Beetroot Cake...

Since we've been having vegetable boxes delivered to us from these folks, we've found we quite often have bits and pieces which we wouldn't normally buy, or we're not quite sure what to make with. This led to one of my new favourite games being born, google dinner, where you simply pop into google the ingredients you have to hand and find a whole array of wonderful recipes using them.

Well when it came to googling beetroot, the recipe I found most was definitely beetroot cake, mostly chocolate beetroot cake, but I did find a couple of basic just beetroot cake. 'What a wonderful idea' I thought, 'just like carrot cake'.

As it happened I had all the ingredients I needed at hand for this recipe (which coincidentally is from the same website that we get our veg from). So as Milo was napping I set about baking.

It was lots of fun, mostly for the wonderful pink juice that bled pretty much everywhere! And it was a very easy recipe. Once in the oven it started to smell fantastic, and then, well, it started to just smell a little weird!

It came out well, to look it, and is pretty much the perfect cake consistency, lovely and light and moist, but, well, it just doesn't taste that great! It's not bad, we'll probably manage to eat it all between the two of us, after all cake is cake, but I certainly won't be making it again. Maybe I'll try the chocolate variety next time.

Books and Bread...

I got some wonderful new books for my birthday (some as gifts from others and some as gifts from myself!)

'Totally Simple Food' by Jill Dupleix

'Apples for Jam' by Tessa Kiros

'Handmade' by Ros Badger and Elspeth Thompson
'The Creative Family' by Amanda Blake Soule (not pictured as it is currently residing on my bedside table)
I'm loving them all...so much wonderful inspiration, some of which can be seen below.  

I made this white milk loaf from 'Apples for Jam' (I've wanted this book for such a very long time)...and for pretty much the first time in my bread making attempts it actually came out pretty well.

It was a little sweet because it has honey in it, so it was super delicious with jam (and I hate to admit it, chocolate spread) but next time I may experiment with skipping the honey, or only adding a very small amount.

Baking and a Birthday...

...I may have been a bit rubbish at keeping up with my crafting 365 the last couple of days but that's because we've been a bit busy here. My poor little boy had his second round of jabs on Monday, he was super brave and it was much less emotional for me second time around, but he was still a grumpy babe for the rest of the day. When he wasn't sleeping (in my arms, wouldn't stay down in his cot) he was screaming! It wasn't much fun, but I know how important it is for him to have them and it's only one day.

Over the weekend I made some crumbles with some fruit which otherwise would have ended up in the bin. Unfortunately we have great intentions and buy ourselves loads of fruit, but so rarely do we manage to consume it all before it turns. So to save waste I've started to try and put it to good (although not as healthy) use.

Then as it is Johnny's birthday today, yesterday I knocked up a cheesecake. I say knocked up as though it was the easiest thing in the world! It wasn't!! I've never made a cheesecake before and it's Johnny's favourite thing, so I dug out a Nigella recipe for chocolate cheesecake and headed out to get the ingredients super early. Milo went down for his afternoon nap and I got on with the baking, all was going well until I got the part that said 'add the sour cream', err what sour cream? Somehow I had managed to completely miss that part of the ingredient list!! As Milo was sound asleep there was little I could do but put everything to one side and wait. At 4 o'clock we headed out to quickly grab the sour cream, well the shops of Cheltenham obviously don't feel that it is important stock to have, because after trying all the nearest and slightly further afield shops I ended up miles (well sort of) away at waitrose, who did supply me with what I needed. Having thought we were only popping out Milo was safely snuggled against me in his sling when it started to rain and got heavier and heavier!!! So we returned home an hour later soaked to the skin!!

With the cheesecake finally assembled it appeared from the oven just as Johnny returned from work, so birthday surprise slightly ruined but hey ho.

However, although it looks like a rather unappetising quiche, it tastes lovely, and I'm glad I went to all that effort so my lovely boy could have his favourite dessert for pre-birthday and also birthday celebrations.

A piece of cake...

...is most certainly not anything like how looking after myself and my precious little one has been these last 5 weeks!

