Hen Party

It’s been some time………

Rose January 30, 2023 no Comments

Hi,

The final couple of months have flown by, with a combined bag of occasions contributing to my lack of posting.

My well being has been up and down, with a number of episodes of ‘fainting’ or incapability to reply whereas nonetheless being conscious of what’s going on round me.

I’ve historical past of low blood stress and of partial complicated epilepsy, and it might be both or each! However it appears to have settled down for now 🤞

My attractive furbaby Charlie whippet has additionally been struggling 😢 In October final yr, he had an accident and fractured his neck and displaced three discs. He was in ‘hospital’ for 5 days, however slowly recovered, albeit on a drugs regime that appeared to be mirroring mine!

So when he began crying with ache when making an attempt to face we assumed he had exacerbated this prior harm. But on taking him again to the Small Animal Hospital, a CT scan revealed sacral lumbar stenosis which is so dangerous, his bones have been pushed out of alignment.

So immediately, we’re taking him again in order that they’ll prep him for surgical procedure tomorrow. It’s very scary, however I do know it’s the proper choice if he stands any likelihood of a ache free future. We gained’t be allowed to go to due to Covid rules, so it’s going to be an extended week!

In amongst all this, I’ve after all had some welcome distraction by baking for some family and friends members ☺️

First up, I practiced with my new Brigids Cake Room ganaching package. Instead of utilizing ganache although I used buttercream with confetti sprinkles. Look at these straight sides and neat prime! After a tidy up of the underside edge, I was very impressed with the outcome, and gave it to my son and daughter in regulation for his or her marriage ceremony anniversary ❤️

This one was for my beautiful mom in regulation’s birthday. A lemon sponge made by substituting Sugar and Crumbs lemon drizzle icing sugar for caster sugar in a fundamental Victoria sponge recipe. It was then full of lemon buttercream and embellished with recent fruit.

Then I made a Sticky Toffee pudding flavour birthday cake for hubby, utilizing the identical technique, and topping with chocolate pearls 😋

Semi bare Sticky Toffee pudding flavoured cake

For my son’s birthday, I made a decision to revisit a cake I made for him 5 years in the past, earlier than I started studying cake adorning! Looking on the images, I believe it’s protected to say I’ve improved! In case you’re questioning, it’s a Pokemon character known as Bulbasaur. Again, I made chocolate cake utilizing S&C chocolate milkshake flavour icing sugar within the batter. It was then baked in Molly Robbins laying model Creature Creator mould. His head wanted to be wider so I used cake dough to do that earlier than protecting with milk chocolate ganache made with Callebaut Belgian chocolate Callets and double cream. Once that was easy (ish!) and set, I coated the entire thing in Select Ireland Platinum sugarpaste that I’d colored blue with Coloursplash gel color.

I made his ‘bulb’ out of Rice Krispie treats, then coated in Renshaw’s emerald inexperienced sugarpaste.

To add the ‘splotches’ I combined a little bit of the inexperienced into the blue sugarpaste, and for the opposite particulars I used Renshaw poppy pink, and black. My son James supplied the plush toy for comparability 😂

The subsequent request, from my niece for her associate, actually made me giggle 🤭 I imply, can we ever develop up actually? For your info……it’s a guitar pedal 😆 Chocolate cake once more, ganached and coated with Select Ireland Platinum and Renshaw Poppy pink and black.

I’d made an excessive amount of chocolate sheet cake for the guitar pedal cake, so I made a decision to affix the caterpillar cake membership utilizing the offcuts!

I minimize them into circles and sandwiched them along with leftover Sticky Toffee pudding buttercream that I’d saved within the fridge from hubby’s cake. The complete factor was then coated in chocolate buttercream and melted white chocolate, drizzled with Callebaut strawberry flavoured chocolate, and embellished with smarties. I added a sugarpaste face and used marshmallows for the ft. The complete cake was made out of leftovers and issues I had within the kitchen already 😋 I named her Konnie and she or he was shared out through doorstep deliveries to relations ❤️

My buddy then requested me to make a gluten free chocolate overload cake for her son’s twenty first birthday. I’ve by no means made one earlier than, so I used to be very cautious! I eliminated all my wheat primarily based merchandise from my work space (they had been banished to the conservatory for a couple of days) and completely cleaned my surfaces, Kitchenaid and any instruments I wanted…….twice!

The cake itself was comparatively straightforward. My regular batter made with Doves farm gluten free self elevating flour, and all three layers got here out nice. All S&C icing sugars are allergen free so the buttercream wasn’t an issue, and the sugarpaste used on the board was additionally gluten free.

For the decorations, I selected merchandise primarily based on a listing supplied by my buddy Sam, or double checked the packaging to ensure! I gave Sam the packaging when she collected the cake too 😀 I made the chocolate shards myself from Callebaut chocolate.

I used to be so happy with the suggestions from Sam, who mentioned it was the very best gluten-free cake she’d ever had!

Last however not least, was this Silver marriage ceremony cake for Janet and Ken, who rely as household as Janet is my niece’s grandma and a beautiful girl she is simply too 🥰 The frog Prince was an uncommon request, however apparently that’s what my nieces, Amy and Lucy used to name Ken!

The cake is vanilla, made with S&C velvet vanilla icing sugar, full of raspberry jam and velvet vanilla buttercream. I then used white chocolate ganache (Callebaut white Belgian chocolate and double cream) to coat, earlier than protecting with Select Ireland Platinum white sugarpaste. I made the froggy with Renshaw emerald inexperienced combined with some white and added tylo to make it firmer. For ornament, I used Karen Davies plaited border mould, a rose mould I’ve had for ages, and handcrafted the little church. I additionally used a Sugarflair silver sparkle lustre mud, and ending sparkle pump spray.

And that’s about it! March to May desserts cowl quite a lot of household birthdays together with mine which was made for me by my beautiful daughter in regulation Abigail and is pictured beneath ❤️