Ingredients:

• 10 digestive biscuits
• 50g melted butter, cooled
• 600g cream cheese
• 150ml sour cream
• 1tsp vanilla paste
• 2 tsp lavender syrup
• 1 heaped dessertspoon plain flour
• 150g golden caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 pot wild blueberry conserve
• 1 tbsp lavender flowers
• 1 punnet of fresh blueberries

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4
2. Place the biscuits in a food processor and blitz until it becomes a fine crumb.  Alternatively place the biscuits in a plastic food bag, and bash with a rolling pin.
3. Place the crumbs into a bowl, and add in the melted butter. Stir, making sure all the crumbs have been coated in the butter.
4. Cover the base of a 20cm spring form pan with the butter crumb mix.
5. Bake the biscuit base in the oven for 5-10 mins. Then remove from the oven to cool.
6. In a food mixer, add the cheese, cream, vanilla paste, lavender syrup, flour, sugar and eggs (including the extra yolk), and mix until all the ingredients have been well combined.
7. Pour cheese mix onto the cooled biscuit base. Tap gently to ensure there are no air bubbles.
8. Place the cake tin on the middle shelf of the oven, and bake for 35 mins, until the cake has set.
9. Turn off the oven and leave the cake to gently cool down in the oven. This should hopefully help prevent any cracks forming.  However it does not matter if cracks do appear, as the top will be covered.
10. When the cake has cooled, place in the fridge for at least 30 mins.
11. For the topping, mix the lavender flowers and blueberry conserve in a saucepan and gently heat over a low flame.
12. Remove the conserve mix and allow to cool for about 10 mins.
13. Stir in half the fresh blueberries into the conserve mix.
14. Take the cheesecake out of the fridge and pour the blueberry conserve mix on top.
15. Top off the cheesecake with the remaining fresh blueberries.

To decorate, I added a fresh sprig of mint and dusted with sugar.  Serve with some extra sour cream or thick natural yogurt and a huge pot of tea.

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BusyElleBee

Food ~ Photography ~ Music ~ Design ~ Life

Recipe Developer | Photographer | Music Producer | Designer | Blogger

If you would like to know more about BusyElleBee, please click the link BusyElleBee

If you would like to know more about Recipe Development, Photography, Music Production, Design or would like an exclusive BusyElleBee guest post for your blog, please click BusyElleBee

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BusyElleBee

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BusyElleBee

Hello,

Above is a video I made featuring highlights of the photo exhibition by Karl Lagerfeld, called Chanel: The Little Black Jacket. The Exhibition is on until 28th October, at the Saatchi Gallery in London.

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BusyElleBee

Food ~ Photography ~ Music ~ Design ~ Life

Recipe Developer | Photographer | Music Producer | Designer | Blogger

If you would like to know more about BusyElleBee, please click the link BusyElleBee

If you would like to know more about Recipe Development, Photography, Music Production, Design or would like an exclusive BusyElleBee guest post for your blog, please click BusyElleBee

If you wish to contact BusyElleBee, please click
BusyElleBee

“The Foreign World of High Fashion”

Chanel: The Little Black Jacket – an exhibition of photographs by Karl Lagerfeld

Saatchi Gallery, London

October2012

© Busyellebee

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BusyElleBee

Food ~ Photography ~ Music ~ Design ~ Life

Recipe Developer | Photographer | Music Producer | Designer | Blogger

If you would like to know more about BusyElleBee, please click the link BusyElleBee

If you would like to know more about Recipe Development, Photography, Music Production, Design or would like an exclusive BusyElleBee guest post for your blog, please click BusyElleBee

If you wish to contact BusyElleBee, please click
BusyElleBee

Reblogged from Busy Elle Bee:

I came across this recipe in the March 2011 edition of Country Kitchen magazine, and decided to give the recipe a try. The recipe recommends serving with either marmalade or brown bread ice cream. However, I was keen to try a new ginger flavoured yogurt I purchased yesterday, and it worked! It saves on the calories, as I keep trying to kid myself.

Read more… 220 more words

© Busyellebee

“The Night Watch”

2011

© Busyellebee

“Hitting the big time”

October 2012

© Busyellebee

Hello,

http://www.coletterie.com/sewalongs/anise-sewalong

Welcome to the further adventures of my Anise jacket.  Having spent the weekend fretting and trying desperately trying to catch up, today I am finally at the stage where I can cut out my muslin test jacket.

