Fairy cakes

I'm still hugely inspired by the recipe book Sarah (Clover Lane) made using Blurb. I would love to make one and have now started taking photos of recipes I make.  This weekend it was chocolate fairy cakes - I have tried a number of different recipes but come back to this simple recipe time and again.

Fairy cakes (makes 12)

125g marg
125g castor sugar
125g self raising flour (for chocolate cakes I use 95g SR flour and 30g cocoa powder)
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 Tbsp milk
1  tsp vanilla essence

Preheat oven to 220C/400F/Gas 6
Put cake cases in to muffin tin
Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix until the mixture is very soft and you can't see any lumps of marg.
Spoon into paper cases
Bake for 10 - 15 minutes
Leave on a wire rack to cool before icing.

Chocolate buttercream icing

85g soft butter
150g icing sugar
25g cocoa powder
1Tbsp milk (or I used coffee for a slight difference)

Mix all ingredients together until mixture is smooth.
Pipe on to fairy cakes and top with a Malteser.

Enjoy :)

xx

Hugh and Alice

I had forgotten I'd taken these photos until I was downloading the Halloween layout photos yesterday. They were taken last Wednesday when Hugh was playing with Alice at lunch time.

I just LOVE all these photos and the expressions on Alice's face.  I think the top one is one of my current favourites!
xx

Halloween layout

I wanted to make sure I recorded Alice's first Halloween so made this layout quickly today.

xx

PS. I know from a distance the patterned paper looks a bit like a cow print but it's actually little ghosts saying Boo!

Our little bookworm :)

 One of the things Alice loves when she comes round is to sit and look at all her books. They're one of the first things she goes for and we end up with them all out the basket and on the floor.

xx