Surprise Cupcakes

My boy likes to surprise his classmates 

with yummy vanilla cupcakes 

he's rather famous for. 

And trust me, he really does make 

absolutely delicious little cakes! 

He always asks me to do the frosting, though, 

and I'm happy to oblige :)

                   Gone in a jiffy, I was told!

Taking It Easy

Now this is what I call a slow start into the new year. Nearly half of January has passed already and I'm on my second blog post! Well, it's been busy at our quarters in the last couple of weeks, what with my birthday celebrations and all ... And now I'm finally ready to embrace life at its usual pace :)

For a proper start, I'll make your mouth water with some of the Christmas & birthday goodies we made. As usual, I'm still not one for carrying my little camera around the house and taking photos of everything I do, so here's a very limited selection of our makings:

I always make shortbread for Christmas, following the above recipe. Always a success :)

Another batch was a chocolatey one - one half of the rice flour substituted by cocoa powder. Yummy!

The ones below are seriously the best biscuits ever. My little girl (with a brand new hair do) has been a busy bee :) And a great helper!

Next project and more help - I love making yummy treats with my girl!

The biscuits turned out absolutely gorgeous - and delicious. Looking forward to this year's Christmas :)

(P.S.: an Easter Bunny has hopped onto our plate of Christmas biscuits - no wonder, considering the weather!)

For My Girl

As promised, the yummy cake I made for my daughter's celebration. It was a Sacher cake, made by the recipe from my friend R. Deeelicious :)

I also made a batch of vanilla cupcakes with buttercream icing (and  the proverbial cherry on top...). These were lovely as well.

And my little girl got some really lovely presents!

Enjoy the weekend, 

our family are off 

to the cottage in the woods again!

Easter Goodies

In the week after Easter I'm still allowing myself to post about our Easter weekend - first the yummy food! I made the traditional Simnel cake (not traditional in Slovenia, but traditional for me since it's a British tradition, ha! :) and two batches of Hot Cross Buns (another British tradition in my family...). My husband and my little girl did the egg-colouring business. Surprisingly, with all my love for crafting, I've never really enjoyed colouring Easter eggs. I'm glad my daughter is looking forward to it every year :)

Apart from these, we also had traditional ham baked in bread, grated horseradish and spring onions, and my M-i-L made the delicious traditional (Slovenian this time) walnut cake roll. We took the food to church for the blessing.

Obviously, most of the food has been eaten by now, but there might be one or two forgotten Hot Cross Buns in the tin, and plenty of the walnut cake roll left, should you fancy stopping by for a cuppa!

Happy Birthday To Our Choir!

Last week, our choir celebrated its ninth birthday. On such occasions, it's highly appropriate to make a birthday cake, isn't it? Well, I thought so and I made one!

This looks like a finished product but it's actually only half way through. It's vanilla buttercream icing in the 'sandwich', with some white chocolate bits and some hundreds-and-thousands. Yummy :)

The top was a bit too high so I chopped it off...

Then I made some chocolate buttercream icing.

All ingredients are neatly stored in pretty jars (obviously, this photo belongs a bit further up!)...

There - the cake is nearly done...

Nine birthday candles and some obligatory bunting...

It was absolutely delicious!

Of Cupcakes & PJs & Matching Hearts

We had a little celebration at church yesterday. My little girl officially became a member of a charity group for youngsters in our parish, and mums were asked to prepare something sweet for the do after mass.

I decided to make a batch of delicious vanilla cupcakes, and since my little girl was 'our family cause' for the celebration the icing had to be pink :) It's my girl's favourite colour, naturally.

Because we all know that I love colour I had to sprinkle some hundreds-and-thousands on top of the cakes to make them slightly more rainbow-like... Even if I say so myself, they were absolutely delicious!

Outfit of the morning: PJs and my trusty apron (Christmas gift from my cousin several years ago - so me!), and, of course, my boiled wool slippers with red heart applique - talk about matching patterns...

Nothing can beat icing cupcakes at 7am on a Sunday morning, can it?

More Treats

For those with a sweet tooth this time: my birthday cake! I made this for my girlfriends' party. It was delicious, I was told. It's made with orange zest & juice and ground almonds. The recipe requires chocolate icing but I chose chocolate buttercream icing which made it even more gooey... The pralines add a nice touch plus they're totally delicious as well. As always, it took me some time before I remembered to take out my camera...

