Skywatching / Astronomy

As the weather here as been so awful for what seems like forever, there has not been a clear sky for such a long time. Not even nice enough to go and look in between all the clouds as it has been windy and rainy nearly every night. I'm hoping that the weather will improve soon, even just stop raining would be an improvement on how it has been! Makes me wonder is that nice weather we had a couple of weeks ago our Summer, wouldn't be surprised as in the past when the weather has been nice during April it has usually been followed by an awful Summer. Oooh I sound like the voice of doom and gloom.
The shuttle that was delayed from about a fortnight ago is due to take off tomorrow not sure what time our time, but one of my Astronomer friends from Twitter is a font of knowledge so hopefully he'll tweet some information either later or tomorrow. Apparently we should be able to see the shuttle around about 15 minutes after take off not long after the main fuel tank blasts away from it, so may see two bits! How exciting would that be??

Decorating Skills

Sorry still not uploaded any photos for ages, but will in a minute. But first I want to tell you about the fabulous cupcake decorating course I attended last Sunday via AngelsCupcakes over in Wirral. What a great day I had and cannot believe just how much I learned in such a short time and can't believe how quickly six hours flew by.

Kim was a fantastic teacher and with the patience of a saint I must add. The lunch was lovely and her lovely Mum deserves a mentioned as she worked just as hard keeping us all supplied with refreshments all day.

I have my very first commission which is to be a 30th anniversary cupcake tower with a cake topper. I've been practising making the flowers for the top and also for the cupcakes. I'm feeling quite confident at the moment, I have another couple of weeks to practice so hopefully, (fingers crossed) should be okay. I'm finding this whole thing very expensive at the moment as all I seem to be doing is buying more equipment etc, but hopefully I won't have to buy much more. I suppose it's like every hobby it can prove to be very expensive, I suppose I could use cheaper ingredients, but I like to think I make them to the best of my ability with the best ingredients as that is what I like to eat.

Some of the photographs I'm going to upload in this blog were decorated by my own fair hand using my new skills including making the flowers etc using Floristry Paste. I'm not very artistic but I even impressed myself!!

I'm going to be baking and decorating a chocolate birthday cake for my eldest daughter's birthday cake which is this week and I'm really looking forward to making it. Although I really must try and not eat any. :( I've also volunteered to make some cakes for somebody in work, so will make cupcakes in a few different flavours. Will post pictures of those as I'm going to be using my newly acquired cupcake tower stand.

Not sure what's happening to this post as not sure the photos are sitting correctly within the blog, but hope you all find it okay to read. Back soon with more cakes and pics. A couple of cake pop pics also which shows a trayful of these delightful little treats waiting to have some gorgeous chocolate coating on them.

Easter Weekend

I can't believe I baked over the weekend as I had visitors coming for Sunday lunch and I was that busy I forgot to take photographs! Nooooo and guess what? Yes they've all gone! I baked some gorgeous Caramel Cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery book, but actually got the recipe from Catherine a colleague, fellow baker, Twitterer and blogger, who found it on the Waterstones website on their members pages.

They turned out really well, but came across what I think is an error with regard to the amount of baking powder. In the recipe it stated 1 tablespoon of baking powder, well no way does that sound right. I contacted my fellow baker Catherine via text, the Pink Whisk, Angel Bakes and Angelcupcakes via Twitter and the general view was that the likelihood was between 1 and 1.5 teaspoons. (Invaluable help from you all - thank you! :-) I actually ended up adding 3 teaspoons and they worked out fine and tasted delicious so they didn't last long. I passed some to my neighbour as samples as she has asked me to do a cupcake display for her and her husband's 30th Wedding Anniversary get together at the end of May. I'm both excited and nervous as I've never done one before although I have baked dozens and dozens of cupcakes my decorating skills need lots of honing. I'm booked on two cupcake decorating courses - one at the beginning of May and one at the end of June, so hopefully the one at the beginning of May will set me on my way!

I also made a traditional Simnel Cake, but instead of putting the 11 marzipan balls on the top, I coloured some paste and made some flower cut outs and leaves to go on the top to try out my new sets of cutters. I was a little disappointed with this cake as it was a little dry, but certainly not inedible - I and my youngest daughter adore fruit cake so that didn't last that long neither. My healthy eating sort of disappeared over the weekend. I'm still to load up the last lot of photos I took of the cake pops I made but will soon!

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Cakes and creativity (or not in my case)!!

I promised photos of my last creations a few weeks ago, but haven't got around to loading them onto the laptop yet. I thought I had but just checked for them to add them to blog, but hadn't done it :( Will load them soon and post on here. I've made some Red Velvet Cupcakes today from the Hummingbird Bakery book. They are not very red they look more like a chocolatey colour to me rather than the red. I followed the recipe to the letter and when I was making them was going to add a little more food colouring but they looked very red, but not red enough when baked so if I made them again I'd add a little more colouring.

They taste very nice and especially as they have my favourite frosting on which is the cream cheese frosting. I've also made a chocolate cake in readiness for trying out some more cake pops tomorrow night. I'm thinking of try to sell some in work, as they went down a treat last time when I took some in as samples. So I've decided today that I'm going to give it a try and I must say I feel a little more positive now I've made the decision.

I've bought some more lovely ribbon etc and I'm going to wrap them up with nice cellophane etc. The most scary thing that happened today is that my neighbour has asked me to do a 21st Birthday cake for her son!!! Luckily his birthday isn't until September so I have plenty of time to practice. It's not the baking I have problems with but the the decorating. As luck happens I have booked myself onto two cake decorating courses in the next few months, so fingers crossed that I can improve my skills. Surprisingly I already have an idea for the cake for my neighbours son, so will talk it through with her in a month or so.

Must go as TOWIE is on soon - will upload photos soon.

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Liverpool ONE flash mob

Haven't blogged for a few weeks, been really busy planning and stuff. Haven't even done any skywatching for weeks, it's been rather cloudy. That said, my other half thought he was pointing Orion out to me - er nope. Think he just saw a bright star and that was it. He obviously knows even less than me, thank goodness!

Anyway, will be blogging soon with some photos.

Here's some photos of the cupcakes I made the other week, again recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. The Marshmallow cupcakes didn't seem to have enough frosting to coat the marshmallows, so if I made these again, I'd add a little more frosting or use less mini marshmallows. My daughter says these are her very favourite cupcake that I've made so far. The pic is a bit blurred really, but here is a pic of a single cupcake. I also made lots of others, some chocolate, some vanilla and some lemon flavour ones.

I've also been enjoying making some biscuits these particular ones are called 'Melting Moments' and the recipe came from a Mary Berry book. They really do melt in the mouth and once again the team in work seemed to enjoy them and my family definitely do like them, so they will become a regular in my repetoire.

Anyway, still haven't found out what the mega moon is but I'll be back with an update.