Chocolate Fudge Cake..

The Infant school where Bucket jnr goes has a very good parent association - they help and organise loads and raise money for the school.

I've decided to help a little more and this weekend they had a Food Festival where new and current parents met and mingled with some food and drink.

The idea was that we make a dish (savoury or sweet) to bring along, so I made a Chocolate Fudge Cake.  I don't really have a savoury dish that I wanted to share but this cake we make every Christmas and at other times when we remember to. It's one of those dishes that only get made at a certain time i.e. pancakes, simnel cake, roast turkey... you know what I mean.

The only thing was, I had to make two - one for the school and one for us.

This recipe was given to me by my Mother-in-law and she had it as a recipe card from Bourneville (the chocolate).

Chocolate Fudge Cake

4 oz butter
2 tbsp golden syrup
8 oz digestives
1 oz raisins
2 oz glace cherries (halved)
5 oz dark chocolate

Fudge Icing

2 oz chocolate
1 oz butter
3 dessert spoons water
6 oz icing sugar

Grease and base line a 1lb loaf tin.

Melt the butter and syrup in a saucepan. Stir in the biscuits, fruit and chopped chocolate until mixed. Press firmly into the prepared tin and leave in a cool place to set.  Later turn out onto a board.

For the fudge icing melt the chocolate and butter with 3 dessertspoons of water over a gentle heat. Remove from heat and stir in sifted icing sugar and beat until cool and thick.  Spread the icing over the cake and dust with icing sugar to decorate.

Now this makes a really nice cake but it's not that big and you might find that it goes WAAAAY too quickly. So do what we do.... double the ingredients and make a WHOPPER of a cake. Sorry, forgot to take a picture straight away but this cake never lasts long in our house as you can see.

Also, with all the butter and syrup this cake is quite rich so don't cut huge chunks off until you've actually tried it and know that you'll manage to eat it (piggy).

The cake disappeared in double time at the Food Festival and I also had a couple of the mums asking for the recipe, so I was really chuffed.

Thanks Mother-in-law. Sam xx

Family game...?

I've just had a request to buy a game.

Now I'm not against family games - we love Rummikub and Sorry and we're even known to play Monopoly now and again. But I think I can definitely say that I will NOT be buying this one...

I know that kids find this funny but I just can't play a game about collecting dog poo.

Sorry kids, not this year (or ever). Sam xx

Crocodile plushie...

I have been around, honest. I've just been looking at other blogs, pinterest and trying to organise pockets of my cluttered house now that the kids have gone back to school (Bucket jnr started full time).

And after much nudging and hinting, I've finally gotten round to making the crocodile. If anyone wants to try doing a plush crocodile, to get some ideas I found it much easier to look up 'alligator'.

I did look at this site which gave me some ideas but in the end, with the rain pouring outside and armed with a pencil, rubber and a much needed cup of coffee, I freestyled a drawing of a crocodile.

 Then I changed the mouth.

 Cut out the material.

Might I just point out that this type of material is REALLY fluffy, especially when you cut it. The end bits all fluff off and get absolutely everywhere.

 My top used to be black,

 Nearly there.

 And, here it is...

 I didn't add on any eyes as I couldn't find any that I liked. Also, the little tag on the belly of the crocodile is to remind me where I sewed him up just in case he needs a bit of re-stuffing.

I have also recently made a bag and bought a cute jar/pot and I'll put some pictures on here soon but this crocodile has taken me all morning and I've done NO dishes; there is fluff EVERYWHERE and I also need to go shopping for some bits before the kids get out of school.

Definitely worth it though, to see the look on Bucket jnr's face when he comes home.

I'm just a bit worried what Miss Bucket is going to come up with to make for her next. Sam xx

Sewing some pouches..

I've finally gotten round to some sewing - HOORAY!!

 mess, mess everywhere

Bucket jnr has been staying for lunch at school and then next week he'll be there all day, so I've had a little extra time to do some other things.

I was looking at making myself a bag but thought I'd start small first and made these really cute pouches. I won't bore you with a tutorial as this wasn't my pattern and there are literally hundreds available to find on the internet. But in case anyone's interested, I followed Anna at Noodlehead's pattern which was easy enough even for me to follow.

Although I did have a few niggly moments: the first pouch has a wonky zip, so sorted this out by using tailors chalk on the next one. Also thought the stitches needed to be smaller; the second one is a bit smaller in size as I got carried away trying to make all the edges the same size; the third one I forgot to undo the zip a little bit so had to pick some stitches and then once I'd sewn it up again I realised that I'd forgotten the little tag so more picking.  Remember that I changed the stitch size? Yep, took me ages to unpick even a little bit.