I’m getting myself super organised – look, I even did a mood board for my muslin test. We are going hard core people, we are most certainly not mucking about here.

OK, so you may be thinking, “Why on earth go through all the trouble of creating a mood board, just for a tester jacket?”

Well, it occurred to me that making a tester muslin is not only a very useful exercise to ensure that when it comes to the real thing, I don’t goof it up, but it also creates opportunities.   Most people discard their muslin testers, some reuse them either as fabric patterns as opposed to paper patterns, or recycle them for other projects.  To me it seems a shame to go through all that trouble and not have something tangible at the end.  The advantages for me are, I will have 2 jackets by the end of this adventure.  Plus I need a new a jacket, for when I am digging about in the garden.

Preparing this jacket will also allow me to practice some skills, such as piping work, and making bias binding. Hence, I have decided to add piping at every seam, allowing me to use up some scrap material, which otherwise would have gone to waste. The fabric was already in my stash, purchased at a sale ages ago, so all minimum cost. And if I goof up, no matter, as it is a tester, and if it turns out OK, I will the most stylish gardener in town.

Win win situation, me thinks

Just to let you know, I omitted the collar, as I don’t have enough denim, and I am making a single-breasted jacket as opposed to double-breasted, as I think it will suit me better.

That’s all for now, see you next time!

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• Colette Anise Sew-a-long: Week 1 – My ‘Chanel’ Jacket Challenge (busyellebee.wordpress.com)
• Colette Anise Sew-a-long – Week 2, part 2: The great pattern assembly job (busyellebee.wordpress.com)
• Colette Anise Sew-a-long: Week 2 – A lining saga (busyellebee.wordpress.com)
• Colette Patterns Sew Along – I’m in, are you? (busyellebee.wordpress.com)
• Colette Anise Jacket sew-a-long – Pictorial blog launch (busyellebee.wordpress.com)

Crickey! It’s Saturday already? It can’t be! Right er, here is the update on my jacket.  There is no update!

It took me longer than expected to join up all the sheets of paper to form the pattern.  I must admit it was more fun to do that it should have been.  Why is it that whenever there is paper, sticky tape and a pair of scissors involved I get my Blue Peter on and I’m instantly transported back to school girl status?  Be grateful that there wasn’t any glue or glitter involved,  otherwise I would still be playing!

That said, instead of the expected 1 evening, it took me 2 evenings to stick the pieces together.  It was HUGE.  Enough to cover a king sized bed.  I’m seriously considering printing out the pattern again on some plain cream cotton and then making a patchwork quilt.  You could dye the separate pieces in different colours and then add some batting, a few buttons, some embroidery, gosh this would make an ideal gift for the enthusiastic sewer in you life!

But back to the jacket.  A few tips:

• Have plenty, and I mean plenty of sticky tape. There is nothing worse than having to stop and spend ages looking for that elusive roll you thought you had stashed away in the stationery cupboard.  If you like having a well stocked sewing basket, consider adding a couple of rolls of sticky tape. They often come in handy, especially for mending tears in paper patterns.
• Use a sharp pair of paper scissors. Do not, under any circumstances use your fabric shears – not even for just that small pocket paper pattern. Your fabric shears are for your fabric only. They need to be sharp at all times. Paper will only dull them and ruin your expensive fabric.
• Clear a large space. There is going to be bits of paper flying around all over the place.  Make sure you have enough space and good lighting is essential. A good comfy chair or stool is also a good idea.
• Be patient. Goes without saying!
• Have a large bin or garbage bag close to hand. When you eventually get round to cutting out the pieces, you will save a lot of time and effort when you cut directly over the bin.  Your life is too precious to be spending hours picking up a mountain of stray bits of paper. Just scoop up the bag or bin and discard in one go.
• Save large pieces of scrap paper.  Essential if you need to adjust your pattern. If you are printing out your pattern like me, the large blank areas are often enough for use for this purpose. Save the planet and all that.
• Take plenty of breaks. After a couple of hours, go and do something completely different, even if all you do is make a cup of tea. I love piecing together paper patterns, but there comes a time when even I get paper cabin fever.

When all the pieces have been cut out, double check they are all there and then place them all immediately in a large envelope or folder. Better still make a list on the back of the envelope or folder of all the pieces, ie A – Collar, B – Cuff, C – Sleeve etc.  That way if you need to print or replace a pattern piece, you know which section to print out.  Plus it is a good idea to store the pieces in alphabetical order, so any missing pieces are instantly identifiable.

