6 Dec 2024
A Cosy Weekend In Edinburgh
It didn’t take long before my sister and I were plotting a cosy autumnal weekend away where we went to a lot of bookshops, sat in a lot of cafes and wandered about somewhere that had a lot of cobbled streets.
“Edinburgh?” we both asked each other simultaneously.
Cue the cutest weekend in a city we both love. We’ve both been more than once and tiredness is really kicking my arse this pregnancy so I think this may be the most chill I have ever been when planning a weekend away. We booked nothing, aside from an early table at Dishoom on Saturday night and mostly spent the weekend wandering and soaking up the atmosphere. We walked up The Royal Mile and saw the castle, visited the steps from One Day where we had a lovely moment revisiting our trauma from watching the Netflix series, and went to Victoria Street where we spent a solid amount of time browsing the cute little shops – including an obligatory visit to the Harry Potter shop – and buying mostly for ourselves, despite claiming we were Christmas shopping. It’s not hard to stumble across a charming independent café in Edinburgh so plenty of time was spent in them as well, cradling hot drinks and putting the world to rights.
Edinburgh had fully embraced Christmas and my sister kept laughing at me because every time I saw a tree or some lights, I would let out a high-pitched squeal. I loved it and came home with the yearly Christmas decoration for Gary, Alfie and myself. It was also the first weekend of the Christmas market and whilst I was less fussed about actually looking at the stalls (although we did complete our mission of finding a red car Christmas decoration for Alfie), I absolutely loved the atmosphere and the night-time views of the lights, the trees and the rides against the backdrop of the Scott Monument and the National Gallery all lit-up.
We both went on a book-buying ban in the weeks building up to the weekend so we wouldn’t feel too limited when doing out joint-favourite activity; getting lost in a bookshop. The Edinburgh Toppings is so higgledy-piggledy and the Waterstones so big that we literally did get lost in a bookshop more than once. Side note – the Waterstones café has a huge, curved window with the most perfect view of the castle. If you can go on a quiet weekday, I would highly recommend trying to get seats there should you be visiting. I was hoping to find the special anniversary edition of One Day because my original copy seems to have gone missing, and it felt like buying it in Edinburgh was fitting. But the only copy I could find was damaged and given the price, I wasn’t willing to spend the money unless it was pristine. And then two days after we got back, my sister sent me a gift-wrapped copy in the post as a surprise (cos she’s ADORABLE) and that makes it far more special.
It's a long way to Edinburgh even on a fast train (although those views through Northumberland are unbeatable) but I just find it such a magical city that it was worth the travel time. It was also such a rare treat to spend a whole weekend with my sister just us, discussing books, films, politics and the future. I know it is potluck as to whether you get along well with your siblings, and I cannot tell you how grateful I am that I drew the lucky straw with mine because she’s the best.
30 Nov 2024
Three Summer Highlights
My summer was mostly spent shuffling along wondering when I would stop feeling sick or like I’d not slept in a month (still waiting for that second one to be honest). I can’t say it was my favourite way to spend the summer months but right at the start (pre-sickness) and at the end (mostly post-sickness) there were some special days that I would have captured at the time if I’d had the energy to:
My sister got married!
We had the best weekend in June celebrating my sister and her now-husband. They were the most beautiful bride and groom. From getting ready with the other bridesmaids at my sister’s flat, the white London taxi delivering us in style, the ceremony at Marylebone Town Hall, the red bus ride across London to cracking food, giant glow sticks, an excellent play list and lots of questionable dance moves at the pub; every part of the day was a joy. We also had pizza and brunch with the immediate families the night before/morning after and isn’t it so bloody lovely when everyone really gets along in these situations? Probably my favourite day of the year tbh and I love looking through the photos (captured by the same photographer we had at our wedding which makes it even nicer).
