Carrot Cake Recipe.

The other day I went out for coffee and tried carrot cake for the first time!

I loved it.

So with the help of a few recipes this was my creation, plenty of spice and a nice orange and lemon cream topping.

You will need:

For the sponge

225g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 ground nutmeg

1 tsp ginger

pinch of salt

200g light brown soft sugar

zest of 1/2 lemon

75g walnuts, chopped up

4 medium eggs

150ml sunflower oil

350g carrots, grated

For the topping

200g full fat cream

50g unsalted butter, softened

150g icing sugar

zest of 1/2 orange

juice of 1/2 lemon

25g walnuts

a greased cake tin, with the base lined with baking paper.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Sift the flour, spices, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl. Using a wooden spoon mix in the sugar, lemon zest and walnuts. Beat the eggs and sunflower oil together then add to the bowl along with the grated carrots and mix thoroughly.

Pop the mix into the cake tin and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Once out of the oven leave it to firm up for about 5 minutes before turning it onto a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the topping beat all the ingredients together either with a wooden spoon or an electric mixer until creamy. You may need to chill this slightly before putting it on the cake. Scatter the walnuts over the top of the icing to finish.

Happy Baking!



Sunday Walks.

 We went for a gorgeous walk yesterday to Stanmer Park.

It seems as though every weekend we find a new stunning place to go thats within an hour of the city. I love feeling so in the wild, even though civilisation is only 5 minutes down the road.

I have decided I want to live in Stanmer park, no houses are for sale, but there are lots of trees...maybe we could build a house in a tree and no one would even notice. That would be nice.

I need some new wellies, what use are wellies with holes in them?

Peace and quiet.

Love List.

Vivien Westwood Buckle Shoes...

We sell these in the shop I work in and I want them so much!!

The feeling of love for these is a little overpowered by a feeling of sadness...that it's not my birthday until JUNE!

Django Django LOVE

The sun is shining,

It's the middle of January.

This just came on the radio,

It makes me smile...Alot!

(Thankyou 6 music for playing this, I love you muchly!!)



Knickers Tutorial.

Here is how I made the knickers I posted yesterday. Please be aware that my sewing skills are totally self taught, therefore if I'm doing something in a seemingly odd way, that is why, and please feel free to let me know how to do it properly!

You will need:

Fabric

Elastic

Sewing machine

A rectangle of cotton

Old knickers (to be cut up)

Paper (for pattern)

Scissors

1. Cut a pair of knickers at the hip seams and crotch. Make sure they are made of a similar fabric to the fabric that you are using (strechy, cotton etc). Remove the elastic if they are non strech material. This is to make your pattern.

2. Draw around your old knickers onto a piece of paper, this is your pattern.

3.You can use any material, I used this old nighty that I never wore. Don't bin it, upcycle it!!

4. Place the pattern onto your fabric and draw around it, you can use chalk to do this or special dissapearing ink pens. Then cut the 2 shapes out.

5. The first bit of sewing is the crotch area. Get the retangle of cotton (I used an old Tshirt) and the front and back panels of the knickers. With the crotch lined up, place the front panel - right side up, the back panel - right side down on top, then the rectangle right side down on top of that. (I hope you're following this!!). Sew along this line.

6. Fold out the front and back panels so that the right sides are both facing down, and flip over the cotton rectangle so it is right side up. You will now see that the seam you have just sewn is hidden! hurrah!(arrow 1.). Now you need to hem the other end (arrow 2.), just fold it over and sew it. No need to sew it onto the knickers as its attached at the other end.

7. Sew together the hip seams.

8.You need to have an overcasting foot for your sewing maching to do this next bit. If you do, put it on now. If you don't, just hem the knickers all the way round both legs and the waist.

9. Choose an overcasting stitch to suit your fabric (practise on a spare bit to get the right length of stich etc). Overcast all the way round the legs and waist to stop the fabric fraying.

10. This is my wonderful assistant helping me to take a photo of the elastic! I cut two pieces 19 inches (for the legs) and one 22 inches (for the waist).



11. Here I'm going to divert you to a youtube video of how to sew in your elastic, as I'm sure I will needlessly complicate matters if I try!!

12. The material should start to rouch up like this, creating beautiful frilly knickers. Sew your elastic around both legs and the waist.

Et Voila!!!

So here are your nifty thrifty knickers!!

Let me know if you make them, I would love to see different takes on them!



Knickers

I made some knickers!!

I feel like I've been so busy lately, not having time to make anything or update my blog...and I was doing so well with my daily posts! I'm getting back in the zone, and to start with I thought I'd share my 'trial and error' knickers.

 These were the knickers that got sacrificed (for the pattern)

 This was the first error (I didn't take into account that the fabric wasn't streachy...silly me!)

The finished product!!

They look very cute on! I'm going to put up a tutorial in the next week or so...once I've mastered them.



Windows and Cows