That’s about it for now. I’m way behind, as I has hoped to have finished my muslin and pattern altering by now. Opps!.  I guess that will be the next post.

Oh and one more tip, when it comes to cutting out the fabric or adjusting the patterns to suit your frame, remember to measure twice and cut once. And measure everything. Yes it is an absolute bind, but these garments are bespoke pieces, they are for you and/or your loved ones. Many a shirt or dress have been ruined because this vital part of the process was skipped.  People pay thousands to have bespoke items made, and you have the gift and talent to make bespoke items for yourself. Do yourself a favour. Measure. Then measure again. Then after that make some more measures!

OK lecture over! If you have any tips you would like to share, please leave a comment below.  Check out my photo blog here!

Related articles

• Colette Anise Sew-a-long: Week 2 – A lining saga (busyellebee.wordpress.com)

There are far too many things that make me happy to put into 1 post.  Therefore, I have created a Flickr page where I have added all the photos of things which make me happy. Some are obvious, some cryptic and some just plain odd.  But then doesn’t that sum us all up?

Please visit “The Happiness Collection“, and comment either here or on the Flickr account.  Many thanks for viewing. 

Oh, I shall be adding to this collection as and when I discover things that make me happy, so please pop back to check out the new additions.  Enjoy!

© Busyellebee

2012

Adele – Seattle, WA – 8/12/2011 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Oh dear.

When I first heard Adele was the front runner for the new James Bond movie theme, like many others, I believed it to be an inspired choice.  After the 2 previous very disappointing and lack-lustre themes by Chris Cornell and the Jack White and Alicia Keys duet (I feel bad mentioning Alicia Keys’ name in the same sentence as lack-lustre!), Adele seemed to hit the right notes – brilliant voice, fantastic lyricist, 60s glam, and with her usual ‘fire/burning’ themes she tends to revisit in her lyrics, Adele to me became the obvious, natural fit.

When she got the gig – the Bond fan club world rejoiced!

Then the title of the movie was published – my heart sank.

Skyfall, sounds like an authentic and emotive enough title for a Bond movie, however as a title for a song, a theme song at that, it doesn’t leave much scope.  Try writing a lyric where the subject is Skyfall, it seems easy, until you actually try to do it.  All, Ball, Call, Fall, Gall, Hall, Mall, Pall, Tall, Wall, Y’all, and I’ve run out of viable options. From that uninspiring short list, you can only really use all, call, fall, tall and wall - risking a lazy sounding and repetitive lyric.

Adele, as brilliant a lyrist as she is, was well onto a loser with this. Fortunately, her voice and performance carries this song. The melody, capturing variations on the original signature Bond theme by Monty Norman is perfect, rich in tone, packed full of opulent orchestral sounds.

Adele manages to create the essence of Shirley Bassey, without mimicking her. It is just a shame that the subject matter of the song was not as all in capturing as say “Goldfinger”. Yes, I know a Bond theme is about the music with less emphasis on the lyrics, but if you are going to employ the services of a genius talent such as Adele, who is known for her brilliant song writing, then for goodness sakes, give her some room to create a masterpiece, not restrict her with a near impossible theme like Skyfall.

Brave attempt especially with such a restrictive mandate, well performed, but lyrically you simply can not make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Please give Adele a better song title next time!

Rating: 3 out of 5

Now I invite you to listen to Adele’s ‘Rolling in the deep‘, an example of Adele at her best. When given free rein, the difference is clear.

Related articles

• Watch Adele’s Official ‘Skyfall’ Lyric Video (mashable.com)
• LISTEN: Adele’s 007 Theme Song ‘Skyfall’ Debuts (movieline.com)

********************

BusyElleBee

Food ~ Photography ~ Music ~ Design ~ Life

Recipe Developer | Photographer | Music Producer | Designer | Blogger

If you would like to know more about BusyElleBee, please click the link BusyElleBee

If you would like to know more about Recipe Development, Photography, Music Production, Design or would like an exclusive BusyElleBee guest post for your blog, please click BusyElleBee

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Just a short update – you can follow my Anise/Chanel jacket sewing adventures in pictorial form here Anise Photos.

There is going to be a lot of fun and plenty of stress as I attempt to make this jacket. So stay tuned to find out how I’m getting along.

