Happy Mother's Day

Mother's day is such a wonderful day to celebrate our mothers and all that they do for us. I never realized how hard my mother worked until I became a mother. 

Mothers put so many hours into the lives of their children. I always wondered why? Especially when the child can be rude, disrespectful, disobedient, whiney and possibly rebel when they are older. Why do mothers put their energy and life into these young ones? LOVE! I've been a mother for 11 years now and no matter what my children do or say which is disrespectful or disobey, I love them and love when they come running into my arms with tears in their eyes saying sorry. It is all worth it. My children are so precious and I see God's relationship with us through my eyes as a mother. No matter what we do He is there waiting for us to come running into His arms, tears in our eyes to say sorry. He is always ready to forgive us, just like I am always ready to forgive my little ones. I would never turn them away, why? Because I love them so much. They are a joy to behold and I see their little lives being transformed day by day into God's amazing plan and that is just how God sees me and you. He loves us so much and is transforming us day by day into His image. Because He loves me I come running to Him.

Happy Mother's Day to all those wonderful women who pour their lives and make so many sacrifices for their children. Thank you.

Mother's Day Selection

Little Mother's Day Hat Cakes

 Sugar & Spice Cake Shop, Hannah~

Icing Smiles

I'm not sure if any of you are aware of Icing Smiles. It is an organization set up to bless children who suffer with illnesses with wonderful dream cakes for their birthdays. When I read all what they do I really wanted to be a part of it, so I signed up and I'm awaiting my first call. The baker gets to donate a wonderful cake and deliver it to the child locally. What a wonderful honour to bless a family in making their day so very special.

After I signed up it made me think of my dear sweet friends who had children last year. One was diagnosed with Prader-Willi Syndrome and the other Down Syndrome. They have gone through so much this last year, adjusting to their new life style with different therapies and an hospital appointments, that they really wanted to celebrate this first year of life in a big way.  I wanted to bless these families with wonderful cakes for their little one, so my first "icing smiles" assignment was for my sweet friends.

Aerin Elizabeth

Sweet Little Aerin enjoying her cupcake

Aerin was born March 21st 2012. She was my friend's third child and her pregnancy had gone well, but when Aerin was born she was not responding like other newborns and through the persistence of her parents was taken to Winnie Palmer Hospital where tests were done to find out what was going on with Aerin.

Eventually she was diagnosed with Prader-Willi Sydrome 23 days later and it's been a long journey for them. This little girl is certainly a gift from God and has blessed so many of us with her triumphs in life. Her smiles steal all our hearts and we are all envious of her gorgeous hair. There is so much of it and I know my friend is going to have great delight when it gets long enough to braid and tie up. She is such a precious child. You can find out more about Aerin's story on her blog Bread Of Life

Owl Cake

I was so incredible blessed to be able to make her cake. It came together so well and I love the pastel colours. I used the invitation to create her cake. The bottom tier was Lemon Cake with Lemon Curd and Lemon Swiss Meringue Buttercream. The two smaller cakes were Chocolate Mud Cake with Chocolate Ganache.

Josiah David

Josiah having fun smashing up his little cake

Josiah was born May 1st 2012. My friend has 3 girls and they really wanted a little boy. I remember each pregnancy waiting in anticipation for their baby to be born wandering whether they had a girl or boy and each time it was a healthy baby girl. Her last pregnancy went somewhat smoothly. My friend has always had high risk pregnancies as she has low platelets, which is always a concern for doctors. Towards the end of her pregnancy there was some concern with baby's heart and so she was scheduled to have the baby at Winnie Palmer in case of complications.

When Josiah was born, immediately it was evident that he had Down Syndrome. We all were heart broken for them, but through this hard time we have seen their strength as they lean upon our Lord and oh what joy Josiah has been! His whole face lights up when he sees you. I love cuddling him and my husband and I argue at who will get first hold.

John Deere Tractor Cake

I don't often make all boy cakes, usually they are themes that either boy or girl would have. After having 3 girls my friend made sure his party would be ALL BOY!!  The bottom tier was Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and the top was Vanilla Cake with homemade Strawberry filling and Swiss Meringue Buttercream. It was great to see it come together and I totally love it. 

We had such a great time celebrating the first year of these special children God has given to these amazing families. They are surrounded with so much love and it has blessed me so much to watch my friends gain the strength from God to continue each day caring for their little ones, knowing it's a life long journey of constant physical care.

