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I ordered postcards of my images of my British Cream Tea sculptures last week and I love them. They are so bright and fabulously printed onto slightly pearly matt card stock and I am splitting them into sets to put onto my Etsy shop. I may put them into my Folksy shop too if they sell well and I reprint some more...I am so excited ;)
Send
them as birthday cards or invitations, pin up in your kitchen, frame
for your walls or to write a little note to someone you love!
So far I have listed two sets...with more to come...
Slice of Cake Set of 3 Postcards...3 of my favourite photographs of my Cake Felt Sculptures made into postcards
In this set you will receive one french fancy card, one butterfly cake card and one vanilla slice card.
Boiled Egg and Picnic Set of 3 Postcards...3 of my favourite photographs of my Breakfast, Buffet and Picnic Felt Sculptures made into postcards
In this set you will receive one boiled egg and soldiers card, one sausage roll card and one cornish pasty card.
The Strawberry Split...my favourite childhood ice lolly...yummy!
Strawberry ice
surrounding a cream vanilla ice cream centre the Strawberry Split was a
real summertime treat...made all the more fabulous and seemingly
luxurious (at least to a 6 year old mind) by the inclusion of both ice
lolly and ice cream.
There are two versions of this lolly...the
Walls "Strawberry Split" and the Lyons Maid "Mivvi"...both were
basically the same lolly. I cannot actually remember there being much
difference except for the wrappers, but that could be the passing of
time speaking!
I cannot find any information bout the origins of
this ice lolly, but family sources inform me they have been around
since at least the 1960s.
A memorable childhood choice from the ice cream van and one I could not resist taking a sneaky bite out of ;)
I love Cath Kidston...I have a serious crush on almost everything she sells!
So when my friend Jackie, who knows about my addiction, gave me a little Cath Kidston mushroom pincushion (and two bottles of wine...yay!) for my birthday I was really touched...when she informed me that Liverpool now has a Cath Kidston shop of its very own I was actually quite nervous! How can I now resist? It is bad enough getting the magazine every month and coveting the tiny selection in John Lewis...but a whole shop?!?
*sigh*
And it is wonderful. Pale blue paintwork and flower filled pots, piles and piles of gorgeous linen, throws, bags and tea towels alongside the sewing paraphernalia I treat my little business to and the most wonderful selection of old fashioned children's toys...not to mention the fabric section...
My heaven has landed in Liverpool!
The quintessential British summer seaside treat...the 99 ice cream cone ;)A
crunchy wafer cone stamped with panels of waffle pattern holding a
swirl of soft vanilla ice cream with a chocolate flake stuck into the
side.I love 99 cones..they remind me of
the long hot summers that seem to fill my rose tinted childhood and of
the tinkling music of ice cream vans. The fact they melted very fast
and you had to constantly lick the ice cream rivulets off the outside
of the cone and even the point, as the cone inevitably split and the
liquid dripped through the bottom, made it a race against time to
finish the 99 before it ended up in a puddle!
Jaffa Cakes...an essential part of any lucky British child's lunchbox!
A little spongy chocolatey cake with a hidden tangy orangey bit...Jaffa Cakes are circular and consist of three layers: a sponge cake base, a layer of orange flavoured jam and a coating of dark chocolate. The orangey bit forms a bump on the top of the cake under the chocolate and the chocolatey top is stamped with a crisscross pattern.
McVitie and Price first introduced the Jaffa Cake in 1927 following the success of the chocolate digestive. Its creation is largely credited to John Langlands, a director of McVitie and Price at the time. The cakes were named for Jaffa oranges.
Under UK law no VAT is charged on biscuits and cakes — they are "zero rated". Chocolate covered biscuits, however, are subject to VAT, currently 15%. McVities classed its Jaffa Cakes as cakes, but in 1991, this was challenged by Her Majesty's Customs and Excise and the case ended up before the courts. McVities defended its classification of Jaffa Cakes as cakes. In doing so it produced a 12" Jaffa Cake to illustrate that its Jaffa Cakes were simply miniature cakes.
McVities argued that a distinction between cakes and biscuits is that biscuits would normally be expected to go soft when stale, whereas cakes would normally be expected to go hard. It was demonstrated to the Tribunal that Jaffa Cakes become hard when stale. The Jaffa Cake won the day and is still sold with no VAT.
I love Jaffa Cakes, especially the orangey bit. I am certain that the sponge layer used to be harder and crunchier when we were children...or maybe they were always staler when we ate them then? Or maybe I am imagining it? Who knows??!
Yesterday I traveled to Newcastle to be in The Biscuit Factory art gallery at the opening of my exhibition and the coinciding late night opening event across art galleries throughout the city.
My pieces were displayed on beautiful cake stands handmade out of old chins...all of which I coveted like crazy...and little plates of real biscuits were dotted amongst my pieces. It was wonderful!
