Sugar and Crumbs chocolate icing

It's review time! The lovely folk at Sugar and Crumbs Sugar and Crumbs kindly sent me some of their new chocolate flavoured icing sugar range to try out. They've got three new flavours, Black Forest, Chocolate Milkshake and Jaffa Twist. When I offered to help test the product, I stupidly forgot to mention I have an orange allergy. I was hoping they wouldn't send me the Jaffa Twist flavour as I only thought about it after I'd had an email to say they'd posted the samples out. The flavours I received were... Black Forest and Jaffa Twist! The only thing I could think of to do was to invite people around for a baking and tasting session, to get their opinions on the orange flavour.

And so an evening of baking, icing and drinking wine was planned!

Let's start with the packaging - it's very... pink. In fact, it's pretty much all pink, which is great if you like pink, but I've never been a big fan. It's bright and eye catching, but I did have to check the (small) stickers a couple of times to make sure I'd picked up the bag of Black Forest icing rather than the Jaffa Twist. I feel that making the stickers larger or more prominent could be a big help - or colour coding the packaging to match the flavour. While having all of the brand in the bright pink packaging is great for the brand identity, it does mean finding the flavour you want a bit tricky. (To see what I mean check out the Suagr and Crumbs Facebook picture)

The Jaffa Twist icing sugar was made into buttercream and used to ice some carrot cupcakes.

As I didn't test the Jaffa Twist myself, I asked my friends what they thought of it. They all agreed that the orange flavour was quite overpowering, and drowned out the delicate cake.  None of them were too keen on this flavour saying it was too strong - as if a Terry's chocolate orange had been melted and condensed then put onto a cake.

The Black Forest icing went down a little bit better - we used some of it to make buttercream icing for some chocolate almond cupcakes.

I was looking forward to trying this one - I love cherries. It reminded me of a black forest gateaux (which I guess is the idea!) very chocolatey with a lovely hit of cherry which wasn't too strong. The others agreed that the flavouring was much better, and the cakes quickly vanished.

The last thing we created on the night were some teapot and heart biscuits, which we decorated with some Black Forest icing made up with water. Here's an action shot. These were delicious!

So, in summary - we loved the Black Forest, not so keen on the Jaffa Twist. The packaging is great if you like pink.

Don't forget to check out the Sugar and Crumbs website and to look them up on Facebook and Twitter. They have some lovely sounding flavours, and all of their products are naturally flavoured.





If you fancy making your own chocolate almond cupcakes with Black Cherry icing, here's the recipe:

Cupcake:
175g margarine (or butter)
175g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs, lightly beaten
55g ground almonds
125g self-raising flour
25g cocoa powder

Cakes are made the standard way - cream together butter and sugar, then add the vanilla and eggs slowly. Fold in flour, cocoa powder and almonds. Bake in the pre-heated oven (180 deg) for about 20-25 minutes. Easy peasy!


Icing:
Some Sugar and Crumbs Black Forest icing
Some Margarine (or butter)
Enough glace cherries for each cupcake
I didn't measure out the icing - I just eyeballed it. There is a good guide to butter icing on the Sugar and Crumbs website and on the back of the packets.

Many thanks for reading, here are some gratuitous pictures of cakes (and cookies) for you!

Another thing we learnt from this - baking nights are a fabulous idea, but try to get the baking and decorating done before the drinking!

Amazing brownies

I managed to bake this week! I was feeling a little bit off, and had planned to go to the gym but ended up baking instead.

When I said I wanted to bake, I was quized. Will it have bananas in? Will it have any strange/unusual ingredients? I guess that recently I've made a few banana-y things (leftover bananas in non-tasty cookies and a recipe for double chocolate fudge banana muffins which were pretty awful) and the sweet potato cookies were a bit unusual, but delicious, so the comments were fair. I was told that something chocolatey is always a safe bet, so made some chocolate cherry brownies.

So here we go - I even remembered to take a (bad) photo!

These were delicious. I used some chocolate cherry cocoa powder that I'd bought from Sugar and Crumbs http://www.sugarandcrumbs.co.uk/ which smelt amazing when it was opened. I also used the recipe from the website for the brownies, but left the in the oven a bit longer than it said to - I think my tin is a bit on the small side, so they ended up being very tall and taking a while to bake through.

They've gone down a treat. In fact, I've had to cut them in half to bring more into work today!

I'm now really looking forward to playing with my icing sugars, and will hopefully make some cakes this weekend (I still have lots of eggs to use up). If the cocoa pwder is anything to go by then they'll be delicious!

Small update

It's been a while since I last posted... I've not been in much of a crafty mood lately, and so haven't been doing much. His Hotness is coming along slowly, but it's tricky to see anything yet so I've not taken any pictures.

I've also been working on my Sprite Stitch swap gift - which was a bit of a disaster! It turned out far too small, so I've gone back to the drawing board. If in doubt, try again but with something you know. Supplies have been ordered and arrived on Saturday, so I'll probably make a start on it tonight. Lots of folk seem to be sending out their swap gifts, and I'm feeling majorly behind! Hopefully it'll kick me into gear and get me back into crafting.

M'aiq's face is now complete, and I've started work on the hood. It's slow going!

Hopefully another update soon, with pics if I get chance. I've got lots of eggs to use up this week (how we've ended up with 15 eggs that need using I have no idea) so there may even be cake pictures - if I remember! Most of the time I bake and forget to take photos/decide they aren't photo worthy.

