Creating a Rainbow Hundreds and Thousands Cake from ASDA for Under £5

Since both my children have birthdays that are within a month of Christmas, we celebrate their half birthdays. This week is my son's 18 Month birthday and so we head off to our local Asda looking for a colourful cake that would perfect to celebrate his birthday.

Lots of children character cakes have soft icing but I personally prefer buttercream frosting. Looking around the cakes we loved the Asda Rainbow Jazzie Cake. This rainbow layers of sponge and white chocolate buttercream with Hundreds and Thousands (aka rainbow round sprinkles) is very fun and reasonable priced at £12.00. Loved it but serves 20+ people. For our family of four this cake was too big.

Raindrops, Pajamas, and Cookies

On this rainy days in England, we are having a lazy day at home. The Little Ones get to stay in their cosy pajamas all day.  I got dressed so I am not completely embarrassed if postman (aka Postman Pat) comes knocking.  Little Ladybug is watching a movie while having a mid-morning snack of crumpets.  Bumblebee Boy has as much milk on-demand he wants while I check out other bloggers on iPad.

I hope this afternoon that we can make some shortbread cookies.  Discovered a new recipe from Somewhat Simple .  My daughter loves mixing cookies up and tasting the dough but this is a perfect option to make shortbread cookie bars quickly when daughter loses interest in baking process.

Favorite Easter Decorations and Cake

This year, I am getting really excited for Easter.  When I was growing up my parents always made Easter special.  We would always decorate hard-boiled eggs with permanent markers and then die them. The Easter Bunny would come and hide the eggs all around the house.  My Dad was always really good at knowing where the Easter bunny hide them all.  (Except 1 year when one egg was found by our dog a month or so after Easter.) We would always wake up Easter morning to find a Easter basket waiting for us filled with colourful candy and other fun spring/Easter treats.  Several years we got brand new white Keds tennis shoes (trainers) or new sandals.

This year my daughter is 2 years old and I am getting really excited to celebrate Easter with her. She will not understand the religious meaning of "Easter" but it fun to celebrate Spring.  She currently loves to try to crack eggs so I am definately going to hard-boil some eggs to allow her to crack them open. We have already done some decorating and crafting. (Fun items from the USA)

I have purchased a white Easter basket and my mother sent green paper grass.  I also have a lovely box of plastic eggs, fun candy and items coming from the USA. Below is the ribbon and buttons that I have purchased in preparation for decorating Little Ladybug's Easter basket but also her Easter bonnet.  Last year, we managed very cute bunny ears clip-on barrettes but the Easter bonnet did not get completed.

First Mummies Club - March 4th, 2014

At The First Mummies Club on March 4th, 2014, I was very honoured to meet Natasha Collins the inspirational artist behind Nevie-Pie Cakes. Natasha shared with us the journey she has taken growing Nevie-Pie Cakes business the that last 5 years.  The below photos from her website are only a small example of her amazing creations. (The images below are from the Nevie-Pie Cakes Facebook page but are not for reproduction.)

 

Our project for the evening was paint a fondant covered cookie with a floral design.  Natasha talked about the technique of applying colour with a paintbrush to the fondant on the cookie to produce a beautiful floral image with plenty of depth.  We used Sugarflair food colourings to gentle to create depth in the flower, leaves and ribbon.  Natasha very kindly help me fix my inexperienced mistakes. 

This cookie was created by my new Mummie Friend, Emma.

 And this cookie is mine.   It is not my finest work   

I should be positive and believe that I could paint a beautiful image on a fondant covered cake or cupcakes someday but I don't know if it is going to happen anytime soon.  Natasha did shows another option to decorating the tops of cookies. After applying the fondant to the cookie and while rather soft, you can cover a stamp with a product like Sugarflair and then stamp the colour into the cookie.  Assuming that I can bake and cover a cookie with a piece of fondant, I may try this method in the future. 

If you are interested in learning from Natasha, she does courses that can be booked through the Nevie-Pie website.  Spring 2014 classes including learning how to create the flowers show on this beautiful ruffle cake below. 

 

Exciting News: Natasha has invited me to have a stall at Westfield First School's Pamper Night on March 27th.  It is time to start making items to sell and get my ribbon organised.  I hope this will prepare LadyBug Home & Designs for future selling events.

Pancake Day 2014

In honour of Pancake Day 2014 (March 4th), I must admit that I ate too many pancakes.  My lovely boss at work had pancakes made for the team by the little cafe next door this morning.  They were super yummy with lemon and sugar.  Dreaming of pancakes still! For my USA friends, the pancakes are very thin and more like crepes.

Here is a link to a tradition recipe for pancakes from the Pipii website. LINK

 

BUT... 

I had the great privilege of meeting Natasha from Nevie-Pie Cakes at the First Mummies Club tonight.  Besides being a true artist as a cake designer, she is also able to create yummy pancakes recipes.  The below photo makes me want to have midnight pancake party.  Here is the yummy recipe. 

After some sleep, I think I will have to read more from Natasha's blog Amelie's House.