Holy Yum.

Yes, more baking. This one is a chocolate and hazelnut cake with chocolate ganache and hazelnut praline. Holy yum.

Softies!

I began using existing patterns to create softies, but now my creations are freeform. There are loads of books available with super cute patterns and instructions to make softies. It helps if you follow a pattern for the first few so you get an idea of the processes and how to go about it. These are some that I've made without a pattern:

And here is a sweetie I made using a pattern from a book from the softies range. It is Beetle Bug: 

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Baked Treats

Recently I made an Earl Grey Tea Cake, which I came across while reading a food magazine in a cafe. Turns out this cake is a winner! Its pretty much amazing. I'm prepared to share the recipe:

1 cup fresh dates (or 1 1/2 cups dried dates)
1 tsp bicarb soda
3/4 cup brewed earl grey tea (plus some more for you)
2 apples, peeled and grated
1 1/4 cups self raising flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
150g melted butter
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 160 degrees celsius.
Soak the dates in the bicarb and tea for 10 minutes. Blend with a hand mixer.
Mix apples, flour and sugar.
Add butter, vanilla, eggs and date mixture.
Mix well.
Grease a 2.5 litre loaf tin (I made mine in two smaller tins)
Bake for 45 - 55 minutes.

Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn on to a wire rack.

Make some more tea to have with your cake.

Mix Tape Canvas

This is a super lovely, super easy canvas which looks pretty awesome in my opinion. It is a matter of finding a bunch of second hand cassette tapes, painting them in any colour theme or contrasting colours (try metallics, pastels, shades of your favourite colour..), painting the canvas a solid dark colour (I think square looks best, so you can create symmetry). Play around with the layout of the canvas, moving the cassettes around until you're happy with how it looks. Glue them in place using a hot glue gun, craft glue or PVA.

Ceramics

A few months ago I took a beginners ceramics class, which I loved. I would like to learn more about ceramics, which seems unlikely until I have more time on my hands. It is a much more complex craft than I had expected and still have loads to learn. These are some of my creations:

Hello Spring.

So it didn't take me long to get off track.. My blog was originally dedicated to sharing my handmade goodies, but I'm so distracted by spring's pretty flowers:

Citrus & Spice

This morning I made some lemon and spice scented candles in teacups. I think I've established that I like teacups.

How to make these cuties:
1. Prepare your teacups first by tying one end of a piece of wick to a skewer, and gluing the other end to the bottom of the teacup to keep it secure. I bought the wax and wicks from Riot Art & Craft.
2. Melt the wax in a double boiler. Once it has melted add the hardener (which comes in the starter pack).
3. To scent my candles I used finely grated lemon rind, ground cinnamon, cloves, star anise, fennel seeds and cardamom. This makes it smell yummy like chai tea.

4. Pour the wax in to each prepared teacup and eat some cake while you wait for them to set.

5. Once they are set (a few hours just to be sure), snip the wicks to remove the skewers and they're done! Then eat some more cake to celebrate the completion!