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.

10 Homemade Easter Treat Ideas

Hi Folks,

I’m not a massive fan of Easter crafts- we don't decorate the house for Easter or have any children, however like most people with a tongue, I adore chocolate. I am, all in all, a complete sugar addict- I love sweets of all kinds so Easter is one of my favourite holidays (that and long weekend we get off of work).  

This year I inadvertently left it way too late to get my partner an Easter Egg, so decided to make him his favourite chocolate orange fudge-the recipe of which can be found here.

As I was making the fudge this afternoon I started thinking that perhaps it could be a nice tradition to make something homemade every year- there must be loads of great homemade easter sweets you can make that are much tastier and thoughtful than the generic off the shelf ones! Here’s the top ten I could find on my search for ideas:

10 Homemade Easter Sweets

1. Mini Egg Easter Bark

One of my favourite Easter chocolates is Cadbury's Mini Eggs, and this bark is ridiculous cute, as well as simple to make.

2. Homemade Creme Eggs

Cadburys Creme Eggs are my all time favourite Easter chocolate- I'm intrigued by this homemade version!

3. Creme Egg Fudge

Another combination of yummy things I'll have to try!

4. Mini Birds

ARGH, So cute!

5. Hollow Easter Eggs

These may look tricky, but after reading the recipe I think any crafty person should have no trouble- and they look really impressive.

6. Carrot Cones

This is a really clever idea- but I’d use only half the cone myself, to make them a bitesize snack.

7. Macaroon Egg Nest

No, not the french macaron- the coconut macaroooooon! Makes the perfect little next for mini eggs!

8. Easter Basket Sugar Cookie

Yep, you can make baskets out of cookies- so happy when I found this out!

9. Chocolate coated Creme Filled Eggs

A more mature homemade easter treat...

10. Meringue Eggs Splats

Lemon and meringue, a lovely non-chocolate alternative.

PS- A lot of these recipes include an ingredient called Candy Melts- just FYI you can buy this in the UK at a lot of cake decorating stores, and Hobbycraft carries it too (here's a link). 

Happy Easter!

Hayley xxx 

New Issue of Snippets!

Hi Folks, 
Just a quickie from me today. 
If you've not read it before- Snippets is the online magazine for my favourite ever craft website Cut Out + Keep.

I've been lucky enough to have written a few bits for them over the last year or two- the most recent one is an interview with Hong Kong based artists, Dekanimal. 
You can check out the interview here!
Ta Ta,
Hayley xx 

Homemade Valentines Gifts (for the geek in your life)

Hi Folks,

I've been seeing a lot of “Homemade Valentines Ideas” on the craft blog-o-sphere recently and quite frankly I’m unimpressed… would your beau really want a lavender scented hanging heart? No. He would not. So this Valentines day, make the man in your life something he’d actually like to receive- Personally, my partner is a massive geek, so here’s my list of 5 cool homemade gifts that won't make him gag.  

1. 8-Bit Bow Tie

This one is super simple, you just need perler beads which you can get from any craft shop or online and a safety pin- here’s a tutorial.

2. Breaking Bad- Blue Meth Candy

Because you've got Chemistry- get it? Sugar Hero has a great tutorial. The ingredients are pretty basic, but you’ll need a candy thermometer to get it just right.  

3. Anatomically Correct Heart Cake

I got the recipe for these Eat Your Heart Out red velvet cakes from Lilli Vanilli’s “A Zombie Ate My Cupcake” recipe book- a copy can be found here. But I’d recommend buying the book from Amazon as it has a bunch of great, creepy recipes for any occasion.

4. Bacon Roses

Why not say I Love You with bacon?. Instructables has the best tutorial for this. ...I freaking love this idea.

5. Geeky Lingerie

This is a gift for him and you! Get yourself a plain bra and knickers set and customize to his favourite show, game, comic etc - you can customize using fabric paints, diamantes, it’s really up to you but here are some ideas:

You could even try customizing something for him…

Enjoy your Valentines Day readers,

Hayley x x x 

New Year- New Shop!

Hello and Happy New Year to you gentle readers,
I've been super busy the last couple of months making Christmas presents for my loved ones (here's a few)

                            

                                       




A eye mask and lavender sachet, a baby goth bib, a birdie brooch and some his and her microwave heating pads. I also did a load of chocolate orange fudge, my recipe can be found here. 
I also held my annual Christmas gathering with homemade mulled wine, nibbles, including these, secret santa, a quiz and other games, which was great fun if not exhausting!

Then it was New Year, and with a little spare time (in between making another nappy cake) I was able to reopen my shop, hurray!

Please let me formally reintroduce my Miss Fusspot's Fancies shop on Etsy!

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/HayleyStanbrook

If you're an Etsy lover, please do add me to your favourites and keep an eye out- there should be more items coming soon. 

Thanks,

Hayley xxx