Month: November 2012

Reindeer cupcakes (almost)

Hey peeps

So I had a plan, to make little reindeer cupcakes for the school Christmas Fayre. I had seen a few ideas on the internet, using pretzels for the antlers. So I bought some pretzels, and this evening made some chocolate cupcakes. I iced them, cut up the cherries (for the noses) and got some raisins out (for the eyes).

Then I opened the packet of pretzels- turned out they were giant pretzels. Yup, it said it on the packet, but I didn’t think they would be that big!

You can kind of see it I think! Next time I would use chocolate chips for the eyes, as the raisins hardly show up against the chocolate icing. Plus the fake red cherries would be better, as they show up more too.

Hopefully they will go down well with the children.

Right, off to bed!

🙂

Snowmen and Gingerbread men Christmas cake decorations

Hey peeps

Gosh it has been windy! I hope everyone had a lovely weekend. I did an 8.3 mile run on Sunday morning, and got home starving. Then I remembered that I had some rhubarb that needed planting out, and I really have to do it in daylight hours, so decided to have a snack and head there right away. Lucky I went, as our shed had blown over- it is a 6ft high metal shed- think all my body pump training came in handy as there was no-one about to help me.

Anyway, on Sunday evening I did the next cake decoration. I decided on snowmen, and I could not find good instructions on the internet, so I sort of free-styled.

I decided to have them sat on a blue circle (ice?) surrounded by stars, so I made them first. Then I made the snowmen with little balls of icing, and ribbons of icing for the scarves.

The eyes were hard to do (and buttons) as I had to roll the black icing into tiny balls, and in the end I used a cocktail stick to push them in to place.

Anyway, I was quite pleased with how they turned out. I think they need little hats though.

On Monday I went on a short run, as I was a bit stiff from Sunday and I thought it might help. Then I did more decorating!

I keep my cutters in those gingerbread tins- they are so cute 🙂 

I had some little ones (I made these as a surprise for Andy, but he has seen them!)- these ones were easy as I have little gingerbread man cutters, and to make the candy canes I twisted together two ropes of icing. Then I made the little hearts as I had some red left over.

I got a ribbon cutter from the Amazon black Friday deals (which went on all week), and I had a go at using it to make a ribbon to surround one of the cakes, but I realised after that I had put it together wrong- anyway the icing still sort of came out in a ribbon.

Now I have one cake left- I think I am going to go with penguins. I loved the idea of reindeers, but when I was looking the antlers looked very fiddly. Lots of places used pretzels but I am not sure they would last- anyway it has given me an idea for baking for the school Christmas fayre 🙂

This evening I went to aerobics- it was a bit of a rush because they have moved it to an earlier slot, but I made it and it was still great- I have not been there for weeks. It feels good to be getting back to my old routine again.

On a side note, I have been loving muesli for breakfast this week (and last). I normally have porridge, but if I do not feel 100% then I get really put off it, so I go to muesli with cold milk instead. Not sure why. Anyway, it has been a nice change, and I have some mint tea to warm me up still.

Oh, and also check out my last post for a giveaway 🙂

Night 🙂

Shopping at Zalando

Hey peeps

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend, and not getting too wet.

On Saturday I was very excited to see I had a parcel delivered:

They came with pretty wrapping paper too.

I was contacted by Zalando to see if I would like to review their services- of course I said yes! I had already had my eye on a couple of pairs of boots from there, so I put the voucher towards them. They had a great selection of women’s shoes on there- the only problem was deciding which ones to buy!

I could not wait to try them on! I wanted some boots that I could wear with trousers to work, as I either have big boots (to wear with dresses) or sort of pumps (for when I wear trousers), which are no good in the rain. Verdict? A great fit, comfy, and I think they look quite nice too.

I would recommend Zalando- I love it when on-line places have free delivery, and this delivery was speedy because I only ordered them on Wednesday evening.

I found the website pretty easy to navigate, although when you are browsing it can come up with pages and pages of items as they seem to have a massive amount of products available. I did find that you could narrow the results by selecting colour (I knew I wanted grey boots), size, brand name, type of boot etc (eg flat/ heels etc) which made it easier to use.

The feature I really liked was the wish basket- I know a lot of on-line places have them now but I find it so useful. I had a couple of pairs of boots which I added to it, and then instead of having to go back and search, they were both on the same page and I could compare and select the ones I wanted.