A family holiday to Devon, including a hitchhiker
Not long after the wedding, we headed off on a family holiday to Dartmouth, Devon. My parents used to spend a lot of time in Dartmouth and they used to have days that they would call ‘A Dartmouth Day’; where you would essentially while away a whole day just pottering around Dartmouth, not really doing very much. It’s that kind of place. We had quite a stressful first half of the year and, so, when thinking of booking a summer holiday, we just wanted something easy. We’re very familiar with Dartmouth and didn’t want to do very much so it was the perfect place. As predicted, everyday was just spent pottering about, mainly between the park (cos 2 year old), the beach and cafes. We were really lucky with the weather with every day but one being sunny, and it was also when we realised that we had a little hitchhiker with us, just starting to grow in my belly. I think my favourite moments were early evenings sat down by the river in the for a drink and bowl of olives, and just enjoying the view (in between chasing Alfie around of course), paddling in the sea, and sitting on a bench and eating fish & chips (where Alfie took it very personally that seagulls were hanging around trying to steal his chips and kept telling them to go away). We also stopped off in Bath on the way there and back and it was lovely to soak in the city in the sunshine.
London day: Lincoln’s Inn, sunset views and all the food
In September, just as summer was petering out, I wangled myself a weekend off parenting and spent two nights in London with two of my oldest friends. We had a little bit of culture looking around Lincoln’s Inn as part of the Open House Festival which I really liked for the Hogwarts vibes, took in the glorious golden hour views down by the river just by London Bridge and otherwise ate a lot of food and did a lot of chatting. Shout out to Comptoir Bakery which did unbelievably tasty pastries, Flour & Grape, a deliciously good pasta restaurant, Humble Crumble at Borough Market which did, you guessed it, really good crumble and Lechevalier, a cosy cheese and wine bar with amazing cheeses (I’m told the wine was very good as well, I just couldn’t sample it myself). A lovely weekend.
26 Nov 2024
An End-Of-Summer Glamping Trip In Suffolk
I booked this relatively last minute in August when I was feeling a bit down about feeling unwell a lot whilst summer whizzed on by. I thought a trip in early September would be a nice way to celebrate the end of the summer and make the most of the weather before the leaves started to fall. I imagined the weather to be warm but with that freshness and golden light that emerges as the two seasons intermingle. I imagined Alfie absolutely loving running around in the woods, rosy cheeks and mucky hands. I imagined campfires and stargazing and so much fresh air that it knocked us out at night. And we got it all.
Gary and I have been glamping a couple of times before this and are fans. In my opinion, it’s like getting all the best bits of camping but still having a comfy bed to sleep in. This really was GLAMping; our safari-style tent in Suffolk had a gas-powered hot shower and basic electricity, but it was a good gateway to seeing how we would feel about more basic glamping or proper camping with Alfie. He had the time of his life so I suppose I better start shopping for tents and camping stoves and take a few deep breaths over what my holidays might look like in the future.
Within a few minutes of arriving, once he’d gotten over his post-nap grumpiness, Alfie was having a whale of a time sitting amongst the luggage in the trolley that we pulled from the car to the tent. He ran around outside, getting excited over the field full of cows opposite and the goats/chickens/rabbits/pig next door whilst we vaguely unpacked and then sat down on the decking with crisps and drinks, before heating up the sausage casserole I’d made earlier and packed up in Tupperware.
It was deliciously quiet and dusky, and I watched a bat circling around for ages. We let Alfie keep playing until it was dark before tucking him up in the four-poster bed. It was extremely cosy in there, the three of us lying in bed together reading bedtime stories. Gary slept in the bed next door (if you count the other side of a piece of fabric as ‘next door’) and I joined Alfie in the four-poster. Slipping into bed with him was like getting into bed with a gently-snoring hot water bottle; with all the fabric hanging above our heads, it was like sleeping in a very cosy den. Obviously, we were woken up in the middle of the night by the foxes screeching but what do you expect when sleeping in a tent?
The next day started with early-morning bacon sandwiches and then my parents stopped by for the day on the way back from their holiday nearby. We whiled away the time not doing very much; sitting on the terrace, popping to the farm shop café a mile down the road for lunch, having an afternoon nap in the hammock (me) or on the sofa on the decking (my mum) or the buggy (Alfie) before driving over to The Maybush Inn. I’ll be honest, the food wasn’t great but the location on the side of the river was excellent, and Alfie had a great time getting absolutely filthy playing on the muddy beach with his Grandad.
