Heart of glass

Mmmmm, have a peek at my new vintage glass cake stand.  Simple and lovely.

Victoria sponge cupcakes

We went for a visit recently to Handsome husband's friends farm.  They are a vey sweet family, with kids the same age as ours.  We had a tour round their farm, which was lovely and Darling boy and their middle son had great fun charging around the yard playing hide and seek.  Little brother rode high in the back pack and laughed each time he saw a sheep or cow.

I had a new recipe to try out and was keen to taste the results.  These are a Victoria Sponge inspired cupcake, with a secret jammy centre (home made jam, naturally!) I went for a strawberry and raspberry jam  and topped each cupcake with a swirl of pink and vanilla buttercream, decorated with pink edible glitter and pink butterflies.

The cupcakes went down very well, and Im keen to try them out again.  The swirly icing is really hard, so lots of practise will make perfect.  Next time I might go for a jammy icing too.  yum.

Cupcakes for the bell ringers

If you had said to me 5 years ago that I would be learning how to ring church bells I wouldn't have believed it.  It is so hard and 10 million miles away from anything I have ever done.  The church was struck by lighting in 1689 and the fire melted the bells, but they were re-cast and are chiming today. Learning to ring the bells is brilliant.  For how incredibly heavy they are, its a very delicate and fragile art form.  Each ringer has to both keep a steady pace, but react to the changes other ringers make.

I am being taught by the most amazing woman who has more skills than I have ever encountered in one person (running a small holding single handed, riding a pony a trap, basket weaving to name just a few) and to boot, she is lovely.

I went to the church bell ringers committee meeting recently and of course, took along some cupcakes, after all, all that bell ringing needs some chocolate to fuel it.

In a glitter daze

It may be a wet, nearly spring day out there, but I'm busy planning the summer weddings cupcake orders I have got coming up. One bride is having a cream and burgundy theme for her wedding cupcakes, topped with a giant cupcake. The order calls for a burgundy glitter, a shade I do not currently have. So off I pop to one of my new favourite on-line shops, called fantastically, www.edible-glitter.co.uk to browse their amazing collection of glitter and decorations. Yum. My collection of colours is fairly substantial, but a girl can always have more!