recent charity shop finds

I thought it was about time I did another one of my charity shop purchase round ups as I've managed to score a few lovely pieces recently.

First up are these vintage Christmas bauble decorations. I'm generally not a christmas bauble person but I fell hard for these. I love the bright colours and that the glitter looks like it might have been added by a previous owner.

There were quite a few vintage christmas baubles for sale that day so it was tempting to buy more (there were some seriously kitsch, pastel coloured ones!) but these were definitely my favourites.

Next up is this gorgeous Royal Winton Grimwades pedestal bowl which was surprisingly difficult to photograph. I swear I'm turning into a sniffer dog for Royal Winton pieces. It's like I can sense their presence. I just *know* it's that brand before crossing the room or even picking up the item. (Yes, I need to get out more.)

I was extra delighted to find that it's an older piece, somewhere in the 1930s, judging by the circular backstamp.

Whilst I'm on the topic of awesome backstamps, I found a Meakin Glamour Jade dinner plate last week. I already have three Meakin Glamour Celeste dinner plates (the blue colourway) so I'm delighted to have a different colour to join the plate family. I love the gentle, frilly edge on an otherwise plain plate.

Moving away from my china backstamp obsession, I came across this 60s(?) pattern for a whole 40p after rummaging through a pile of dressmaking bits and bobs in a charity shop. Don't the ladies look super stylish? The pattern is in my size and the lady on the right even has my haircut so basically I'm destined to make that dress.

I also managed to find a vintage mirror (the ones which hang from a heavy chain and have angled corners) from the local second hand furniture shop a few weeks ago. I've been keeping my eye out for one for quite a few years but they've either been chipped, scratched, full of woodworm or overpriced but this one is in really good condition and didn't cost very much, somewhere between £5 or £10. Delighted! It's not hanging up at the moment, hence the lack of photographs, as I'm one of those losers in their mid/late twenties who's living at home. One day (hopefully, eventually..?) when I have my own place it'll hang in a hallway.

Has anybody else been having great charity shop luck recently or found something they've been lusting after for years? Do tell!

banana cupcakes with malted chocolate icing

I have made so many banana bakes over the last few weeks it's getting ridiculous. Bananas appear to brown at the speed of light around here. I wasn't going to bother blogging these as I used the same recipe as this loaf cake I posted not long ago, but I felt the need to rave about the malted chocolate butter icing. It's that good!

The icing is so silky soft it's almost mousse like in texture. It just melts in your mouth, wrapping around a soft, sweet banana crumb. Banana and chocolate is an excellent combination but banana and malted chocolate is even better. I honestly cannot rave about it enough.

I came across the icing on Laura's blog, I'd Much Rather Bake Than..., last week and immediately bookmarked her post. As you can see the icing pipes beautiful soft swirls. I imagine it would be very satisfying to cover a full cake too. Next time I'll need to pair it up with chocolate cake for full on swirling and indulgence.

On a separate note, do you like my new cake plate? It's a Royal Winton Grimwades piece, my "ultimate" china brand, and I couldn't contain my excitement when I found it in a second hand shop a few weeks ago after visiting the dentist. I told the cashier I was rewarding myself for not needing any fillings.

Has anybody else had good luck in second hand shops recently? I've found some brilliant pieces in the last couple of weeks and I'm looking forward to organising a blog post about them soon.

Recent utility china haul

I was in Glasgow for a couple of days and this is what I managed to pick up in the charity/second hand shops.

Two yellow Jasmine Woods Ware sideplates (actually bought in Golspie not Glasgow). Yes, I know I have more sideplates than what is considered healthy (see here and here) but I don't have any of these. Who could resist their sunny yellow charm? I love them for their stylish backstamp alone. I think they're seconds as they have a couple of flaws but at 25p each I'm not complaining.

*sigh, this picture would be so much nicer had I ironed out the crease*

I found this lovely Johnson Bros Greydawn soup/dessert bowl. There were actually two but the other had a massive crack through the middle so I decided to leave it. Sadly I'm still no further in finding any dinner plates. I'd love to track down some Greendawn or Rosedawn but ultimately I'll take whatever I can find!

However I finally got my greedy hands on a little Woods Ware teapot! She (I've decided it's a "her") is in perfect condition and pours brilliantly; I can get just over 3 cups of tea from her.

Although not utility china, I found this gorgeous little Royal Winton jug too. It's not in perfect nick (has a tiny chip on the bottom and a couple of flaws in her glazing) but definitely very pretty and useable. It also has the same 1930s backstamp as my rosebud teacup and green cakestand but I haven't discovered which pattern it's from. If anybody does know then please let me know because I'm a geek.

Has anybody else found any pretty china this week? Go on, make me jealous.

The best teacup in the world

I had to drop my brother off at the airport yesterday morning and ended up with some time to kill before work, so naturally I wandered around the charity/second hand shops in town. However I didn't expect to come across this.

I have been lusting over the Rosebud Royal Winton Grimwades crockery on ebay for four or five years and now I finally have a piece! It cost £3 :) This has got to be the daintiest, prettiest teacup and saucer ever. There's a fair amount of crazing, which is to be expected considering its age, but absolutely no chips and the gilding is in perfect condition. It also has the same backstamp as my green cakestand so they're from the same period, 1930-34 judging by this website.