Looking after Milo hasn't really been all that tough in itself (he is an incredibly good baby really) looking after myself has been far more challenging!! I've been (and still am) really unwell with one thing and another over these past weeks...the problem with being unwell when you're looking after a newborn is that you just don't have the time to get better...you can't just go to bed for a couple of days and fix yourself up...as a result everything just seems so much worse.

However Milo is sleeping soundly (a rare daytime occurrence, but I shouldn't complain as he sleeps so well at night now) and I accidentally found myself down the cake aisle in Marks and Spencers this afternoon (and may have got a little carried away) so I have a few precious moments to myself to enjoy a cup of coffee and much much cake!

Three pieces of cake may seem a little glutinous, but I'm not going to lie to you I probably will be going back for seconds!

Of course it is all worth it, especially when Milo gave us he first (definitely not wind) smiles yesterday and I get to kiss his super soft, sweet smelling head, every day!

Chocolate and Baby Blankets...

I'm still working on a baby blanket a started a million years ago (well maybe not that long ago, but all the way back here anyway), I knitted up the squares, but well they are not the squarest of squares so I begun to edge them in crochet and then kind of forgot about them! That is until yesterday when Johnny said I was absolutely not allowed to begin on anything else for the baby until that blue blanket was finished! He can be such a meany sometimes. So anyway I continue to edge those squares I did.

All was going well until I discovered that I hadn't started out with white and two shades of blue, but an off-white creamy colour and 2 shades of blue!!! I was distraught but Johnny pulled me through my anguish and attempted to tell me it didn't matter...I'm still not sure it doesn't look a bit silly as the original creamy yarn used in the main blocks looks slightly yellow when positioned next to the more recently purchased white which lines the dark blue, but hey ho, these silly mistakes seem to happen more and more in my pregnant state!

They're still not attached to each other but they are ready to be!! Now only to decide how to do it and in what colour...that could well take another 3 months at least!!

On a completely unrelated note I made the most ridiculously chocolately chocolate cookies on Friday, they are amazing, but the fact that we still have some of the 12 I baked left just goes to show you how intensly chocolately they are!

They are from this book I picked up at a bargain price many years ago, I have made these triple chocolate cookies before but think I forgot how insanely rich they really are! The recipe calls for 90g of milk chocolate 90g of white chocolate and 300g of dark chocolate!!! I didn't even use that much, as I couldn't find any white chocolate that wasn't nestle I used 150g of milk chocolate and as 300g of dark chocolate just seemed crazy I only used 200g!

I indulged in them still warm with some hot chocolate and family tree investigating on Friday afternoon, and lovely it was indeed!

Happy Sunday all...I'm probably going to go and sleep a lot...after weeks of complete inability to sleep due to kicking, overheating and being purely uncomfortable, my body seems to have developed an ability to ignore all these things and has decided all I really need to do is sleep, it could sleep all day and all night if I let it. xxx

Cupcakes...

I'm so glad that Bethany from CherryRiot got in touch with me last week about some custom work she wanted, because what she wanted was cupcakes. It's been such a long time since I made cupcakes of the pretend variety and I really really enjoyed it and I just love seeing them all lined up together.

I made a few extras for myself which I will be turning into rings and broaches and adding to my shop this afternoon.

Other than that I think a lazy Sunday will probably be on the cards, maybe including a little bit of pram shopping and baby room organizing.

Happy lazy Sundays to you all xx

Baking...

So I did have a go at making macarons...it was not very successful. After reading up about them I never thought it was the kind of thing you make incredibly well on your first go...but still mine really were a big old disaster. I wasn't going to show pictures as I was so embarrassed by their outcome, but what the hell...you can all laugh at my failure!

They were pretty simple flavourwise, as it was my first go and all, just vanilla with vanilla butter cream, using fresh vanilla.Having spent most of yesterday afternoon researching these little things, I can tell you there are not even close to being a beautiful as any you might bring up on a quick internet search!!! But are they edible? Well they're not entirely inedible! If anything they are a little too sweet, but on the plus side they are not chewy like you might imagine failed macarons to be!

