After a somewhat hectic week, I was very much looking forward to going to the Christchurch Food Festival, a celebration of all things yummy from the local area. There were so many stalls all selling delicious looking foods from around the world, all with one thing in common, the ingredients were, where possible, sourced locally. We made a b-line for the Garlic Farm stall and stocked up on some condiment sauces, although they did not have any of their garlic pesto or delicious garlic butter.
I also picked up a soda loaf from the Dorset bread stand, which is currently residing in our freezer for the time being, until I can find a weekend for us to devour it!
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To mark my last week with the People Team and my first within Marketing, I decided that I wanted to make a gingerbread house, it's something that has been on my 'to bake' list for a while and finally we found the time to do it, although we were both up in to the wee houses finishing it.
To further decorate the door and window I used white chocolate stars using the water icing to hold them in place . . .
. . . for the roof we used the large Cadbury's buttons and overlapped them slightly, using the water icing to glue them on to the roof. There was definitely room for improvement on our design, so here's hoping that our next house looks a little more professional!
There
was some gingerbread going spare so Jason decided to crack out his 3-d
dinosaur cookie cutters, which came out much better than expected!
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It has been an age since I posted anything on my blog, and has suffered a bout of neglect on my part, I promise there has been a very valid reason, a lot has happened in this past month; we've finally sold the flat, and are now looking for our new home, which is proving somewhat of a challenge! We've therefore been very busy using our evenings and weekends to scour the local property market for a characterful gem of a house, of which we have yet to stumble upon, although I'm sure our perfect house is out there somewhere just waiting for us to find it :)
I've also got a new job!!! :) I am now a part of the Marketing team, which I am extremely excited about, although I am very sad to be leaving the People Team, I had a wonderful surprise on my last day, a beautiful bouquet of flowers, they smelt divine! And are just how I envisage the garden at our new home to look . . .
All in all it been a busy month, however I have made a vow to myself to blog at least once a week until we find our new home, and then once we're settled get more of a regular schedule going with all of our baking experimentations, crafty makes and all the places new places we have visited on our travels, watch this space!
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Our beloved family dog Rosie, died last weekend, I rushed from work back to Suffolk to see her before she was buried in our garden (one of her favourite places for an afternoon snooze).
Our family is now pet-less for the first time in 24 years! (my Mum has fish but these I've decided they do not count!) It felt very strange being home with no one to greet me in the mornings at the bottom of the stairs, or waiting for me at the gate with a smile on her face and a ball for me to throw when I came back to visit. She was a one of a kind dog, and will be missed by us all . . .
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The weather man has been promising blue skies and sunshine for many weeks now, and when it kind-of came true today, we jumped in the car and zoomed off in the direction of Beaulieu for a much needed afternoon out in the New Forest. I made a friend along the way in the form of a very curious pony . . .
After exploring the local shops we then set off for Bucklers Hard, an old ship building village, full of the most beautiful cottages, set a top an idyllic green overlooking the harbour. Hopefully next time we visit it will be a little bit brighter and warmer so we can take advantage of the pub and ice cream shop!
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I ended up in the lovely Molly's Den again yesterday, I was eager for Jason to see the vintage loveliness that is Molly's Den and show him some beautiful pieces of furniture I'd seen on my initial visit. I came out with a lovely vintage jar that is to be the new home for all of my ribbons, as they're currently spilling out of the one I'm currently using.
I'm hoping to get some spray pain or something similar so that I am able to colour the lid in a lovely pastel shade, as it's currently looking a bit tatty, but for £1 one can't really complain!
Jason invested in this beautiful decanter, for our bar, it's already in use, decanting his tipple of choice Amaretto, all for the bargain price of £20!!!
Mollie's Den are holding a vintage market to mark the launch of the new warehouse over the road, unfortunately I'm going to be in London, so we'll have to make a date in the diary for when we are both free to go over and have a look, hopefully we'll be in our new place by then, and I'll actually be able to invest in some of the furniture I've got ear marked!
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I have been wanting to make an Easter cake since last Easter, so this year I got my ingredients in early and made this beast of a cake from Lisa Faulkner's cookery book 'Recipes from my Mother to my Daughter'.
I was amazed at how many raisins and other dried fruits this cake took, containing 1kg of raisins alone! I thought I may have been a little heavy handed with the Brandy when initially mixing, and then feeding the cake with additional brandy before final assembly, thankfully there is no overwhelming brandy taste. The inside of the cake is incredibly moist, due to the assembly of the cake before baking, spooning half of the mixture into the cake tin, then inserting a disc of marzipan and then the remaining mixture on top.
The cake was then cooked in the oven for 3 hours and then left to cool completely. I then wrapped the cake in baking paper and cling film, before placing in an air tight container to seal in all of the moisture from the fruit, brandy and marzipan.
Today both Jason and I completed the decoration of the cake with the final disc of marzipan which was then topped with marzipan balls, depicting the 12 disciples minus Judas. The cake was then put under the grill, making the marzipan bubble and crisp up; I've now discovered that marzipan tastes amazing warm!
We couldn't resist the cake once we'd finished decorating it, and both had a slice. The base and sides were a little dry but the inside was incredibly moist and moreish, definitely a recipe to be made again next year, although maybe with a little more finesse when it comes to the decorating of the cake, as it doesn't have quite the finish I was hoping for. . . practice makes perfect!
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