It was lovely meeting the public and seeing their expressions and being able to talk about my work and get feedback face to face, although I would be lying if I didn't admit to the fact that i was terrified, especially at the beginning.
After tonight my pieces will go into the gallery's glass showcases...and I am glad I saw them laid out on beautiful crockery and that I found the courage to go.
Oh and today is my birthday...I am open to gifts of cake, especially with candles :D
Spotted Dick...a quintessential English pudding...suet spotted with currants and
covered in custard that drips down the sides and pools on the dish ;)Spotted dick is a steamed suet pudding containing dried fruit (usually currants), commonly served with custard.The
dried fruit gives the pudding its spots and the name dick is held to be
either from a contraction of the last syllable of the word pudding or a
play on the word dough. Another explanation may that it comes from the
German word for thick (dick) in reference to the consistency of the
suet pudding.There are many nicknames for a Spotted Dick
including "Spotted Richard", "Dick in a box", "Dotted Lloyd", "Mixey
Dick", "Dick with a dot" and "Dickie Burton" as well as many others.In
1999 managers at an English hospital changed the name to "Spotted
Richard" in their menus to avoid embarrassing patients...but in 2002
the decision was reversed owing to the fact that no-one seemed
embarrassed and confusion over the new name!*Stop sniggering at the back!*
This is my collection all ready to be posted to the Biscuit Factory Gallery yesterday morning...It will be displayed on vintage cake stands and should (hopefully) look wonderful!I am also hoping to be able to travel up and give a talk and demonstration next Friday evening if I can line everything up...so if you are in Newcastle on the 15th come along ;D
My bourbon biscuit is featured in this month's Sew Hip magazine...I am really excited at seeing it in print and in person!!
I got my copy from Tesco but I know it is for sale in Borders, Martins and WHSmiths if you want to see it ;D
Also today I post my gallery collection up to Newcastle for next week's opening of my exhibition and the gallery have asked me to do an artist's talk...I'll fill you in with the details once all is sorted...
Such an exciting week!
French Fancies are a colourful favourite of the traditional British tea party and form the centrepiece to many British children's parties. Nothing makes me think childhood more than a plate of yellow, pink and brown french fancies in their little paper cases!
Little cubes of sponge topped with a dollop of buttercream, covered in fondant and drizzled with icing they are sweet, bright and beloved of the nation's children.
I have read that they were originally called Othello cakes with the name and the colours being inspired by William Shakespeare's plays Othello and As You Like It, with different coloured icings to represent major and memorable characters in the plays. Othello was represented by the chocolate cake, Desdemona the white cake, Iago was coffee, while the fourth and final cake was coloured pink after Rosalind, the highly popular, blushing, aristocratic lead in As You Like It. Now they come in pink, yellow and brown but are still a mouth watering feast for thespians. But I have no idea whether this is true...the origins of the little french fancy seem shrouded in mystery...
I love the pink ones, a preference that seems to be with me from my childhood...as an unbiased adult I would have expected the chocolate one to be my favourite ;)
The Custard Cream...Britain's favourite biscuit immortalised in felt, complete with two layers of vanilla custard cream.
Custard Creams are made up of two biscuits, the top one sporting a fancy lattice of swirls and a double diamond surrounding the name, sandwiching a vanilla cream filling.
First made in 1908, the swirly baroque design of ferns harks back to Victorian times and indicates that the custard cream was then seen as a much fancier nibble than it is today.
Custard Creams even feature in the Harry Potter series as one of the joke products that Fred and George Weasley invent. Canary creams look and taste like custard creams, but when eaten, they transform the eater into a large canary...hence the name...
Voted Britain's favourite biscuit in 2007, the humble custard cream entered the Oxford English Dictionary in March 2008.
I love custard creams. They may be simple but they are moreish...
Party Rings...A fun biscuit from my childhood!
The party ring was introduced in 1983. It is a circular biscuit with a central finger-sized hole, covered in hard coloured icing with "wiggly" lines in a different colour. The five colour combinations are:
* Peachy orange icing with white lines
* Pink icing with white lines
* Pink icing with yellow lines
* Purple icing with yellow lines
* Yellow icing with pink lines
We loved the bright colours, the hard crisp icing shell and the holes! We used to wear them as rings and eat them off our fingers as well as holding "ring races". These involved each child taking five rings and placing one on each finger of a hand. They would then proceed to eat them as fast as possible, with the inevitable danger of biting a finger a bit too hard. I used to also try to eat along the lines along the base...but then I was, indeed, a strange child...
In the late 1990s Fox's decided to remove the purple and yellow biscuit because the dyes used had been linked to certain health problems. But due to public (and particularly university society...we were all by that stage grown up but with long memories) outcry, they reinstated them using safe dyes and the party finger family was once again complete!
This is my first set of party rings...I have sold them singularly before ;)
I hope you enjoy my new pieces!
