We passed!

Well this is just a very quick little note (as I'm supposed to be ironing and preparing to make 80 cupcakes) to say that we did it! Bracken is now the proud owner of a little green & white rosette which shows that she has achieved her Kennel Club Good Citizen Bronze Award. What a clever pup!
Back to the grindstone.........

Spanish Water Dogs

I have to admit that I have become obsessed with Spanish Water Dogs. Bracken of course started the whole thing off, but while I thought that she was very cute and I loved her dearly, I never really believed that the SWD would replace the Border Collie in my heart as my dog of choice. Now that we have had her for eight months it has finally happened - "Spanish Water Dog Obsession". I find myself trawling the web to read more about them and cooing over the pictures of these gorgeous dogs at every available moment......... is there a cure? I sincerely hope so, otherwise you might just see me wandering around the village wearing a SWD embroidered sweatshirt with matching gilet :-)



Anyway our little pup is off tomorrow evening to take her Kennel Club Bronze Good Citizen Award. This of course means that she is going to have to listen to me for a full hour and that I am going to have to take a pocket stuffed with training treats to get her to pay attention. Chances of achieving the award are fair to middling I would say, obviously there is plenty of room for handler error and hopefully any amorous advances from Milo the Labradoodle won't freak her out too much. Wish me luck............

Now, in my search for cupcake cases I have found some very nice brightly coloured Swedish paper ones. I am going to try them out this week and will report back on quality, reliability etc later on. Here's hoping that they work well as I have 80 cakes to bake for an event and I don't want to have to do any repeats (Brian gets to eat any duff ones and his waistline could do without any extra help).

I'm off now to finish cooking tea for the boys and referee the fight over whose turn it is to lie down on the sofa.

Domestic bliss........

Well I never thought that the day would come when I'd be looking forward to a Monday morning, but having baked 2 trays of flapjacks, 3 traybakes (ginger, chocolate and coffee & walnut), 100 cupcakes (iced of course) and a birthday cake (with Snow White on the top) I can honestly say that I was relishing the thought of a day of domestic chores. That was a week ago and today I find myself again quite happy with a day of domesticity after one extremely late night and another very late one creating cakes. Those "early hours" bedtimes used to be acceptable when I was in my 20's with no 6am wake up calls but these days I need two days and a couple of large glasses of red to recover:-)

Of course, today, as with all best laid plans, my day of tidying, cleaning and ironing has been disrupted by having no.1 son at home from school recovering from a nasty cough and cold. Last night he seemed very poorly and mummy being the softy that she is decided a day's rest would be the best medicine. Things started off well, with resting and drinking lots of fruit juice whilst watching "Bug's Life", however by one o'clock he was dressed as a pirate, ready to go out in the garden and "mine" for ice. Now, I wanted to finish tidying the study and get the ironing done so that I could snuggle down in front of the fire tonight, but I ended up supervising wayward boys in the garden and cleaning up muddy paw prints after Bracken had a funny five minutes. When Brian gets home this evening the question will of course be - what have you been doing today dear? - shall I start screaming now? The positive thing is that the cough finally seems to be going, so back to school tomorrow!

Cupcake cases - I think that I have found the reason for my cupcake cases pulling away from the cakes. It is all to do with humidity in the kitchen, making sure that the cakes are removed from the tin as soon as they come out of the oven and completely cooled before decorating. Touch wood, since trying not to get the kitchen too steamy when I cook and cooling my cakes properly I have not had the same problems. Hooray - I can carry on using the pretty spotty cases - I am the self appointed cupcake queen of Inkpen!!

It's snowing again!

Well I don't believe it, after two days of glorious sunshine, long walks and a very successful trip to Inkpen Farmers Market, I awoke this morning to see more snow. Now don't get me wrong I actually like the white stuff, but preferably not when I'm trying to do the school run or get to the shops for essentials like chocolate (talking of chocolate, the brownies were delicious). The trip to school was a bit hairy, I passed a car in a hedge and once I got there I met a mum and a teacher swapping stories of their sliding experiences - from now on I resolve to walk more often. Once safely home I started to think about the likelihood of a slightly unfit (but getting fitter) 38 year old being able to take part in the skeleton bob at the next Winter Olympics. Amy Williams is certainly inspiring, as is Shelley Rudman, but is it enough to simply be inspired - especially when I am scared of heights and too chicken to even get on a sledge :-)
Anyway the madness has now passed and I am back on to the serious stuff of researching cupcake cases. I though that I had it cracked, but sadly the lovely new ones that I bought have been pulling away from the cupcakes and it is not a good look. There is a possibility of a humidity problem as the kitchen was pretty warm and steamy on Saturday evening, or maybe I put them in the air-tight containers too soon. Whatever it is I need to get it sorted and quickly, even though the cakes are delicious they need to look good too. Sadly I think I'll have to get baking again to experiment with them - does anyone want some cakes?

More Chocolate.........

Half term....... what more can I say? Certainly any mother of two small boys will know all about the chaos that our lives descend into during what should be a time of relaxation and fun with our children. This week has certainly seen more than its fair share of chaos, especially with our rather badly timed trip to the Natural History Museum in London. The boys wanted to see the dinosaurs - I had promised dinosaurs - what the country bumpkin in me hadn't anticipated was the hour long queue in the rain just to get in. Don't worry, I thought, at least once we're in we will be able to get warm and dry and see the dinosaurs. I was mistaken, inside there was another huge queue for the dinosaurs and no hope of any relief for some time to come. Unperturbed I decided that the blue whale would offer some interest - only to find that the museum in its wisdom had closed that exhibit to clean it - why choose the bl**dy school holidays? At this point wee Euan had decided enough was enough and threw a huge tantrum. Soon after we left, never getting to see the elusive dinosaurs....
Anyway I have survived until Friday without managing even 10 minutes in the kitchen messing around with chocolate - no mean feat. So armed with my little BBC Good Food book of recipes for children I decided that the boys and I should make some chocolate brownies, kitchen therapy. Sadly neither Dylan nor Euan really wanted to help, so I undertook the task on my own and the tray is in the oven now which is why I have some time to write this blog. I'll let you know how they turn out (when I've washed the chocolate off of my fingers) :-)

p.s. Crocus Cakes will be at the Inkpen Farmer's Market on Sunday - come and buy some delicious cupcakes!

Hmmm cupcakes..........

Welcome to a rather damp and windy Tuesday, certainly not good for inspiring new ideas for cupcake recipes. Let's face it I'd rather be curled up in front of the fire eating them, than in the kitchen baking them! In fact as my muffin top has been expanding ever more, over the waisband of my jeans, I've had to give up my weekday liking for the odd glass of wine just so that I can continue to eat cake - and that's a huge sacrifice (as any mother of two small boys will know).
I'm currently trying to concoct something chocolately, but not too sweet, that will be a departure from my normal creations. The only problem is that in doing so I have developed a love of Willie's Peruvian Cacao and now can't bring myself to "waste" it in a cake! Oh well I guess it's back to normal 70% dark chocolate then........ ooh and maybe some fresh cream......
My lovely neighbour has just given me an article from her Sunday paper that says that house prices in areas where there are cupcake emporiums are on the rise. Now if I can persuade the good people of Inkpen to contribute to me setting up my own emporium surely it will benefit them all in the long term (and maybe a free cupcake every week would keep them happy too).
Anyway enough rambling from me, I'm off to collect the small person and then back into the kitchen............
Keep smiling :-)