Angel Delight Cake Frosting

Apologies to all my international readers, but this little handy tip might only be of use to you if you are in the UK. 

It happened out of necessity. I had a cake to ice but had no butter or anything else to make butter icing, all I had was a packet of Angel Delight butterscotch flavour. I mixed it with half the quantity of milk advised and then added icing sugar until it was cake frosting consistency. If you add even more icing sugar to make a stiffer paste you could use a piping bag, so I may do this next time. If you use skimmed milk, then this is a much much lower fat option than regular butter icing, and I have to tell you...it was DELICIOUS ! 

Really finger lickingly delicious! I had enough to top and fill a regular sponge cake and some left over for a batch of cupcakes. It kept fine in the fridge for a week. 
Now I can't wait to try this with the other flavours available!!!

Hello!

Hi there,well, looks like I'll be waiting a long while for something to happen regarding selling our home. The one couple who were very interested  found somewhere else, and we've not had so much as a peep since then. I have placed an advert in the local papers to go out later this week, so I shall see if anything happens from that. 

It's a  bit disappointing, but in today's current economic climate I guess I can't be too surprised. 

The summer holidays are fast drawing to a close and I can't believe the time has flown by so fast. My little girl starts school in just a couple of weeks. Gasp! My baby girl!

(funny self portrait taken in the back of the car)

waiting...

Feverfew in the garden by Naomi

It's been a week or so since our house has gone on the market, and we've had one very interested viewer so far. We're just waiting to see what happens next. Watch this space.

oh I do like to be beside the seaside!

On Monday it was the first time it has been warm enough in a LONG time! 

So we headed for Chanonry beach.

 We all enjoyed a paddle. And my girls had great fun making cool shadows.

I love my little girls hat. It is from the 1940s.  It belonged to my mother when she was little and I am sure I must have worn it too. It is still in perfect condition and is completely reversible. I should try to make a pattern from it and make a few more.

Naomi took some cool pictures. You might want to check out her latest blog.

I really like these photos she took...

It's been a while

I've been rather absent in bloggyland lately. Apologies for that. Life has been very hectic in preparation for selling our home. At last it is very nearly on the market. Final details are being worked out as I write. It is such a relief to arrive at this point in time, and exciting as well as we await the next step in our adventure.

I'll need to get around to showing you some more makeovers that we have made on the house sometime. At present,  I'm sitting here waiting to hear from the Estate Agent about when our advert goes live.


The hardest part is going to be keeping the place tidy for viewings. Not easy when my 5 year old treasure loves to trail an assortment of items from one room to another and create impromtu sculptures/ shops/ cafes etc. 

Cute and quick cupcake decorating

Would you like to decorate some cupcakes for a party, yet have no cake decorating skills? Then read on...
Now I wish I had the decorating skills of my talented nieces who make incredible edible things like this out of sugar!

...but lets face it  I don't. (Oh, BTW if you are getting married in the UK and need an amazing cake topper let me know and I'll put you in touch with them). 


So anyway, for this simple and effective little decoration, perfect for afternoon tea parties or little girls birthday parties...all you need is some wafer paper or rice paper and a decorative paper punch. I used my Tonic Studios butterfly punch. If you are going to dedicate a new punch to this task, then do use it a few times first on some regular clean white paper to get rid of any residual fluid that is used for lubrication of the punch mechanism  -  you don't want be eating any of that! 


Punch out your pretty designs in the wafer paper. I gently folded my butterflies and then stuck the fold into my wet icing. 

For the body of the butterfly - which just added a bit of fun (although it looks just as effective without), I cut some strawberry laces into little pieces and then snipped along them to split them into antennae.

If you want to make your creations even fancier you could use some decorative cupcake cases. Now have a fun tea party! 

(The cake was out of focus here, but isn't the columbine lovely!!!)

kitchen - the makeover

Hello there ! I know my posting has been a bit non existent lately. We've had more than a few computer issues, but I think we're getting there now. I thought it was about time I shared another makeover with you. 

This was the messy kitchen not long after we had moved into our house a few years ago. Please note the large blue bathroom style tiles on the wall, the brown tile effect wallpaper and the brown woodwork. It wasn't really my dream kitchen !

The floor is tiled and I strongly dislike it, but I am afraid I don't have the money or the energy to do anything about that, so that is staying!

But, it's amazing what you can do with a bit of paint. 

This is the same kitchen. It took a LOT of work. The large rayburn cooker was replaced and due to that we had to redo the tiles on the top of the counters. ( I know you probably think I'm mad to have ripped out a rayburn, but it ran on oil and we couldn't even afford to turn it up hot enough to cook anything as it seemed like it just ate fuel. So in the interests of being able to afford to eat, it went.)  We couldn't find the right tiles to replace the missing ones, so I ripped off all the tile on top of the units and scrubbed and scraped all the adhesive off, then bought a similar one and laid them in a chequer board pattern with the original ones. It's subtle, but it works. The cooker hood was originally a beaten copper effect thing which we ripped out and I recovered it  with beadboard.

The units and all the ugly brown woodwork were painted in Farrow and Ball paint - (House White was the shade). The shelves behind the glass doors which were damaged and ugly were edged with a decorative strip from Jali. New handles for the units made a huge difference. I love cup handles!  The nasty big blue tiles were ripped off and replaced with beadboard which I painted in an off white. I tiled behind the hob with white tiles. I redid the ceiling which was artex swirls and had a large rectangle cut-out where a striplight was housed behind some ugly plastic. The kitchen taps were replaced with a much more stylish and user friendly mixer. The walls were painted in a soft green- I forget what the shade was though.

...and the floor...well, I still hate it, but we are going to sell the house soon - hopefully - so I shall be laying down a large rug to minimise the effect of the tiled area.

Would I paint kitchen units again? - Absolutely! It can turn drab into fab!

(Now if I can just keep the counter-tops that tidy, I'll be winning!)

Linking to Met Monday at www.betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com