Pretty cup with pretty trinkets.

I also bought the lacey table mat/runner(?) in a charity shop for 10p. I'm well on the way to becoming a chintzy old granny. 

Apologies for the slightly grainy photo quality, I took the photos at night and the light in my room is poor but I couldn't wait another day to share my purchase!



Cakestands make me feel happy

Today was a completely pants day at work. There were some grumpy, down right rude customers and it was stupidly busy in the afternoon which made us incredibly late closing up.

Everything, however, was forgotten when I came home to find my ebay parcel at the bottom of the stairs.

Isn't it pretty? It's Royal Winton Grimwades (of course!) and was fairly cheap for Royal Winton as it has a chip in the centre of the middle plate but it really isn't that noticable. Other than that it's in very good nick. I couldn't resist taking a photo of it with my other two Royal Winton possessions.

AWWWWWWWW!

Can't wait to bake something pretty to display on them.

Mmmmm chocolate cake

It was Uncle Johnny's birthday yesterday so being the lovely niece that I am, I made him a chocolate cake. This cake always gets compliments. One of my uni friends even said she would marry the cake if it was a man (a bit strange, but still a compliment!) It was the first cake to sell out at the bake sale when my year was raising money for our degree show catalogue. I came across the recipe on the Supercook website years ago. I had bought some bog standard white bun cases and on the packaging it said "why don't you visit our website for yummy recipes...." so I did. (I'll include the recipe at the bottom of the post.) Here is the cake in action.

Uncle Johnny cutting his cake.

Aunty Janice always puts on an impressive spread: homemade bread, lemon meringue pie, rock buns and a variety of other tasty buns.

And last but not least, the other ebay purchase I made not long after the Woods Ware haul. It's a Royal Winton Grimwades cake plate and matches my three tier cake stand which you can find in my custard cream cupcakes post. I am delighted with it. I'm hoping to have a proper post of it adorned with baked goods fairly soon. Royal Winton is the King of Crockery for me. Some girls lust after expensive Gucci handbags, I lust after Royal Winton Grimwades tea sets.

I've been a bit naughty and made another ebay purchase this week. Why is it I can go for months spending next to nothing other than diesel for the car and then suddenly buy loads of crockery and clothes? (That's another story.)

"Wicked chocolate fudge cake" from Supercook website. (No idea if it's still on there)

6oz self-raising flour

2 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda

5 oz sugar

2 medium size eggs

2 tbsp golden syrup

1/4 pint sunflower oil

1/4 pint milk

For the icing
6oz icing sugar
3oz softened butter
2 tbsp cocoa
enough milk to make the icing smooth and spreadable

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4. Sieve together the flour, cocoa powder and bicarbonate of soda. Add the sugar and mix thoroughly. Make a well in the centre of the mixture and add all the liquids. Mix together until smooth. Pour into two greased/lined cake tins and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for approx. 30 minutes or until they spring back to touch. Leave to cool on a wire rack. Once cool, sandwich together with the icing and decorate as desired. I went for the rustic hundreds and thousands effect and put a sneaky layer of raspberry jam in between the sponges.

The only extra thing I would note is that I'm fairly generous with my tablespoon measures. What can I say, I like a bit of cocoa and syrup!

custard cream cupcakes

I haven't baked these in ages! I made them a lot last year but since buying the Hummingbird Bakery book I had forgotten about them. It's the "cookies 'n' cream" recipe from Cupcakes Galore by Gail Wagman. I think it's made with Oreos in mind, but I much prefer custard creams as a sandwich biscuit. Since I'm feeling a bit more organised today (writing a post before midnight!) I'll include the recipe.

I also realised that my first cake stand has not appeared on the blog yet! It's Royal Winton Grimwades and one of my most prized possessions. Mum bought it for my 19th Birthday after we stalked various ebay sellings for months. Eventually we won! It's strange, at the time there were only ever around two, maybe three pages of three tier cake stands on ebay (most of which were wedding tiers) but now there's at least twenty pages!

Although my icing was a bit on the stiff side leaving a rough edge (or frilly if you want to make it sound pretty!) the cake was as tasty as I remembered. I forgot to take a photo to show the custard cream chunks inside the cake, so being the super nice blogger that I am, I took it upon myself to eat another one so I could snap that photo.

In other happy news, I found another teacup, saucer and sideplate today matching these ones so I now have four. The shop keeper gave me a little discount again because she remembers me!

Custard cream cupcakes

250g plain flour
2 tsp.baking powder
1 tsp. salt
125g unsalted butter, room temperature
200g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
180ml single cream
115g coarsely crushed custard creams

Preheat oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Mix flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition and add vanilla. Alternately add flour mixture and single cream and beat until batter is smooth. Fold in crushed biscuits and spoon batter into cupcake cases, filling cups about 2/3 full. I used fairly large cases and it made 18 cupcakes. Bake for 20-25 mins. 

The book gives a white chocolate cream cheese icing but for this cake I prefer a basic buttercream. I pretty much follow the Hummingbird Bakery icing: 250g icing sugar, 80g butter, 25ml milk (more usually!)