Christmas cupcakes in April...

Christmas is such an important retail date, however it's incredibly important for charities as well. That's why I spent a night in April baking Christmas cupcakes and gingerbread men for a photo shoot for Save the Children's Christmas Jumper Day 2013! 

I used my normal vanilla cupcake, gingerbread and vanilla buttercream recipes with, coloured fondant, red and green food colouring, and marshmallows to create some truly adorable and very Christmassy cupcakes and gingerbread! I think I'll be doing more in December when it feels a bit more appropriate. 

Here are some photos, cupcake decorating instructions below, all are very simple!

To make the Christmas sweaters, I found a very small gingerbread man cookie cutter and used it, just for the torso, to create a sweater shape in white fondant. Let the fondant set a bit and get stiff before you decorate with tradition Christmas patterns using green and red buttercream. 

To make the snowman, stack two marshmallows on top of white buttercream and decorate with black fondant coal eyes and buttons, red buttercream scarf and orange fondant carrot nose.

To make the christmas trees, simply pip an open-star swirl with green buttercream and add small dots of red buttercream frosting.

To make the santa hats, pipe a red buttercream blobby swirl, let sit for a few minutes then with a closed-star nozzel pipe white buttercream along the edges and one small star on top.

Small DIY making a big difference!

This past weekend we tackled a few DIY jobs, including tiling a small portion of our kitchen, painting our utility room and rearranging our kitchen appliances to make more counter space.

My downfall is taking before pictures so there is really nothing you can compare to, but doesn't our house look lovely now? It's amazing what a difference some small DIY can do! This post is ridiculous unless you've been to our house before... I guess I just feel the need to prove that we actually do DIY sometimes.

Rob starting to tile under our fridge... exciting

Finished tiling

Tiled and grouted... believe me this is a major inprovement

More counter space because we moved our huge microwave

See, counter space!

The microwave's new home

Success in retail for Syria

I've gotten a reputation for baking a lot at my office so when the opportunity to try and sell some of my baked goods came up I thought... why not?!

We had a craft fair where staff could man a stall for three hours and sell their wears. I baked four dozen cupcakes and 5 dozen cookies (Snickerdoodles and Walnut Oatmeal and Chocolate Chunk).

I managed to sell everything and ended up donating £124 of profit to Save the Children's Syria Emergency Fund. It was a great confidence boost for me and I may even sell some stuff again some day, but more important it was a fun way to raise some money for a very important cause!

My stall of cookies and cupcakes

Cruise with me baby...

So those of you who know us will have heard enough about the cruise by now, but for anyone else and for the sake of keeping this blog up-to-date for posterity I'll put up a post about the amazing 10 days Rob and I had in Miami and cruising around the Caribbean with my family.

Rob and I flew into Miami three days before meeting my family and and spent time on South Beach, which was amazing! I didn't think that I would like Miami that much but the Art Deco architecture, beach, lovely weather and MASSIVE cocktails really appealed to pretty much all of my tastes. We walked up and down the beach most of the days and grab cocktails at the many bars on the main street, including at the iconic Breakwater hotel. It was the perfect start to a holiday and really got us in the right mentality for the cruise. We met up with my parents, sister and her boyfriend in Miami the night before we boarded and it was so good to see them and catch up after nearly a year!

At the Art Deco Centre's info board

The first of many cocktails... 

The Breakwather hotel at night

Deco lifeguard stands on the beach... Love them!

Oh wait... did I mention the HUMONGOUS king crab legs we ate there... It was heaven.

See above... 

Then my family came and we were together for one night in South Beach... below is the only photo as it got a little messy after that... 40oz two-for-one cocktails are never a good idea... NEVER. 

Have a 'good' time. 

After our extremely hedonistic three days in Miami we boarded the Celebrity Reflections ship and began seven more equally hedonistic days in the Caribbean. I would love to tell you tons of amazing stories of things that happened but for the most part we spent the time relaxing and catching up on lost time. We took part in many of the cheesy boat activities, like the shows, karaoke, shopping and the pub quiz! Our favourites being the karoake and the pub quizzes! We never managed to win the surprisingly hard quiz but were a constant second... sigh! 