I really thought that by the fourth one I'd cracked it, I sewed it all up and admired it lovingly. It was only when I was ironing it neater that I realised I'd mixed up the tags for no.3 and no.4....aaaarrrggh. Also, the tags are slightly on the p**s lop-sided.

Nevermind, I still like them and I'm NOT unpicking them again.

The open one is for me, the car one for Bucket jnr and the pink doggy one for Miss Bucket. The other one can be a spare. I think I'll pick up some more zips and make a whole load as gifts for that upcoming season that shall not be named, maybe fill with nail varnish or little sweets or both.

My next project has already been decided by Bucket jnr. Can you guess by the fabric?

 

 It's a .......crocodile.

Or at least it will be when I figure out how to make it. I'd better sort it out soon as I'm getting hassled hourly for this.
Sam xx

Santa wish list...

I don't know how everyone else handles Christmas but my kids get a stocking from Santa (everything else is from us).

Every Christmas morning they wake up to find that Santa has placed a gift in their stockings and I let them open them first (wouldn't dare to try and stop them).

This morning Bucket jnr came in to speak to me, all serious:

Bucket jnr: Mummy, I want a bumblebee and an optimus prime for Christmas.

Me: Ok.

Bucket jnr: Can you put it on your Christmas list.

Me: Ok.

Bucket jnr: I don't know how big they'll be but Santa can make them for me that way they won't cost you anything (aaahhhh).

Me: Ok but that's a lot for Santa.

Bucket jnr: I think that as I'm getting bigger then the toys should get bigger and more.

Me: Ok, you're going to have to be a REALLY good boy for them.

Bucket jnr: I know, I'm going to try to be good for the rest of my life (he's into big timescales at the moment).


What a sweetie, I tried not to smile too much as he was only standing in front of me in his pants and I was trying to take his seriousness seriously (hope that makes sense).

My lack of words was due to this being a three cups of coffee morning and I was currently on number two so not totally awake.


Ok, a sweetie no longer. He has come back and is now shooting his nerf gun at me with the phrase "I've got me a mummy kebab" - I have no idea where that is from and I probably never will.  Sam xx

Off sick...

Bloody typical, come back from holiday and get sicky bug or food poisoning.

Whatever it is, please go away.

The Bucket family is now in quarantine but I've got loads of lovely blogs to catch up on whilst we all recover.

Sam xx

We're back....

Finally arrived back after a wonderfully relaxing interesting holiday.

We went glamping down the South of France using Key camps and I must say, it was a good site if you've got kids. The facilities were great; close to the town and beach and the people were helpful and thankfully spoke really good English. My holiday French isn't too bad but when I get flustered I resort to charades.

 the view of the Pyrenees from the decking by our cabin

There were only a few niggles - we went down on a Saturday and got caught in a load of traffic; during the traffic our car started to overheat so we had to have the windows open with the fan on hot; as the windows were open I got sunburned (I'm a bit freckly) really badly on one arm so had to wear a really attractive sun top (with long sleeves) whenever I went swimming for the first week; because the car got wrecked we had to take it to a garage to get fixed - very large bill.

That's the bad news over and done with.

I asked Mr Bucket "who's idea was it to come this far down France?.... Oh yeah, it was mine".


After two weeks camping, we travelled back up France and stayed at Versailles.

We saw the Palace...

 I laughed at first at the tourists with little umbrellas but I'm telling you, if you visit this place then take one. There are white cobbles all over the place and on a sunny and hot day you boil. I took my factor 50 all the time and this is the only place where my nose got burned.


We visited Paris...

 

The architecture in this city is absolutely amazing and I would definitely love to go back. We grabbed a train from Versailles and then got on 'Les Cars Rouges', big red buses that you can hop on and off or just travel around if that's what you want to do. I've just got to say that I LOVE the Louvre, it is the most impressive place I have ever visited.

 We joined the masses at Disneyland...

 

 A great place but make sure that you have sturdy shoes; take your travel sickness pills for the rides and don't mind waiting approx 30-70 mins to get on a ride. It isn't that bad but when the kids got hot and tired it made it feel longer. A plus was that the food was reasonably priced and covered all ranges.

Oh yes, and take lots and lots of money because if you have kids then they have all the gifts your darling children will ever want.

A funny moment was when Bucket jnr wanted to stay on a good rollercoaster ride and started crying. As we were walking out the exit people were staring at him and you could read their faces and knew they were asking themselves "was it that bad???". I couldn't stop myself from saying "he did like it, really".

It was an enjoyable holiday but if we ever go back I'm NEVER taking the car again - it's a hire car for us next time, it would be cheaper. Sam xx