×

I find that sometimes when you're not looking forward to something, it usually turns out okay on the day and maybe you'll end up with a few unexpected perks. This week I had to go for a check up at the dentist which I'm really not partial to - after a childhood spent with a lot of painful trips to the dental clinic due to breaking my two front teeth when I was in primary school I always find it pretty daunting.

This time however I was in there for only a few minutes and didn't have to have any work done which was great. The other good thing about this trip was that there is a little charity shop just down the road so I popped in on the off chance that I might find a few pretty pieces - and that I did!


The darling set of sailboat glasses above were just £1.99 and go perfectly with the other gilded glassware on our cocktail shelf, and I also stumbled across this gorgeous little set of framed sihouettes - I'm so glad I did decide to rummage through that box of frames!!!!


One is missing the top hanging ring but that is easily fixed, and the image had slipped from the mounting on another but I just opened the back up and fixed that in a jiffy with some sticky tape. These were £1.99 each which I thought was a little pricey for a charity shop due to their small size, but I just loved them and I'm sure they would have set me back a lot more than that had I found them on eBay or in a vintage shop.


Sorry for the bad Instagram pics! You can just make out my lovely little carafe too, it has pretty engraved detailing on both parts and is just the right size. I've been looking for one for ages and finally found this one on eBay, its actually a Laura Ashley piece. As you can see I haven't hung my new Moomin plate yet, but will as soon as my second one arrives.
I hope you all had a nice weekend too, I would love to see your thrifting finds too!!!

For a change this weekend we actually had some sunshine - it seems that so far this year the only nice weather we have had has been on weekdays when I'm trapped in my office at work so it was a real treat to be able to catch some rays!

The Birthday Boy!

The good weather seemed even more heaven sent as Pete and I had planned to visit my Grandparents with my Mum and Dad taking along a birthday lunch and pressies for Gramps' birthday. It was the first time Pete has visited Gran and Gramps' house and I was eager for him to see how lovely it is, but there will be more on that in a later post!

Lovely ice cold bubbles.

We arrived a little after midday and found Gramps in the kitchen and Gran sitting in the garden on her favourite bench in the sun, so we all headed out there for some celebratory bubbly and pressie opening. Pete and I bought him a bottle of one of his favourite red wines, and I gave Gran a sweet little box of Thorntons choccies (her favourite) so she didn't feel left out! My parents gave a pretty set of blue patterned plates and some chocolates and other treats.

Sparkly wrappings all round.

We had such a nice time sitting talking that we ate lunch quite late. Mum had made one of her lovely puff pastry tarts topped with chilli, smoked bacon and cheddar that we ate cold with some lovely dressed salad, pickled beetroots, boiled egg halves and homemade creamy potato salad. We finished off with strawberries and clotted cream - all in all the perfect meal for a Summers day!

Dad and Gran in a nice blouse and waistcoat from Denmark.

It was wonderful to be able to sit out in their pretty little garden catching up. Unfortunately we don't tend to see Gran and Gramps much any more as I am always so busy with baking and weekend plans and they find it hard to travel now. I have made a mid year resolution to set aside time to go and see them and my other Grandma in Lichfield more frequently.

Lovely Mumsy!




I snuck away at one point to get some photos of inside the house, but it is so fab that I'm going to dedicate a whole post to it soon.


Happy Birthday Gramps!!!

This week saw me producing two cakes that are very different from my normal style and were a little more of a challenge which is usually welcome. The first was the cake above, a piece commissioned for a Thomas Sabo jewellery event at Tylers Department Store.

I used my normal vanilla bean cake recipe filled with vanilla buttercream and raspberry jam, decorated with black fondant stripes, red buttercream piping and a printed icing piece from www.eatyourphoto.co.uk. I think it looked really striking and especially good set out on a stand on the jewellery counter at the store - here's a bad photo taken with my phone...


I also had a cake to do for one of my lovely work friends Mel whose daughter turned six at the weekend. She wanted a lady bird cake and although I don't usually do fondant covered cakes I couldn't say no to sweet little Isabella!


One of my favourite things to do when I just need to relax is curl up with a book, but sometimes this doesn't really go to plan when I pick a book to flick through that fills me with inspiration and sends me straight off to work again. Forever and Ever does this to me every time.

This weighty volume is a collection of works by Shawn Barber, a fabulous artist and tattooist working at Memoir Tattoo in Los Angeles which is also home to his girlfriend and fabulous tattooist Kim Saigh - you may recognise her from the first season of LA Ink.


I think it is the texture that Shawn brings to his work that really draws me in, along with the neutral, muted backgrounds and bold pops of colour in his subject's tattoos which he brings to life with amazing accuracy. He has a magical talent of showing that the designs are part of the owners skin and not just a piece of clothing, somehow managing to replicate the matt, engrained and fainty blurred look of a real tattoo.