I am truly humbled by them. Thank you for blessing me through your lives Kristin and Michelle.

Sugar & Spice Cake Shop, Hannah~ 

Berry Picking & Pie Making!

I've been living in Florida for almost 15 years and my fond memories of strawberry picking are all in England, until now!!

We finally found a place here in Florida which is about 25 minute drive from our home. I had no idea something like this lay on my doorstep. Don't get me wrong now, it doesn't have the beauty of England with the luscious green fields, sheep bleating off in the distance and the beautiful English flowers blooming in the sunshine, but it was still in what is called the country here and we had so much fun. We even saw cows! Yes, to some of you that might sound odd, but I love livestock. I really think I should have grown up on a farm.

Our Florida Country Walk 

We headed out early in the morning to the fields and the excitement in the back of the van from my three little ones was great to listen to. The morning had a nip in the air, which is a plus in Florida, but because of this there was a concern that the berries wouldn't be ripe enough, but we found plenty for our family to take home and make into pies and jam. 

Strawberry & Rhubarb pie, Blueberry pancakes, Strawberry Jam and Blueberry & Apple pie

We also found a blueberry farm around the corner from the strawberry field. We couldn't miss the opportunity to pick blueberries especially since my husband and youngest son loves them. What a truly fun experience! 

As soon as we got home my husband made family breakfast, his most favourite thing to do on a Saturday morning. He pulled out his blueberry pancake recipe and made a batch. They were gobbled down in no time!

Once breakfast was over it was onto Strawberry and Rhubarb pie which the children loved to help me with. It was simply the best pie I've ever taste! The crust melted in your mouth and the combination of strawberry and rhubarb is divine. I've only ever made it one other time and it was just as good then as it was today! We then made sugar free blueberry and apple pie for daddy. When I say sugar free, I mean zero sugar in this pie, no artificial sweetener in place of sugar. My husband can not eat any form of sugar, only the natural sugar from fruit and not too much. He has improved over the years and when I first married him the sugar content in an apple was too much and I had to experiment, coming up with my own recipes so that he could enjoy pies and cakes too. He can now eat a whole apple!!  

In the evening we began making the strawberry jam, stirring the big pot of bubbling mixture and the air filled with the sweet smell of berries. Jars and jars were filled and labels await to be attached. My pantry is looking pretty good this year, which reminds me I must begin my yearly batch of Beetroot Chutney.

Fruit Pies

We are truly blessed with all the wonderful baked goods we love to prepare. I would be glad to share my recipes with you, but I know you probably already have your own family recipes which you love to make. 

This will certainly become a family tradition, passing along these wonderful recipes down to my children.

Enjoy your weekend

Sugar & Spice Cake Shop, Hannah~

Sooty Birthday Cake & Party Ideas

My youngest little boy turned 5 last week! I didn't realise how time flies until I had children. The years seem to slip through my fingers and they are no longer babies but children with minds and imaginations of their own, full of fun and with more energy than 10 people put together.

Although we live in America, I try and give them a lot of British culture and the things I grew up with. When Granny was over we got to view the British TV and I was whisked back to my childhood when I saw The Sooty Show was still being produced!! 

It all started in 1948 when Harry Corbett bought a little bear puppet named 'Teddy' for his 5 year old son, Peter Corbett (aka Matthew Corbett). He was spotted by a TV producer who invited Harry to BBC's Talent Night. In order for the bear to stand out on black and white TV, Harry and his wife decided to sew a black nose and ears onto the bear and renamed him Sooty. It was such a success that BBC commissioned Sooty his own TV show, which aired in 1955. The show was passed down to his son Peter, under the stage name Matthew Corbett, in 1976. On Sooty's 50th Birthday in 1998 Matthew retired due to illness, and wanted to spend his retirement years with his wife and family. He handed it down to Richard Cadell, who continues the show today. 

Harry Corbett 1955-1976

Richard Cadell 1998-present

Matthew Corbett 1976-1998

It is the longest running children's TV programme and I find it amazing that for 3 generations we have watched Sooty. Mum watched it when she was little with Harry, I was fascinated with it when Matthew was Sooty's right hand man and now my children are smitten with it. My little boy laughs and laughs at this little bear and even my eldest is taken to Sweep, the mischievous little dog. They love it and I love watching them watch it with smiles so big.

