On the 19 September 2010 I started a Day Zero list: a place to record your goals, discover new challenges, and gain motivation to achieve them. I have a list of 100 things I want to do over 1001 days. The list is due to be competed by 16 June 2013. Life with two children is hard. I knew it would be but it’s really hard and I don’t seem to have much time for much besides looking after children. There are also lots of fun times though and I’m never happier than when we’re all snuggled up in bed…
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As we passed the 100 day milestone to the Olympic Games last week my thoughts turned crafty! What could we make? We applied for tickets for three events and we know we’ve got some tickets, we’re just not sure for what events or if we’re able to take Little Sis as we applied when I was pregnant. We have less than 100 days to find out. Olympic cupcakes We haven’t been baking in a while so thought we would make the basic fairy cake recipe from Mary Berry’s Baking Bible, a recent birthday present which I am enjoying working my…
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There’s a great article in the latest issue of Gurgle magazine on how to throw the perfect party. I was pleased to see that Big Brother is ahead of himself, having a Thomas the Tank Engine themed party at the grand old age of 2! We knew that we wanted to make a special cake for his birthday and that it would probably be train-shaped. My husband’s mother set the bar really high, making my husband a concorde birthday cake when he was little. I have to admit that we had a bit of help with the cake from the…
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Not sure what to do with that lovingly created gingerbread house? Why not make it into a tasty gingerbread and butter pudding? My romantic Valentine-themed gingerbread house needed to make room for my Easter-themed gingerbread house but I didn’t want to throw it away. The gingerbread was quite thin so I thought it might make a delicious gingerbread and butter pudding. Here’s what I did. You need: a gingerbread house, deconstructed a couple of slices of bread, buttered 1/2 pint of skimmed milk 100ml double cream 2 eggs 1 spoonful of granulated sugar Method: deconstruct your gingerbread house, removing any…
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The sun is shining so I thought I would make some daffodil inspired biscuits. Daffodil biscuits for spring I baked simple biscuits using a gingerbread kit from Morrisons. The kit contains a gingerbread mix with a cutter, a tube of white icing, a sachet of golden syrup and raisins, so all you need to provide is butter and 2tsp of water. The mix made a satisfying dough which came together really easily and smelled lovely. The golden syrup made it quite sticky so I used plenty of flour when rolling out the dough. Instead of using the enclosed cutter I…
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To celebrate St Patrick’s Day we made some four-leafed clover biscuits and decorated them with a simple line of green icing. I always know we’ve made something that looks interesting when I see my son’s arm reaching up to grab a biscuit from the plate when he thinks I’m not looking. St Patricks Day biscuits We tried a new gingerbread dough for these biscuits – Gingerbread cookie dough from Cake & Biscuits. This was really cheap and it showed, difficult to roll without crumbling, it cut badly, tearing every time I tried to lift the shapes from the floured board…
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With our beautiful Irish surname we just had to start thinking about some St Patrick’s Day crafts! First up was some baking and what could be nicer than some rainbow cookies to remind us about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Rainbow sweets, otherwise known as m&ms, were bashed over the head with a rolling pin and added to a basic cookie mixture. Already looking pretty – rainbow cookie mixture. Makes pretty cookie dough too! Not bad looking cookies either. Big Brother tried to sneak one off the wire rack whilst they were cooling so they…
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I have the tiniest kitchen, it is actually smaller than our bathroom, yet I spend an increasing amount of time in it. Aside from preparing seemingly endless meals for the four of us, my week isn’t complete without some baking. As space is so precious it’s really important that the products I use are both practical and stylish. The one product I must have is decent scales. I’ve gone through a few in the pursuit of perfection but my Brabantia digital kitchen scales do a great job. Most importantly they are compact – essential in my tiny London kitchen. They…
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I spotted a new product on the supermarket shelves last week, Tesco Easy Home Bake Gingerbread dough. I quickly hid it in the trolley before my husband could start muttering that we didn’t need to try another product! We tried this out when we fancied a bit of home baking and made some biscuits. It’s simple to use – roll the dough, cut your required shapes, place on a greased baking tray and bake for 12-15 minutes. The easiest biscuits ever! The dough is advertised as sweet and crunchy, which I was a bit sceptical about, but they were sweet…
