These glossy buttons are very easy to make and quick to do. I’ve written up an Illustrator tutorial and set out the step-by-step instructions for you. Feel free to download it here:
Author: Irish Bees Don't Do Mondays
A blog for me, about the things I like. After Effects, Procreate, Illustrator, Photoshop, Drawing, Painting, Paper Cutting, Sewing, Embroidering, up-cycling old furniture. Whatever grabs me in the moment/
All-Butter Shortbread
Love a bit of shortbread.
1 lb plain flour
12 oz butter
6 oz caster sugar
Gas mark 2, or 140º for electric ovens for between 40 mins to 1 hour (depending on whether your oven is fan-assisted or not).
Basically, rub the ingredients together (or just tip into a mixing bowl with a kneading tool and let it mix till it turns into a pliable ball. I do this on a fairly slow setting). Roll out and cut your biscuits. I have a cutter but you can easily make a paper template and cut round it with a knife.
Place on a baking tray giving them some room to spread. Cook till just golden and still slightly soft to touch.
Turn out onto a cooling rack, sprinkle with caster sugar and there you go. Make with love for a Valentine’s Day treat.
xoxoxox
Gingerbread pieces lessons learned!
The various panels of gingerbread have been piped with icing with some bits and pieces to have a little flood filling but there’s really not much of that to do. The large panels and trees will go around the cake. Next year I’ll make a square cake and that will make life easier… until then, however…
There were several lessons learned in the making of this gingerbread, namely:
- Do not use molasses sugar in the gingerbread mix – it doesn’t dissolve in molten butter and leaves lumps like cowpats in the mix.
- Do not use molasses sugar in the mix because it spoils the colour and makes the gingerbread too dark.
- Do not bake the gingerbread on foil fused with parchment – it curls up and ruckles the edges of the gingerbread.
- Use a piping nozzle – No 2 – in a piping bag and don’t be persuaded to snick the end off a freezer bag to make do because you can’t be arsed to dig out the tub of icing equipment.
- Check the consistency of the icing by test piping on anything before you start on the gingerbread.
- I know I said to mark out the design by pricking through paper, etc, but really, actually make the effort to do it. I didn’t and made it all up as I went along. Would have been so much easier if I’d made myself some guidelines.
- There is absolutely NOTHING to stop you from taking a sharp knife and trimming the gingerbread to sharpen the definition of the shapes. I wish I had, especially to trim off some slightly burned edges.
All said, though, it wasn’t hard to do but will cut the templates out from quilting plastic for next year and have a sturdier template to cut around.
So, a very happy new year to you all from the ghost of Christmas Cake Past!
Cranberry Cookies, gingerbread and royal iciing
I’ve been doing a bit of baking and thought you might like to try these cookies.
Remember the Fat Face robot santa – here he is! He’s out for Christmas.
I bought the Walker’s shortbread snowman for the tin and not the shortbread. He is so cute and will be good for other things.
The Christmas cake finally got marzipanned so good progress there. And now for the ambitious bit. I want to make some gingerbread panels in the shapes of houses and trees to go around the sides and a mini gingerbread house on top.
GINGERBREAD
275g / 9.75 oz Plain Flour
100g / 3.5oz butter
90g / 3.25 oz Golden Syrup
75g / 2.5 oz sugar
40g / 1.5 oz Treacle
1 Egg Yolk
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1.5 tsp Ground Cinnamon
0.5 tsp Ground Ginger
0.5 tsp Ground Cloves
Mix the butter, syrup and treacle into a large saucepan over a low heat until melted and blended together. Stir in the spices. Take the mixture off the heat and allow it to cool for a few minutes then stir in the egg yolk. Add the flour and bicarbonate of soda into the mixture and blend well.
Take the mixture out of the bowl and wrap it in clingfilm. Put in fridge to firm up.
When the mixture is ready, roll out as evenly as you can and cut out your biscuit shapes. Place them on a baking tray with more space than you’d usually give for other types of biscuits (this mixture tends to spread) and then put the tray into the fridge for ten minutes or so.
Finally, bake at 180 fan oven or gas mark 5 for 10 to 15 minutes.
Leave them to cool thoroughly before icing. If you want to prick your design, leave them for two to three days, by which time they will have softened to make this a relatively easy task.
ROYAL ICING FOR PIPING AND FLOODING
2lbs / 900g Icing Sugar
4 Egg Whites
2 fl oz / 60 ml Water
Whisk the ingredients together in a large bowl. For piping thin lines, see how many seconds it takes for the surface of your icing to smooth over. Between 9 – 10 seconds is a good consistency for piping. You’ll need a fine piping nozzle for this.
