Teapot Tuesdays!

This week myself and my partner will be heading down to the lovely coastline of Dorset, where we will most certainly be enjoying a famous west country cream tea.
So in honour of our little seaside excursion, this weeks teapot is by Crown Dorset (who are actually based in Staffordshire, but shhh!) who have been making traditional chintzy English teapots for about 50 years.
This is one of my favourite, summery floral teapots by them

Its a rare little teapot, I haven't been able to find any for sale yet! 

Teapot Tuesday!

POLKA ROSE VINTAGE TEAPOT

By Royal Albert

Royal Albert have a wonderful range of floral "English Country Garden" inspired china at the moment, of course Royal Albert ALWAYS do beautiful china but their most recent collection has a simplistic, more modern approach, thats still in keeping with their classic chintzy style. 

If you're not familiar with Royal Albert China- it is one of the most iconic English fine china companies in the world, founded in the era of Queen Victoria
Most of their collections for the last 100 years have been inspired by their "fondness for English cottage gardens".

My favourite from their new collection, has got to be the Polka Rose in pretty pale green, and it is my first official Teapot Tuesday Teapot!

RRP is £50 but if you shop some online retailers are selling it for £40. 

Quick Vanilla Cupcakes

I was sitting around having a perfectly lazy Sunday, when suddenly the need for cupcakes hit me- I'm sure you know the feeling...right?
So I decided to whip up a batch of quick cupcakes from what I happened to have in the house: butter, eggs, flour, milk and sugar- they took suprisingly little effort and came out really well, so I decided to post the recipe up, Enjoy!  

Quick vanilla cupcakes

Makes 12 in 30 mins (ish)

Ingredients

175g butter (at room temperature), cut into large pieces

175g self-raising flour

175g caster sugar


3/4 tsp baking powder


3 medium eggs

1⁄2 tsp vanilla extract 

For the icing:

150g butter (at room temperature), cut into large pieces

1⁄2 tsp vanilla extract


1-2 tbsp milk


250g icing sugar


sprinkles/decoration

Equipment

Large Bowl

Electric Whisk

Seive

12 hole cupcake tray

12 Cupcake cases 

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cupcake or muffin cases.

2. Put all the cake ingredients into a large bowl and beat with an electric whisk until smooth and evenly mixed (a few minutes) Divide the mixture evenly between the paper cases.

3. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and golden in color.

4. While the cakes are baking, make the icing. Put the butter into a large bowl and whisk untill smooth (about a minute), then sieve in a few large spoonfuls of icing sugar, incorporate into the butter using an electric mixer and repeat until all the icing sugar is mixed in. Then add the vanilla extract, a little milk and whisk until light and fluffy- at least a few minutes.

5. When cakes are done,transfer to a wire rack to cool.

6. When the cakes are fully cooled, pipe on the butter icing using a large star nozzle.

Tip: I find wearing latex gloves really helpful when handling butter icing, as it tends to melt quickly as you work with it and give you slippery greasy fingers- no good for icing cakes!

7. Sprinkle with your chosen decoration and you’re done! The cakes are best eaten fresh, but will last a few days in an air tight container at room temperature.