A Weekend in Warwick

Isn't this the best sight to be greeted with in the morning?  Yup, delicious baked goodies for breakfast come as standard when you're staying with baking supremo Sarah.  Char, Sarah, Rosie, Gemma and I descended upon her last weekend for a whole heap of nattering, cake eating, castle visiting and picnicking. It was awesome.

Roisin joined us on the Saturday and we set off for a jolly summer day out at Warwick Castle.

Warwick Castle


And Warwick Sandcastle!

I haven't been there for a long, long time so it was much fun to go a-wandering. It was hot and heaving with people but we managed to find some cool spots.

I love this photo. Pretty Sarah, pretty Gemma, and my face is hiding. Yay!

Also I feel that I should point out I'm not a sunglasses wanker. I'd left my specs in the car and it was either wear these indoors or be blind.

I don't have a group photo to rival the Norbury Manor gif, in fact I don't really have a group photo at all. We were too busy mooching around the grounds of the castle, raiding Sarah's collection of unwanted dresses and shoes (her blog name is truly descriptive!) enjoying ourselves at the Proms concert and then working our way through a rather enormous picnic.

Hark at me trying to be healthy with my picnic and then ruining it all by eating my own bodyweight in cocktail sausages.

Photos aren't the be all and end all of a good weekend though. You know what I liked best? Sitting round Sarah's kitchen table chatting away to everyone about blogging, cake, dresses and suchlike. Hardly any of my close friends live near me now and it's a rare occasion when I get to do the girly things. Emails and Twitter, much as I love them, aren't the same as giggling together in person over coffee and cake. All six of my weekend buddies are truly lovely people. The only bad thing about them is their insistence on living so far away. Rude!

Last two pics courtesy of Gem. Thank you for being organised enough to take a(n almost) group photo!

Further Adventures in Baking (Or, A Really Delicious Rhubarb Cake Recipe)

When the garden is full of deliciousness like this, there's nothing nicer than raiding it for ingredients. I don't have green fingers but even I can grow easy stuff like herbs and rhubarb.



You may have seen my recipe for the best apple cake in the world. If not, go and read it, then bake it.

When it comes to summer baking I like to adapt the recipe and make it rhubarbtastic instead. I won't retype the recipe here as it's the same ingredients and same quantities as the apple cake. Just swap the apple for rhubarb, the almond essence for vanilla extract and leave out the sultanas and flaked almonds.



Wash, trim and chop your rhubarb, then pop it in a saucepan with a splash of water and a sprinkling of sugar to simmer for a little while. When it's softened, lay it on top of half the cake mixture like so.


It could probably take double the amount of rhubarb but I didn't want to decimate the crop in the garden.

Put the other half of the mixture on top, bake as per the recipe and then scoff.



Here's a super handy tip for you. Before you do the washing up, go back to the pan that you used to cook down the rhubarb. There should be a nice amount of pink syrup in the bottom. Put it in a wine glass, add Prosecco and enjoy.




But wait, didn't I promise you some cake decorating updates as well? The rhubarb cake isn't the only thing I've made recently. Using my trusty Victoria sponge recipe rather than a sickly sweet cupcake recipe (bah, I loathe the c word), I whizzed these up and then gave into my childhood fondness for colourful decorations. Baby steps and all but behold!






Baking Mad kindly supplied some of the ingredients for this baking session.

A Baking Challenge

Long ago, back in the days before her allergies prevented such things, my mum was amazing at making and decorating cakes. Look, treasure chest cake! (also cute, blonde me! Awww. Despite the MASSIVE fringe.)



Vampire cake!

BBQ cake!



I had such a nostalgia-fest looking back through the photo album where I found all these. This is my 1st birthday cake.



And my second birthday cake.

Then we're missing a few, although I do remember an excellent hot air balloon cake for my 3rd birthday. She triumphed with these two though:



Teddy Bear's Picnic!! Mmmm, green dessicated coconut for grass. It was a crime to cut into this beauty.

I was 7 and all I wanted for my birthday was an alarm clock. What an odd child I was. Being the super duper mother that she is, she got me an alarm clock and then made me a cake to match it.

It is a thing of great sadness that I have not inherited any of her talents in this department. I love to bake and I'm fairly confident that my baking tastes good, which is the main thing really, isn't it? Yet I have no patience for twiddles and no skill at decorating, so I go for the approach of making big slabs of yummy cake and not worrying about making them look pretty. A sift of icing sugar usually covers up most crimes.