For flood icing, to fill in between the piped lines, the icing will smooth over in approximately 6 seconds. You don’t want it to be watery and runny but gently flowing and pourable. Those wooden lollipop sticks you get in Starbucks are perfect to spread flood icing. 🙂
Titanic
A few of us went to Belfast to see the Titanic exhibition. Here’s a shot of the famous yellow cranes of Belfast shipyard:
The building itself is really cool and you can see the shape of the ship cleverly incorporated into the design.
I also went to the UK – Manchester – for the Christmas market. The market is H-U-G-E – and sprawls for several blocks between the big stores there. The DJ on radio Nova said it ranked as one of the top five Christmas markets in the world.
Despite my love of robots, I didn’t succumb to these vintage temptations. I really wanted to but only had hand luggage and knew that I’d probably not have the room….(turned out I was right).
The following day we went to Skipton. I brought back a huge pork pie from the shop below. The pie was superb.
We drove on to Ilkley and stopped for a mooch around the lovely little shops there. Loads of charity shops! I popped into each and every one of them – glorious! In one, I picked up a bag with 8 or so full square yards of cotton fabrics – gorgeous designs, four Amy Butler designs – and a brand new ball of knitting/crochet cotton for a fiver.
There was a small Betty’s Teashop there. Betty’s is a quintessentially English tea room and has a flagship store in York that I’ve been to a couple of times. I didn’t know they had a little one in Ilkley. There were some lovely decorated Lebkuchen on display:
The alpine village scene, made up from panels of Lebkuchen houses and trees was a real show stopper. Isn’t it gorgeous? This was taken outside the shop:
And this shot is of the back of the ‘cake’ from inside the shop. It is actually comprised of three tiered ‘boxes’ of Lebkuchen, each coated with a rough snow of royal icing.
It had a price tag of £500. (I didn’t buy it :))
Crochet Flower Posy Pretties
These flowers and the Silver Ragwort came from ‘100 Lace Flowers to Crochet’ by Caitlin Sainio.
The small flower is one of Attic24’s flower patterns and is very sweet.
The little spiral or noodle can be found by Googling – there are so many ‘patterns’out there to make them.
The Hibiscus pattern is here: Hibiscus
The web site pattern has a much twistier, witch’s hat 
pistil and gorgeously wispy, curly hairy things coming out the end. Mine’s a bit of a hairy foot wart and needs refining but it was my first go.
Clay oven: flea market find
I think I have mentioned in previous posts that I *collect* clay ovens. I have some absolutely beautiful ones already but when I went to the Dublin Flea the other week or so ago and found this one.
It was €4.99. And, it’s really big. A large chicken would be accommodated very easily though the chances of actually using it for purpose is zero.
Crochet sheep for Yarndale charity appeal
This sheep fellow is off to Skipton in Yorkshire, to join a huge flock of sheep to be sold to raise money for the Martin House Hospice – a Yorkshire-based charity that supports the care of terminally ill children.
Full details about Yarndale, the hospice and the crochet / knitting patterns for the sheep can be found here:
Or go to Attic24’s blog – Lucy’s blog – the lady who worked out the sheepy pattern. She has the pattern and photos to help stitch it all together.
Appliqued, hand-embroidered cushion
Today I finished making a second little cushion. It’s got lots of hand-embroidered stitches, beads, buttons and wooly bits. It’s approximately 12″ x 12″ and has a feather-filled cushion filler inside and is deliciously plump and squashy.
It’s made from pink wool-rich Tweedy fabric with a funky floral design cotton material over the top.
Finally, a mid-weight linen panel with an appliqué cottage and tree to decorate in the middle.
Now that I’ve got a little repertoire of hand stitches mastered, I’m ready to move on.
I’ve been practising:
- Twisted Daisy Border Stitch
- Sheaf Stitch
- Tete De La Boeuf
- Russian Chain Stitch
- Rosette of Thorns
If you’re looking for inspiration and help with hand embroidery, I recommend Sarah’s Hand Embroidery.
Best apple crumble recipe
Who doesn’t like a good crumble? Apple crumble is a firm favourite and Bramley’s are the queen of apples for this delicious dessert.
Ingredients
- 3 or 4 Bramley apples
- 200g plain flour
- 175g caster sugar
- 100g butter
- A little water
Rub the butter, flour and sugar together until they resemble fine breadcrumbs.
Peel, core and slice the apples into an ovenproof dish.
Spoon approximately 8 tbs of water over the apple slices. You want a little puddle of water on the bottom of the dish but don’t drown them.
Cover the apple slices with the crumble mixture and place in a hot oven at 190 for 25 – 35 mins.
Serve with cream, custard or vanilla ice cream.
No More Mondays 