Swirly chocolate and vanilla cupcakes

Here at Adventures in Cake, we love swirly whirly cupcakes, the mix of flavours and the prettiness of the icing makes us all very happy here on the farm- shame these weren't for us to eat, but for some other lucky fellows!

Double icing swirly whirly girly cupcakes

Darling boy had his first primary school christmas fair today, and as one of life's 'joiners' I'm on the PTA (parent teacher association) at his school.  Donations were requested for the cake stall- what honest self respecting christmas fair doesn't have a cake stall?) Happy to oblige, I made rocky road, with chocolate, biscuit and marshmallow, topped with more marshmallows and glitter being a perfect winner for children.

I also made these cheeky cupcakes, vanilla with swirly whirly double icing.  I fancied a challenge and so went with the double icing- just what every mum wants to do, late on a school night!  I thought something out of the ordinary might sell well, and I was right.  The lovely receptionist at Darling boys school told me my cupcakes were selling "like the proverbial", which is what every charity baker wants to hear.

These are a few of my favourite things

A recent visit to marvellous mum and dads took in a trip to Bekonscot Model Village.  A place of my childhood, and such fun.  It was as sweet and enchanting as I remember, and as luck would have it, Darling boy and Little brother were enraptured by it too.  The model village is so lovely, stuck in a time warp and featuring the excellent naff puns that always raise a grin.  You can also pretend to be a giant, which is a great past-time.

Spooky bat cookies and gingerbread cupcakes

Holy bat biscuits robin! I made these iced bat cookies, and dotty star cookies for Little brothers preschool halloween party.

Darling boy and little brother were very sweetly dressed for the fancy dress parade in matching bat costumes with wings,  and our newest addition wore a cute pumpkin teeshirt, as at just 10 weeks, she is a bit little for dressing up just yet (however come christmas it will be a different story!) I opted for Vegas witch in a long hot pink wig and pointy hat.

I also bought along gingerbread cupcakes, topped with a lemony cream cheese frosting for the grownups and they went down a storm.  Perfect with a hot cuppa, gingerbread seems a great flavour for halloween, spicy and warming, perfect for braving a gaggle of goulish preschoolers.

She is here...

...and she is perfect.

When I'm not baking cupcakes

...I get all butch with sanding paper and paintbrushes to renovate furniture.

My nesting has gone up a notch.  Our forth-coming number 3 baby needs somewhere to store their clothes and I've always had an urge to renovate furniture and this was a perfect excuse.  I'm not going to use the word 'up cycle' as it is too gruesome. but I believe this lovely chest of drawers would easily fall into this category.

I bought the drawers on Ebay (this in itself was a new and nail biting experience) and I picked it up from a nearby seaside town a few weeks back.

I followed advice from my various stacks of interior magazines, youtube and my good old Dad, who always knows everything when it comes to practical skills and DIY.

After a vigorous sanding, and many coats of undercoat and topcoat, and the fixing of new knobs (also an Ebay bargain)  I have managed to step back and admire my new beauty.

Cupcakes for the queen

Like most of the UK, we had our village street/barn party for the Jubilee celebrations in the cold and drizzle.  The great British summer didn't stop us from having a get together, we just wore our cagoules, stylish I know.  It was still good fun, if a bit damp.

Here are the cupcakes I made for the party, lemon with a home-made lemon curd filling and a new one, Earl Grey- which were totally delicious.  I wasn't sure how the Earl Grey were going to go down with a mixed crowd of locals, mostly proper farmers perhaps not so inclined towards the more unusual cake flavours in life.  But the cupcakes all disappeared fairly quickly, so I needn't have worried.  Perhaps the farmers of Devon are more experimental in their tastes than I had imagined.  and of course, I decorated a couple of cupcakes especially for our Lizzie, if she felt like dropping by.