For an artist this book really is an invaluable resource, with several progressions pages thrown in such as the one below that help you follow Shawn's work process and colour layering. There are also some great candid shots of him working in his studio which give great insite into the artist's life and creative space. Sketches such as the piece above show Barber's great talent for using his tools to imitate structure and texture, clearly shown in his portrayal of Grime's famous spikey, tall crop of hair.


This book really is one of my most treasured posessions - it went out of print a while ago and though you can get second hand copies from Amazon they will set you back a pretty penny going for £80 plus. I do hope that one day I can get my hands on a copy of Barber's first book Tattooed Portraits, but the few copies of this available start at a tidy £250. There is however a new book to be released in September, Memoir, which you can pre-order here. You better believe my order is already in.
All images from www.bakednyc.com

So, here is the first of a feature I'll be doing from now on called Bakery Big Up. I'll be posting about bakeries that are thinking outside of the (cake) box and giving a bit more than your standard cake shack. 

I thought it only right that my first post be dedicated to an establishment that has really played a big part in my taking the leap and opening my little custom order bakery - Baked in New York City. I have never been there, I have never met the owners, yet these guys hold the same principles to hear that I do - baking is about creating things that taste amazing and make people happy. The Brooklyn storefront was opened back in 2005 by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.


They do not offer sheet cakes or shaped cakes, which is also my stance (except when personal friends ask really really nicely) - in their own words "It's not our thing. Because we are rather fond of that perfect proportion of filling to cake to frosting, most of our cakes are 3-layer rounds."


These guys share very similar design tastes to me - the bakery itself is decorated with faux taxidermy and they take a classic approach to their cake decoration favouring minimal tweekings in order to let the flavour take centre stage. A guy would definitely not feel silly going into this bakery and ordering themself a treat which I love - hey, guys need to splurge on sugar every now and again too right?


Matt and Renato have also published two fabulous recipe books with a third due for release on September 1st - you better believe that bad boy has been pre-ordered! You can order the first book 'Baked: New Frontiers In Baking' here... the second 'Explorations : Classic American Desserts Reinvented' here... and pre-order the third 'Elements : The Importance of Being Baked in 10 Favourite Ingredients' here.


I have made quite a lot of things from these books and never been disappointed, other than the root beer flavour not being strong enough for me in the Root Beer Bundt Cake, however a likely explanation to this is that I was using UK root beet which isn't as great as the American stuff. You will need to get hold of corn syrup for quite a lot of recipes, but this is now available in good food stores and online at various places including Amazon so it't not that big a deal.
You will most likely learn some new baking skills too - I wouldn't recommend these books for a beginner baker as some techniqes are quite advanced, but they are must haves for the serious treat maker.


One day I will make it there, hopefully on our grand tour of the US (when we finally save enough money for it) and I will sample far too many of their goods ending up in a sugar coma delirium wandering the streets somewhere in NYC, and you know what... I'm pretty sure it will be worth it.

Boy has this last week been a busy one! Not only have I have my usual baking order for Tylers Coffee Shop, but have also had orders for some boozy birthday cupcakes, a three tier wedding cake and a giant christening cake!


I was oh so nervous about the wedding cake having never done anything this traditional before but I really like the way it turned out. I bought new tins and a three tier stand and had fun finding large batch cake recipes that actually tasted good too! The only downside was getting lost in Loughborough University's giant maze like complex trying to find the reception venue!


The bottom tier of the cake was a traditional fruit cake with marzipan, and the middle and top tier a delicious moist vanilla bean cake with buttercream and raspberry jam. I covered them all in homemade royal icing and found the prettiest sugarpaste flower sprays of roses and cala lillies.


Then this was the giant 12" christening cake that I did for one of the directors at Tylers Department Store. I used the same lovely vanilla bean cake recipe and again filled it with raspberry jam and buttercream.


I really like making pretty cakes that are covered in buttercream rather than fondant icing as I like my cakes to taste as good as they look. I just don't think fondant is yummy so prefer to use it only for smaller accent decorations such as the letter tiles on this cake. The adorable buttons are made form sugarpaste.


Here I edited the photo a little differently to show off the darling blues better. The super cute booties are made from clay dough and are not edible, but to be kept as a keepsake with places to write the baby's name and date of birth on the bottom.

All in all this was a very tiring but worthwhile week as I got to try so many new techniques and recipes out, but I'm glad I have a little break from big cakes for a while so I can recouperate! We actually attended the wedding that the above cake was for on Saturday and then had one of our best friend's birthday parties straight after, so boy am I tired!!!!