indiana's christmas wishes

What every almost-two-year-old requires from Father Christmas...

1. The blanket of dreams to go on her new 'big girl' bed... by Roxy Marj

2. A book that looks suspiciously like it might be about her... Wild by Emily Hughes, £11.99 here

3. The means to dress up like Marie Antoinette in this princess dress... by H&M, £34.99 

4. These rainbow boots that I actually want for myself... by Nathalie Verlinden from Sugar on Snow

5. A Fisher Price record player so she can spin me some tunes during our daily dance offs... available on ebay

6. A new winter hat to keep her head warm whist she plots her next adventure. One with fur ears seems reasonable... 29 euros from Bobo Choses

And... this completely beautiful cherry play kitchen  in which to whip up some treats for her mama, $289.99 from Palumba 

Biscuit Brigade

This blog has been like a ghost town since my last post, which promised a website reveal and cronuts recipe that never materialised. The shame! I promise they are both on the horizon, and will appear one day before the year's end. In the meantime I've been up to my armpits in cake orders and small children, and haven't even checked an email for actual weeks. However, I've been shocked out of my sugar rush by the realisation that Christmas is hurtling towards me. It's just one month away, and I've not even thought about all the festive fun I want to cram in before I wake up in a sea of Quality Street wrappers on the 27th to the harsh realisation that life is once again devoid of reason for overeating, over-baking, random platters of large cheeses and general overindulgence in port. 

So it was that we kicked things off with a gingerbread party! I thought it would be fun to add a bit of nutrition to balance the treacle, and so we attempted the following, which I stumbled upon via this site. 

Spelt and Agave Gingerbread

330g spelt flour 
.5 tsp salt
.75 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
.25 tsp ground nutmeg
.25 tsp ground cloves
113g unsalted butter
1 large egg
80ml agave syrup
80ml treacle/molasses

(if you prefer your gingerbread lighter in colour, use golden syrup in place of treacle)

some of the treacle actually made it into the dough...

The dough is so easy to make that the kids did it all themselves, bar the weighing and measuring, and despite devouring dangerous amounts of treacle along the way it came together perfectly. Mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl, and all the wet (including butter) in another, then just stir them together, at some stage transferring from spoon to hands to squish it all into a ball. We then left ours in the fridge overnight, but you would want to leave it for at least half an hour as otherwise it's too sticky to work with. 

Cutter-sorting kept her busy for almost an hour! Coup!

Next day we had besties Edie & Holly coming over for a dinner date, so we planned a gingerbread baking party beforehand and the kids went to town making some fabulous gingery creations. Roll the dough out to about 5mm thickness, cut your desired shape, then pop on a parchment-lined tray in the oven (170C) for approx 10 minutes. We decorated ours first, with varying degrees of success, with pumpkin seeds, raisins, sugar crystals and bits of orange peel. You could also ice with basic royal icing and sprinkles after they are cooked and cooled, which I did a tiny bit of before losing interest and just eating them. The pumpkin seeds were super yummy baked into the gingerbread. It was lovely to watch the kids really get into decorating - Indy and Holly, despite being the littlest, really focussed on making pretty designs. It took them ages to catch on to the fact that the dough was edible, at which point we had to step in and confiscate it… Such a lovely activity from start to finish, that the kids can really just take over with and isn't hideously messy. Needless to say we all enjoyed devouring them afterwards too… 

Time to gloat over prezzies and dip into Christmas stocking treats...

our cherry little christmas

We stayed in London for Christmas, which I usually find a tiny bit sad because it doesn't feel like a "holiday", and I never go and do all the festive things I pretend I will, like carols at the cathedral or lovely late night shopping down Columbia Road with a hot cider... But this year despite the general greyness of London I had a bloody lovely Christmas. Santa was very kind and attended to many genuine wishes. After a suitably waffly brunch we packed into our "new" (slightly scary) 20 year old Saab and rolled 'round to my brother's for a perfect Christmas afternoon - food, games, wine, MORE presents, more food, and an insanely yummy pudding whipped up by the host himself. And then more wine. I am still dreaming of it. 

Indy's big red dress courtesy of grandma! 

So many beautiful home made touches by my super-creative sister-in-law, including the most beautiful cushion for Indiana! Feel very spoilt.

it was a very red day... I mean a very rad day... I mean both!

Bear is my only comfort (and other scarves)

My super talented painter friend Tahnee has just collaborated with Mercy Delta to produce these lustworthy silk scarves, each featuring a print from her Impressions Of A Wind Up Bird series. Her paintings are so very beautiful, I can't think of anything nicer than wearing one. Except maybe owning lots. They are available *right now* from Matches.

Springtime in Tokyo MIGHT be my favourite, but actually I'm far too indecisive to choose...