Mastering Macarons

Continuing with my culinary themed week, Wednesday evening I headed over to North London to the home of the Waitrose cookery school for a masterclass in Macarons.
They are this years trend as recently seen on both Raymond Blanc & Lorraine Pascal cookery shows.
The cookery school is beautiful, light airy, and filled with the creme de la creme of cookery equipment.
The chefs bought into the school have years of experience and have worked for some of the most prestigious names in the industry, both chefs & restaurants. On arrival you are warmly greeted and welcomed with wine or soft drinks of choice and presented with your chefs whites for the day!

James our chef of the evening was extremely knowledgeable, friendly and patient! A credit to the school and Waitrose.
During the course of the evening working with a "buddy" we baked 3 flavours of macaron;
Pistachio & raspberry
Orange marmalade
Chocolate with chocolate ganache & sea salt caramel

Taking home approx 40 macarons, a great cookery folder, & waitrose canvas bag.

I picked up so many tips from the evening and had a fantastic time... and no washing up!!!
Eleni (James assistant was a star with clearing our equipment and replening everything as well as offering helpful advice)

Pop-tastic evening

This week is a challenging week for me,for those that have followed my blog know that its the anniversary of the loss of my Gramps.... so determined not to wallow I have a week of feast and treats planned!...
After a trip to the cemetery yesterday I headed over to Islington where last night I had an evening of cake pops planned at The Make Lounge.
It was just the tonic that I needed. A great bunch of girls, lots of laughter and a great tutorial from the very talented Louise. (cake sculptor extraordinaire.. at lovetocake )... a great evening, highly recommended.

 A great array of workshops for all crafts, with a shop to drool over!

The workshop was lots of fun, Louise was very patient with us and was as equally in raptures with all our creations as was we!.... 7 cake pops made, using a range of techniques.... loving the apple and the pig!... For those not familiar with cake pops they are small balls of cake on a lolly stick coated in chocolate!..Mmmmm very yummy.

It was great to try something new, and a little different to cupcakes.....Thanks Louise, Ladies & Make Lounge for making a difficult day so much brighter.

Tx

Creative Walls

Thursday night saw me attend a book launch & private event function for the newly released Creative Walls.
The book is a gem for any vintage/ shabby chic junkie. It's been written by  Geraldine James who I have known for the last 5 years. It's an eclectic mix of vintage, contemporary, & funky styles. You will be scavenging skips, bootsales & junk shops for creative finds!

For a book that it's entire subject is walls it should theoretically have you nodding off half way through, BUT this doesn't and has you're imagination running wild with ideas. From the cover to the index this book
is crammed full of amazing photo's and text.
Without giving too much away, some of my favourites are the Vogue wall, the Vintage plates in the garden, For us scrapbookers, its without a doubt scrapbooking on a wall!
The evening was great fun, & a real mismatch of people that worked really well together.
Geraldine us now currently working on her second book. As you can see from the inscription I may be contributing a little,which is ever so exciting so watch this space!

Cake Days....

every day can be a cake day now!.... this fantastic book fell onto my desk Friday... the fabulous Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days book...

The book is a delight from start to finish, recipes to die for and photographs just to dribble over!.
My cakes to make list has doubled in length with this book. It doesn't just stick with cupcakes it has some scrumptious cheesecakes, brownies, whoopie pies and tarts...spread out over a calendar year, a cakemakers dream.

There are so many cupcakery's popping up over London, Hummingbird is still one of my favs.... great cakes, great books and great stationery!... I'm in cake day heaven!

I just need some time away from my desk to start baking.......

belated blogging!....

title just about sums it up!.... not sure where March is going!.. clocks spring forward at the weekend, which for an insomniac is a nightmare as I loose even more sleep!
Anyway back to my blogging... I have a pile of things in my "to blog" folder but here are a couple of biggies.

A couple of weeks was one of my special friends birthdays.... its always a challenge to find a present for her.... but this year I tried something different. We are off to an evening at a Cookery School in the heart of Essex!...watch this space as its coming soon!!... to complete her little present parcel (couldn't resist the bag as she is a bit of a nightmare with labels & receipts!) and keeping with the cooking theme. Nigellas' kitchen, No reservations chick flick and a friends coffee mug with tea & biscuits!.. so belated birthday wishes Cxx
Watch this space as I have a number of foodie things coming up in the next few weeks......
A couple of people have contacted me to ask what happened with my Journal Your Christmas... so I've finally got round to A) finishing album! & B) uploading pages... It has its own page here!
Just in time as I'm due to start a new project with Shimelle this week... will keep you posted.

This blog post was due to go up last night but was tooooo distracted by Duran Duran's one night only on ITV....

apologies!....