Shaun the sheep cake

Out of all my bakes from last year this was hands down my favourite. Just look how flipping cute it turned out!

I made this cake for my youngest nephew's birthday last May and although it looks fancy it was surprisingly simple to put together (compared to previous years anyway!) 

The main cake is a stack of victoria sponges stuck together with jam, with a minimal amount of carving to create a body shape. Once carved it was covered in butter icing and large marshmallows were stuck on top. A smaller piece of cake was covered in black fondant and set on top for the head. The limbs and ears were also moulded from black fondant icing. All pretty simple.

The little accompanying characters were a bit more fiddly to mould but admittedly I didn't make them, they're my mum's handiwork. They definitely add to the overall fun look of the cake.

It turns out that it's difficult to buy a pack of white marshmallows as everything I came across was a mixture of pink and white. In the end I bought loads of packs and carefully picked out all the white marshmallows, leaving me with a hilariously large tub of pink marshmallows.

In addition to the cake I made a flock of cupcake sheep. They're possibly even cuter looking than the cake. Making these in addition to the cake meant buying mini marshmallows and, you guessed it, I ended up with a a tub full of pink mini marshmallows.

Now I am caretaker of ALL THE PINK MARSHMALLOWS. 11 months later I still have a plentiful stash in my kitchen. Hot chocolate, anyone?

all the cream cheese icing

Cream cheese icing appeared to be a running theme when I looked through last year's baking photos on my phone. All of these bakes have been blogged previously in some form but I felt they were worth mentioning again since they're all good recipes.

First up, ALL THE CARROT CAKES.

I made this particular carrot cake *a lot* last year (also, sneaky peek at my pretty baking area in the kitchen complete with splashback tiles.) I'm aware I need to update the recipe link as I've made revisions to the original recipe. I'll get around to it some time as I'm guaranteed to bake this again.

Mum's birthday cake. I think I used the recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery's first Cookbook, although the obvious difference is that I've only baked two layers instead of three. I'm guessing I divided the mixture between two 8" round tins to create deeper layers and left them in the oven longer to bake although I have no notes to confirm this, sorry.

My brother's birthday carrot cake bundt. I love how jazzy this looks with all the walnuts, sprinkles and candles. This is the same recipe as above but baked as one giant bundt. I've made this cake previously, both as a triple layer cake and a bundt. Either way, it's awesome. This recipe works so well as a big bundt and is a lot less faff to make than assembling and decorating layer cakes. Bear in mind it needs longer to bake in the oven (1 hour) since it is one big cake instead of 3 thinner layers.

Apple and walnut cupcakes, recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days book. I was clearly on a Hummingbird bender last year. I fancied revisiting this recipe as I hadn't made it for years (first blogged here.) It makes such soft, juicy cupcakes. They didn't hang around for very long.

Hummingbird cake (spiced banana and pineapple cake for those not familiar with it.) Surprise surprise, another Hummingbird Bakery triple layer cake baked as one big bundt. I've also made it as a layer cake before. This was baked for my parents' wedding anniversary so I made it look prettier by piping rose swirls all around the cake. Cream cheese icing isn't ideal for this since it tends to be soft, but it still worked ok... providing you don't look at the cake too closely.

Bonus photo where you get to see a glimpse of my garden. It's mostly full of weeds but look at my beautiful blue fence!

I'm always on the lookout for fun ways to use or pimp up cream cheese icing. My favourite flavour additions are vanilla extract or cinnamon although honey and lemon is also lovely. I think I've even added fruity curds to it before. I've bookmarked a recipe somewhere which involves browning the butter before adding it to the icing. I've used browned previously in baking (these blondies in particular were awesome) so I think this would be worth trying out. Perhaps on a banana bread.

What's your favourite cream cheese icing or way to use it?

chocolate and vanilla marble cupcakes

This was my first bake in my new home in my shiny new oven a year ago. My best friend came to visit me about a week after I moved in which gave me the perfect opportunity to test my oven's baking abilities.

I went with marble cupcakes as I fancied trying two toned piped icing, something I've wanted to try for absolutely years. I absolutely love how the piped swirls turned out and intend to try the technique on a cake some time. I've actually seen some Easter versions online recently where bakers have marbled pastel coloured icing to match Cadbury Mini Eggs and it looks so pretty.

There's something very satisfying about marbled bakes. I always think they look fun, with or without icing.

As a side note I love my cooker, a cream coloured Richmond Stoves. I managed to buy a decent one as I saved a good chunk of money by sourcing second hand kitchen units (£200 from Ebay.) It has a bit of old fashioned charm as the lid makes it look like an old Aga (and handily the lid doubles up as extra worktop space) and the look suits my quirky, retro styled kitchen. I can also confirm after a year's testing that the oven bakes good cakes.