So far I have posted my lining options, I still have to decide which one to use, so if you have a favourite, please help me, pick one and comment below.  If you are also taking part in this challenge, please comment – we can laugh and cry together

Related articles

• Colette Anise Sew-a-long: Week 2 – A lining saga (busyellebee.wordpress.com)
• Colette Anise Sew-a-long: Week 1 – My ‘Chanel’ Jacket Challenge (busyellebee.wordpress.com)
• Colette Patterns Sew Along – I’m in, are you? (busyellebee.wordpress.com)

Week 2, and I’ve just about recovered from the pre-shrinking fiasco, only to be faced with a new fashionable dilemma.  I went lining fabric shopping a couple of days ago, and as usual spent far too much on yards and yards of fabric, most of it destined for the back of my sewing cupboard.

To add to my already mountainous stash, I purchased a striped black, maroon and gold flower print silk, plain black cotton and some light gold satin. I also purchased some black and white check sheer fabric, as it was a bargain.

Black, black and more black. Yes it appears I have yet to grow out of my Chanel phase.

So, as I was carefully putting away my new acquisitions, I found in the far depths of my cupboard some printed cotton fabric, that I had meant to make up into various garments ages ago. I suddenly thought that this could also be ideal as a jacket lining.

So having gone shopping to specifically find an ideal jacket lining, I now have 4 choices, one of which was lying in a cupboard all along. What to do, what to do? Yes, I am trying to put my own spin on a Chanel style jacket, but I should also have a little fun, right?  The plain black cotton is tres Chanel, the striped flower lining is chic and playful, the light gold is a little extravagant, but the fashion print is fun, and using this means I can make matching items such as a skirt, dress, scarf, etc etc.  ARGH! I bet Karl Lagerfeld doesn’t have all this aggro!

This is on top of a printer which refuses to print more than 8 pages, without chewing up a perfectly good piece of paper for no good reason. With nearly 100 PDF pages to print, I am questioning why I didn’t opt for the nice pre-printed pattern booklet. I do like to make life hard for myself! (A donation will be sent to Greenpeace shortly).

Now I have to piece the pattern together. Actually, I find that part fun.  It’s like a massive jigsaw puzzle, but far easier to solve. Then I get to cut bits of paper out and stick them together with sticky tape. Seriously, this is better than play school!

I also have to complete my mood board, I still haven’t found my ideal buttons – well actually I did, but there were only 2 left, and I need at least 8. Sourcing affordable black interfacing is also proving rather difficult.

Hope to start on my muslin test tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Are you taking part with the Anise sew-a-long? Please feel free to share your tips and ideas here

Related articles

• Colette Anise Sew-a-long: Week 1 – My ‘Chanel’ Jacket Challenge (busyellebee.wordpress.com)
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Well week 1 of the Colette Anise sew-a-long has started – and I already feel like I need another week to recover! I was so excited when the email arrived from Colette to say that the sew-a-long was finally going to start.  Dutifully and carefully I followed the preliminary instructions, here is my account:-

1) Source and buy the fabric,

2) Gather notions and equipment,

3) Preshrink fabric … huh? Preshrink fabric?  How on earth do you do that to 10 meters of boucle fabric? Cotton fabric, you just chuck into the washing machine and away you go. You can’t do that with wool, can you?

It suddenly dawns that perhaps buying 10 meters of ‘bargain’ boucle did have a ‘catch’ after all.  Fortunately, those rather clever people at Collette had no less than 3 options for me to consider in order to solve this problem.  The fist was to send the fabric to the dry cleaners  and ask them to preshrink it.  What? They charged me a small fortune to dry clean a dress recently and they managed to muck that up.  I dare not ask them to do the same to my lovely fabric.

The 3rd option was to take the fabric to my local launderette and ask them to wash it with a damp tea towel. I have never been to a launderette and see no reason to start now.  Therefore, I was left with option number 2 – to perform a task referred to as a ‘London Preshrink’.  Ah! it’s called London, anything which includes the word London in the title can’t be that hard. Heck London just hosted the greatest event on earth, preshrinking fabric is a piece of cake!

Task: Preshrink fabric – London method.

1) Locate an old bed sheet and soak it with lukewarm water.  No problem.

2) Wring out sheet. Ah!, this is where my Zumba classes come in handy – at least they would have, had I attended.

