BAKING DISASTER!

I had a nightmare of a day last week.  

I had 72 cupcakes to make for a post-wedding party.  

At one time I would have cleared three days for this amount,but I can bake them up in a few hours now.

Well, first I accidently made twice the amount of vanilla batter that I needed, and then I realised I had used salted butter instead of unsalted. I could taste the difference, and felt I couldn't let them go out of the house.  So off to Waitrose for more butter to make the batch again, this time managing the right amounts.

Later on I had two batches each of vanilla, lemon and chocolate cupcakes buttercreamed and ready for fondant.

After all the cakes had been baked and I was tidying up, a packet of fondant fell onto my gorgeous Nigella mixing bowl - smashing it into pieces!

Then as I was putting the kids to bed I heard a huge crash and came downstairs to find all the chocolate cakes had mysteriously fallen off the cooling tray onto the floor. At this point all I felt was weary resignation, but I took an alternative bowl and started mixing .... again.

Ah well, my client was really pleased with the final result though -

which is all that counts!

P.. P ...P ..P...PICK UP A PINATA!

Aha! Finally, the pinata tutorial I promised you!

I have found that even though pinatas aren't an English tradition, they are the highlight of my kidlets parties - and to be honest, which child doesn't enjoy hitting things with a big stick?

They are really easy to make, although they can be time-consuming...but my kidlets love to be involved in party preparation and this is a great project
for them to help with.

 

 

 Little fingers are good for this fiddly job!

While we had the paper mache paste out the kidlets decided to do some junk modeling aswell.  So they created some amazing robots!

Here are my handy tips for surviving a papermache session;
1; Always use a pvc table cloth, this has become invaluable to me during our crafing sessions.
2; And this is a big one if you don't have kidlets yet or have babies and are considering investing in new flooring ALWAYS get lino or wood NOT EVER carpet.
This is a small section of the room after the kidlets had started!

Sorry it's so out of focus but I was just contemplating the clean up!
Anyway have fun making and if you do make some I'd love to see the pics.
xx

P.S Thanks to Anon for the title after I couldn't come up with anything pithy or witty!  Or maybe it should read P...P..Papermache a Pinata.

STOLEN PICTURE

Hi All!

I need your help!

Someone has stolen a picture of one of my cakes and is passing it off as her own to try and win a competition!

I know... I'm a tad annoyed.

I really don't want to have to start watermarking all my photos bnut it looks like I may have to start.

Any way if you have a spare minute could you click HERE and flag the picture as inappropriate.

I have tried contacting the site hosting the competition but they haven't even replied so I figure if enough people flag her they may get an idea that something is up.

Thankyou lovely readers for your help!

xx
They have now taken it off their site, so thankyou all for your help, I really appreciate it!

NEW POSTER ALERT!

Six years ago, not long after the birth of our eldest I bought Mr Lemon Drizzle this poster.

I felt we needed to remember the sentiment when this small bundle of baby was keeping us awake for months... actually it was years!

At time it was very rare and not the phenonemon it has since become.

The day we saw it as the front page on The Sun was the day we knew it had to go! (I think it was a message to the English football team if you are wondering).

However finding a replacement is proving difficult.  Here are some options.

We both love typography and this is so fun.

 

From Bold and Noble 

A My Neighbour Totoro poster. See here for more Totoro madness!

And although fake moustaches are something of a blog trend I do love this.

From Old Tom Foolery

Or we could always make something ourselves!

What do you think?