 (Here's a peek at my baking station. This was before I put up my kitchen tiles behind the worktop. It looks even prettier now.)

I also want to say I hope everyone is staying as safe as possible at the moment amidst the Coronovirus mayhem sweeping the world. It's all incredibly scary and unsettling on so many levels. Take care of yourselves and look after loved ones. x

Recipe was just a bog standard victoria sponge mixture divided in half with cocoa powder added to one half and 1/2tsp vanilla extract to the other. For the icings I followed the vanilla and chocolate butter icing from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. My butter icing swirls were created with a Wilton 1M piping tip.... I think!

chocolate and hazelnut cake

Well hello there. A lot has happened in a year. I didn't intend to abandon blogging but crap happened and I didn't deal with it very well, I certainly didn't want to talk about it and I pretty much spiralled into a pit of negativity and sadness. I still don't want to talk about it but I feel ready to dip my toes back in here now that I've vaguely touched on it. I've missed using this space and having a handy creative archive to refer to.

However, I have come to the decision that I want to return this blog to just baking and crockery as it has got to a stage where I'm not happy posting my sewing and knitting projects here anymore. I'm aware I've mentioned moving them to a separate space for at least 4 years, but this is the year where I feel I need to make the change. If/when the move happens, I'll let you know here.

In the meantime you can still find my knitting projects on Ravelry and I recently joined The Foldline where I've reviewed a few sewing projects from the last year.

So without further ado, CAKE. We're still here for cake, right?

This particular cake, inspired by Ferrero Rochers, was baked for my sister-in-law's birthday last April. I'd definitely describe it as a "grown up" cake. The hazelnut sponges were rich and textured and the chocolate ganache coating was rich and luxuriously cocoa-y. I'm glad I sandwiched the sponges together with a chocolate butter icing and used it to pipe decorative swirls on top as the sweetness of the butter icing really lifted the cake.

On the whole there was a lovely balance of textures and flavours. You certainly didn't need a large slice to feel full and satisfied either.

Somewhat amazingly, I appear to have kept a physical note of what I used for the sponges. The rest of the details however are a hazy memory, but this is roughly what I did:

Chocolate and hazelnut cake

sponges:

250g softened butter

250g soft light brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 large eggs

150g plain flour

1 heaped tsp baking powder

150g hazelnuts (roasted, skinned and ground.) I bought a couple of bags of already roasted, skinned and chopped hazelnuts then whizzed them up in my small food processor to ground them up further. 

chocolate ganache:

I have no idea what recipe I used for this, but I definitely used double cream with a combination of good quality milk and dark chocolate with high cocoa percentages. I have a funny feeling I may have incorporated melted butter into the ganache at the end...? Who knows. If you want to recreate this cake I recommend referring to a favourite chocolate ganache recipe or picking one of the many kicking about on the internet. It's safer than following my vague memory.

chocolate butter icing:

I likely mixed this up without following a recipe, so I recommend following whatever chocolate butter icing you like best. I personally really like the one in the Hummingbird Bakery's Cookbook.

topping:

another bag of roasted, skinned and chopped hazelnuts

a box of Ferrero Rocher

Preheat the oven to Gas 4/180C/ Fan 160C. Grease two 20cm/8 inch round cake tins and line the bases with baking parchment. 

In a large bowl beat together the margarine and sugar for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl mix together the ground hazelnuts, flour and baking powder. Add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add a tablespoon of the flour mixture with the last egg to prevent the mixture from splitting. Tip in the rest of the flour mixture along with the vanilla extract and mix until everything is combined.

Divide the mixture between the cake tins and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for approx. 25-30 minutes until well risen and springs back when touched. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.

For the icing beat the butter, cocoa powder and icing sugar until light and fluffy, for about 5 minutes. Use to fill the cake and put the remaining icing in a piping bag with a 1M nozzle to use later.

After sandwiching the sponges together with butter icing, coat the sides and top with the ganache. It doesn't matter if it isn't smooth. Press chopped hazelnuts onto the side of the cake (this is messy, admittedly) and scatter them across the top. Finally, pipe 12 decorative swirls of the leftover butter icing on top of the cake and press a Ferrero Rocher chocolate on top of each swirl.

I like big socks and I cannot lie

You can thank me later for having Sir Mix A Lot stuck in your head for the rest of today.

I'm back with my first completed project of 2019: a pair of long, slightly ridiculous, knitted socks. 

The yarn I used is Stylecraft Batik Swirl in the colourway "Meadow" and was a Christmas present from my lovely Mum. She knows I love a good "making" present!

The socks are, more or less, 109-32 socks with diamond pattern by Drops Design, a free pattern on Ravelry. I'm not sure why it's called diamond pattern as I would have thought it's basket stitch? Either way, it's blocks of knit stitches and purl stitches stacked alternately which makes a pleasing, squishy texture.

