Baking + Photography

I had only planned to make a cake today, but somewhere along the way, I ended up making a bit more than a cake. We're having a bit of a food thriftathon {i.e. not wasting too much food}, so these brown bananas needed using up somehow. I still have some banana ice-cream in the freezer, so I thought I would create a quick banoffee pie. When I was in my 20s, I would have made a banoffee pie properly {making my own caramel}, but it is so much easier to get it off the shelf in a tin {Carnation and Merchant Gourmet do it}.

Ew! Black Bananas

I made a quick flan base and baked it blind in the oven before pouring the caramel and banana into it and topping it with whipped cream and some grated chocolate!

Yum! Banoffee Pie

Unfortunately {or fortunately}, I had a little pastry leftover, so rather than throw it, I made a few jam tarts. As it is such a nice day, I thought I would take the tart into the garden and get some photos.

Jam Tart

I was so pleased with the result, that when my cake was baked, I took that outside to play with my camera too.

Cherry & Almond Cake

I am so pleased that my cherries are distributed evenly as it's so disappointing if they sink.

I took a few shots of the garden too:

Hosta unfurling itself

My cat trying to catch a bee!

So, on to the recipe.

Ingredients

140g butter

140g caster sugar

2 eggs

125ml milk

1tsp almond essence

100g glace cherries

Flaked Almonds

Method

1.Rub the butter and flour in a bowl until it resembles breadcrumbs.

2. Stir in the sugar.

3. Add the beaten eggs, milk and almond essence along with the cherries.

4. Mix well.

5. Pour into a deep 20cm tin which you have buttered. Sprinkle a handful of flaked almonds on the top and pop in the oven at 180C for 1 hour. Mine only took 55 minutes, so you may want to get it out ten minutes before the hour is up and test with a skewer.

This recipe has been adapted from the original Fresh Cherry Almond Cake by BBC Good Food.

Love Mrs Jones x

Rhubarb

I have had my fingers crossed that this year I will be able to crop some rhubarb. I planted it last Spring, and even will a little forcing, it has been a big disappointment. Not one stick of rhubarb for me.

 

This photo was taken in March this year - it looked so promising! Something is eating it I think. 

Well, there comes a point when you have been waiting so long, that in the end you pop to the supermarket and buy some, which is what I had to do. I had a craving for the sharp rhubarb and vanilla custard.

Chopped up, the pieces look like pieces of broken rock. After trawling the internet for rhubarb recipes, such as rhubarb streusel pie and the beautiful French Rhubarb Tart {both recipes from BBC Good Food}, I settled on the good old crumble. You really can't beat it!

Do you have some favourite rhubarb recipes, or have some tips for making mine grow for next year? I would love to hear from you.

Love

Mrs Jones x

Le Challenge: Wings

After the roaring success of the first challenge from Le Challenge where 36 people entered their Geometric projects, the second challenge is "Wings". My instant reaction was OMG, what on earth am I going to make! So, I made a list of everything I could think of related to wings - you can almost see the cogs working:

• aeroplane - "come fly with me"?
• birds - chickens, penguins, owls...
• beetles - ladybird
• fairy
• angel
• butterfly
• rocket
• bat
• insects - fly, bee, dragonfly...
• dragon
• pterodactyl
• Icarus
• Hermes
• Winged key from Harry Potter
• Howl's Moving Castle
• Pegasus
• Winged collar

But after several false starts, quite unadventurously, I plumped for a bird. I sketched out a penguin then this:

I started cutting pieces of fabric out freehand, to compile a gabric bird collage, layering pieces of fabric in muted colours until I was happy with the look. Instead of sewing it together, I used fabric glue, and added a real stick for a branch which I sewed onto the fabric.

The background is a fairly stiff cream cotton duck, and was perfect for this sort of collage.

The result is a slightly naive looking, completely unreal young bird. 

All challenge entries will be available to view at the Le Challenge website on the 15th. 

Love Mrs Jones x

Lampshades

I bought a lampshade kit from Amazon some time ago and I have been waiting for the right moment to have a go at it. I was surprised how easy it is {especially when Mr Jones is helping}.

You cut your fabric to the size stated on the box, place the sticky backed plastic on the back of the fabric, carefully smoothing any wrinkles as you go. You snap off the marked edges, then you apply double sided tape to each of the rings and roll the whole thing carefully up. The kit comes with a handy little gadget for you to poke the ends of the fabric under the rings.

Ta dah! It looks kind of funky on this old lamp base.