Though the activities were fun and time-consuming, the main and MOST time consuming activity on the boat was eating... lots and lots of eating! There was 24hr rooms service, 24 buffets and nearly 10 restaurants. It was ridiculous. I don't even want to think about how much I ate... it's obscene. 

On the balcony of our cabin as we disembark

Our cabin balconies (three rooms together)

After the first two days at sea we were excited to get off the boat and see San Juan, Puerto Rico, our first stop. We were there for about 7 hours in the evening. San Juan was such an interesting city, lots of very colourful Georgian buildings and a massive fort that spanned the whole length of the San Juan coast! We visited the fort, met an iguana, and took a long walk along the wall on the coast. The city had a widespread power outage while we were there so we didn't go into many building but luckily the power came on in the evening just in time for dinner and drinks...phew, as we hadn't eating in about 40 minutes!! It was a very cool city and one that I would like to go back to for a longer time. Again, I really enjoyed the unique and defining architecture. After San Juan we boarded the boat again and headed to St. Maarten.

The Ship docked in San Jaun

San Juan Georgian buildings

The Fort in San Juan

Us outside a tiny door at the Fort

More San Juan fort

Our iguana friend guarding San Juan

Large park attached to San Juan Fort

Us overlooking a decommissioned cemetery at San Juan 

In St Maarten Rob and I sat on the beach the whole morning and swam in water so blue it was unbelievable. I had painted my nail a very bright turquoise for the trip and when I swam in St Maarten you couldn't even see my nails in the water it was that blue. After a morning on the beach we got on a snorkelling boat and took a tour of two snorkelling places on the island. We didn't really seem much but I did get to see my sister in the most ridiculous outfit ride a slide into the water in the most comical way possible! She slide on one butt cheek and whipped into the water on her side. It was so funny the whole tour started laughing and the guy who ran the boat (who had been running it for YEARS) looked at me and said 'Well, I've never see anyone enter that way before!' It was ridiculous and possibly one of the best highlights of the trip! 

After snorkelling they took us on a tour of the island and we saw some plane land at the St Maarten's airport, which is crazy. We didn't get many photos but here is a YouTube video... nuts! On the way back to port the boat crew was very entertaining and as a bonus we got to see some dolphins, so cool! It was such a fun day filled with great memories! 

Very blue water at St Maarten's beach

Our view sitting on the beach.. not bad

My beautiful and graceful sister

Random pirate ship near a snorkeling spot

Rob, ready to snorkel

The whole family after an afternoon snorkeling

The next day we were in St Kitts, our last port of call before two more days at sea and arriving back in Miami. We spent the morning in St Kitts snorkeling again. There was much more to see in St Kitts although the boat wasn't as much of a party boat as the one in St Maarten. Rob and I saw a lot of tropical fish, an octopus and even a lobster! The group leader on the boat found a huge starfish and we all had our photo taken with it, very touristy but fun! 

After snorkeling we took a cab to beaches on the other side of the island and enjoyed a long lunch and paddle ball on the beach! Rob and I had some of the best sushi we've ever ate... who knew St. Kitts was such a sushi-loving island.

There were two things particularly interesting things about St Kitts, the native monkeys and its resemblance to the Scottish Highlands. Rob and I can not believe how craggy St Kitts is, it really could have been Skye if the weather wasn't so nice and there weren't these adorable native monkeys running around everywhere. Some were pets that street vendors charged to get your photo taken with while they wore adorable hats, shirts and jewellery. It was a very unique island and a great place to end our Caribbean tour! 

Mommy and me with a starfish

A very happy couple on a boat

Craggy islands of St Kitts

Amazing sushi... amazing

More amazing sushi

Worshiping the sun 

St Kitts Monkey scheming a plan

Another monkey friend

The final days we spent on the boat enjoying the entertainment, food and company. We celebrated mine and Rob's upcoming birthdays with the biggest dinner of our lives. It started off with full size pizza's as appetizers, followed by a gigantic steak, at least five side dishes and more desserts and you could imagine. We were stuffed. Then, Rob, my father, and I all sang at Karaoke and on the final night we wore matching Gilligan's Island T-shirt that my mother made us and sang the theme tune. I won't embarrass anyone by posted the films of everyone singing but if you're interested in seeing them let me know... I'll email you! All in, it was a great holiday filled with so many wonderful memories. Thanks Dad and Mom for doing this for us all, we love you! 