I knitted the socks fairly long (10" from the cuff down to the heel flap) to make the most of all the colours, although sadly I didn't quite reach the yellow. I'm aware the wool would have likely looked more effective spread out in a larger project, such as a shawl or blanket, rather than socks as the colours came out quite blocky. However I just couldn't shake off the idea of bright, long, textured socks. They're a bit weird, but I love them.

They very nearly became epic leg warmers for ballet class, but I think my macaron dance shorts are probably jazzy enough for people to contend with!

What is everyone else knitting at the moment? I have another pair of socks on the go (shocker) but fancy having something a bit more exciting on my needles, although I'm not sure what that might be yet.

mum's knitting needle roll

Happy New Year! For my first post this year I'm sharing the last project I completed in 2018: a knitting needle case I made for my Mum's Christmas. I debated lumping it in with all the other makes in my last round-up post but felt it deserved a post of its own as it turned out so nicely.

At the moment Mum and I share knitting supplies as I still live at home. However, as I am moving out this year and taking my share of knitting supplies with me, I felt it was only right to set Mum up with her own kit. Using left over fabric from the apron I made her a couple of years ago I made this rolled up case following a tutorial by Lauren on the Guthrie and Ghani blog. It was easy to follow and produced a lovely, practical case.

It took a while to decide on the pocket sizes, making sure the front ones were wide enough to store dpn needle cases and the back pockets wide enough for different sized long needles. I highly recommed picking a striped or gingham fabric as it offers handy, straight lines to follow; no need for measuring. Although I didn't pick my fabric for that reason I was very thankful for it when it came to marking everything out, especially since I had left it till Christmas Eve to make this present.

I only have two small criticisms with the tutorial, the first being that a seam allowance wasn't specified at the beginning. I assumed it was 5/8" but it's nice to have these things confirmed, especially for beginners. The only area where I changed the seam allowance (other than the pocket edges which were specified) was where the top flap joined the backing fabric. I sewed a 1/2" seam along that edge as the needles looked a bit squashed against the flap.

My other criticism is that the recommended measurement of 1 metre of ribbon felt too short to comfortably tie in a bow around the case, certainly with the 5/8" wide ribbon I used (yes I'm swapping between inches and centimetres, I'm one of those people.) Luckily I had 1.5m spare ribbon so I could cut them again. It's better to have extra ribbon and cut it to size afterwards than risk having too little. It's also worth pointing out that when you attach the ribbon to the backing fabric, fold the ribbon right sides together if the pattern is one sided. Ask me how I know..... (doh!)

How adorable is this ribbon though? I bought it in Edinburgh just over a year ago with no real purpose (I just had to have it, because BUNNIES!) so I was delighted to discover it matched the fabric perfectly. I love it when supplies come together like that.

I definitely need to make a knitting needle case for myself now. It's so pretty and well organised and makes my postal tube and random empty box storage system look crap and inferior.

I should also mention that my mum was thoroughly delighted with her present. She knew I was making something but had no idea what it could be, so it was a complete surprise to her. I think she loved how thoughtful it was, as well as being very pretty and practical. Now she can neatly wrap up her supplies to take round to my house so we can continue with our knit nights! 😄

making, mending, baking, reflecting

It's that time of year again.... when I feel the need to blog about all those forgotten bits and bobs from this year and panic that it has to be done before 31st December otherwise THE WORLD WILL IMPLODE.

Or something to that extent.

It's also the time of year where I bake perverted gingerbread santas, boobie angels and questionably festive dinosaurs.

 And a new addition this year... moustaches!

2018 has been full on, but pretty positive for me. I bought a little house (all by myself), have been renovating said house (complete gut job - nearly finished), turned 30 (I guess this means I'm grown up?) and started learning ballet (hard work but amazing and making me feel so much healthier.) Sadly that means my baking and sewing have taken a nose dive but I know they'll come back when I have the time. 

I've only sewn one item this year besides my wedding guest outfit in February. ONE. And that was a rainbow stripe Tilly and the Buttons Agnes top.

Although I initially really liked it at the time (in April) I haven't reached for it since. I think it was because it felt slightly too big, mostly because the jersey has a higher stretch percentage and I didn't account for that when I was sewing. Looking at this photo though (which I took the other day) it looks and feels fine, so who knows why I haven't worn it, other than I've spent most of the year wearing old crap for house-renovating instead of nice things.

 The top looks great with my festive pyjama bottoms! 😀

Last month, in a bid to get back into sewing I tackled my dreaded mending and alteration pile. It allowed me to reacquaint myself with my machine and complete manageable, bite-sized projects as I didn't have the headspace to create items from scratch or deal with multiple pattern alterations.