But no more! I'm on a summer mission to a) bake a bit more and b) put more effort into it. I might not have any decorating skills now but I'm sure I can teach myself something.

I've started at the beginning, by tidying up the baking cupboard. I won't be able to work out what to do if I don't know what equipment I have. Plus this task also brings massive benefits. No longer will I be showered by icing sugar and random packets of cupcake decorations every time I open the cupboard door! There will be no repeat incidents of the tray of food colourings and flavourings taking a nosedive on the kitchen floor and turning it into a vanilla, cinnamon and red mess! (yes, that happened. It took an AGE to clean up. Smelled delicious though.)  It's all lovely and tidy now. Sugar in one place, flour in another, cake decorating supplies in a tidily organised box.

Now I've got that sorted, my first task is chocolate cake decorations. I figure that I might as well start with something fairly easy and if it all goes horribly wrong, well, people love chocolate. They can enjoy the deliciousness and that will distract them from my crapness at decorating. I'll move onto white icing and piping and suchlike when I've got some practice with the basics.

Any volunteers to be my taste tester?


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To The Manor Born

Last weekend was bliss and a real escape from how stressy real life has been recently.  I rounded up eleven of my favourite bloggers - Rosie, Char, Maria, Sarah, Lucy, Chloe, Sarah, Becks, Alice, Gemma, Sophie (and Bodhi the dog) - and we went on a jolly holiday to Norbury Manor in Derbyshire.

It really was the most amazing house I've ever stayed in. And HUGE! If I'd taken a photo of everything that was beautiful then this post would be so long you'd all fall asleep reading it. I'll try and narrow them down a bit. Read on, mes amies. I promise you it's not a sleep-inducing post. And there is a mystery treat for you at the end!

Thank you Mr Martin. Mr Stapleton Martin? I dunno. We found his grave in the churchyard next door and he actually had about 8 names.  Anyway, Marcus, do forgive the informality. You and your house rock and I'm ever so glad you rescued it.

I had the pink bedroom. I put aside my violent prejudice against the colour because it had a) window seats, b) a chaise longue, c) a dressing room and d) the most excellent floors for sliding around on in your socks. 

Also e) a Char to share it with. She may have wished for a different roommate after we got overexcited, jumped on the bed at the same time and I elbowed her in the knee. She has a massive bruise now. Me and my pointy elbows.

It was a deliciously relaxing long weekend, full of epic amounts of laughter, gossip, photographs, cake and wine and amazing food (massive thanks to Chloe for menu planning, ordering and cooking it all!). Yay for fantastic bloggers who share tastes in how a good holiday should go.

We love our cameras.

Becks managed to take a photo of me taking a photo of Lucy taking a photo. The mind boggles.

And we love cake. Did I mention cake? There was lots of cake. So much cake that I had some for breakfast. What?! I was on holiday. It's totally allowed.

We did some active things too. Look, walks!

The debate rages on as to whether it was alpacas or llamas that we saw when we were out in the countryside. Can anyone give a definite answer as to what these creatures are?  The little white one looked remarkably like a sheep to me.

I was gobsmacked to discover that some of the girls had never even heard of Poohsticks, let alone played it. We promptly had a game. Um, shortest game ever. We rather underestimated how fast the river was flowing and I don't think we ever did find out who won. Still fun though!

I do mostly believe in being lazy when you're on holiday though.  Walks are lovely, especially when the sun is shining, but if you're away with that many fantastic people you mostly want to lounge around and talk to them. The Manor had many, many places where this could happen and you could guarantee that you'd always find a group of people gathered around the kitchen table, curled up on the comfy sofas in the sitting room, tucked up in the snug, holding court in the dressing room, sitting on the stone benches in the garden or just generally frolicking around enjoying themselves.

Thankfully there are no photos of me sitting round in my pjs drinking wine (bravo for the unspoken group decision not to take any photos in the evenings) but there are a lot of me in my typical daytime pose - curled up somewhere enjoying a Persephone book.  Here I am:

On a window seat

In the amazing roll top bath

And on a different window seat. There were many to choose from!  I'm wearing a divine pair of new Irregular Choice shoes which the girls got me as a present for organising the holiday.

What a truly lovely bunch of people they all are. I did not expect a present at all! I was just pleased that everyone had managed to make it there and that we all got on so well. Just goes to prove that the best people live on the internet.