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A special 40th birthday

Daily photo, Dessert table, family, My parties, Parties Comments Off on A special 40th birthday

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Two weeks ago my lovely sister celebrated her 40th birthday!

My sister Barbara is a sophisticated, smart, elegant and beautiful woman and somehow I really wanted this table to represent her. Unfortunately we could not be together as she lives in Italy and she could not make it over here to see what I have planned for her but it was a lovely surprise that we shared through Skype: she was thrilled to see what I made for her! Such a pity she could not taste any of it.

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I decided to keep everything black and white and give a touch of color only by adding a bunch of white roses.

The centre piece was a two tiers vanilla cake with a double layer of crème patissiere and forest fruit coulis. The cake was covered in white fondant and decorated with fondant sugar butterflies and edible diamonds.

Bee and I prepared the sugar butterflies well in advance so by the time we had to apply them to the cake, they were dry and took the desired shape. My husband helped me to stick the diamonds to the cake because at one point I got really annoyed as the diamonds kept falling down on the table! See what husbands are for? They remain calm during a baking crisis.

The white rose cupcakes had a vanilla chocolate base and they were covered with simple frosting made of icing sugar and butter.

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To make these white chocolate cake pops I actually didn’t use the cakepop maker I recently bought but I followed the instructions from the book “Bake my I’m yours” therefore I baked a cake, crubled it and then added frosting to it. By doing this, the shape of the cake pops is rounder and looks kind of perfect!

To make these flower cake pops I followed the same recipe I used for the butterfly cake pops and I covered them with sugar flowers . Each one was decorated with an edible pearl.

I used Martini glasses to serve these mini Oreo’s cheesecakes. This is a recipe that you can find on my Pinterest.

The taste is pretty sweet but absolutely yummy!

This sugar white rose was my husband’s first attempt at creating a fondant white rose! Pretty good eh?

I ordered some party invitations from the Tiny Prints website. These were a perfect match for this dessert table. The quality of the paper is just amazing and hopefully, through the pictures, you can see that the invitations had a pearlescent finish. Just fab!

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I used few apothecary jars which I absolutely love and filled one with meringues, a couple with liquorice and mint candy, one with Oreos and another one with mint candy. I think they look really good on the table.

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My husband, who is a graphic designer, was kind enough to create these lovely food cards to place on the table and to hang on the jars. I think they give a classy touch to the table.

I was looking to use a canvas or a print of Audrey Hepburn. Then I decided to use a baroque framed mirror where I stuck an Audrey Hepburn vinyl I bought online. I was quite pleased with the result!

Paper straws! My obsession!

Buon compleanno Bambi!

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Cool Christmas gifts for Toddlers

baby products, Beatrice likes, Daily photo, family, gifts, Inspiration Comments Off on Cool Christmas gifts for Toddlers

Here we are again thinking what Christmas present will be the perfect gift for our children, the one which will leave them “ohhhhhh” jumping around the room, full of happiness. I’ve been browsing online and found a few gift ideas which would definitely suit my daughter. Have a look and see if they would make your child happy too 🙂

Bee loves taking pictures and she often askes me to borrow my iPhone or our little camera. This camera toy would be the perfect present as Showcam is 2 in one digital camera and projector.  Have a look at this  youtube video which explains better how it works.

Everyone knows that toddlers love stickers! Stickers for rewards, to put on a chart, so why not give them a giant stickers to decorate their room? I think it’s a fantastic idea especially if like us,  you are renting a house so you are not really supposed to paint the walls to make the room more personal. I love them!

This is actually going to be Bee’s Christmas present this year. She has another tiny bicycle but apparently a balance bicycle is what you want for you kids to teach them cycling the easy way. Plus this one has the advantage that after learning  to balance on two wheels, you can then add the pedals and it becomes a real bike.

I find this cardoard castle just gorgeous! We had a smaller version of this Castle for Bee’s 3rd birthday.  All her friends had fun playing inside it and colouring it as well.

Bee actually owns this play kitchen and she spends ages pretending to bake and cook . The kitchen is great for storing all her toys too as it has many cupboards where you can hide bits and pieces.

This may probably look silly but I’m seriously petrified every time Bee has a bath and pretends to swim and does little jumps. I always fear she can bump her head against the faucet. Thanks to this rubber whale, if she did, she would be fine 🙂

I just adore this lovely play tent! I remember when I was little I used to make a tent with old bed sheets and pegs.  It was always a struggle to keep it up. I wish I had one of these!

These shoes are so cool! And the fact that you can personalised them with your child’s initials make them unique!

Then if you have around £1600, this GORGEOUS treehouse bed is a must! Who doesn’t like to sleep in a treehouse!??! Just dreamy!

I hope I inspired you a bit. In the next post I will show you some adorable Christmas gifts ideas for you little babies.

Happy shopping!

Our yummy Gingerbread Men bunting

Christmas, family Comments Off on Our yummy Gingerbread Men bunting

Bee and are planning to create so many Christmas projects! Last Friday we started baking very early in the morning…We decided to make a fab gingerbread garland.

We followed the same recipe I used to make the gingerbread house 2 years ago.

We put together the dry ingredients first then in a pot we melted treacle, sugar, butter and golden syrup…Mixed all together…

And we got a sticky dough to roll…

We cut out the cookies…

And put them on a baking tray ready for the oven…

The final touch…

Here we are! We only need to finish our Christmas tree now (I know we are late!) and then we will post a picture of this beautiful yummy bunting on our tree!

 

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The perfect Christmas starter: Camembert and cranberry pastry puffs

Christmas, Cuisine, family, Food, Parties Comments Off on The perfect Christmas starter: Camembert and cranberry pastry puffs

I have to admit I am not crazy about  strong cheesebut last week while I was grocery shopping with my kids, I suddently remembered that 2 years ago for Christmas I made a starter using Camembert and I thought I’d make it again because it was a huge success.

This recipe is really easy and quick and I think it could be one perfect starter for your Christmas dinner.

What you need:

  • 125gr of Camembert
  • few spoons of cranberry sauce
  • 1 sheet of puff pastry
  • cooking spray (or any type of fat)

Heat the oven to 200 degrees (190 for fan oven) and spray a muffin tray with cooking spray.

Roll out the puff pastry. With a round cutter start cutting out circles on the puff pastry and place one in each cup of the muffin tray.

Bake them in the oven  for about 5 minutes.

In the meantime cut the Camembert in small cubes. After 5 minutes the puff pastry has risen so you can take it out of the oven and press gently the centre of each puff with your fingers. Insert a cube of Camembert in each cup along with a small teaspooon of cranberry sauce.

Bake them again in the oven for another 5 minutes or until you see that the cheese has melted.

Serve immediately preferably with a sprinkle of fresh thyme.

Seriously easy, quick and delicious!

Tip the same can be done with goat cheese and marmalade or Camembert and caramelized red onion chutney.

We still had some figs sauce which was bought it in Italy so I tried that too on a few of them and it tasted delicious!