Fresh from the oven

And here they are, the lovely little lilac vanilla choc chip cupcakes.

What is pleasing is that my camera seems to depict the buttercream frosting as lilac whereas in the kitchen they look more grey. Oh well.

I love how post baking the whole cottage takes on this lovely heady scent of vanilla and loveliness. Although the downside is that it is like sensory torment and the little devil inside my head bellows 'go on, eat the cakes...all of them'.

Missing - one excellent recipe

Dear readers,

Well, Sophie (I think that you might still be the only one out there in cyberspace who is following my homespun efforts), I have lost...well I think at this time I might prefer the word mislaid, the truly stupendous Crumbs and Doilies mint choc chip cupcake recipe that I made the other week.

Last night I thought that I would today make some simple little vanilla and choc chip cupcakes, with delicious vanilla frosting on the top and that I would use the C&D recipe for the frosting, only sans mint and green colouring. So whilst my cakes were doing their thing in the oven I decided to get the recipe at the ready, and strap me vitals, I can't find it.

I have paced the kitchen, looked in my recipe folder and in there is everything but what I want, I have opened my "Bake" cookbook, which is where I last hid the cutting.....ooooh, just had a thought.....

I am something of a fool. I suddenly thought when I was writing the above paragraph 'what else did I make on the day that I made the minty cakes? Aah, yes, some Nigella vanilla cupcakes. I wonder, would I have left the cutting inside "How to be a Domestic Goddess"??'. I sprang to my feet, so loudly that it awoke the slumbering Rex-pup, tore into the kitchen, over to cookery book corner, snatched Nige off the shelf and even as I held the mighty tome in my hands I could see the top of the cutting peeping out as if to torment me.

Crisis averted, recipe found, normality restored...but probably briefly.

p.s. is 11.28am too early for a shattered nerve restoring G&T? It would be medicinal after all...no, you're probably right, it would the slippery slope to ruin.

Let's put out the bunting

Some months ago, wandering aimlessly round the local Hobbycraft, pocket money burning my hand off, I happened on the felt aisle. Felt has only ever made me think of two things previously - fuzzy felt and comedy primary school "art" projects (which also generally would involve ric rac and macaroni and PVA glue). Then a chance encounter with Cath Kidston's "Make" made me realise that it was possible to use this childhood memory fabric to make excellent homemade goodness in my ripe old adulthood. And lo! burning pocket money made it out of Hobbycraft and was squandered on some felt squares from Lupin on etsy.

The deliciously coloured squares have sat atop my stash pile for sometime whilst I toyed with all the permutations of just what I could make. I sometimes struggle with this stage of the creative process as I will have seen a recipe for something amazing in Sew Hip! and then I talk myself out of making it for fear that it will be 'badly made with zero love and affection' going on. But I decided that it had to be done and I started making some bunting from felt, similar to a pattern in the first issue of Sew Hip!.

It is going to be a gift for my mighty fine neighbour, the lovely Ju-la-la (not to be confused with the super fine Shu-la-la, they are two completely separate friends dontcha know). I whipped up something hilarious out of paper for her birthday dinner the other month, and now every time I am sat in her kitchen wolfing down a chunk of one of her excellent cakes I see this paper joke of bunting hanging in what she loves to call 'Haversham Corner' (think dark and cobwebby, not that any part of Ju-la-la Towers is cobwebby, for she is the mistress of spick and span and if she wasn't so lovely she would intimidate me royally with her tidiness and spick-ness).

So one evening and one day of felt cutting and remembering embroidery stitches that I couldn't manage at school, not to mention a couple of cups of tea and the DVD of "4.30 from Paddington", and that's the lovely one with Joan Hickson, and the bunting is made. I struggled with some of the bunts (is that what you call each individual one hence giving you bunting?) my stars are a bit ropey and remind Toby of the logo for La Caixa bank in Spain, but overall I am pleasantly pleased and I hope that it adds a little j'ne sais pas to 'Haversham Corner'.

Sew pretty?

Whilst wolfing down the old vino collapso with Little Kate in the garden yesterday, I suddenly thought "I'll make some tab top curtains for the guest bedroom".

Now my sewing skills, hmm, probably best that I say that what I lose in technical skills I make up for in enthusiasm! So in anticipation of my own haste last night I prepared the main fabric, getting it all pinned and pressed. It is the first time that I have applied a sort of 'aim, method, results, conclusion' approach to home sewing and I think that it has helped me make something that I am not ashamed of.

This morning I was awake enough to prepare the lining and then sew the tabs before pinning them and the lining in place. There is something rather lovely about taking the time to pin, then tack everything together before firing up the old John Lewis JL100. I always want to rush to the stitching part but now that the curtains are, many hours later, hanging in the bedroom and looking rather fine, I have realised that successful projects cannot be rushed, and ain't that the truth.

Let me eat cake

I have been a busy little domestic bee of late.

Whilst wondering what I could snack on the other afternoon I suddenly had the craving for cake, lots of little delicious cakes. Then I found some recipes that I had ripped from my parents weekend newspaper some months ago. My hungry eyes rested on the lemon chiffon cake and I contemplated whipping the tasty little number up. Then I turned over and saw the most fantastic chocolate chip mint cupcake recipe. And there they are above, sharing the cake pedestal with some vanilla fairy cakes. Nothing quite beats going to the kitchen and knowing that there are all this lovely tasty delights hiding in my cake tins waiting to be devoured. It's a hard life...