The rain came hammering down at about 4am on Sunday morning which was cosy but not great for sleeping or for a pregnant woman’s easily-triggered bladder. Amazingly, Alfie slept through it, but Gary and I got up a little bleary-eyed. I gotta say though, this was a lot easier to deal with when stepping out to that countryside air. We went into Woodbridge in the morning and had an early lunch at The Woodyard – their pizzas are so good – before retreating back to the countryside where an afternoon nap for everyone was once again on the agenda. Once we were all up and about again, Gary introduced Alfie to the concept of collecting sticks from the forest floor for the fire. I’m not sure he realised what he would be unleashing because Alfie took this very seriously and – as it transpired – had to collect all the sticks from the forest floor. There were a lot.
When I could finally tempt him away from this activity, I took him back round to say hi to all the farmyard animals (this occurred several times a day) and to climb on the hay bales. He was in his element in his wellies, surrounded by tractors and farm life – pretty sure this kid is going to be a farmer. Meanwhile, Gary was getting the campfire going. Ooof the smell of campfire! Obviously toasting marshmallows was on the agenda and whilst Alfie wouldn’t contemplate trying s’mores, he happily sat there eating the chocolate biscuits and telling us that the fire was ‘HOT!’, as if we were the ones who kept threatening to charge towards it.
Finally, we had a clear night and the stars were unbelievable. Away from any light pollution, the whole sky was lit up and twinkling, and I actually managed to get some half-decent photos on my phone.
On our final morning, we packed up, stopped by Woodbridge for brunch at Honey & Harvey – where Alfie ate nothing but hash browns – had a little nose around the local bookshop, and then it was time to head back to brick walls and central heating.
19 Nov 2024
October Journal | To The Pumpkin Patch(es)! Plus A Seasonal To-Do List & Things I've Loved Lately
Autumnal/Christmas to-do
This is hands down my favourite time of year and whilst I try not to put too much pressure on it because I don’t want to risk making it stressful, I do like to try and soak it up as much as possible. So I jotted down a few ideas in September of things to do/watch/eat to try and embrace everything cosy season.
Do: Hunt for conkers with Alfie. Visit a pumpkin patch. Make ginger cake and do sparklers in the garden for Bonfire night. Have an autumnal and/or Christmassy weekend away. Add a few Autumn touches around the house. Cosy up under a blanket with a book, candle burning and the Netflix fire in the background. Make a hot chocolate on a rainy Sunday afternoon (okay, every afternoon). Go out for a roast. Read spooky/Autumnal books. Try and see Wicked at the cinema. Get ahead on Christmas shopping, trying to shop local as much as possible. Decorate the house for Christmas as soon as I can persuade my husband it’s not ‘too early’. Buy some Christmas pjs. Go to a Christmas wreath workshop. See the cathedral all decorated for Christmas. Go to a Christmas light display.
Watch: Bake Off, Shetland, Bad Sisters, series 2, The Holiday, Bridget Jones, The Polar Express (hoping to try this one with Alfie for the first time), Arthur Christmas, Love Actually.
Make: Soup, fresh bread, practice Christmas dinners, cosy autumnal recipes; pies, stews etc, Christmas fettucine, camembert and cranberry toasties, milk buns for Boxing Day leftovers sandwiches, Christmas cookies, cinnamon buns.
Twenty things I’ve loved lately
Visting the new Dishoom in Cambridge; so good.
Bridgerton series 3; that show is just joyful, ridiculous escapism and I’m here for it.
A little day trip into London to meet my friend’s new baby.
Alfie’s joy in conker hunting – we varnished all the ones he collected and put them in a big jar with some fairy lights, and it makes a cute autumnal decoration.
An autumnal wreath on the door; yup I’m that person and I don’t even care.
Killing half an hour by letting Alfie run amok in the toy shop. Easy pastime, great way to put together his birthday/Christmas list.
Golden autumn leaves everywhere. Alfie scooping up big handfuls and throwing them above his head.
Baking diary milk and cinnamon cookies.
Misty mornings with dewy spider webs in the trees.
Baby kicks really starting to – excuse the pun – kick in.