It is surprising how wide your fabric needs to be for such a small lamp {I went for a 20cm kit - clickable link to right} -it used over 60cm, so using fat quarters is out of the question.

I know you can use card or fabric for your lamp, but I imagine fabric is a lot more forgiving - I can't imagine smoothing wrinkles easily out of card.

Cheeky little product shot of the matching cushion for sale!

The fabric I used is a cotton duck by Ashley Wilde, and I didn't tuck the short fabric end, though this is something I think you would need to do if using something thinner.

Suddenly, I feel a whole new area of possibilities have opened up to me, and I will definitely be making another one soon.

Have you had success with making your own lampshades? I would love to hear about it.

Love Mrs Jones x

PS. If you are interested in the cushion {used only for this photo} please see here.

Alma Wiggle Skirt Pattern Review

I found the amazing Eliza M Vintage's patterns at Jaycotts. So many vintage style patterns to choose from! You buy the pattern to suit your size {although I believe you can now buy multisize versions}. 

Image from Eliza M Vintage site

Pattern: Alma Wiggle Skirt from Eliza M Vintage

Size made: 10 {I am an 8 on the hips, a 10 at the waist{caused by two big babies}}

Fabric used: Medium weight wool mix {92% wool/ 8% polyamide} slate grey fabric {not far off school uniform colour}. I also used some gingham bias binding and some light cotton material.

A dart -  to show the fabric colour

Does it look like the cover photo? Yes, although I imagined it would be literally figure hugging. I think if my side seams were bigger, it might look more like the photo.

Apologies for the terrible quality - when home alone, I am reduced to photographing myself in dusty mirrors!

Problems:  

The zip isn't fully extended, but there is an obvious misalignment.

• Darts : As I don't have much dressmaking experience, I think this was more me being a dunce than the instructions! I sewed the darts on the front of the fabric, so at the first step, the seam ripper was out
• The waistband piece wasn't long enough - maybe my side seams were too narrow, but it was about 10cm short.
• I sewed one side of the zip correctly and the other side the wrong way round! So, that had to be unpicked too! 
• Hem: I think my fabric was too thick for this, especially around the pleat.
• The final sewing of the waistband and replacement of the zip, led to a misalignment. By this point I had already stitched the waistband twice. I am not going to correct it as most of the time, my blouse will spill over the top anyway, and I can alway add in this belt.

Love this waist cinching belt!

Alterations: After sewing the waistband as instucted, I decided it looked too bulky {two layers of wool and interfacing}, so cut it again, halving the pattern piece so it was much thinner. I cut the same size out of some cotton and used this as the waistband {with the cotton as the lining for the waistband). I also added in a little bias binding piping where the waistband meets the skirt in a lovely blue gingham - again reminiscent of school..

Could you follow the instructions? If I am honest, I found it quite difficult to sew following the instructions alone. I am not very experienced at dressmaking, and had to have my Sewing Machine Basics book {see right} with me to work out what I was doing. I am sure it was me, rather than the instructions, although I have made notes for next time!

What do you like/dislike about the finished garment? Totally loving the pleat at the back!

This is a little blurred, but I like the fact my waist looks small in this photo!

Love Mrs Jones x

KS2 SATs

Fred has his year 6 SATs next week. We have already had tears about them. It annoys me so much that they have to do them at this age - I am sure that a teacher's assessment of a child's ability is a much more accurate gauge than the SATs.

For anyone who is trying to do some last minute revision, or has SATs to look forward to next year, here are some things that have been helpful:

BBC Bitesize KS2 - which is available for English Maths and Science. Some really good revision games some of which are based around TV shows.

Woodlands School, Kent - This school has an amazing range of revision help as well as past papers.

CGP Revision books - these are readily available via Amazon or WHSmith, although the school may sell them at a discounted price. These are really well written. Also on their website are some tests and games which are free to use.

St Josephs School, Pickering - This school has loads of past papers from different years available free.

As parents, we have been told to give them big breakfasts and lots of tlc next week.

Love Mrs Jones x

One Photo a Day

This month, over on Facebook, I am taking part in May Photo a Day Challenge run by Fat Mum Slim. Anyone can take part by taking a photo each day by camera, ipod, phone or whatever, and posting it {see the link to Fat Mum Slim for details}.

Ther first day's prompt was "I bought this", and this is what I posted:

He is three today:

I won't be posting photos daily on here, but you can have a look every day on my Facebook page.

Love Mrs Jones x