There's still a slice in the pantry, I believe. You're welcome :)

Making Bread

I've been making my own bread recently. Every now and then. We are particularly fond of the corn bread. Like the one above. It was rather yummy, actually. This month, though, I will most probably turn into the traditional Christmas biscuit maker. Oh, I do love this time of year. Minus the snow, of course :)

Jubilee Cake

Photo: B. Senk

So, after the concert we had a party. It wasn't a celebration of Her Majesty's Jubilee, obviously - as I'm basically the only Royalist in the group :) - we had a little celebration before we parted for the summer. But I couldn't resist...

We had a fabulous time, with lots of yummy food and spontaneous singing. I'm grateful to have a bunch of friends like these. See you in September!

P.S.: The cake is an easy-peasy one-mix chocolate sponge sandwiched with whipped cream which is sweetened with apricot jam. Delicious!

Yummy Sparkling Birthday Cake

The love of my life turned forty-six yesterday. We celebrated with a yummy birthday cake.

I found some lovely candles at the local paper shop.

I had no idea whatsoever that they were the sparkling kind... You can tell, can't you...?

Birthday Cakes

Sooo, these are the cakes I made for my little girl's birthday celebrations!

She wanted a four-leaf clover for the party with her girlfriends...

... and the chocolate smiley one was made for the celebration with family & friends.

These are both chocolate cakes - my girl is not a fan of fruit cakes!

My birthday girl helped with the decorating, of course. And yes, the cakes were absolutely delicious!

Two!

Second bloggiversary today, yay!

Photo: source

The cake for my little girl's party tomorrow is in the oven, so I've had to borrow a picture for my bloggiversary one! She would like to have a four-leaf clover this year. Green, of course. Yummy. Will keep you posted :)

P.S.: A celebratory giveaway to come - as soon as I can find time to breathe, so watch this space!

Being Creative Gallery - Dessert

For this month's theme, dessert, I decided to make the actual thing, with Easter holiday conveniently asking for some baked goodies to be put on the table!

I made my absolutely favourite Easter treat, traditionally British (has to be, I've expressed my sincere love and affection for the Island often enough...) - Simnel Cake. I love the rich taste of dried fruit and marzipan, and I was brave enough to make my own marzipan this year! The absolutely wonderful recipe from an old issue of the Country Living magazine proved to be extremely helpful, of course.

This time I made twelve marzipan balls, for the twelve apostles (I followed the recipe...) instead of eleven - some recipes suggest one should leave out Judas, but, since 'he' gets eaten anyway, why bother... :)

My little girl helped with the choice of ribbons, I thought they were splendid!

And, needless to say, the cake was absolutely and utterly delicious. What you see on the pics... ancient history!

P.S.: I did manage to slightly burn the top layer, sorry about that, but luckily my little accident did not affect the taste of my masterpiece!

Birthday - Cake & What I Wore

I partied over the weekend. On Saturday evening I invited my girlfriends - I 'rented' my parents' dining room again! This year we enjoyed the company of my little girl as well - she felt she was big enough to join a bunch of thirty- and forty-somethings and enjoy the evening. Oh, she did. She was quite upset when Daddy came to pick her up at ten pm...

Apart from the absolutely fabulous company there was lots of yummy food and lively conversation non-stop. I enjoyed myself immensely, it was such a pleasant evening. Lots of lovely presents as well. Another post to follow.

I made a scrumptious banana-cinnamon-coconut-cream-chocolate cake and decorated it with chocolate stars (after all it was a star which showed the wise men the way so that they could find the newborn Jesus!). It was complimented on by all attending...

As for the outfit, I put on my birthday present from the girlfriends - the wellies - and my parents - the fleece socks. I spent the entire evening in them. Indoors. My feet are usually freezing cold, but not this time...

I'm wearing:

- wellies - Hunter (birthday gift!)
- fleece socks - Hunter (birthday gift as well, yay!)
- tights - NKD
- skirt - Boden
- top - Playlife
- skinny leather belt - H&M
- cropped cardi - Boden
- scarf - local shop
- cK watch
- Rice bracelet

I love my new wellies!!!