Maid to order...

My aunt is a volunteer for the National Trust and, at Christmas was asked to do a cooking demonstration to make mince pies.

 My mother told her that I have made a few hats and things in my time so got in touch with me to make her a mop cap. After getting her head measurement (and scouring local haberdasheries for white cotton - not easy!) I then had a scoot around the Internet and through a stack of books and combined it all to come up with a pattern that was 1) easy to do and2) something I could post and adapt if needed. My biggest thing was trying to find something that was big enough and round enough to draw around so instead had to use the tried and tested compass method I was taught many years ago at primary school... Using a pencil, string and a drawing pin stuck into a mat! I then cut out the template pieces (two circles of equal size) and then drew on two small circles to guide me when it came to elasticating the cap. I then sewed around the outside edge of the circle leaving a gap to turn it inside out. It was then pressed. I then sewed the two lines for the elastic.

I measured the elastic and carefully fed it through the cap. I was surprised how quickly it came together. I then sent it on to my aunt.

 I wish I could show you a photo of my aunt in her full volunteer gab but she is a tad camera shy so you'll have to do with the photos I took of it before sending it to her...

 p.s shameless advert.... I also make these for my etsy shop...

The heart of the matter...

After the success of the crab cupcakes my husband wanted to test his baking skills.  But, not to be outdone by my red velveteen cupcakes he decided to make a giant rainbow coloured sponge heart cake!

Again, this recipe was from 'Zombie ate my Cupcake' by lily Vanili... And she shows you how to make lots of mini hearts as cupcakes and how to make rainbow coloured cake.

My husband painstakingly bought all the ingredients making sure that he bought gel food colouring rather than liquid colouring...

He made six colours of sponge mix and then carefully layered it together.

Once baked he rolled out some fondant to make the outside layer and dyed the icing pink.

For the fake blood he used tinned summer fruits...

The cake tasted amazing and our nephews loved it! Gruesome but nice!

Crabby about cupcakes...

Amongst other things I love baking. I am not allowed to do it often as my husband says he would be the size of a small house if I was allowed to bake as much as I wanted.

However, this said, he buys me books with weird and wonderful recipes in them which makes the whole not-baking thing a little harder to do.

When we first moved up to York my husband discovered an amazing shop called 'give a dog a bone' (which can also be found in the list on the right). It sells everything for comic book lovers and those who like retro chic... It also sells the most amazing selection of books which you probably wouldn't find in your local Waterstones!

The book he bought me was 'Zombie ate my cupcake' by Lily Vanilli

The book contains recipes for cupcakes that really should be called anti-cupcakes because they don't have cute, pastel designs or pretty flower decorations... They are the cupcakes from horror stories!

The first batch I attempted were the 'crazy crabs' cakes as they had the base of red velvet cake (which is one of my favourites).

The recipe uses American measurements but there is also an English equivalent... The recipe is easy to follow although the amount of ingredients needed seems enormous... You can substitute various elements at your discretion... I didn't dye my marzipan purple but instead used a silver edible spray...

The final result was certainly pleasing... And I can't wait to see which batch I will do next!