We have had an eventful morning… spent an hour or two lying on the sofa bed reading the same books over and over..

(and just when I was getting into doing the voices and making it all very animated, I was usurped by someone needing to watch The Snowman.

Me: “Sweetpea, will we read “The Paper Caper” again?”

Herself: “No. Me like ‘Nowman now”…)

Then we wandered out to the garden to pick some tomatoes for lunch- our Autumn fruiting raspberries are only  coming into fruit outside, but are ripe and delicious in the polytunnel. We picked a bowl for our dessert, and  before we got as far as the back door …

Me: “Hey! Where did our raspberries go?” 

Herself: “Heh heh heh” (evil cackle) 

“We” made egg fried rice with some left-over rice 

(Me: “do you want to scoop some coconut oil out for the frying pan?”

Herself: “yes” (and scoops out a spoon. And eats it. Then we have a minor altercation over allowing me to have a spoon of it to fry the rice)

Someone had to test each tomato before I could cut them up

and artfully toss some over the rice

(“Isn’t that pretty?”

“No”)

And then after lunch we decided to be creative and cut up the felted blankets to make cushions and a photo tutorial too (cue: delightful images of mother and daughter measuring and smiling and working completely in harmony)

Well. That daughter of mine!

she is so bloody independent, decisive, impatient (with me!!!!) single minded (where did she get all these traits from, I’d like to know?) determined, creative…

funny and soft and cuddly and warm…

I have to run… Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go!!!

and isn’t the little gathering basket gorgeous? Beloved Husband made that a while ago from some of our willows (sallies) from our “sally gardens”… he has been commissioned to make many of these, as soon as the willows are harvested, for our shop. They really are incredibly useful, from gathering blackberrries, eggs, tomatoes… or as often happens in our house… dolls or lego!!

Here is our Wee One with a few delicious tomatoes we picked in the polytunnel… the little wrist purse is from Lush Stuff, it’s also lovely, and beautifully made… check them out here!

Using our tomatoes:

I made a tomato and cucumber salad and dressing a la Sophie (merci mon ami!!) The dressing was liberal amounts of olive oil, balsamic vinegar (oh holy moly, I use Llwellyns Irish Cider Balsamic Vinegar, and I could drink it from the bottle- actually, I have, for scientific purposes you understand – it is truly divine) and some basil… delicious…

 and then…

I chopped up some bell peppers, courgette, tomatoes, ginger, onion, and garlic, stir-fried, and doused in a good soy sauce, and of course some cider vinegar. Beloved ‘Ubby made the brown bread, (he has been closely watching my mother make hers when he gets the chance) which was the perfect accompaniment.

*Sigh*

I foresee jam and jellies and many crumbles…

She remained naked, unfortunately, as I weighed up the possibilities of finishing her dress or making the birthday cake. So I chose the birthday cake..!

This is SUCH an easy cake to make- it relies heavily on as much (EDIBLE!!!) glittery, beady bits as you can find. I also cut out tiny circles to give a very fashionable polka-dot effect!!

Here is a quick tutorial, but have a go, it’s great fun (apart from the fact that the Birthday Girl didn’t quite get that the dress was the cake until we eventually cut it!!) and pretty easy (let me tell you, I am no Sprinkles when it comes to decorating cakes…)

Firstly, find a doll- I find the barbie dolls are a little too tall, so I bought a “Moxie-Doll”(the feet also came off which was a bonus). I made double the amount of this buttermilk cake- this cake can hold the weight of extraordinary amounts of icing and decoration. I made it in 2 cake tins and a deep round cereal bowl, left it to cool overnight and in the morning, made up a bowl of buttercream icing, and assembled the three on top of each other.

(Buttercream icing: approx. half a cup of soft butter to 2 cups of icing sugar, beat with a mixer or whisk, and soften it with a tablespoon of milk if necessary. You need it pliable, but NOT runny)

Take off the dolls clothes, (close your eyes at any nudity please. Goodness, the tone of this blog is plummeting into unknown depths)

and plunge her into the centre of the cake ( let me just point out here that if there are any children or so-inclined adults present they will find this utterly fascinating)

Carefully carve from the doll-waist down, creating a bell shape for the skirt (if you make a complete bags of it, you can fill the holes in with icing)

Colour your roll-out fondant icing, and roll it out into a long flat sheet. Spread the dress with butter icing and lay the rolled out icing onto it, shaping and chopping as necessary.

It looks quite rough at this stage, but I gently massaged it, and it smoothed out quite a lot (warmth of hand and circular motion)

Roll out a smaller piece and shape the bodice, again cutting it to shape.

Then let loose your inner bling-bling girlie and cover it with ridiculous amount of glitter, beads etc, sticking all on with butter icing. Remember you are not aiming for realism here!!!!!!

 This is definitely a wow-factor cake, and it tastes really delicious too! Next up is a dino- mountain or life sized dinosaur (!)…

Oh great.

I knew I should have held out on posting photos of the doll until Friday!! But I will digress to many other beautiful delights for my photographic entry for Show’n'Tell Friday…

I know this blog sometimes looks more like a food blog than anything else… so I apologise…

but last night I received a present of these exquisite nectarines from our friends up the road- they grow them in their polytunnel!- and some St. Tola “Divine” organic mild cream cheese…

And divine it was- in fact it would surely convince you of  the presence of Divinity on eating it…

What a great breakfast.

(BTW, I have just linked accross and noticed a delight beyound delight on my friend Andrea’s blog- look what she made for my High Nelly!!! I’m SO chuffed ~ thank you Andrea!!)