3) Wrap fabric in damp bed sheet and leave over night. OK this is where I wished I had gone for option number 3. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to wrap up 10 meters of very heavy fabric in an old double bed sheet?  The fact that the sheet was at least 4 times smaller than the fabric was bad enough, but trying to wrap the fabric in the sheet, whilst keeping it neat and tidy is a near impossible task.  After 5 brave attempts, and the use of all 4 of my limbs, (5 limbs, if you include trying to balance the fabric on my head, and failing miserably), I ended up with a dishevelled bundle, with half the fabric left uncovered.  Said bundle was left overnight in the bathtub.  I attached a huge brightly coloured post-it note on the bathroom door to remind myself not to panic if I enter the bathroom the following morning in my half sleepy stupor and see a huge mass in the tub.  It is not an axe murderer, just my boucle.

Next day, I read the note (thank goodness), and unwrap fabric.  Hmm, but I have to preshrink the other half of the fabric! I couldn’t risk cutting the fabric, as I hope to make a dress and skirt from the remaining part. Urgh! So I repeat the process for the non preshrinked half of fabric, with surprisingly more difficulty than yesterday! I remembered to keep the post-it note on the door.

Day 3, I wake up, read post it note, I unwrap the fabric and set aside to dry. And may I add never again! It is always good to try new things, and I know now never, ever to try this again! There is a reason why launderettes exist!

I then refer back to the instructions which read, “Iron fabric” … WHAT?????

I wonder what time the launderette opens?

I just have to keep reminding myself of my goal to have a jacket just like this …

Onwards and upwards! More next week (if I have recovered in time.)

Related articles

• Colette Patterns Sew Along – I’m in, are you? (busyellebee.wordpress.com)

© Busyellebee

“My Autumn Sunshine”

September 2012

© Busyellebee

I thought some of you may like to see a few pictures I took of the cakes that were displayed at the Cake and Bake Show over the weekend.  Here they are!

Highlights of the beach themed cake decorating competition

*****

Peggy Porschen Cakes

*****

Highlights from the Wedding Cake Showroom (or to be more accurate, Wedding Cake Table!)

Related articles

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No prizes for guessing who went along to the massively hyped Cake and Bake Show in Earls Court over the weekend.  But what a mixed bag. The fact that the event was held at Earl’s Court, which I will happily nominate as easily the worse venue in South East England, should have alerted me as to  what was in store – or rather wasn’t.

Day one, by 12 noon, some of the vendors were running out of goods to sell, a mere 2 hours after the doors opened. To make matters worse and the Earls Court vendors had run out of food well before lunch time, leaving many visitors angry, frustrated and hungry.  Ironic as this was a food show!

If you are a cupcake decorating enthusiast, then you would have been in your element. There were a huge variety of cup cake cases, decorating tools, all kinds of food dyes, brushes, even a few (highly priced) cup cake decorating cutters to satisfy the Rembrandts of the cake decorating world. However, if you are more keen on making the cupcakes themselves or lean towards bread and bread making, the variety sadly was simply not there.

The organizers missed a trick, a massive one. Yes cupcakes are a big deal, and so are cake pops, but their popularity has reached it’s peak. There were several calling out for more information regarding other forms of baking, but with the show dominated my cupcake decorators, they left disappointed.

The huge crowds no doubt made the accountants happy, but it didn’t make for an enjoyable experience for ticket holders. In a small enclosed area, with loads of hungry, tired and irritable people, tempers soon flare. Reports of people waiting in line for over an hour for refreshments, only to reach the end and be told there was nothing left, were not uncommon.

Freebies were few and far between, but what was a huge shocker was the A3 sized programme (yes a ridiculously huge and highly impracticable), which cost a princely sum of £3, with little content. But that wasn’t the worse. There was a goodie bag to go with said programme, only many people were not informed about it! Wait it gets worse! Those few who were informed – it was pot luck what you got in your goodie bag. Some went away laden with all manner of cake decorating goodies, while some were lucky if they got 1 small bottle of vanilla flavouring.  Yet everyone who purchased the programme all paid the same £3.

Who said “FRAUD”?

Day 2 was slightly better, but only because there were slightly fewer people.  I managed to see a few demos, and attended a couple of interesting talks, but the shine had been taken from the event by the bad organisation and the foray over the programme/goodie debacle.

A cake and bake show which didn’t have any much cake or bakeware for sale, and few good quality cupcakes to eat. A show which labelled a table of wedding cakes as a ‘showroom’, and where people paid and extra £8 for extra classes, that anyone could attend for free.

