Bake a Off: Natarajan vs Philipps - Week 2

So, this week it was biscuit week. Hard to say who won this week because somebody (mentioning no names, Bren) ate all of his, *ahem* their biscuits before they could be judged by an independent taster. Fortunately, I have photographic evidence.

Bren:

Bren made chocolate chip cookies using this recipe  

Nikki:

I made gingerbread biscuits, but as I've made gingerbread men before I thought I would give myself the extra challenge and cut a different shape and ice them. I was inspired by this You Tube video
Of course, those are made by experts so they look far better than mine, but I'm a professional biscuit eater so what could go wrong?! 

My Gingerbread Recipe from Mary Berry

I made my own nail varnish bottle template. I know you can buy them (and I will now the challenge has been completed) but I wanted to create everything from scratch like they would have done in the real Bake Off. 

Once I'd baked the biscuits, I left them overnight to completely cool. This was around the time that Bren's biscuits mysteriously disappeared...

Then, I made the icing by mixing 150g of sifted icing sugar with water. You have to add the water gradually - no more than 1 tablespoon at a time. When you're mixing it, you should be looking for a consistency that covers the back of your spoon but also drops off the spoon and moulds back into the rest of the icing easily. If it's too funny you could always reverse the process and put a bit more icing sugar in, just make sure you sift it first.

As you can probably tell, one batch of icing came out better than the other...

Can you tell which icing came out better??!

But they all taste good!! Needless to say, about half of these have gone now lol. But, now I know how to improve here for next time and hopefully they'll be better! And purple =D

So, I guess this week's Bake Off was a draw due to lack of comparative testing. Next week will be bread - which neither of us have done before (I don't think adding ingredients to a bread maker counts for this contest!!). Off to study the recipe books!! 

My Third Love Quilts UK square

Today, I finally finished my Love Quilts square for Bradley. The theme for his quilt is football and his favourite team is Norwich City. I found a pattern on Pintrest and then set myself the challenge of adapting the kits to look like Norwich City players - green and gold.

Finished scarf and trophy before backstithing.

Fortunately, the scarf was easy to do. The trophy I stitched as per the pattern.

Finished scarf and trophy.

Then, it started to get a bit trickier. I think this is the hardest quilt square (possibly design) that I've done, purely because I was adapting the pattern. I think the pattern was originally designed based on the old England kit, but the Norwich isn't the same - I had to consider the yellow and green on the torso and then factor in the sleeves with the opposite coloured band on them. The pattern I used didn't even have sleeves as such, they just blended into the rest of the shirt.

Finished scarf, trophy and kit. Football and boot in progress.

You might also be able to tell that I've got chocolate Labradors now, because their fur gets absolutely everywhere!!! 

Finished scarf, trophy, kit, football and boot.

Top left football pre-backstitching

The top pictures were the hardest to do, again because of adjusting the kit. The top right pictures originally had long sleeves, so I decided to shorten them. But again, that then introduced the challenge of where to shorten the sleeve and then making up the pattern for the arms. 

Still, I think it turned out well in the end...

Finished!!

Right now, it's drying on the washing line so I can post it first thing on Monday morning (not sure I'll mak the post in time today!). My next love quilt square is a Disney theme for Violet. I've chosen to do a Pluto square for her - I'm especially excited about that one!! 

Bake Off: Natarajan vs Philipps - Week 1

So, to honour the new series of "The Great British Bake Off", and seeing a sabre has become just a little obsessed with it, I thought it might be a good idea to have our own week by week Bake Off.

The first show's theme was cakes (we're a little behind withe the TV series, but who cares??) 

Now, one thing to consider is that Bren hasn't a lot of experience in baking. In fact, he admitted he's never actually baked a cake before...

So of course, why not bake a cake each and invite our family and friends to taste them for us?!

We kept the identity of the bakers a secret for as long as possible, but here's how things turned out.

Nikki

I decided to make a white chocolate and raspberry loaf cake. I have made it once or twice before and it's always turned out well - and been very popular with the consumers! It's a fairly simple recipe:

125g butter

175g caster sugar

2 large eggs

175g self-raising flour

4 tablespoons milk

150g raspberries (plus extra to decorate)

Preheat the oven 180 deg C (160 fan) and line the tin with baking paper.

Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until the mixture is light and fluffy. 

Add the eggs one at a time and beat after each addition. Add a tablespoon of flour with the final egg to prevent curdling. 

Sift in the remaining flour and gently fold in until thoroughly combined. 

Stir in the milk and then food in the raspberries, taking care not to squash them. 

All being well, you end up with something that looks like this:

Put in the oven at 180 C for 35-40 minutes and it should look a bit like this: 

While it was in the oven, I made the white chocolate icing: 

100g white chocolate

3 tablespoons double cream

110g butter

60ml semi-skimmed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

500g icing sugar

Melt the chocolate by putting it over a bowl of hot water.

Beat the butter, milk, vanilla extract and half the icing sugar with an electric whisk until smooth. 

Gradually add the rest of the icing sugar and beat again until the icing is smooth and creamy.

Once the chocolate has cooled, add to the mixture. Add the double cream and beat well. 

When iced, it looks a bit like this, except this is when my normally foolproof recipe went wrong. For some reason, the cake collapsed! The outside of the cake seemed to crack from one of the raspberries in the outside edge, but then the whole left half of the cake sunk. We also think it might be possible that I didn't have the oven on a high enough temperature (book said 160 for a fan oven 35/40 min and skewer came out clean, so not sure why!) So, this is how my cake looked:

I captured it's best side!! Apparently, it tasted good!!!

Bren

Bren made a Chocolate Orange marble cake - rather complicated for his first attempt!