So his little party came to life through this show and invitations were sent out to all our American friends who had no idea what in the world this was. They certainly know now.

Custom made invitations

I wanted to keep the party pretty simple since they are only 5 year olds, so we let them have fun with different toys we set around the garden. We only did one game which was a traditional English game, 'pass the parcel'. We also had a 'lucky dip', although I renamed it to 'Sweep's Messy Prize Basket'

Playing with Jack's English Knight Castle from Grandad and of course Postman Pat had to join in the fun.

The little ones also loved the English Village - Happy Land Set

The parcel started out pretty big!

William got the parcel last.

One activity we did was colouring cookies. I love this idea for little ones and they had so much fun colouring Sooty and Sweep with edible food markers. 

Each child got to either take their cookie home or eat it. I had goody bags all ready for them with their name on it so any gifts they received from the game or activities were placed inside their own bag. These were really easy to make, using brown bags with cut out Sooty and Sweep attached to the front and tags tied on with ribbon.

Sooty and Sweep Goody Bags

We drank Sooty's lemonade and then got ready for a show!

Sooty's Lemonade

This was probably by far the children's most favourite part of our party. How can you not host a Sooty Party without the guest appearance of Sooty and Sweep?! They came all the way from England and surprised William. It was a delight to see his little face light up when Sooty popped up to make him a special cake. My eldest son and daughter both helped with this little show. Jack operated Sweep and Millie helped hand me the things Sooty would need. The children laughed and laughed as Sooty made the cake. Those two naughty boys got into a water fight and got me wet and Sweep thought it was a good idea to give me a dirty cloth to dry myself with!! They all had a good laugh at my expense! William was delighted.

After our little show it was time for cake. William loves orange so this cake was Chocolate Orange Cake. It is amazing. I love this recipe and it really tastes like the Terry's Chocolate Orange, which you have to tap it or whack it to break off each chocolate segment. I've renamed this cake to 'Terry's Chocolate Orange Cake'

I designed the cake to look like the box that Richard carries around with him when he's in public introducing Sooty to the children. Usually only one puppet pops out, but I simply couldn't forget Sweep. I made them from rice krispie treats and covered them in fondant.

Perhaps William will take over from Richard in a few more years!!

I love doing sweet tables for my kids and displaying their cakes and cookies and other sweets etc. I find these tables so eye appealing and fun to set up. I only wished my wall was longer so the backdrop was the same, but I had fun with it all the same.

Our Sooty Party in one photo

We had a wonderful day celebrating my son's birthday. He had the best day and he now goes to bed with Sooty every night. Sweep seems to have made his way into Jack's top bunk!

"Bye Bye Everyone, Bye Bye"

Sugar & Spice Cake Shop, Hannah~

Shrove Tuesday

American Pancake Cake.

Today I woke up, checked my mail and then browsed through my business page newsfeed on Facebook. I immediately came across Victorious Cupcake's little cupcake with 3 miniature pancakes on top covered with maple syrup, which jogged my memory that it's Shrove Tuesday today!!! AAAHHH I totally forgot, so now it's a mad rush to gather ingredients to make my kids favourite pancakes. We usually like to make main course pancakes with bacon, cheese and tomato and then we finish with dessert pancakes. Their favourite is the simple lemon and sugar, but sometimes we'll put a scoop of ice cream on with a drizzle of homemade caramel sauce.

This year I thought I'd share my favourite pancake recipe, which are considered crepes in America.

PANCAKE RECIPE

8oz All purpose/plain Flour

4 eggs

16floz milk

pinch of salt

Place flour into a mixing bowl and add salt. Crack eggs into a measuring jug and whisk adding a little milk, about a tablespoon. Pour into flour and whisk with a hand whisk. 

Measure half the milk and slowly pour small amounts into the flour and egg whisking in-between to prevent the batter from going lumpy. Once it's mixed, add the rest of the milk and whisk.

Heat a non-stick frying pan with a small amount of oil and once hot add a ladle full of batter, swirling around the pan. After a few minutes, shake the pan and the pancake should move which indicates the pancake is ready to flip. 

Flip over and cook for a few more minutes then turn out onto a plate and add whatever filling you desire. 

Enjoy

Happy Shove Tuesday!