In all, nice try, but must do better.

Rating 1.5 out of 5 (and that’s only because I’m feeling generous).

Related articles

• The Cake and Bake Show 2012 (calmyourbeans.wordpress.com)

“September Bloom”

September 2012

© Busyellebee

I rarely use sliced bread, but I had a few slices left over from a project and wanted to use it up.  I also have a glut of beautiful yellow and red cherry tomatoes, and a lovely block of cheddar cheese in the fridge. Hence the idea for this recipe.

Elle’s Savoury Bread Pudding 

Ingredients:

• 4 slices of white bread, crusts removed and each slice cut into 4 triangles
• 1 large egg, beaten
• a splash of milk
• 1 heaped dessert spoon cream cheese
• handful of cheddar cheese, grated
• handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
• 3 spring onions, roughly chopped
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. In a small rectangle shaped dish, arrange the bread triangles, so that they look like this -
   
2. Add the tomatoes to the dish, poking them in between the bread slices.
3. In a separate bowl mix together the egg, milk and cream cheese until well blended.
4. Add the spring onions and seasoning to the egg mix and stir well.
5. Pour the egg mix over the bread and tomatoes in the dish, and set aside for about 15 minutes to allow the liquid to soak into the bread.
6. Top the pudding with the grated cheese and bake in a preheated oven at Gas Mark 4 for 12-15 mins, until the top is golden brown and the egg mix has set.

Serve immediately with boiled new potatoes and/or a fresh leafy green side salad. You can also just eat this on it’s own.

After my honeycomb experiments over the past 2 weeks, I have a mountainous supply of honeycomb.  What to do?  Make caramel sauce!

Elle’s Honeycomb Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1/2 – 1 cup Honeycomb, large broken chunks
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup milk or cream

Method:

1. Gently heat the honeycomb in a saucepan over a low heat, until it melts and becomes a smooth, glossy liquid.
2. Pour in the milk or cream (I used semi-skimmed milk) and stir until combined.
3. Add 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract, and stir in.  Taste, being careful not to burn yourself. You can add more vanilla at this stage until you achieve the taste you require. But be aware, if you are using this sauce over strong tasting vanilla icecream, you may wish to leave the amount of extract as is.

Serve warm over icecream, or cool and store in the fridge until required.  Great over chocolate icecream too, or as a dip for biscuits.

I didn’t use cream, as I thought with all that sugar, glucose syrup and calories, you have to show goodness somewhere! As the trend for salted caramel is still strong, why not add 1/2 tsp of sea salt to the mixture, instead of extra vanilla. Yum!

If you are still feeling a little guilty, a drizzle of this sauce works wonders over fresh apple, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries.

Have a go, and let me know what you think. Thanks

Related articles

• If I had a hammer … Take 3 ingredients: Honeycomb – Recipe (busyellebee.wordpress.com)
• My little treat (or what to do with failed honeycomb) (busyellebee.wordpress.com)

I was reminded the other day that I should always be open to new ideas.  By chance I visited a local clothes shop and came across a rather lovely scarf on sale. Naturally I snapped it up.

It then occurred to me that the colour scheme of the scarf closely matched that of my curtains.  I’m not sure if that is a good thing to admit to, but hey! Unconventional, that’s me!

Anyway, here, I fashioned the scarf into a curtain tie back, and I think it looks rather good. So when I get fed up with the scarf, I can cut it in half, back it with some coordinating fabric and I will have a nice pair of tie backs.

Now that’s how you do sales shopping

Hello,

This is just a little treat I made with the failed honeycomb. I melted it in a saucepan, added some milk and a few drops of vanilla extract. Then I poured the resulting caramel sauce over a slice of lemon poppy seed cake, topped with a scoop of vanilla yogurt ice cream. I added a strawberry for good measure.

Yum! Not bad for a standby when you have unexpected guests.  Or when you need to get rid of some honeycomb!

I promise I will do an extra lap tomorrow – honest!

Take care

Related articles

• If I had a hammer … Take 3 ingredients: Honeycomb – Recipe (busyellebee.wordpress.com)

© Busyellebee

“Forget-me-not, however near or far”

May 2012

© Busyellebee

Hello,

Have you ever wondered how to make tahini?  Well wonder no more! Just 3 ingredients, and you will have about a cup of this marvellous sauce, and what’s more, it’s simple to make, fresher and cheaper than shop brought tahini and it tastes better too. Added bonus, you can use the sauce as a base for other recipes.