250g self-raising flour

225g caster sugar

4 large eggs

250g butter

Beat all of these ingredients together and then split into 2 halves. In one half, put 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder and 2 tablespoons of milk and beat.

Into the other half, put the zest from 1 large orange and the juice. Beat again. 

Put alternating spoons from each mixture into a baking tin, and when done run the handle of a wooden spoon through the mixture to create the marbling effect.

Bake in the oven at 160 C for 55 minutes.

Bren then made a chocolate ganache for the top of his cake.

250g Orange chocolate

225ml of double cream

Boil the double cream. Break the chocolate into small cubes. 

When the cream was boiling, pour over the chocolate pieces, leave for 2 minutes and then stir.

Spread on the top of the cake. Decorate with pieces of orange chocolate.

It looked good, it tasted good. Think it's fair to say that Bren won this round!

Next week: biscuits! 🍪🍫

A New Ice Cream Recipe

This was Bren's idea for an ice cream recipe: raspberry and white chocolate. It's a twist on the normal vanilla I make.

1. Add half a pint of milk and 75g caster sugar into a saucepan.

2. Heat until the sugar has dissolved - no more than 30 seconds. 

3. Add 300ml of double cream and 2 teaspoons of vanilla essence. 

4. Pour into the ice cream maker and allow to churn. I sometimes like to add a little bit of extra vanilla essence here. 

5. When the ice cream is almost done, add some raspberry jam and the white chocolate chunks (or chips) so they can be churned into the mix.

And it tastes really good! But, I'd like to be able to work out when exactly to put the jam in to make raspberry ripple ice cream. Future project! 

My Second Love Quilts Square

Today, I finished my second Love Quilts square for Thomas. His theme was world landmarks, with a focus on his favourite city: London. 

It took me extra effort to stay motivated with this one, but that was mainly due to the poor quality of chart on my iPad so I was guessing some of the parts. Hopefully it'll go on the quilt fine though!

I've already started my third quilt square - thankfully, I'm using a higher quality chart on my iPad this time!

Scrapbooking successes!

It's been a while since I've done any scrapbooking, but after a recent trip to Woburn Safari park I thought it was a good excuse!

I used green leaf backing paper - because I thought that was very appropriate for the zoo - and used photo corners to hold the photos in places. I used brown buttons to decorate and continue with the zoo colour scheme. I also added labels to help me remember our adventure. I made the labels using my Sissix die cutter and 2 different sized labels. Then, I used glue dots to stick a button on the front and a couple of bits of ribbon on the back to look like a tag. I also used die cut cardboard scrabble tiles to make the "Woburn Safari Header" 

I'm quite pleased with the results! 

I was also making a scrapbook for my future sister in laws hen night full of photos and messages from her hens. I finished that today too, but what happens between hens stays between hens, I'll just show you the front cover. 

My First Love Quilts UK adventure

So, a while ago, my friend Isla told me about Love Quilts UK, a website that creates and distributes customised quilts for sick children. I thought this sounded like a great idea because other than being for a good cause, it means I can stitch without worrying that I haven't got the space to display it in my home! 

How it works: go to Love Quilts UK's website (click here) and click on Kids 2015/16 on the left to see if there are any open quilts. Each open quilt will be for a specific child and will have a certain theme. There'll be a button to click to sign up, you'll then be asked to give a description of what you'll be sewing so that other sewers can see and choose different designs. Once you've had an email to say you've been accepted into the quilt, you can then start stitching and you will be given a deadline for the square to arrive at HQ. You can also stitch Any Child squares, as sometimes emergency quilts are needed when children suddenly become poorly.

This was the first square I stitched for a boy named Charlie. The theme was Stars.

Long overdue...

Oh my gosh, it's been a year since I last blogged! That's really terrible! 

I have been working on a few crafty thing so I will update you with some of the old and some of the new! I'm just going to raid my iPad for photographic evidence, so bear with me!!

This was a new recipe I tried from "the family cookbook" called Gloucester Pie. Basically, baked sandwiches. I greased the dish, buttered some bread and the put the buttered side down into the dish. I suppose if you like you can butter both sides but I don't normally butter my sandwiches. Then, you put whatever sandwich filling you want - I had cheese, bacon and red peppers - put another layer of bread on top. You can put butter on the outside of the bread again to give a golden brown glow. I also sprinkled some cheese on the top. Bake in the oven for 20-25 mins and done! 

This was a free gift mini kit I got with an issue of The World of Cross Stitching magazine. It was a nice design and took me a few hours on a rainy Saturday afternoon to complete.

I started designing some wedding invitations - haven't booked the wedding, but I just got so excited I couldn't help myself!! 😝 I'm not sure which design I prefer though - could always have one design for ceremony guests and one for the evening reception guests? If any of you have any thoughts on this, then please let me know in the comments below! ☺️

I had a go at making shortbread biscuits. They were very tasty, but I didn't have the sugar that the recipe specified so I substituted. So, I don't think it had the traditional shortbread taste. Better luck next time! 

This was a cross stitch sampler that I sewed for my cousins new baby. It was a lovely design to stitch, but there was a lot of white! Not helped by the fact that I kept losing bundles of white thread! Looks great though, and my cousin said she was pleased with it 😀

I found a YouTube video for these Apple Roses  and they looked so yummy I thought I'd try it! It wasn't quite as effortless as it looked in the video, and they seemed huge compared to the ones in the video, but they tasted delicious anyway, especially with some homemade ice cream! 

Finally - for now - here are some Gerberas that I planted just yesterday. Not strictly crafting, but I did plant them with my own 2 hands!

I do have some other projects that I'm currently working on, but I'll post about those later! 

****remember, if you have any thoughts about those wedding invitations, please let me know!****