Sugar & Spice, Hannah~

Narnia Cake and Cupcakes

I can hardly believe my little lad is now 11 years old. Time has really slipped by quickly as it feels like only yesterday I was carrying this little bundle of joy home from the hospital.

Throughout the year my children discuss their upcoming birthdays and talk about what kind of cake they are going to have. It generally changes as the year goes on, which I'm glad about as some of their selections can be quite strange. Last year my son has been really into baseball so it seemed that would be his choice, but as time went on he began to change his mind. He's really into music, especially the drums, and I started to make plans to create a drum set birthday cake. The flavour had been chosen, which was Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, he really doesn't like cake so I wondered if this flavour would help. It did!!!

Right as the last moment though, he changed his mind to a Narnia Cake. He read the book about 2 years ago and really loved it, but we told him he could watch the movie until he was a little older as some of the evil figures are pretty hideous looking. Finally we let him watch it and he chose to turn away at the scene of Aslan's death (I love how sensitive this little chap is). He throughly enjoyed it and has been none stop talking about it and is now whizzing through Prince Caspian, in the hopes that we'll let him watch that one!  One of the wonderful things he observed whilst watching the movie, which I had never thought of, was where Lucy and Susan were walking with him at night through the forest. They had no idea what was going to happen to him. My little boy said "Mummy, that reminds me of when Jesus asked his disciples to go with him to the Garden of Gethsemane, they had no idea what was going to happen to Jesus soon after that!" I was so blessed, I had never seen it that way before.

It is such an amazing book that I really wanted to capture the story in the cake, so I decided to create the wardrobe but also wanted to bring in the world of Narnia. This is what I came up with.

I was so excited to turn my idea of this cake into reality. There were many times when I just couldn't think how a certain part would work, but as I began it just came together very smoothly

The Wardrobe, where the adventure begins

Through the wardrobe into Narnia

One side of the cake was the front of the wardrobe and the other side was Narnia with the famous lamppost and Lucy's little footprints heading towards it. Oh if only I had captured his little face when he saw it! We kept saying that he can now step through the wardrobe to his eleventh year, that made him smile.

The Lamppost and Mr Tumnus' parcels

The Wardrobe and little moth balls that fell out!

Aerial view of both sides (I wonder if this is how God see our lives?!)

We did have fun with this cake and I put it on my lazy susan so the children could see both sides easily. They loved turning it back and forth. It is such a wonderful thing to see the delight in my children's faces when they see their cakes.

For his little school party I made cupcakes and hand painted the fondant toppers. These were a hit and of course my Jack had to save his. It seems he can never fully eat the things I make him as he always wants to save it to remember his special day.

We have had a wonderful time celebrating his birthday. It was busy and tiring, but to see his reaction totally worth all the hours it took!

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Cake with Chocolate ganache.

It was delicious!

Sugar & Spice, Hannah~

White Elephant Cookie aka Ugly Dragon Cookie

My friend has an After-Christmas Party every year and last year was the first time we were able to make it. Unbeknownst to us a hideous dragon was being passed around. It all started when the host was given it as a real gift one year from her relative. Yes, someone actually went to the store and purchased this thing thinking of her!! There is a plus to the dragon, it lights up!!!

Last year we were blessed and picked him out from the wonderful selection of wrapped gifts. What joy it brought us all year long. NOT!!! 

This year it was our turn to pass him on and of course everyone is looking for the dragon shaped box, plus if they are smart enough they remember who took it home last year and will keep an eye out when that person enters the room. Luckily though our host directed the gifts into the garage first before entering the house so only she knew who brought which gift. There were two gifts per couple so although she knew we had it she had no idea which gift it was because I came up with a cunning plan!!!

I decided to make a cookie looking like the dragon and attached a tag saying "Congratulations, you are the winner!! This is a replica of your gift which will be handed to you in just a few minutes. Enjoy!" It was wrapped it in a small flat box, that no one would have guessed was the dragon gift.  Of course my poor friend who did pick it said "I'm picking the smallest gift, since the dragon won't be in there" and reached under the tree grabbing the little package. My husband and I sat there so quite as she unwrapped it and once the laughter had subsided and the tag read she was handed the real mccoy.

One very ugly Dragon Cookie

Even though I feel bad for my friend at getting this incredibly ugly fella at least she got a tasty cookie! Problem is she'll have to eat it with her eyes closed as not to get too freaked out. haha

Sugar & Spice, Hannah!