A Productive Day

I made my first ever dress!

It took 2-3 hours. I'm quite pleased with it, although I can see all the bits that went wrong, of course. I just hope that she's cute enough that people won't think to scrutinise the stitching! I made it in age 7 but I had to take it up AND in quite a bit. Admittedly she is only an average sized 5.5 year old so I probably should have stuck with the 6, but I didn't thnk it would be quite as enormous on her. Still, it's going to last her until she goes to secondary school I think!

This week I made icecream cupcakes..

They're a basic 3 egg sponge mix from my Cake Decorating magazine, topped with piped buttercream (am still learning!), icecream sauce, sprinkles and a third of a flake. Yum!

My U pins still haven't arrived but I've managed to weigh down any loose netting with rocks, and *touch wood* they seem to be contained now! They enjoy being out so much.

Millie and I went to the allotment this evening and marvelled at all the impact of all the rain we've been having lately!

Broad bean blossom.. who'd have thought it would be so pretty?! My crimson broad beans have also come up, and the Autumn ones (above) are starting to grow tiny French bean sized pods.

Little gooseberries. I'm not a big gooseberry fan to be honest, but I can't wait to try these. I think they might be red ones in the end. They're doing so well.

Redcurrant buds!

Blackcurrants

"An Umbrella Of Rhubarb"

Rainbow Cake In A Jar!

I've been dying to try rainbow cake in a jar for.. ooh, at least a week. My 7 year old has decided that she wants a rainbow cake for her birthday, and Google led me to these little beauties. They seemed like a sensible way to test out the theory of dyed cake, and the effects of neon colours on the already-prone-to-hyperactivity children, and - let's face it - they're really really pretty!

So I started with a basic 3 egg sponge recipe:

175g self raising flour
175g baking margarine (or butter, if you're feeling less frugal)
175g caster sugar
1.5tsp baking powder
3 eggs

After whizzing it all up in the food processor I divided it between 6 appropriately coloured bowls and added the colouring. I used Sugarflair pastes in Baby Blue, Mint Green, Egg Yellow, Tangerine, Christmas Red, and a combination of the red & blue to make the purple. It didn't take much to achieve the desired effect. Maybe a quarter of a teaspoonful at most, per bowl.

Next came the task of getting the mixture into the jars! I used 5 jars altogether. It was easier than I'd expected to put a dollop of each colour into the jar and spread it evenly before adding the next one.

So pretty!










I placed the jars in a roasting tin, added about an inch or so of cold water to the tin, and put everything into a preheated oven at 180C. Helpfully, I can't actually tell you how long it took for the cakes to cook. After 15 minutes I turned them round, and after a further 12 minutes I checked again. They weren't done. I think they may have taken another 20 minutes in total, but keep checking - my oven is useless!


And finally..

CAKE!

I must admit, I was  bit disappointed when I saw them. The colours had run into each other quite a lot and they looked a little sludgy rather than lovely and vibrant. They shrank quite a bit after I took this photo, too. There's probably a scientific reason for that but I don't know what it is!




After cooling, I made up a batch of buttercream. I based it on the Hummingbird Bakery recipe, but in the end I winged it. So basically, start with 80g of unsalted butter and 250g of icing sugar, add a splash of milk, mix, and adjust as necessary.

Lots and lots of buttercream! And sprinkles!

In the interest of science, and despite the fact that it's dinnertime in ooh 30 minutes or so, I had to give the cake a try really, didn't I!?

                     

 IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!! And it's still lovely  and vibrant!!

Crazy rainbow crumbs

                    See the lovely colours?!

I could only manage half a jar. I guess that's about one cupcakes worth. But I am pleased to report that you can't taste the colouring at all, and 20 or so minutes in I am not suffering from hyperactivity ;)  I'll test it on the children tomorrow!

 

My imperfect little beauties

I'm a bad chicken mummy. They've done a lot of free ranging in the Autumn, Winter and early Spring months, and have had a fabulous time, but now it's growing season. And the children will want to play barefoot in the Summer without getting chicken poo between their toes. The chickens have been eating anything that's green, including potato plants and rhubarb leaves, which I'm sure can't be doing them any good at all. My strawberry plants have pretty much disappeared, and I caught one of them eating the lettuce seeds I planted. So I shut them in their run and ordered some netting and various fence pins, and on Wednesday I put it all up to extend the area they inhabit while still keeping them contained. Only they keep escaping! I've been out countless times to shift pins around and check for gaps, but I've not been well and Bellatrix and Hermione do NOT want to be caught when they escape, so I've had to admit defeat. They're confined to their run until I receive some more U pins to hopefully make the fence a bit more effective. They do NOT approve. I don't approve, really. I feel horrible about it. When they see me they start pacing and clucking at me. I really hope this fence does the job because I don't think any of us can face keeping them cooped up in their run until the Autumn. I do have the allotment, of course, but I want to be able to grow things in my own back garden too!

Polka dot fruit leathers

I saw a link to these on Pinterest, and had to try making my own! My children adore fruit leathers. I genuinely didn't expect them to be such a hit. I've made them from blackberries, raspberries, apples, pears and rhubarb, and they've always been wolfed down, and for bonus points they also keep for AGES. I bought my dehydrator mainly with this in mind, but it had never occured to me to mess about with patterns!

 

 

I started with 4 Bramley apples, cooked until soft, blitzed in the food processor, and sweetened with 2 dessertspoons on honey (they're a bit sticky, so I'd probably cut this down to 1-and-a-half in future). Also half a punnet of raspberries, heated until pulpy and shoved through the mouli to remove the pips. And finally a small can of peach slices, blitzed.