Elle’s Tahini Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup sesame seeds
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 tbsp toasted sesame oil

Method:

1. In a heavy based saucepan gently toast the sesame seeds until the turn a pale brown colour. Be careful, as they can easily burn.
2. Place the lightly toasted sesame seeds in a blender, along with the oils and blitz until smooth.
3. Decant into a jar or small dish and serve

Store the tahini in the fridge. This recipe yields about a cup, and ideally should be used up as soon as possible.  I only intend to keep mine for no more than a week, but some say fresh homemade tahini can last for as long as 3 months.

Like any recipe is ever going to last that long in my kitchen!

Like this recipe? Please comment below.

Thanks and see you next time.

2 weeks, 4 attempts and tonnes of sticky, gooey caramel later, I finally cracked the honeycomb recipe.  You would have thought that a recipe which only has 3 ingredients and takes 20 minutes to make would not have caused so much aggravation, but boy did this cause me to shed tears!

Many recipes for honeycomb, or Hokey Pokey, to use it’s proper Cornish name, (other names include cinder toffee, sea foam and puff candy) uses a ratio of 4 tbsp of golden syrup to every 100 grams of sugar. In there lies the problem, every time I used this recipe, the results were sticky masses of golden caramel, which ended up everywhere, instead of where it was supposed to go – in my tummy.

So what was I doing wrong, why wouldn’t it set properly?  Should I put it in the fridge (2nd attempt)? Should I cook the sugar mixture longer (3rd attempt)? Tried that, didn’t work. On the plus side, I know that my smoke alarm is in good working order.

Airing out my frustrations to my friends, one of them by chance asked if I was using too much sugar.  I said no, but I did wonder if perhaps there was too much golden syrup. So, being the determined, some might say stubborn sort,  I made another batch, this time halving the amount of syrup. Would you believe it, it worked!

Honeycomb recipe

Ingredients:

• 100g white caster sugar
• 2 tbsp golden syrup
• 1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda

Method:

1. Tip: boil a kettle full of water – trust me, it will save you alot of time and effort later!
2. In a heavy bottomed saucepan (I used a stainless steel pan – don’t use your best or most expensive pan for this!), place the sugar and then the golden syrup. If you wish, you can stir the ingredients together.
3. Cook on a high flame or temperature until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is bubbling rapidly.  The colour of the mixture will darken, it is important that you must not stir it. If one area of the mixture is getting darker, then swirl the pan carefully until the colour evens up.
4. After a cooking time of about 10 mins, and the sugar has fully dissolved, turn off the heat and immediately add the bicarbonate of soda.
5. Using a metal whisk, stir the mixture for about 5 seconds and then immediately pour the contents of the pan onto a silicone sheet or a greased baking pan. Set aside to cool.
6. Return the pan to the stove as soon as possible, add the whisk, then pour the hot water from the kettle into the pan.  Be careful not to splash either the hot water or sugar mix on to you.  This should remove the worse of the sugar mix, and then you should only have to gently clean the pan and whisk.
7. When the honeycomb has hardened and cooled slightly, turn out on to a sheet of greased proof paper, and place on a wire rack to help the honeycomb to crisp up.
8. After a few minutes, when the honeycomb has fully cooled, it is ready to break up and serve.

I was so proud of my golden disk of honeycomb, that it seemed a shame to have to break it up. I rather alarmingly quickly got over it, when I couldn’t find my heavy, metal meat mallet. It is so rare to get the chance to break things up, and now it seemed my chance had gone.  So I experimented – first with the back of spoon, not very effective, then a pestle,

effective but not that satisfying.  Then finally my trusty rolling pin.

Bish, bash, bosh!

It is true, you can have too much fun with a rolling pin. And yes, I scare myself sometimes too! If only I had thought of using my hammer …

If you try this recipe, please let me know how it turned out for you. Store the honeycomb in an airtight container, wrapped in grease proof paper. It should last for about a week.

Take care, until next time

However, butterflies tend to fly around and I couldn’t take a photo I was happy with. So I decided to make this challenge even harder by making my first ever live action film. Steven Spielberg need not worry, this isn’t a blockbuster, but it has opened my eyes to a new medium and while it isn’t a master piece, it was extremely fun to do.

Yes I know strictly speaking this isn’t a photo, but then film is a series of moving images as opposed to a static image … kinda

So here it is, my first film short. Hope you like it!