Competition Wins: Benefit and Cath Kidston

I thought that I'd do a quick post on a couple of things that I've won lately. Both came through the post this last week, which was a nice surprise.
The first was an umbrella from Benefit Cosmetics. It was a Twitter giveaway for their popular blusher, Hervana, (which I really want need to get!) being a year old. It didn't turn up after some weeks, so I sent a message to Benefit querying this, who quickly replied and dispatched me another one in under a week, which was great. I wanted a new umbrella, and this one is really pretty, with a proper, vintage-y curled handle, so I am a happy bunny right now!

 Above is a cheeky sneak peak at my new bedding. I'm waiting for my curtains to be made, and I'm thinking of getting a dresser or chest of drawers, then I will do a bedroom post ;)

Next, came my Cath Kidston oven mitt from the lovely Victoria of Victoria's Vintage. I was really happy when I opened this up, as the mitt came in one of my favourite prints, Trailing Floral. The giveaway was sponsored by the Lifestyle Boutique, whom I would love to start buying from. They wrapped the oven mitt up in their signature gift wrap, which was a nice touch. I haven't been able to try it out yet, but by the feel of the fabric, it is pretty heat resistant, which is a must.

Hopefully, these will be the first of many competition wins... fingers crossed!

Spring Cupcake Decorating

A few days ago I noticed a novelty cake decorating competition by Cath Kidston. I had offered to bring some cakes in for the students in my lower-school form group, so I decided to hit two birds with one stone, and I hit the shops for supplies. Whilst looking for inspiration from magazines, recipe books and Pinterest, I quickly began to realise that making anything fantastically 'novel' and good enough to be worthy of note wasn't exactly going to be easy. But competition or not, I felt like going crazy with decorating cupcakes, so I got stuck in!

 I found a gorgeous flower cake topper mold from the weekly Cake Decorating magazine, which provided some inspiration. I made lemony sponges using lemon zest and lemon curd, topped with a swirl of lavender-coloured buttercream to match my cupcake cases, bought for me by the gorgeous Miriam for my birthday this year. I cut out circles of white fondant icing, and topped with the floral pink toppers. Possibly not novelty, but perfectly pretty!

 I will, however, admit to spending over two hours just on decorating the cupcakes -plus the time it took me to bake them! Mind you, I would be happy to spend all day doing that.

During the weekend, whilst looking for inspiration, I picked up this ganache mouse from Betty's. For research purposes, obviously..!

They were also doing marzipan sponge pigs, as a kind of variation on fondant fancies: "Genoese butter sponge pigs, coated in marzipan and filled with vanilla buttercream and raspberry preserve." Sounds lovely, and from previous experience, tastes even better! I have been looking at cooking, baking and decorating courses recently, and to be able to make something as complex as these is something of a dream of mine...  I think, for now though, I will focus on the cupcake basics -and why not, when they taste so good!?