Baking with little helpers

Everything I do that involves the children, just takes 6 times as long. Take for example, when I decided to bake a joint birthday cake for hubby and Aidan, the children were desperate to help. I let them but the mess that they created took forever to clear up! Actually, I don't mind - they really like baking!


Here's the final product - a very decadent, almost flourless choclate cake.
If you have good cholestrol, please feel free to try out my version:

150g of butter
200g of plain (dark) chocolate, broken into pieces
125g of caster sugar
4 eggs, separated
142ml of double cream
4 tablespoons of plain flour

1. Melt chocolate in a bowl over some simmering water. When the chocolate is almost melted, add in the butter. Stir until all melted, taking care not to overheat. Leave to cool slightly.
2. In a separate bowl,whisk egg yolks with caster sugar until thick and creamy.
3. In another bowl, whisk egg whites until stiff peaks are formed.
4. Stir in the chocolate mixture into the egg yolk mixture. Add the double cream, mixing well. Gently fold in the whisked egg whites.
5. Grease a 10" round loose bottomed cake tin. Pour in the mixture. Bake in a preheated oven (180 deg Celsius) for 25 minutes. Don't worry if it sinks a little as it cools.
6. Finally, enjoy!

Dotty day

The children's school encourages them to be aware of different charities around and to participate in the fund raising activities. Tomorrow the children are fundraising for a charity for the blind and they are to go to school wearing some dotty accessories (braille) and to make a donation for that privilege. I was going to buy my children some spotty socks but the both of them actually requested that I make them something instead. What's a mum to do except answer the request.

I didn't have time to knit them something but I had time to sew them a few things. First up, a yoyo flower brooch with a dotty Kaffe Fassett fabric. It took all of 10 minutes and it looks so cute that I'm going to be making lots of them.I also made scarves for them. I found more dotty fabrics in my stash (I have a lot of dotty fabric in my stash - I might add!!) and some white polar fleece fabric, cut 2 long strips, sewed them up on the sewing machine, cut the fringe and voila! - spotty scarves.

Halloween

Halloween -one of the children's favourite holiday (after Christmas and birthdays!) As it was half term, I had devised a few Halloween activities to pass the time with the children. One of it was make Halloween cookies, which was a success. The only problem was that we couldn't find any bright orange icing for the pumpkin - so they look a bit pale and washed out.
The next thing we made was a Halloween wreath - from recycled plastic bags, old wire coat hanger and some black card. I think it makes a good Jack-O-Lantern.

Finally, I made some food for a Halloween party - severed fingers (sausages with cheese fingernails, wriggly worms (more sausages!) and deep fried eyeballs (mini scotch eggs). It had great reactions from the kids.

Autumn

Cold nights = more knitting! (I sincerely hope)

Teeny, tiny blankets

for Kathy for the neo-natal ICU where she works. These blankets are tiny - 9" x 13". I've really forgotten how tiny premature babies can be. Aidan was 6 weeks early and he was tiny (4.5lbs) but we saw lots of much younger and smaller babies in the ICU, which made us very thankful for our little man. I've got Zoe's little baby modelling the blankets!

Look who's knitting

She's been pestering me to teach her to knit and sew for ages now. I've finally relented and I'm teaching my little girl to knit. I guess being surrounded by yarn and fabric and little homemade goodies does encourage the love to learn. She's making progress. So far, no dropped stitches. She's very excited to be making a blanket for her dolly.

Alexandra Palace

I had a lovely few days doing a few things for me. On Thursday, I went to Origin and had quite an inspiring time looking at other people's work. There were lots of textile artists and jewellery designers with amazing work. Speaking of which, I really must dust off the loom and practice some weaving.

On Friday and Sunday, I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show in Alexandra Palace. There was just so much to see and buy (although I didn't do too much damage to the credit card!). I was very well restraint and didn't buy and yarn, I'll tell you why in a second. I did buy lots of fabric for more quilts. I love making quilts. One of the kits I bought was the Hungry Caterpillar quilt kit - I've been looking at it on the internet. When I saw the shop sample hanging up, I knew I had to have one. The kids are fighting over who should have the quilt, as it's one of their favourite children's book.


I also bought a few beads and findings for more bead crochet.Now the reason I didn't buy any yarn because there was a yarn mountain in my home. I mentioned to my mother-in-law, on her way to Hong Kong, to keep an eye out for a good bargain. Guess what turned up at home - 12 bags of yarn with 6 balls in each bag and weighing 500g in each bag. That's enough for sweaters for everyone twice or three times over. OMG!!
And this is Zoe at Ally Pally - having a great time charming the stall holders and visitors alike. She was so well behaved and patient eventhough she was being dragged around looking at more yarn, books, fabric or beads by mummy for about 3 hours!!