Today wasn’t just Mother’s Day but also Big Brother’s 2nd birthday. We had piles of presents (far too many!), a birthday outing to the RAF Museum at Hendon, our handmade birthday card was read out on cBeebies and we made and ate a Thomas the Tank Engine birthday cake. Happy Birthday to my darling son! I can’t believe you’re 2 years old today. It feels like you’ve always been in our life, like I’ve always been your mum. You make my heart feel like it will burst from my chest. You make me cry with tears of frustration and happiness.…
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Last year it was all about the felt, this year it’s all about the edible gingerbread house! I had an Ikea Pepparkaka Hus which I had bought to make over Christmas and never got round to building so it seemed like a good time to make it and decorate it for Valentine’s Day. The kit contains ready baked and stamped house pieces – front and back, two sides, two roof pieces, four small pieces to make a chimney and printed instructions. It doesn’t contain any icing or sweets to decorate but the instructions helpfully contain a recipe for icing. The…
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A couple of weeks ago I came across a great challenge – the PinAddicts Pinterest Challenge. The idea is to choose something from your Pinterest boards to create and link up each month. As I am addicted to Pinterest I just knew I had to join in, the only choice was what to make? I searched my boards and decided upon something for Valentines Day. I couldn’t resist baking some gingerbread men and decorating them as a Valentine treat for my husband. Love is not lost in our household (despite a 2 and 23 month old trying their very best!).…
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There’s a whiff of patriotism in the air today at the gingerbread house thanks to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. I picked up some fantastic new cookie cutters at the weekend from Lakeland. The 3 crown cookie cutters are, according to their website, the ‘crowning’ glory of any afternoon tea table, cookies made with our trio of cutters will lend a regal air no matter what the occasion. Perfect to help celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. I absolutely love them and knocked up a quick batch of gingerbread biscuits. The image of the finished biscuits in the Lakeland magazine look amazing…
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I don’t normally go overboard with Valentine’s Day but this year I haven’t been able to stop baking. I’ve been whipping up batches of cakes and biscuits and working on improving my decorating skills. They say the way to a man’s heart is via his stomach so I baked some heart shaped gingerbread for my husband, and decorated them with Renshaw’s Ready to Roll coloured icing in red for the ultimate home-baked treat. The icing was simple to use, just roll out and cut the required shape with a cookie cutter. I kept the icing in place with a brush…
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I’ve wanted to try baking stained glass biscuits for a while and with Valentine’s Day fast approaching I thought I would have a practice run! Big Brother loves to bake with me so we made a simple gingerbread dough and cut out the biscuits using a heart shaped cutter. We then cut a smaller star shape out of the centre of each biscuit and baked the biscuits for about 5 minutes, until the edges went brown. To make the stained glass you simply put a couple of boiled sweets (I used red sweets) in a freezer bag and bash with…
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Roses are red, violets are blue, give your partner a Love Heart tin that says ‘I love you.’ Swizzels Matlow, the makers of Love Hearts, are launching a new Valentine’s Day collection including a limited edition heart-shaped retro tin full of Mini Love Hearts and an ‘I Love You’ tube of sweets. The British confectionery giant has produced just 100,000 vintage style tins that are destined to become a collector’s item. The tins are available nationwide at a recommended retail of £1.99 while stocks lasts. Sarah-Louise Heslop, Marketing Manager at Swizzels Matlow, said: “Valentine’s Day excitement is building and we’ve…
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My husband hates the fact that I occasionally buy packet mixes. I think they’re perfect for keeping in the cupboard and whipping out if you need to produce some cake in a hurry (and they’re usually better than shop bought cake!). The latest addition to my cupboard has been Wright’s Ginger cake mix which I spotted on a recent shopping trip. Wright’s Ginger cake mix is a complete mix that contains a blend of unrefined sugars to produce a traditional style Ginger cake. It contains everything you need to make the cake, only requiring the addition of water and oil.…
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Big Brother takes a real interest in the kitchen and food which I want to encourage. So when I spotted a delicious looking recipe for Chocolate-Beet cupcakes in the latest issue of Gurgle magazine I thought we would try it together. It required a bit of thought as we needed to buy raw beetroot, cook them and leave them to cool before we started baking. BB loved mixing the ingredients together and tasting the raw mixture! This was quite a messy recipe but a great way of getting your child to eat healthily! The recipe can be found in the…