I Duttits- Making a Rainbow Cake

November 1, 2016October 22, 2016Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I posted about not being able to make a proper cake… Well this time I’ve done it. Last week was my husband’s birthday and he requested a rainbow cake.

OK I have to admit, I kind of cheated… I used ‘box’ cake but the colouring I did all by myself :p

I mixed the cake mix as indicated on the box. I used Betty Crocker cake mix and then divided into four bowls and added colouring.

My plant was to decorate the cake with an icing bag, but my husband doesn’t like buttery icing so the icing was too stiff to push through a bag. Unfortunately I forgot my camera on and I couldn’t take a picture when I finished icing the cake. Therefore I only took a picture after we started eating the cake but here it is

Halloween weekend outcome

October 31, 2016November 1, 2016Leave a comment

As you know we had our Halloween party this weekend at our school.

Entrance

Games Room

Hall

Every year we have a mini ghost house at our academy along with snacks, movies, and games. The kids always love being scared and a lot of kids show up for the event. My husband had a witch-cottage room and I had an Oogie boogie room. As promised here are some picture of how our rooms turned out.

Witch Cottage

Oogie Boogie Room

For the Oogie Boogie room we used neon blacklight reactive paints and 2 black lights but unfortunately the black lights didn’t last for the full 4 hours of the event.

We had a lot of fun during our weekend event but we’re glad that its over with for now and we can take it easy, until next year….

Happy Hour-White Wine Sangria

October 28, 2016October 26, 2016Leave a comment

Back home one of the pubs near our home use to have happy hour on a Friday. It was the perfect day because it means you can wind down from a stressed filled week. Instead of going to the pub though I have decided to have my own happy hour at home by making a White Wine Sangria

INGREDIENTS

1 Bottle Sweet white wine
1/2 cup Raspberries
1/2 sliced Lemon

Put everything together in a jar or bottle. Serve chilled.

Planning the perfect High-Tea

October 26, 2016October 22, 20164 Comments

Even before Alice in Wonderland people have been enjoying High-Tea parties. In the past the High tea was more of an afternoon treat to ease the hunger as dinner use to be served at 8pm. Nowadays however we can’t afford the luxury of tea time snacks during our busy work schedules. Therefore High-tea is reserved for special occasions and holidays

High-usually consists of sandwiches, cakes and scones served with tea.

Decor

Table arrangements

Food Display

The food display will be one of the most important things to get right. You could either display all the treats on the guest tables or have a separate food table.

rustic woodland wedding cake and dessert table

For great ideas on how to decorate a food table you can buy Amy Atlas’s book ‘The Cake Parlour Sweet Tables’.

Food

Sandwiches

Adding some colour to the sandwiches always makes it look more edible. The idea is to keep these sandwiches small, and simple but visually appealing

Cakes

Even Marie Antionette knew how to enjoy proper cake. Instead of going for a full sized cake, these bite size cakes are perfect for your guests.

Tarts

Over the years mini tarts has become extremely popular. You could serve anything from apple pie to lemon marangue at your High-Tea

strawberry-and-champagne-truffle-tart-11

Scones

Never underestimate the basic scone with cream and jam but you could also bake blueberries or orange into your scone to give it a special touch

May your High-Tea be a sweet success!!!

My frustration with so-called fashion bloggers.

October 24, 2016October 23, 20167 Comments

I understand the fact that everyone, eventually, wants to make some money out of their blogs. But that doesn’t mean that you should only try and link things from the affiliate programs that you are part of.

I recently saw a gorgeous dress on Pinterest. I clicked on the link and it took me to the Asos website. Stupidly, I bought the dress without properly checking that it is the same dress because I was sooooo excited to get this lovely dress. It was only when I opened the package that I realized that this was not the dress I wanted. It was however, the dress I ordered.

The Dress I saw…

The dress I got…

I realize that it’s my own fault for not looking at the details, but at that moment it looked like the same dress. I am just annoyed that someone would link something totally unrelated and say that this is what they bought from a particular shop. This is just one example. The other day I also saw a blogger wearing a lovely jersey but none of the products that she linked was the jersey she was wearing.

So please don’t just link stuff to get sales. There is a reason we follow these bloggers and it’s because they have great style and typically, if we like something that they are wearing we would like to buy the SAME thing. Not something similar….