Updates!

It's been a while since my last post, apologies. It's the beer festival this week, so things have been mad busy with the run up to that. This year we've had lots of little problems cropping up and in all honestly, it's been much more tricky than previous years. Still, this time next week it'll all be over.

 

So the last few posts have been pretty text heavy, as I've not been able to show you what I've been up to. Everything went well with the Science/Space swap, and my partner seemed to like what I sent, which is always a bonus! So, here we go with the pictures:

 

This is all of the handmade stuff I sent my partner. A darth vader dice bag (close up below), some Mass Effect and Star Trek magnets and a beautiful cowl, which is lovely soft merino wool that I added beads to. The pattern is called Equatorial Nights (it's from Ravelry) and each of the beads is placed to represent a star in the night sky, as viewed from the equator. I really didn't want to send it off, and have a feeling I may make it again for myself!

Dice bag close up

 

And the cowl in all of it's starry glory!

 

I also sent of a few other bits and pieces, some chocolate, a Word mug, some yarn etc.

 

But I know what you really want to know is what I received, right?

 

A lovely project bag, a yoda zip bag, a scarf in space-y colours, chocolate, some lovely vanilla chai tea (soooooo tasty!) a book which I haven't started yet (halfway through the first Game of Thrones book atm) some wool and an AMAZING Worf bookmark. I had so much fun unwrapping everything! Now I just need to find a pattern for the wool...

Speaking of which, I found a beautiful jumper pattern the other day, and ordered lots of wool for it. Must knit faster... New project is on the needles - His Hotness. There's nothing to show except for stripes at the moment, so I haven't taken a picture yet. Once it gets a bit more interesting I'll post one.

I did get some more work done on M'aiq - here he is as of the end of June. Since then I've filled in all of the gaps on his face. Now I just need to do his hood!

The next task is going to be the Sprite Stitch swap - I know what I want to make, I've ordered what I need, now I just need to start it. There's a second item I'm considering making, but I'll see how the first goes and how I'm doing for time.

I need to go and chase beer deliveries now - wish me luck! I'll post after the beer festival, if I survive.



Freedom! Well, kinda

It's been a hectic few weeks. Unexpected work trips, illnesses and exams do not make for a fun time. However I'm back, I'm well and all of my exams have been done - and passed! Last weekend I went away with 13 friends, which was a lovely, much needed break. Now all I have to do is choose 60 Cheshire ales and design a beer festival programme, and sort out some accounts for the football club.... so I'm free-er than I was, but not completely free just yet.

I'm afraid I haven't much I can say on the crafting front. I've finished two items for the Ravelry Science/Space swap that I'm doing, but won't be posting pictures until they've been sent/received. I've also signed up for a mini swap on Sprite Stitch, so that's more stuff that I'll be making and not posting online. Once I've finished with the Ravelry swap items, I'll try to make a little something to post, so it's not too text heavy. I've been looking at M'aiq again, and I think he may be one of my next projects - I can't wait to have him finished and framed! I also have my secret project that I'm itching to start... Plus there are lots more squares I want to do for the GAL blanket... Oh, and a friend wanted some baby stuff making for her new arrival in Sept... I have a feeling that it's going to be a busy few months craft-wise!

So in summary - no new info, lots to make, pics to come next month. Yay!

Still here!

It's been a while since I blogged, and I'm afraid I haven't got anything new to share. I've been busy knitting for a Geek Swap on Ravelry (Science and Space themed) so I won't be uploading photos until that's all finished and received by the spoilee.

I've not been able to craft as much as I'd have liked either - I was planning to get loads done during the bank holiday weekend, but my boss lost his passport, so instead of crafting, I ended up flying to Venice on the Sunday, and meeting up with some business colleagues. I then had to drive from Venice to Strasbourg over 2 days (while stopping to meet customers) before travelling back by train on Wednesday. When I got home, I felt pretty rubbish, but assumed it was because of all the travel - turns out I'd picked up a nasty bug/virus, and I ended up being ill all of the following weekend (sleeping roughly 19 hours a day, impressive!). I'm almost recovered now, but still finding it tricky to concentrate on something for a long time, and staring at a computer screen isn't the most fun thing to do. No knitting has been done in over 10 days - unheard of for me! I'm hoping to get back into it this weekend.... however I've had to rearrange an exam, so I now have exams Mon and Tues next week and believe the weekend will be mostly spent revising madly. The boy is away with work this week (went this morning) so at least the house will be quiet and I can get lots done hopefully.

I'm really glad these are the last two exams of the year - it'll be so nice to get them done with! I still need to decide if I want to do next year or not. It seems silly not to do it, but there's a lot more work involved next year I believe.

I've also signed up for a mini swap on Sprite Stitch again - I had a long hard think, and I really don't think that I can do a larger swap justice, even though the time frame is longer than usual.

Right, I'm off to try and get better so that I can get some revision (and perhaps a tiny bit of knitting) done. I've seen lots of errors in this post and have changed them, but no doubt some have still got through! Toodles.

GAL squares

I promised some new stuff, so here are my first 2 double knitted squares for the GAL.

X-Men Square, front and back

And a pirate square, front and back.

 

Really enjoying the double knitting, but taking a quick break. Need to make things for a Science and Space swap that I'm doing on Ravelry. I've got a few ideas in mind, just need to get them onto the needles. Once the swap's out of the way, I've got another couple of projects in mind, including some baby stuff for a pregnant friend and a lovely little something for me!