I started with altering the sleeves and neckline of a tunic dress for my Mum, (which she loved) then I did a few simple, rewarding tasks: sewing up a hole in my mustard tights (which I had set aside at least two years ago), replacing a missing button from a favourite coat and dyeing a faded and unloved pair of black jeans (set aside over 5 years ago!) a much nicer, more wearable shade of plum.

Spurred on by my small mending successes, I moved onto more exciting alterations. My first was turning a rarely worn pair of handmade tights into funky exercise/yoga leggings by chopping off the feet and sewing on cuffs. As much as I flipping loved the look of the tights and their cool construction, I found I never reached for them as I didn't like the feeling of the lycra fabric over my feet. These will definitely receive more wear as leggings. Stretches are much more exciting to do with jazzy looking legs.

My last project was a complete refashion: turning a rarely worn circle skirt into a pair of cute dance shorts! As cute as the circle skirt was, I never felt it was a flattering shape on me so it only got worn a handful of times. The fabric will see far more wear as a pair of cute shorts for my dance classes. I like that I'll be dancing (well, moving around in a vaguely coordinated manner) with my butt covered in macarons.

To make the shorts I traced around the upper portion of a pair of shop-bought leggings to make pattern pieces and cut out a new waistband. Luckily everything easily fitted within the skirt fabric. The only thing that I found difficult was finding a suitable way to hem the legs as a standard zig zag did not provide enough stretch for my enormous, muscular?, thighs. In the end I used a fancy stretch stitch setting on my sewing machine which worked great.

All in all, a pretty successful month of mending!

This year in the online sewing community I've noticed that there has been a lot of chat about sustainability: not over-buying fabric, buying ethically, using up or recycling scraps, altering, mending or refashioning existing items, not replacing fast fashion with fast sewing etc. It has been an interesting topic to ponder, especially since I've spent the majority of the year away from my sewing machine.

It's great to see these topics being discussed, however I do find it odd that it's perhaps being presented as a new way of thinking, or dare I say another trend/fad, when a lot of it is surely common practise in the first place? It is to me anyway. I've always tried to look after my clothes and mend items if possible (to the extent that some pieces in my wardrobe are 10-15 years old and still going strong), donate what I don't need or use and work hard on sewing items which will become well worn and loved in my wardrobe and not thrown out after 2 wears. Admittedly, the whole discussion of sustainability has made me think even harder about my choices, which is never a bad thing.

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this sewing related naval gazing, but I thought I'd throw my thoughts out there for what it's worth. The only conclusion I can draw from it all is that I'm not comfortable with sewing for the sake of sewing and ending up with a ridiculously large collection of clothing when I already own more than enough clothes. However I do want to continue sewing as it's nice to have new things from time to time, especially when they're unique and tailored to me.

Unlike my sewing, my knitting output has remained fairly strong this year, mostly because it's something I can do whilst crashed out on the sofa. Since my last update in the summer I've knitted another pair of socks.....

...and I've loved wearing them. All my handknitted socks have received a lot of love this year. They're perfect for padding about the house in the evenings or making my toes extra cosy in my winter boots.

These socks, pictured above, were my first foray into knitting the magic loop method with circular needles. Although I like how portable it is (you don't have to worry about stitches falling off needles) and how much easier it is to try projects on mid progress, I'm still not convinced I like it more than working on dpns. There's something about shoving stitches back and forth along the needles which irks me. I'm going to continue using both methods though as it's fun to mix things up.

I've also knitted four hats this month! Three as Christmas presents and one for myself. 

A stripey ribbed hat for my eldest brother. It killed me not being able to put a jazzy pom pom on top but I know he wouldn't wear it if it had one. As much as all that 2x2 ribbing felt endlessly boring it did produce a lovely, comfy hat. I also learned how to knit jogless stripes with this hat.

Then I knitted hats for my other brother and his wife. They both like and suit wearing burgandy so I thought I'd make them not-quite-matchy-matchy, cute couple hats. The hat on the left is Miki by Atelier M on Ravelry (free pattern) with sparkly thread added to the pom pom for a bit of girly glamour and the hat on the right is the Close Cables Hat by Anna and Heidi Pickles on Ravelry (no longer free, sadly.) I added burnt orange yarn to the pom pom for a fun, speckled effect.

Lastly, my own festive hat! I'm not sure what prompted me to need a festive hat but the idea hit me one evening and I couldn't shake it off. I roughly made it up as I went along, following a chart for the star motif. It took a few attempts to figure out the decreases for the crown as it needed to come in quite sharp after the motif. It's quite gathered at the top as I still had a lot of stitches on the needles, but the hat is fairly slouchy so I think the soft gathers suit the style. My favourite thing though is the tassle. I've been desperate to knit myself a tassle hat ever since I knit that toddler hat at the beginning of the year!

And that's me signing out for 2018. Thanks for reading and continuing to follow my creative ventures. Wishing you all the best for 2019. See you on the other side!