Rainbow (Psychedelic) Cake

The cake and my love of Pinterest is what really sparked the 'rainbow' theme. I saw lots of stripy cakes but fell in love with the psychedelic version and decided to give it a go. This, you'll understand, is a risky business when your sister is a fantastic baker who owns her own café, the stakes were high!

I used an 8oz Victoria sponge recipe:

4oz Butter (room temperature)
4oz Sugar
4oz Self-raising flour
4 eggs
Plus... 6 x tubes of gel food colouring
2 4oz cake tins

1) Pre heat the oven to 160 degrees
2) Beat together the butter and sugar
3) Add the eggs one at a time
4) Sieve in the flour and combine
5) Now for the fun bit... Separate into six bowls and add the food colouring, try not to mix too much but make sure all the cake mixture is coloured.

 

6) Choose your colour combinations and add them to the tins one at a time. They need to sit on top of each other but not mix in colour.

 

7) Bake for 20-30mins (they are done when a skewer comes out clean)

8) Cool on a wire rack and then ice and decorate however you like - I stuck mine together with jam and butter icing and then covered it in butter icing and hundreds and thousands!

 

 

 

 

It was a hit, within 5 minutes it was all gone, I didn't even get to have a piece!

 

Emily x

 

 

Birthday Baby Vest

I wanted Millie to have birthday outfits but I didn't want to spend much, especially knowing she'd be crawling around the garden and eating cake. So, I decided to customize her a couple of vests that she already had.

These are incredibly easy, you'll need:

• A vest
• Small amount of fabric (a scrap will probably do)
• Bonder web
• An iron

 
1) Iron* the bonder web onto the fabric (don't get overexcited like I did and do your cutting first!). It should be shiny side down onto the back of your fabric.

2) Draw your number or shape onto the bonder web - remember to do it backwards!

3) Cut out your shape (I used pinking shears)

4) Peel off the bonder web backing and iron* it onto your vest

*N.b. When you iron press with the iron and take it off and press again rather than going back and forth as you do when you iron.

Amazingly I managed to find these shorts after I'd made the vests and they went perfectly!

 

Cheap, fabulous, easy and good to play in... what more could you want?

 

And modelled by the birthday girl...

 

 

Emily x

Rainbow kebabs

Ok, I've been super quiet recently because it has been Millie's first birthday and we've had LOTS of celebrations. The good news is now I get to tell you all about it... I had a loose 'rainbow' theme going on so over the next few days I'll share my rainbow makes and birthday goodness.

I'm starting with these unbelievably easy but amazing looking fruit kebabs. I think fruit has never looked so inviting than when it's rainbow coloured and on a stick!

 

No instruction needed really, just choose your fruit and stick away, when using smaller fruit I used two pieces:

 

Red = strawberry

Orange = Tangerine

Yellow = Pineapple

Green = Grape

Blue = Blueberry

Purple (I know its really indigo and violet) = Grape

 

 

Enjoy...

Emily x



Glamping: Part 2

Recently I posted about a glamping trip Mike and I took near Whitby. That blog was only a snippet of what La Rosa has to offer. The circus themed barn we had the pleasure in staying in was one of about fifteen caravans/trucks/gypsy caravans you can stay in, and this doesn't even include the themed hotel. 

We pretty much spent the first day getting over being completely overwhelmed at having landed such a beautiful get away. After inspecting every inch (and of course photographing) the barn, I checked out the roll top bath with a view, we ate some of our farm shop sausages and bacon and generally chilled out until we could chill out no more. In the evening we headed down to the other half of the campsite, and Mandy kindly let us loose investigating all the other accommodation they have to offer. More total amazingness!!!!

This place is amazing, you have to go there! 

Id love you go back with a bigger group and take over the top campite, party in the bell tent, light fires in the fire pits and play dress up, oh yeah, there is even a dressing up rail. The attention to detail here was beautiful and not to mention a little unusual.  

After photographing and exclaiming the place to death we headed on a magical fairy land walk to the local pub, about a mile long woodland walk in search of local beer and toothpaste... 

 We found the birch hall inn in beck hole, which came up trumps with both, plus pie and pickle. Try the beckwetter if your ever in the area, I'm not a real ale drinker but this went down just fine. Then home to stoke the log fire into action and light a hundred tea lights and nestle down on the sofa with a book and a glass of wine. 

If you would like to stay at La Rosa (which I highly recommend you do!) go to their website www.larosa.co.uk.

A Green Wedding

Wedding season is well and truly upon us so I thought I'd do a little nostalgic post about our wedding, nearly three years ago.

We wanted something really simple, with just close friends and family and I had always dreamt of getting married outside. We were lucky enough to find Clow Beck Eco Farm who agreed we could have our special day on their site. They weren't a registered venue so we got legally married in a registry office a few days before and then had our 'real' wedding with our own special vows on the farm.

 

We had a real DIY wedding as I wanted low impact. I made decorations, including rag wreaths, 100m of bunting, decorated jam jars for tea lights (we call them jam jar fairies!) and the sign you see above. My dress was a vintage 1960s dress that I had slightly altered (arms removed, taken in and sash added) to make it work for me.

 

 

We had a humanist ceremony with vows that we wrote ourselves, held in a wooden shelter under some trees and next to a brook, I couldn't have asked for it to be anymore perfect, right down to the log seats that our guests sat on.

 

 

I had minimal flowers, just bouquets for me and my bridesmaids (my sisters), hair flowers and button holes for Paul and his two best men. I was unspecific over what I wanted, just lots of colour and English grown, non hot house. So they were a wonderful and beautiful surprise on the day, provided by Amy at Greenhouse Florists.

 

 

 



At the time the farm was fully working with an amazing array of vegetables and quite a bit of livestock. The chef on site did us the most amazing BBQ feast, including sausages that Paul and I made from pork reared on the farm. It was very informal with no seating plan and no speeches - I loved it! At the time I didn't like cake (this changed during pregnancy!) so instead my wonderful friend Maz made us individual fruit pies, displayed in a fab tower.

 

 

Then we pretty much donned our wellies and partied the night away!

 

 

I also had a green hen do (before the wedding obviously) and have previously written a blog about this for Angel in the North, it was written a couple of years ago but might still have some handy hints - click here to read it.

 

Emily x