Easter-ish round up

I didn't manage to post these photos before Easter, so though I would do an Easter-ish post. Above are the butterfly cakes with additional chocolate mini eggs which disappeared very quickly!

These were some of the cards I sent out this year and thoroughly enjoyed making them.

This card was for a friend's birthday and she really likes the slow drawing patterns.  

This morning, on my meander round the garden, I saw my old friend the unnamed fringed tulip.

A small Choisya 'White Dazzler' which I bought a year ago is flowering happily...

...as is Magnolia 'Fairy Blush'. I really should give this a bit of love and care - it has been somewhat ignored recently.

Finally, this morning the blueberries were a-buzz with bees, so hopefully we should get another good crop of berries later in the year.  We are due some hot (for the UK at this time of year - up to 27 degrees centigrade, which is ten degrees higher than usual for the time of year) weather this coming week, so I will be planning the watering regime for the pots carefully so that I make best use of this precious resource.

Easter

To all those celebrating Easter, may I wish you a Happy Easter.  It was a beautiful day yesterday, with sunshine and blue sky but today it has turned misty and cloudy.  I am sure that Easter egg hunts and other festivities will still be enjoyed by those taking part.  Above are some of the Easter cards I sent out this year.  The cat with bunny ears was inspired by Tim Holtz, who was busy putting bunny ears on some of his photos here. 

I have also made some Easter butterfly cakes which we will be enjoying over the next day or two, assuming they last that long!

In the garden, things are starting to look more Spring-like.  Muscari (grape hyacinth) are flowering...

...and the scillas are bringing their beautiful shade of blue.

Cardamine Quinquefolia has been really pretty but is starting to die down again now.

The tulips at the front door are supposed to be Orange Emperor, but they look decidedly red to me.  however, they are very welcome, whatever they are.

The hellebores in the border are still flowering.

Here are some of the Valerie Finnis muscari I bought late in the season and planted in December, I think it was.  Their shade of pale blue is so pretty...

...and works well against the other muscari shades too.  I keep finding them popping up in the borders where I had forgotten I had planted them, so it's a nice surprise!

It's also the start of tulips in the border, which have flowered once in a pot and then get transplanted.  So far, most keep coming back, which is a bonus.  I planted them deeply and I think they like that.  The ones in pots from last Autumn are in bud, but not near to flowering just yet.

Magnolia Susan is also starting to flower and scent the garden with the lovely lemony, fresh scent. 

There is so much to enjoy and this is my favourite time of year, from now until mid-June.

Coronation day 2023

 

Image from The Coronation Emblem | The Royal Family

Like millions of others, we watched the Coronation yesterday, with all the pomp and ceremony it entails.  To see the Crown Jewels is always a treat.  To watch the 4,000 plus service personnel marching back to the Palace, then cheering the King as he took the salute was really memorable.

We celebrated in a very small way, with some cakes in red, white and blue cases. Whatever people's feelings about the monarchy, it was a day to feel proud to be British.  

Baking

 I enjoy baking - especially biscuits and cakes.  Above is a chocolate cake which I made for my sister in law's birthday last month. It is my much used go-to recipe as the cake lasts well (if you can manage not to eat it) and it stays nice and moist.  I topped it with chocolate buttercream icing and some large chocolate buttons.

We had some lemons hanging about in the kitchen so I decided to make some lemon curd.  I have said this before, but it is a very 'Spring-y' thing to make. 

 I used Delia Smith's ingredients but Nigel Slater's method and it came out beautifully - lovely and tangy. The ingredients gave me one small jar (1 lemon, 2 eggs, 3 oz sugar, 2 oz butter.)  I added some to the butter icing in these butterfly cakes and an extra splodge (technical term!) on top.  They are yummy!  

Cakes and Flowers

 As I get older, I have decided that I don't much care for birthdays (mine is rapidly approaching) any more.  They just serve to remind me that I haven't really achieved all that much since last year.  However, not wishing to be too much of a misery, there are some nice things about them.  The cakes were made for my colleagues at work and were an experiment using the Russian Roulette Revels cake (or Dis-aaaaaaster cake, if you prefer) mixture, (which I posted about last November) but in cake cases, rather than one big cake.  Well, I can confirm they were a huge success!

 I used chocolate butter cream icing and finished the chocolate theme with two Galaxy counters.  Yum!

 Of course, when given these lovely flowers by my colleague, Leanne, how could I fail to be cheerful?

 A gorgeous mixture of flowers.

 These were from another colleague, Carol.

Lovely pastel creams and pinks.
So, to paraphrase A A Milne, "Nobody can be uncheered with cakes and flowers"!

Christmas baking (part one)

Having called this post 'Christmas baking', I know these little butterfly cakes don't look particularly Christmassy.  However, they were baked as a Christmas thank you for the Porters, Maintenance and Gardeners team at work, to let them know that what they do is appreciated.  I was going to give them a box of chocolates, but Chris suggested that they would like these cakes much more, so I undertook a baking session yesterday.  They are a simple sponge recipe and the icing is butter cream (in my book, it has to be butter - margarine just doesn't taste anywhere near as nice). 

They do look quite appetising but I didn't even taste one - usually I have to test everything I bake to ensure that they are up to standard, but I forgot.  No doubt Chris will let me know!