Santa Swap Sack has been posted!

Back here, I told you that I had joined the Santa Sack Swap 2014.

I have been busy making and trying to come up with presents for my swap partner that I hope reflect her likes but are also a bit different.

The time came to wrap and post.

I can't tell you what I made for her, as she hasn't yet had her parcel, I'll do that another time....but just to tease you and The Undomesticated Scientist at The Fabric Laboratory, here is a sneaky peek at her parcels.....

I shall return with posts about what we each got and also some tutorials for a couple of things that I hadn't attempted before but you might like to make in the future.

Until the next time,
Cheerio!
Nora
xxxx

And a whole lot more baking.....

It's all I seem to do at the moment...... bake.....not that I'm complaining, it's just that I'd like to ease up on the baking and make time for some sewing or crochet.

But baking it is....and always in such a frenzy inbetween those wretched seasonal colds I keep catching...now that's NOT funny!

It has been fun though...take a look at this..... cute or what!

Just look at those little toes....and the concentration!

She was mixing the sponge bit for the man-sized Bakewell Tarts.

She had already helped cut pastry circles and hearts and fill pastry cases with jam before popping hearts on top (hence she calls then Jam Hearts!  Ahhh!)

Here they all are in the oven bubbling away..... 

and here are the finished Jam Hearts!

Ta-Dah....................!

Next up were individual cakes for Twelve-Teen Daughters friends to take home after Bowling and their Strada meal.

I lined up the individual Square Bakers Moulds that I bought from Lakeland at Christmas with the cases I used in this post.  They looked about the same size as my traybake which takes the 4 egg mixture in this same post .... so I made the 4 egg chocolate mixture and split between the 8 cases.

Like this...here they are just going into the oven! MMmmm!

 And here is a Little Lady (aka Tiddly Toes) helping with the clean up operation!!  Is that a sugar high I can see in her eyes...hahahaha!

Chocolate Icing was the order of the day....apparently my recipe tastes REALLY good! 

Want to know what it is?

Well, basically, beat 80g of butter until soft, add 250g of sifted icing sugar (including 40g of chocolate powder) and 25ml (1tbs and 1 dstsp) of milk and beat together thoroughly.  It has a lovely piping consistency and tastes VERY chocolatey without being too sickly.

It pipes quite nicely even for a complete Do-do like me....icing has never been my strong point.....rustic is the way to go!    But not for these...... 

My Twelve-Teen Daughter loved butterflies before they became fashionable...so on with the butterflies!

We thought Party Pokes with the girls names on and wrapped in cellophone sealed with curling ribbon would be pretty.

What do you think?

Ready........ Ta-Dah..............!

We are ridiculously proud of these, the girls loved them.....they are quite special though, don't you think?

Well Twelve-Teen Daughter is no longer....she is a Fully Fledged Teenager (Oh my!!  The blink of an eye and there they are all grown up!)

So, guess what?

Yep, you got it....Birthday Cake!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She asked for an over-sized cup cake and luckily I found a silicone mould in theworks for only £6!!

Wasn't sure the 4 egg mixture from here (again!) would be enough so I added 50% and made it a 6 egg mixture.

Here it is baking nicely....just needed to turn it so I grabbed a quick photo.

Once cooled, sandwiched together with apricot jam and buttercream (same recipe as above but no chocolate powder just the full 250g of icing sugar and half a teaspoon of vanilla essence instead).

Buttercream on top and yet MORE butterflies!  She loved it..... it tasted good...what more could a Mum ask for?  A big hug and thanks were mine!  Not all Teenage angst then?

Want to see.......

Oh go on then..........

Ta-Daaaaaaahh!................

Golly!  It's been a real Bake-a-Thon recently.  I'm quite giddy with it all.  Now maybe I can move on to some other kind of making!

Hope to see you soon, N x

1 day to go!

There are a heap load of things to get done today!  Well at least I'm up!

Dishwasher on, laundry on and Kitchen cleaned down ready to make a mess baking again!  Baking Day has morphed into two days!

But first....off to the butchers to get the Turkey....Done!

Now Chocolate Traybakes.... I find that my 4 egg mixture comfortably fills 3 lakeland Traybake-Moulds or one Lakeland-Non-Stick-Traybake 'tin'. 

I make this recipe for a small friend of mine (who follows a Gluten-free diet) by substituting ordinary self-raising flour with doves farm gluten-and-wheat-free self-raising flour. Here we go...

275g of self-raising flour
225g of butter or margarine
4 tbs of milk (or soya milk)
1 tsp of baking powder
225g of caster sugar
2 tbs of cocoa powder (or leave this out and add 3 drops of vanilla essence)
4 eggs

Pre-heat the oven to 180, 350 or Gas 4 and grease and line your tins or moulds.

Cream together the butter or margarine and sugar until pale and well combined.

Add the rest of the ingredients and combine well (easy if you have an electric hand whisk or food processor, but if you don't, just add around a quarter ot the dry ingredients and 1 egg and combine before adding in the same proportions until it's all in!)

Pop into your tin or moulds and pop into your oven, the small ones take about 35 mins and the large one about 45 mins.

Once cooked, remove and allow the sponge to cool in the tin for a while...if you try to move it too soon it can crack and break.  The ones in the moulds leave in the moulds. 

To make my sponges look a little more festive I sifter icing (confectioners) sugar over the top through a stencil I made by punching Christmas motifs out of a piece of paper with shaped hole punches.  I packaged mine in a doily and cellophane wrap.

Here's a picture (although it's a bit obscured by some large gingerbread stars bearing the recipients names and threaded with ribbon!) 

Only two days to go!

Two days to go!  This post is from a happy (beacause I've finished work) but slightly stressed (because work is a FULL time thing with no breaks to do anything else) headless chicken who made a decision many weeks, if not months ago, to do a non-commercial Christmas!  Bravo, I hear you cry!  Hhhhmmm!  Not so sure now!

I got some great traybake cases and cellophane bags from lakeland and lovely cellophane wrap and raffia ribbon from phoenix-trading, with the plan of 22 December becoming my Baking Day!

Ho-hum...OK...go for it!  Gingerbreads first...keep it simple...star shapes with holes in for ribbon (just in case people don't like the taste they could hang them on the tree to enjoy!)

My recipe.....well here it is if you'd like to give it a try....

350g of plain flour
2 tsp of ground ginger
1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
100g of butter or margarine
100g of dark brown sugar
75g of caster sugar
1 egg
4 tbsp of honey (or anything runny really like golden or maple syrup)

Pre-heat oven to 190, 375 or Gas 5 and lightly grease your baking trays or line with baking parchment.

Sift the flour into a bowl with the ginger and soda, rub in the butter until it looks like breadcrumbs.

Add the sugars, egg and honey and mix together with a fork.  Once it starts to combine, get your hand in there a bring it together until it forms a ball of dough.

Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth and well combined.

Roll to a thickness of 5mm and using cutters, cut your shapes.  Place on your sheets and bake in the oven for 12mins.

Remove (and if desired make a whole for hanging with the end of a drinking straw), place on racks and allow to cool.

I packaged mine up and they looked like this....

I'm quietly please ...BUT...traybakes will have to wait until tomorrow! EEEkkk!