Alfie’s sheer joy in drinking hot chocolate.
As sad as it sounds, the absolute satisfaction of cleaning and tidying the house and sitting down with a candle burning, the Netflix fire on the telly and a freshly made hot chocolate.
When your kid and one of your oldest friend’s kids start developing a cute little friendship.
Alfie offering to ‘help’ grate the cheese, turning round to find him nibbling on an entire block of parmesan.
Fenland sky sunsets.
Pumpkins on doorsteps.
Buying all of Alfie’s birthday/Christmas presents and briefly, just for a split second, feeling like I was vaguely on top of something.
Alfie insisting on me putting my coat on because he didn’t want me to be cold.
Buying an air fryer; the trend finally got me.
Baby scan and little one being nice and healthy.
30 Oct 2024
How To Make A Vegan Wedding Cake & Cupcake Tower
When my sister asked me to make her wedding cake, I was honoured she trusted my baking skills enough with such a big task. One of my oldest friends baked our wedding cake for us and every time I look through photos, it always makes me feel warm and fuzzy that she put that amount of effort in for us. It’s such a personal, special touch to the day and I loved the idea of doing the same for my sister. So, of course, I said yes immediately.
It was only later that it dawned on me what I had committed to. I thought about all the weddings I have been to and realised at some point on the wedding day, every guest was going to gather around my creation and take a lot of photos. No pressure.
The brief was: a bit rustic, flavours preferably carrot and/or lemon, and all vegan. Which did mean I spent quite a lot of the first half of this year obsessing over how to make the perfect vegan icing. Still, nice to have hobbies. After a lot of back and forth, I eventually settled on the idea of a smaller wedding cake alongside a cupcake tower.
It was the first time I have ever focussed on just one bake over several months, baking, tweaking, baking again, tweaking again until I had a result I was happy with. I was pretty sick of eating carrot cake by the end of it but the baker in me really loved the process. It’s not something I would normally allow myself the time or energy for – it would feel a bit excessive to do it for no reason – but having a reason to do it made me understand how fun it could be to do for a living.
The Wedding Cake
The original recipe for the sponge of this carrot cake was from the cookbook A New Way To Bake by Phillip Khoury, which I tweaked to make it a little more citrussy. The icing was based on a lot of internet research and a lot of trial and error.
This cake is a normal size so could be also used as a nice birthday cake or – hey why not – a just-because-it’s-Tuesday cake. It is 100% vegan.
For the cake:
200g grated carrot
50g raisins
100g walnuts, roughly chopped
120g muscovado sugar
150g caster sugar
350g oat milk
80g olive oil
300g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
Zest of 1 orange
Pinch of salt
For the icing:
600g vegan butter (I used flora) – at room temperature and then blasted in the microwave for 10 seconds
280g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 tbsp aquafaba (the water from a can of chickpeas)
3 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
To decorate:
Edible flower petals
Pre-heat the oven to 180c and grease & line the base of three 20cm shallow cake tins. Combine the grated carrots, raisins, walnuts, both sugars, milk and olive oil in a bowl and stir well with a silicone spatula. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, spices and salt. Add to the carrot mixture and mix well to combine. Stir through the orange zest.
Divide between the three tins – I would recommend weighing to ensure all the sponges are as equal as possible: it’s approximately 430g of batter in each tin. Bake for 25 minutes. Swap/rotate tins and bake for another 10 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool the cakes completely in the tins before icing.
I did a lot of trial and error with this icing, and after several attempts, my conclusion is that is it much better to use an electric hand whisk as opposed to the stand mixer. So: whisk butter in a large bowl with hand whisk until just creamy. Add the icing sugar, stir it in a little to avoid a mushroom cloud of sweet snow, and then whisk until just combined.
Add the vanilla extract and aquafaba and whisk for 3-4 minutes. Aquafaba is the magic ingredient here; it transforms a sweet, yellowy butter into a white, silky-smooth buttercream and I find it a little bit magical to watch it come together. You need to keep an eye on this – 3-4 minutes is an approximation. I would say don’t do less than 3 minutes, but you don’t want to over whisk. It’s a bit of judge-by-eye situation and you need to bear in mind that once you’ve done this, you’re going to add the lemon juice and whisk for another minute. The important thing is that it is silky smooth and can hold its shape.
