my friend is getting married and I have 168 red velvet cupcakes and a 6" cutting cake to make! Madness! This is why I don't do full time cake decorating - the wedding season would be too manic!



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Birthday Cushion

There aren't enough hours in the day at the moment. So much inspiration but oh so little time! There are 2 days left before school breaks up and I have my Big Girl home - I'm looking forward to lazy mornings and not having to be out-the-door by 8.30 am.

I made my friend Mari a birthday cushion for her little girl who turned one last week. I'd bought a delicious fat quarter pack about a month ago - quite literally delicious as the fabric, by Makower, is covered in cupcakes and other sweet delights.

I had some 30X30 cm cushion pads so I calculated that nine 4 and a half squares arranged in three rows of 3 squares would give the correct dimensions. The fat quarter pack contained 4 prints so two 4 and a half squares were cut from each - the remaining square would be white fabric so I could embroider Gwennan's name onto it.

The cut squares ready to go:

And sewn together:

I used a fabric marker to write Gwennan's name on the white square after I'd sewn the squares together to make sure I centered it properly.

This was then embroidered with running stitch in a hot pink coloured silk:

The cushion was backed simply using the envelope method. I am very pleased with the result and it was well received by Gwennan herself! I was in a bit of a rush to complete it and would have liked to have embroidered some flowers around the name on the centre square but time did not allow! However, I've cut out another set of squares to make a similar cushion for a little 3 year old called Efa - her much shorter name lends itself to lots of embellishing!!



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Bread

I've been making my own bread for about 2 years now, mainly with the aid of a breadmaker. However, for the last month I've ditched the machine and I've been experimenting with handbaking. Suffice to say, I won't be buying a loaf of bread unless I have to and the machine is having a rest in the utility room. Handbaking is one of life's simple pleasures - I cannot believe how tasty the end product is and how very therapeutic all the kneading is!

I'm making one to two loaves per week, using an adapted recipe that I found on the back of a bread flour packet:

Mix 500g Bread flour (sometimes I use white, sometimes half white half wholemeal) in a bowl with 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp yeast - I use Dove's Farm quick yeast:

Rub in 25g butter:

Then add 300ml tepid water to form the dough:

I knead the dough on a floured surface, punching and pulling for about 10 minutes - I've found doing it while I listen to the Archers a big help while passing the time. The dough is placed back in the bowl, covered with cling film and left in a warm place to rise. After this 'first rise' the dough is knocked back and then shaped into a round batch type loaf. I then leave it to rise a second time for about half and hour. Following this the dough is placed in a preheated hot oven and baked for about 35 minutes.

The result:

Best served (at the moment anyway!) with slated butter from Swansea market and lashings and lashings of blackcurrant jam - can you believe I tasted this nectar for the first time THIS WEEK!!!

I'm hoping to branch out and experiment - at the moment I have a starter culture on the go, which hopefully will allow me to make some sourdough at somepoint next week. Exciting times!

Quilt Progression

An update on the progress of the 'Freebird' quilt today. After I managed to complete sewing my charm squares into 9-patch blocks over the weekend, on monday evening I got on with the next step. Many apologies for the dodgy picture quality - there was what can only be described as a monsoon going on outside! As well as this I was watching Andy Murray's first round match at Wimbledon so was slightly distracted while taking the photos!

I cut the 9-patch block at the halfway mark vertically and then did the same horizontally:

Each 9-patch block yields 4 smaller blocks - I had 12 9-patch blocks in total so now have 48 smaller blocks. Tonight I may get on with the fun bit - arranging and organizing the little blocks into a combination I like! This is largely dependent on whether the wallpaper stripping in one of our reception rooms keeps calling me! I must learn to complete one thing before going on to another one of these days!