 Ta-dah! One tray of apple puree with raspberry and peach splodgey bits. I did try to pipe neat little dots but the puree was too thick for the nozzle and I got a bit impatient and gave up.

I dried it at 60C for about 9 hours. The result was pretty gorgeous! The leather was transfered to a piece of greaseproof paper, rolled into a sausage and then cut into sections (probably about 10).

The smallest madam likes to pretend that her fruit leathers are a funny tongue. every.single.time :)

I'm now wondering what else I can try! Zig zags? Stripes? Marbled? If my tomatoes grow well this year (they didn't last year) I may even try the savoury tomato and celery salt version.

Glamping

The girls and I have been having camping fun at the farm.

I'm not a natural camper, although I do enjoy the experience very much, but a large part of that is down to our lovely camping equipment. We have a 4m bell tent..

.. and I recently bought a Frontier Stove, which led to a very tense moment when a hole had to be cut in the tent for the flue!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was worth it though! The stove kept us warm long into the night, and was great for cooking on (and roasting marshmallows!), although due to beginner's user error and too-big logs, it also failed to stay alight for as long as I'd hoped, and we all came home stinking of wood smoke!

We roasted marshmallows on the first night, but then discovered that melty marshmallows and a long haired child with a baby wipe allergy DO NOT MIX. Whoops.












The campsite was based at Cotswold Farm Park, and it was fantastic. It was busier than I'd expected, considering the cold night time temperatures, but not at all crowded - the only noise at night was the sound of bleating lambs rather than other humans. The toilet blocks was sparkly new and everything seemed well thought out. And best of all, it's literally a 2 minute walk from the entrance to the farm park! The girls had an absolute blast.

They bounced on the bouncy pillow, cuddled baby chicks and ducklings, held rabbits and guinea pigs, bottle fed lambs, hand fed goats, played on the masses of play equipment, completed a wooden maze and won a little prize each, explored the woodland adventure area, rode on ride-on tractors, went on the tractor trailer ride around the park, saw some lambs being born, and lots more besides.

It was dry, other than a couple of well timed hailstorms on the first day (we stayed dry), and although it was chilly at times, it was bearable. Millie, who told me she didn't want to go camping at all, had such a great time that she didn't want to leave!

We'll definitely be regular visitors, I think. I'd been a bit concerned that the farm park might not offer enough entertainment, but it was great and I think the girls could have spent entire days on the bouncy pillow.

The Adam Henson branding was quite amusing, as until I watched Countryfile with my parents last week I had no idea who he was! There is Adam Henson branded everything, from sausages and Rare Breed bitter to pet bedding and souveniers. Good on him :)

I completely fell in love with the Lavender Pekin Bantams. They were *stunning*. Like little pompoms on feathered legs. They even have a slight purpley tinge to their pale feathers. I've looked into getting some but, although I could squeeze some into my Eglu, the other girls would almost certainly bully the minature newcomers and it may well end very badly. There's an option of starting a second flock (I would LOVE to and could probably find the space, but the cost is a different matter!). OR, I could focus my energies on finding some pastel coloured egg laying large fowl to keep Ginny, Hermione and Bellatrix company. I'd love to be greeted by a rainbow of eggs. Not that I'm managing to keep up with the 3-a-day that the Omlet girls seem to be producing, mind you! But that's not the point is it? :)


I love camping and can't wait to go again. I think our next trip might be to Camp Bestival, due to pesky things like school and work (oh, and a PROPER HOLIDAY with A PLANE) taking up our time between now and then!

Never enough time in the day..

I feel like this Easter is going to be a bit of a non event. I'm having all these wonderful ideas *now*, but it's too late to do anything about them. I'm going to hide little foil-wrapped Easter eggs around the garden for the children to find (weather and chicken poo levels permitting), and we're having a roast dinner. At some point the lovely Lucy and Coddy are hoping to come and see us before they head back Oop Norf. It will be a nice enough day.

But I'm having thoughts of hand stitched Easter bunnies, appliqued Easter baskets filled with treats, and non edible eggs to hide around the house and garden, perhaps with clues in. And then when the eggs have all been found they'll be awarded with the Easter basket. I don't think I could get away with not laying on an Easter egg hunt (where has this tradition come from?! I was always just happy with copious amounts of chocolate and had no desire to have to hunt through bushes and under flower pots to find them first!).

I'm having similar thoughts about camping. We go in 5 days. I've just about got my act together to order the wood burning stove, carbon monoxide detection strips, fire blankets and cheap self inflating mats for the girls, who are young and light and don't need a luxury Thermarest like mine. I haven't ordered any pretty things at all. I must become more organised.

Mother's Day

I can finally share the Mother's Day gift I made for my lovely mum:

It's a jar of hand stitched, strawberry scented fabric strawberries. They were pretty easy to make, using a template from Sew Pretty Homestyle, and some little squares of fabric from eBay which were the perfect size to make 2 strawberries from each. I still have 3 left to finish for the girls and me.

For my own mother's day present I got Sew Fabulous Fabric, which has some lovely things in it, in particular the applique. I just need more hours in the day..

On the rhubarb front, I'm currently drying some rhubarb leathers in the dehydrator. I'm not sure how they're going to turn out. The puree seems very watery, and needed all the honey I had in the house *and* some caster sugar in order to sweeten it sufficiently. And I'm still thinking it might be a bit too sour for my little princesses. Worth a try though.