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Monday 23 September 2013

Minions Minions, Everywhere!

After much thought and research, I foolishly decided to make Little Man a Minion cake for his 5th Birthday.
I say foolishly as despite hours of searching the internet for the 'right' cake, it was a LOT harder than I thought it would be and a lot more expensive!
It all started well. I got up early on Saturday morning to start baking the cakes as I thought I needed 3. The idea was to use 2 circular cakes and make the 3rd one in a Pyrex bowl, in order to get the rounded head. 
2 hours later, I had two cakes cooling and the third one ready to go. Shortly after the third cake came out the oven, I realised that three was not going to be enough. Trouble was, the pre-made cake mix I had bought from the local cake shop had run out. So I dug out my trusty recipe book and set about making the mix from scratch. I was 10g short of sugar. No problem I thought, 10g out of 250g isn't an issue. However being 2 eggs short was more of a problem.



After a dash to the local garage, I was good to go. With the 4th cake in the oven, I set about putting the 3 baked cakes together, so I could get an idea of size. Cue trauma #2.... the bowl shaped cake broke! Whipping up yet another batch of mix, the 5th cake was soon in the oven. 
Waiting for it to cook, I decided to make the detailing of the Minion, so that as soon as it was ready to be assembled, I would have all the bits ready to just stick on. I am happy to say this went smoothly.
The 5th cake was finally cool enough to work with at about 7pm. I needed the cake for Sunday, but as all the detailing had been completed, it was 'simply' a case of stacking the cakes, covering in yellow icing and sticking the features on. Right?
Wrong. Oh SO Very Wrong. Firstly, due to the increased size of the cake, I did not have enough yellow icing. I found this out after I had attempted to cover it. First there was a crack, then another, then another. Pulling the icing off, I was almost in tears as I realised it was 8pm, the shops were shut, and I was pretty certain there was no way of resuscitating this cake. The yellow icing was now covered on one side by the buttercream that should have been on the cake.
With a lot of patience/determination, I wiped all the buttercream off, added a bit of icing sugar and kneaded the icing back to a usable state. On the second attempt, I managed to cover most of the cake.

It is far from my 'best' cake, but considering the hurdles I came up against, I was fairly pleased with the results. I finally finished it at 11.30pm Saturday night. Little Man was very pleased when he saw it Sunday morning, although he later admitted to me that what he really wanted was the One Direction cake he had seen in the supermarket earlier in the week! #MummyFail

Wednesday 18 September 2013

So what is it like being a 'Lady of Leisure'?

It has been two weeks since Little Miss returned to school and Little Man started full time Big School. The one question I am constantly asked is "What is it like being a lady of leisure", closely followed by "What do you do with all your time"?
Refraining from abuse, I simply smile and say "Oh you know, this and that". Truth is, I have never been so busy. I'm sure as all parents know, you can fill a couple of hours daily with washing, tidying & cleaning. That is just the basics. All minor things (filing being one!) have been on the back burner for almost 8 years now, culminating in a huge backlog. Now is the time that these things get sorted. Add in to that my ever increasing Avon round - 300 houses plus friends and family takes quite a lot of work to get around. I have also had medical appointments to attend, Little Man's birthday to prepare for.... Oh and college and job interviews, meaning as of next week I will also be a student and employed!

So what will I do with all my spare time? With 2 days of college placement, 2 night shifts and a part time evening college course, I'm pretty sure I will be kept busy. However as that still leaves me with 3 'school days' where I will be seen out and about, I'm sure the lady of leisure comments will still keep coming! So to all of those who don't really know me, but think they know me... I drink tea all day, I watch Jeremy Kyle on repeat and do a bit of shopping and 'lunch with the ladies'. Well we can dream can't we ;) x
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