I may give them a try again in a few days/weeks after the misery of my failure has dimmed into a distant memory!

So I had a whole load of vanilla butter cream to use up and a need to re-establish to myself that I could bake (even if only a little) so I whipped up some vanilla cupcakes.They were delicious and perfect...as a result there were very few left to photograph in the daylight of this morning!

Other lazy Sunday activities included indulging in my favourite T.V. guilty pleasure of the moment Lark Rise to Candleford. It is very much perfect Sunday afternoon comfort viewing. Johnny insists he hates it, but spent the whole episode carefully poised between the kitchen and the lounge so he could keep an eye on the dinner and the T.V!

So Monday activities mostly include, sorting through my stock and rephotographing everything!! Quite a task, but compared to making macarons, an easy one! xx

Mince Pies...

I LOVE mince pies...I reckon I could eat about a hundred of them before feeling sick! I love them even more with a tiny smidge of brandy butter sneaked in under the lid, melting into the filling....mmmmmmm.

So a couple of years ago I attempted my own mincemeat, before this I'd always just bought a jar and the pastry which kind of took away the whole point of making them myself! I took the recipe from a magazine and had it safely stored in my precious notebook of recipes...which seems to have disappeared somewhere between my many moves the last couple of years. So this year I took the recipe from Nigella's "How to be a domestic goddess" (which I managed to pick up in a charity shop for £2, what a bargain!). The recipe uses apple as a substitute for suet, she also has a recipe using suet but I thought I'd give this one a go. It does seem to be missing something but I'm not sure if it's the suet or whether I was a bit skimpy on the brandy. The pies themselves are still delicious but I'm not sure whether I'll use the recipe again.

I used puff pastry, rolled it out with icing sugar and glazed it with milk and a little bit of brandy. I bought the pastry...I always buy the pastry, I don't think that I've ever attempted to make it myself! It just seems so silly when you can buy it so easily! Maybe next year!

So it's feeling ever so festive here this evening....if only I had some mulled wine to accompany those pies...

Simple Things

What a very lovely morning I have had. It was a surprise day off work for me today, which was kindly offered to me yesterday afternoon. So today was already a good one before it even begun! Then I got up to discover the UK Sale had begun to have an impact and I had sold 3 items from the shop overnight. (Yippee!)

Unfortunately, as always seems to happen on my days off, the sun is not shining, but hey ho. I've spent the time baking away whilst Graeme joined me in the kitchen painting and listening to John Coltraine.

Tarty also joined us, and tried to help with the baking, by eating anything I dropped on the floor and then going absolutely loopy for half and hour round the garden (too much sugar for such a little one me thinks!).

He wouldn't stay still for a photo, but he was covered in floor and sugar!

And here are the pictures of my delicious creations...

CUPCAKES!!!

And SUGAR COOKIES!

Both of which I can assure you are very yummy as we've just had coffee and treats! Right am off to the post office now and maybe the fabric shop.

A Very Productive Saturday

Well after achieving so little during the rest of the week, I spent yesterday making up for it!

We got up early and I did my usual first activity of the day - check shop! Did all the rubbishy weekend chores (yuck!), then we took Tarty for a big long walk. We've been looking after Tarty for a friend off and on for a while now, but recently it's become more permanent, which makes Graeme very very happy! Once again we discovered more wonders in our little village including some woodland and a lovely canal side pub.

When we got back all windswept and cold we had a perfect winter lunch of soup and fresh bread. Graeme went off to band practice and I set about making sugar cookies (after a little kip on the sofa with Tarty of course).



They don't look as pretty as the pretend ones I made from polymer clay but they sure do taste better!

I also made some purses...






Here are some other things that made me happy this week,







Some new supplies that I can't really afford, but hey-ho, it's nearly payday!



Some very lovely smelliness I received from Lush Box Inc on Friday.

And on top of everything else, I reached my sales target for this month a whole week early! So in honour of this I purchased this lovely needle felting kit from Yarn punk. I can't wait for it to arrive I've been dieing to have a go since I saw examples at the craft fair I went to in Birmingham.

Hope you all had lovely weekends.