Festive Planning: Swooning Over Cookie Cutters.

Starting the search for the perfect accompaniments to my handmade and homemade Christmas, I stumbled across the Lakeland website. Two hours later and I'm stuck in an impossible conundrum of 'what festive cookie cutters to buy?' 

• Christmas Tree Cookie Cutter £3.99- I love the way these have been used to make the 3d tree, and sitting in chocolate cupcakes makes these almost irresistible.
• Snowflake Cookie Cutter Set £9.99- I haven't found such intricate snowflake cutters anywhere else, for four designs, this is a bit of a bargain really.
• Piñata Cookie Cutter Set £4.99- These are traditionally piñata or donkeys but for a festive twist, simply add some antlers and you've got yourself a surprise filled reindeer! (For the record- these are the ones I'm most swooning over!)
• Mason Cash Petit Beurre Advent Biscuit Set £19.99-  A beautiful set of 24 numbered advent delights, I'd never be able to bake enough for all my friends and family (as planned) but it'd be nice to make these for the home- not sure they'd last long enough though!

Just so you know, I haven't been approached by Lakeland, I'm just really in love with all of these!

Love Sophie Xx

Location Location Location: Roche Rock & Hermitage.

It never ceases to amaze me how the brilliant photographer (and my very good friend!) Tracey finds such beautiful, local places for us to head out and take some images. After a much needed catch up, we arranged to take a little trip outside of St Austell to Roche Rock for a little photoshoot. 

I'd had a nightmare of a day due to a clumsy plumber flooding (and I really do mean flooding) my bathroom floor/hallway and was in a right panic, that the fresh December air was just what I needed whilst waiting for the house to dry out a little.

I hadn't heard of Roche Rock and enjoyed getting another mini history lesson from Tracey as we set up for the shoot, after hearing some of the tales of the location, I couldn't wait to find out more! 

Roche Rock and hermitage has many myths surrounding it; from being known for it's haunting activity and religious historic roots, the rocks themselves are a natural phenomenon and mystery, thought to have been created some 270 million years ago. The chapel or hermitage itself was actually built from grey quartz and black tourmaline, withstanding the elements since the 1400s. Though dedicated to St Michael in 1409, it is believed (though still not completely known) that the chapel was used for religious or sacred purposes for years before, the rocks used for thousands of years even prior to that.

One of the fascinating stories take us back to the days of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, it is said that Tristan (or Tristram), the nephew of King Mark, was sent to Ireland to fetch the King's bride-to-be, Isolde. The couple 'accidentally' sipped a love potion (obviously) and became besotted with one another. Needless to say, O'l King Mark wasn't best impressed and they took refuge at Roche Rock, possibly at the hermitage or chapel at the time.

Another tale is about Gundred, whose father was a leper. As such, he kept himself away from the local society, and protected her by living in the chapel and becoming a hermit. She however, tended to her father by carrying him to a holy well, just a mile from the rock itself, this became known as St Gundred's well, and is still there today! 

Today,a beautiful hidden gem to walk, climb or take photos but it really does have a mysterious feel to it, that I could almost believe the haunted tales, even in daylight!

Love Sophie Xx

Travel Tattoos: Rome.

Good afternoon Friday friends! How are you all coping in this cold spell? (Unless you're Sunae, in which case you're on the beach, having a blast!) You may remember last month Harps and I celebrated our six year anniversary! You may also remember that we added to our travelling tattoos during our time off- well here they are! Harps decided to get 'When In Rome' just below his collar bone, embedding his favourite phrase to say whilst were away forever. I decided on a roman labyrinth  on the back of my neck- it is straight, just really hard to take a photo keeping upright! 

What do you all think?! 

Love Sophie Xx

Festive Planning: A Delicious Banoffe Cake.

As you may or may not be aware, this Christmas I have decided to mainly (I use that word loosely- I got excited) to make all of my gifts for friends and family. It isn't just because of our dramatic wedding saving but also it's just nice to get something that someone you care about took the time to make, right?  So I sent around a menu of baking delights to choose from (you can see my options here!) and throughout December (and replacing my Wednesday Words posts for now!) I'll be sharing with you all some of the delicious recipes so we can all have a go!

I'd never made banoffee cake but the trial bake that's shown above was so highly received by my colleagues that I know there's a few that've been waiting a couple of weeks for the recipe. As far as a group of cake eaters go, this lot know their stuff. High praise indeed!

Feeds: 10 (or a couple less if you count sneaky mid afternoon seconds!)

Prep Time: 30 mins total

 Bake Time: 25-30 mins

Ingredients:

175g/6oz self raising flour, 1tsp baking powder, 175g softened butter, 175g golden caster sugar, 3 eggs, 4* medium ripe bananas (the riper the better!) *2 bananas are for the filling, 200ml fresh double cream, 50g icing sugar, 1 jar of Lidl Deluxe range toffee spread (I plan to make my own for Christmas- I'll share that with you at the time!)

1) Preheat the oven to 180c/350f/GM 4 and grease/line two 20cm/8inch sandwich tins.

2) Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl and add the softened butter, sugar and eggs, mix together until smooth.

3) Mash two bananas in a bowl using a fork until all large lumps have been mushed. Add this to the mixture and mix together for a further minute. (The mixture will no longer be smooth- this is fine!)

4) Divide the mixture evenly between the two tins and smooth the surfaces.

5) Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 mins until golden brown (it will be slightly darker than usual) and it passes the skewer test. The cakes should feel springy to touch.

6) Leave to cool in the tins for 5 mins and then gently remove. Leave to cool completely before unwrapping from the greaseproof paper.

7) Once cooled, spread a generous layer of the toffee spread onto one of the cakes. Chop the other two bananas and cover the spread. Whilst leaving this to set, add the icing sugar to the double cream and whip on a high speed until thickened. 

8) Spread 1/3 of the cream over the other cake and sandwich together, carefully as the cream vs bananas can be a little slippery.

9) Spread the remainder of the cream over the top of the cake and heat a little of the toffee sauce. Once slightly melted, using your trusty cake skewer, create toffee patterns on top of your cake, adding a lovely finish and extra toffee flavour.

10) Sit down with a nice slice and a cup of tea and watch a festive film.

Love Sophie Xx

A Festive Invitation.

Dear friends and family, 

Happy December 1st! This year, as you know, we're trying to have a pretty budgeted Christmas, saving for a wedding is tough work! I wanted to invite you all to pick a delicious cake that you'd like to receive this year, just please let me know as soon as possible what you'd like!

Banoffeelicious Cake.

Sophie & Harp's Christmas Fruit Cake (With or without drunk fruit).

Greedy Fat Piggy Chocolate Cake.

Rudolph's Lost His Nose Cherry Cake.

I can't wait to spend another festive season with you all! 

Love Sophie Xx

*Blogging friends, I'll certainly try to make a few for you guys too- let me know below what you'd like and I'll see what I can do!