You will have a generous amount of icing here; that’s okay. Nothing worse than running out and I found it reassuring to have some spare to take with me just in case of any hiccups when transporting the cake.
Level off the sponges if needed (I made them on the same day but I am almost certain you could make these the day before and wrap in clingfilm as soon as they are cool, and they would be fine). Put your cake board (think carefully about the colour as it will peek out) on an icing turntable, dollop a splodge of icing on the cake board to hold the cake in place and lay down your first sponge. Spread a generous – you have loads, don’t be stingy – amount of icing on evenly and then put the next sponge on top. Repeat.
Once all the sponges are stacked, start applying the icing to the sides and top using a dough scraper and palette knife. Make this a thin-ish layer and don’t worry too much about presentation at this point. Then put in the fridge for about half an hour. Do not skip this step; it stops any crumbs getting caught in the icing and makes the rest of the icing so much easier.
Once out the fridge, apply the rest of the icing on the cake, using the dough scraper, palette knife and turntable to smooth. Steady as you go, there’s no rush. I just kept going and smoothing until I was happy. Rustic was the vibe so it didn’t need to be perfect and I was going to decorate with the edible flower petals anyway. For the flower petals – I think you absolutely need a pair of bent-tip tweezers to get them on without smudging icing everywhere but you might have more delicate hands than me. I had no set ideas for the flower petals, I just created patterns depending on what arrived.
On the day, I stood the cake on a pretty stand and added the topper. It stood in front of the cupcake tower; speaking of which…
The Cupcake Tower
The below recipe is for a batch of 24 vegan lemon cupcakes. I made four batches.
For the cupcakes:
100ml rapeseed oil
2 tsp cider vinegar
400ml oat milk
450g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
300g golden caster sugar
3 tsp vanilla paste
Zest of 2 lemons
For the icing:
560g vegan butter at room temperature. Blast in microwave for 10 seconds before starting.
230g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp aquafaba
Zest of 2 lemons
Pre-heat the oven to 160c fan and pop your paper cases into the cupcake tin.
Combine the rapeseed oil, cider vinegar and oat milk in a jug, and then combine the flour, baking powder and sugar in a bowl. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet mixture, whisking as you go.
Add the vanilla paste and lemon zest and stir to combine.
Divide between the muffin case – it’s approximately 3-4 tablespoons of batter per cup.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden and a skewer comes out clean.
To make the icing, use the adjusted measurements but follow the same instructions as above, only add lemon zest at the end, instead of lemon juice.
To ice, I would recommend buying very big piping bags and a large nozzle. If you’ve not got much experiencing icing cupcakes (like me), here’s what I learnt from practice, and then icing 96 of them in a row:
- Your instinct is to start in the middle of the cupcake but don’t. Start from the edge and twirl your way in. That’s how you get the pretty bit in the middle.
- Have a lot of icing in the bag and a good amount of pressure so you don’t run out halfway through icing a cupcake.
- Be bold and be fast, if you dither or try to be gentle, they don’t look as good or the icing goes everywhere. We had a system going where Gary would have a continuous stream of cupcakes in front of me, so I never really stopped icing, and my mum whisked them away into the carry case and the never-ending motion was what gave me the best results. It was surprising how quickly I managed to ice them all as well.
- The first few won’t be great but don’t worry. You’ll get into your stride, and they can go at the back.
- Your arms and back will ache. Not much you can do about that I’m afraid.
All the cupcakes were baked in paper cases and then we added them into the pretty cases afterwards. The tiered stand was just clear acrylic but that was all we needed; 96 cupcakes piled high was enough of a statement.
On the day, we had the cupcake tower stood tall and then the cake in front of it and we decorated the surrounding table with colourful dried flowers. And, if I do say so myself, I was pretty chuffed with the end results.
All photos by Hannah Mia.
2 Oct 2024
September Journal | Cosy season, my go-to candle brands & things I’ve loved lately
Hey there!
