The World of Siân

Hurrah, at long last the delightful afternoon teas have returned and it was kick started with a meet up with the Biffa's (self given name for my little group of lovely ladies).  We decided to meet up in Cheltenham as it's roughly half way between Bridgend and Stafford along with being a nice place. We decided to rendezvous at the Cheltenham park and ride.  I have to say one of my main priorities when visiting any where is that they have a decent easy to get to park and ride.  I mean, why battle with the inner town systems of somewhere you haven't a clue when you can just park up and jump on a bus which does the stressful bit for you. On arrival into the town we got our bearings by heading to the nearest decent looking pub and as we were driving the strongest thing we opted for was caffeine.  Still it gave us chance to have a natter, exchange some gifts and decide where we wanted to go and if anyone had anything in particular they wanted to get.     ...

It only seems like the other week I was making Mr Bus the Campervan cake for his birthday.  This year I decided on a minion cake from Despicable Me.  Then a flash if inspiration hit me, this is what happened: Cake pops are incredibly hard to decorate.  I had done ones in the past with chocolate which were a nightmare, this time I used the proper candy melts, this was still tricky but I think might be improved with practice.  It also made me realise I need a proper cake pop stand!! To make Gru I used a pyrex bowl to bake the cake for his head and iced it, then baked a small round cake for his shoulders and iced that separately, fixing them in place with buttercream.  Not much is needed in the way of cake filling due to the icing as you don't want it too sweet.

Well if you haven’t guessed I do enjoy an afternoon tea even though I don’t have a sweet tooth.   For my last birthday my lovely friend Fordy got me two vouchers for afternoon tea at Weston Hall , Stafford.   Having a browse on line beforehand this looked like a marvellous setting. We arrived at this lovely building which was very picturesque the only down side was that it was quite close to a main road and this spoiled the view a bit but the noise levels weren’t too bad.   We headed into the Cellar restaurant where our afternoon tea was booked and showed into the lounge area where we would be having it.   Mr Bus and I chose some lovely sofas to sit on next to the fire, although it was the end of May we went the weather was still cold and wet so this was welcome. For our afternoon tea we could choose from a range of teas or coffee and we opted for Assam, being one of our favourites.   We were expecting to wait a little while and started to have a nose at...

It’s that time of year again the fantastic Mr Bus’ birthday.   Now last year I decided to design and make him a digger cake, this year of course I had to equal that effort or go one better.   I had a few ideas in the pipeline and decided to ask the Birthday boy what he would prefer.   We went with a VW Bus cake. Now I started with baking a lemon drizzle loaf cake, whilst this was cooling had the daunting thought this was not going to be high enough, so baked another lemon loaf cake, this time without the drizzle, so that I could square off the top to sit the other one on top of it.   After these had cooled down, it was time to build, placing the loaf cakes one on top of the other with a layer of vanilla butter cream in the middle, I covered the cakes all over in butter cream.   I then set about with the icing.   I thought it best to start with the white top and draped it over the cakes, just leaving enough for a slight overlap at the bottom. ...

Ms James and I booked another afternoon tea, what a great way to spend a flexi afternoon. We were meant to be going the Mad Hatters tearoom in Cardiff but due to a mix up in dates we couldn’t go. Both of us wanted to try out Pettigrew Tea Rooms after following the guy who runs it on twitter ( I want to bake free ) from before he opened it and following his dream through to reality. Well… it’s in a glorious setting just off Cardiff Castle on the entrance to Bute Park. It’s a really quaint looking place, but there is not only the room downstairs but upstairs as well and when the weather is fine there is outside seating. We were greeted as we entered and shown to a table. The décor of the tea room was lovely with a variety of pieces of furniture giving the place its own unique character. There is also a display cabinet to show off the tempting goodness of the wonderous cakes on offer. There was an awesome array of teas on offer and we decided we would leave the tea until a...

For the fantastic Mr Bus’ birthday I decided to make him a digger cake and I have to say I was very pleased with the results, it also took less time to make than I had anticipated. I started off baking a square Madeira cake.  This I then cut in half and placed one half on top of the other to work out the length of the cab, roughly half again.   I used butter icing to hold them together and then placed butter icing all over for the ready to roll icing to go on top.  With the extra square of cake left from making the main body and cab of the digger, I scooped out the middle section to create the digger bucket, then covered this in butter icing and ready roll icing on top. I iced the main body of the digger and the bucket and then attached the bucket using two rolls of icing for the arms.   I used a food colouring pen for the initial detail on the digger and filled the bucket with rainbow drops and popping candy.   I placed melted...

One fine Sunday afternoon at the end of November my great friend Ms James and I went to the secret supper club vintage afternoon tea and Christmas tree decoration making. We found the venue and were greeted by some lovely people who run the secret supper club. We were shown through to the room where it was being held and met by lovely bunting surrounding us and the table all set with lovely vintage china tea cups and saucers, along with lovely tea pots and accessories. Once all the guests arrived we got down to the workshop on making our own Christmas tree decorations. This was great fun, choosing the shape we wanted in the right colour felt and then what we were going to use to decorate it. From buttons of all shapes, sizes and colours to an array of sequins in a rainbow of colours. We were shown the best way to sew these on, then stitch around the felt adding a hanging hook and then leaving a gap to stuff with wadding and finally stitching it all together. In the middle of ...

It was one of my close friend’s birthdays and I wanted to do something special and different for her. I decided to make her a birthday cake. I wasn’t sure what to choose at first, then it hit me there was only one thing I could do that she would love… the worm from labyrinth!!! We were having a little girlie get together for her birthday with lots of food and drink and to watch the Labyrinth film, not only because it’s an absolute classic and one of her favourites but this month marks the 25th Anniversary of the films release. Also one of her favourite characters in the film is the worm. Here is what he looks like if you’re not sure: So the task was underway to construct this cake. First it was to think of the extra bits that would be used to decorate it. I ordered some blue sparkly edible glitter to sprinkle on him but was getting no where with cake decorating shops for the other bits. I was wracking my brains. Then on a quick visit to Cardiff one morning I happened to vi...