Birthday Cakes

Tomorrow is my Birthday, so this evening I have been busy in the kitchen making cakes to take to work. Here is a quick sneak peek (recipes to follow!)

Lemon Cupcakes

Chocolate Brownies

Dave has hinted that I'm getting something to help take better photographs (?!) so watch this space for beautiful food and craft pics to come...

Bread, Scrub and Fun in Folkestone

We've just got back from a weekend in Folkestone, Kent celebrating Dave's Mum's Birthday. We had a lovely evening of improv comedy, an audience-participation trumpet piece and samba. This was followed by a beautiful sunny day today walking around Sandgate and Folkestone and having a delicious lunch. I thought I'd share a few photos of the things I made and we did over the weekend.

A loaf of bread for this morning to get us in the mood for real breadmaker week:

Home made scrub as a little Birthday gift using Mrs Thrifty's vanilla scrub recipe:

Walks along the beach hoping to spot Davina (formerly Dave) the Dolphin (see Wikipedia):

Photo slideshow 'this is your life':

Walking up the zig zag path on our way to eat delicious Nepalese food at Gurkha Palace

Hope your weekend was lovely too!

Make Your Own Cake Board

This week it was my lovely friend Sarah's Birthday and I made a cake, which of course meant I needed something to transport and serve it on. Cue the need for a cake board, but not one of those foil ones (like this) that you buy from the supermarket, oh no, a thrifty home-made kind of one that's even better as it has 'lift out' sides to remove it from the tub. Perfect for a cake that needs to travel 37 miles to Bath in rush hour traffic.

How to Make Your Own Cereal Box Cake Board

The dimensions of my cereal box were 19 x 25cm (front) and my cake tin has a diameter of 19cm- perfect fit. You may want to use stronger cardboard if making a bigger/heavier cake, but this was fine for lifting it out, lighting the candles and cutting the cake.

Valentine's Pink Milk Jelly

I don't know if it's all of the beautiful Valentine-themed sweet treats around (ribbon roses at SweetSugarBelle and Valentine's Bags at Nifty Thrifty Things for example) or the fact that I'm meant to be studying, but I was overcome but the urge to make milk jelly this weekend.

I've now decided as it is berry flavoured and has come out rather pink that it definitely constitutes a Valentine's Day treat (even though my other half would be most bemused if I presented him with a glass of pink gloop on Tuesday!) It would be good for a little girl's Birthday party as a fancier (and pinker) alternative to the traditional jelly and ice cream.

This was a bit of an experiment, so as with the Fruit Betty last week the quantities are a bit vague, sorry!

Valentine's Milk Jelly

Ingredients:
1 block of jelly
1/2 can evaporated milk (I use the light stuff as I can't taste the difference in recipes)
Handful of fruit (raspberries, strawberries or in this out of season weather- trusty frozen berries)

1. Make up some strawberry or raspberry jelly with about half of the usual quantity of water- around 250ml. Set aside to cool and when it's stopped steaming, chill in the fridge for 15-20 minutes, until cold but not set.

2. Blitz the berries with a blender or food processor (defrost first if they're frozen, but make sure they stay on the cold side, this will help the mousse to set).

3. Whisk up the evaporated milk until foamy and then add the blitzed berries and jelly.

4. Whisk for a couple of minutes until mousse like, pour into glasses and put in the fridge to set for a couple of hours.

And there you have it, super easy, super fruity pink milk jelly!