All of us ready to eat on the last night, we had no idea
how much food was to come at this point 

After eating, Mickey well and truly defeated

Mickey singing his heart out

Rob blowing everyone away with his amazing voice

All of us for one last shot on the boat!
The Gilligan's Island Crew! 

Chocolate Mousse Moose cake

I'm getting more and more ambitious with my baking but it's hard to continue making things for just me and Rob so I'm using friends' birthdays as the perfect excuse to get the in kitchen and have a go a proper cake! Late in January our good friend Gillian celebrated her first birthday in the UK (she's from Canada) and threw a big party, I brought the cake! Using Canada as my inspiration I decided to make a Chocolate Mousse 'Moose' cake!

This is a three layer cake, two layers of chocolate butter cake sandwiching a middle layer of chocolate mousse. It was incredibly rich cake but the mousse was very light so not too filling. I couldn't find a recipe I liked so I found one for the cake but then replaced the mousse recipe with a separate one that i thought would work/taste better. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the cake being made or any of it cut once it was finished.

I've put the recipes below and here is my method. I made the cake in two 22cm spring-form pans. Once they are baked, take one cake out of the pan to cool, let the other cool in the pan.

Once the cake in the pan is cool, pour the chocolate mousse on top and refrigerate overnight or for at least 4 hours, the mousse must be set firm.

Once mousse is set remove the cake from the pan and add the first cake to the top creating a three layer cake. Basically the cake is done now and would be delicious with any topping like whipped cream, chocolate ganache, nuts, etc. make sure to keep the cake cold before serving otherwise the layer will collapse if the mousse gets too warm.

If you want to make this Canadian-inspired cake here is how I decorated. Cover the cake in a thin layer of chocolate buttercream, reserve some for piping the moose on the top. Then cover the cake in a layer of white fondant. Using water as an adhesive you can stick green fondant trees on the side and top, if you like. Using the remaining butter cream, pipe a moose on top, I used chocolate chips for eyes and freehanded a moose from pictures I found on the internet but you can probably find a template or more concrete instructions on Google.

Here is the cake recipe I used (ignore the ganache): http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3092/?utm_expid=13353178-7&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2F

Here is the mousse recipe I used: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/grandmas_chocolate_03490

Here is the chocolate buttercream recipe I used: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/chocolate-buttercream-frosting-10000001879934/

Felix and Mickie in Germany

The last weekend in January we spent in Bonn, Germany with Rob's Brother William and his wonderful recently expanded family. We also ended up having an unexpected Carnival night out and then horrid hangover! Here goes... 

Introducing for the second time (see here) Felix Clark! 

Oh and let's not forget the new big sister
Hannah in her very cool London shirt!! 

Rob and his munchkin!

We only spent two days in Germany but crammed a whole lot of fun into it! Felix was huge for being only 4 weeks old, he was almost wearing clothes for a three month old!!! 

Our niece Hannah had grown up a lot since we last saw her! She was so much fun and full of energy. She was talking to us in German and singing to us in German-accented English, but still understood everything we said in English. It's so impressive to watch her learn in two languages! I read her The Tiger Who Came to Tea several times and was glad she enjoyed my choice in literature (I highly recommend this children's book). With family all over the world it means so much to spend time like this with those we do get to see. Luckily Germany is only and hour on a plane away! 

As for the more adult entertainment... on our second night there we went out with William and another couple of very good friends to a Carnival party. Carnival in Bonn is a huge deal, it is the Mardi Gras of Germany and we were there the week before so we managed to catch a few of the festivities. This includs dressing up like anything ridiculous (in our case four eskimos and a hippy), drinking lots of beer and listening to Mickie Krause (a German Robbie Williams type pop star)! Mickie was awesome and has become one of my most played on Spotify! Here are the best shots from the night before I stopped remembering (whoops):

A very normal group of people during Carnival!

I have been to Germany 4 times before and
this is the only photo I have wanted! 

Carnival!

Krause!

It was a fantastic trip and we cannot wait to see the whole Clark clan again soon!