Now I know not everyone would buy shoes (or clothes) over the internet, but I frequently do- my feet are a pretty standard size 5, and generally most brands fit just fine. But they do offer a 30 day return, in case things don’t fit, which is really good.

They also have a great range of sportswear, and some lovely little Christmas gifts too.

Anyway, they also kindly have offered a voucher (for £10 or European equivalent) as a giveaway prize.

So, as I am not really up with the modern fashions, I thought it might be fun if you go to their website, have a look and suggest what you think would be your top fashion buy of Winter 2012.

Leave a comment below telling me what you think it is.

You can also get an extra entry by liking my facebook page (link on my homepage), or by mentioning this in a post on your own blog. Just leave a comment to let me know you have done so. It will close on Monday 3rd December at 8am UK time. Entries will be drawn out of a bowl (or possibly a hat, maybe a winter woolly one) at some point after that, and then the lovely Zalando people will email the winner with their voucher code to use on the site.

So go, educate me about fashion! 🙂 Good luck!

Starting the decorating (of the cakes, that is)

Hooray!

Hooray for so many reasons! It is the weekend (at long last! It has been a busy week, and I spent Friday night back at work as we were running the PTA quiz). I am feeling better (also at long last, in fact longer). I went on a run this morning before the rain! It was a speedy run- 4 miles with every mile under 10 mins! Usually I can keep it up for 3, but not 4. Feeling it now though!

Breakfast of pumpkin choc chip pancakes + apple was well needed! (I started off making pancakes with some protein powder I was sent with an i-herb order, but it turned green, and smelled so bad- really sickly, and it reminded me of the old protein powder I had before, and why I just don’t get on with protein powder, so anyway I made a second batch with just flour and they were scrumptious).

Plus, I got to start decorating my cakes today. Hooray!

Originally we were going to go in to London for the day, but seeing as the weather forecast predicted torrential rain, we gave it a miss. In fact it was not raining at all when I woke up, so I was pleased to squeeze the run in. Instead we have been sorting out things at home- we had to buy new blinds for a couple of windows- so anyway while we were out we went to the little cake decorating shop nearby and I bought some red and black icing.

I had to ice the final cake, as I had run out of icing when I did the other ones.

Then I got down to colouring the icing- I bought red and black as apparently they are hard to make, but the green and brown could be coloured using the little gel colours that I have.

I tried to follow the instructions from this recipe, but when I clicked on the step by step bit it would not work.

I thought they still looked cute anyway.

All assembled on the cake!

This one is for my Mum and Dad, as they love birds, and bird watching, so I thought robins would be perfect for them. I think it needs a red ribbon or something, to set off the red of the robins, but I can do that later. I did buy some ribbon, but then this week I bought an icing ribbon cutter thing as it was super cheap on Amazon (love the black Friday deals), so I could try to make ribbon with icing. I got some bargain tins from Sainsbury’s last week (reduced to £1.95) so I am keeping them in those before I give them away. The cake boards don’t fit in the tins which is why they are on silver foil.

Now I need to decide how to do the other ones. I quite fancy penguins this year. Any other ideas?

How have you all been? We are off to see some friends this evening, so no more decorating for me today! Have a lovely weekend 🙂

Winter bugs, go away!

And also can the rain go away too please.

Although luckily we are not flooded here- I hope everyone else in the UK is doing OK at the moment.

Anyway, I just have not been back to my normal self- after the week of feeling dizzy (well nearly), then getting a cold (which was fine, just annoying) this wee I managed to have a little stomach bug too. I was OK Monday, but went to see a friend after work so didn’t have a run (plus I did the 8.3 miles on Sunday so I wanted a little rest)- but then feeling poorly meant I missed aerobics and Sweatshop ( yet again). I am going to forget all the routes we run!

I have been having tea (as usual ) to stay warm- I was sent this Twinings stuff, which smells lovely, but does not quite taste as nice as it smells- it tastes quite watery. I think I might try it in porridge or something like that. Or maybe in a spiced tea bread?

Anyway, I have been managing to get into the Christmas spirit a bit. I have iced the Christmas cakes now too, and I am starting to think of how to decorate them. I am looking to do a robin on my parents one- something like this one perhaps? Cute!

Talking of Christmas, Ffion has a super Hotel Chocolat giveaway at the moment- check it out 🙂

 Feeling Christmassy yet? Only about a month to go 🙂