Christmas cake progress.

So I still can't find my camera cable. I am going to have to admit defeat soon and properly unpack all our boxes instead of leaving them in the spare room and pretending they don't count. Anyway...

Back to the bake along!

I've been feeding it a little rum once a week, that is just brushing it over lightly with some rum. The rest of the time I've been keeping it in an air tight package of baking paper and cling film, (I don't have a cake box that's big enough.) The fruit is starting to get really plump and the smell is just amazing. Its so utterly christmassy. Spicy and rich. 

Now is the time to start thinking about how, if, you want to ice it. Do you like marzipan and rolled royal icing? Or perhaps a dusting of powdered sugar is more your style? I usually go for a layer of lemon whipped icing with a rolled royal icing on top. The cake won't be decorated until just before its served (on the day or the day before) so there's plenty of time to decided what you want to do. 

Only 34 days to go till the big day! How are all your cakes going? 

Minnie xoxo

What we lost in the move

Our christmas decorations. Yes really. Its daft and random, and a really stupid thing to be upset by because we have no room for a real tree. For a while I was convinced I'd just put them some place safe, but then I had a proper look and Bloke had a proper look. Nope. They are some where between here and Loughborough but they are most definitely not here.

They must be somewhere so I'm not going to replace them (just yet anyway- I live in hope), but I still want the flat to look festive. The solution required some serious patience on my part. Paper crafting. I am utterly, completely terrible at anything beyond the making of paper chains. So please be very, very impressed with what I have to show you. I made this! It only took an evening!

I used this tutorial for the wreath. I did use a few staples to keep the individual pieces tight and did use a glue stick to make it sturdy enough to survive the festive season fixed to the door.  A 36 pack of designer paper for scrap booking was enough to make one large wreath, a long paper chain, a decent length of heart shaped chain and a few gift tags.  The whole endeavour cost much less than £10 including staples and glue.

Huzzah! Cheap, cheerful and festive. I'm rather proud. So I had to share.

Minnie xoxo

Further christmas preperation

I made a teeny tiny tree! We don't have the space for a real tree this year. Tiny flat is tiny. I used this tutorial off the martha stewart site.  It was pretty simple, there was a Murder She Wrote marathon on and my tiny tree only took two episodes from start to finish, so less than two hours! A few little pompoms and some glitter and it'll be even more festive. It might be a little lopsided but I'm quite proud. 

Minnie xoxo