Rainbow of Fruit Flavours
Posted: June 11, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: charity tea parties, FSID, Hummingbird Bakery, Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days, Keelan Bambrick Webster, Michelle Webster 2 Comments »I have had a busy few days where tea parties have had to take a bit of a back seat, which is a shame, because they are great.
I have handed the baton over to the children. Tallulah and Oscar were so badly behaved they lost the privilege of hosting a party this week, which is a shame.
I have agreed that if their behaviour improves they can earn the privilege back. They are currently being angelic. Whether this will last or not is entirely debatable at this point. The urge to rip each other to pieces is sometimes too strong to be resisted.
Tilly on the other hand is going great guns. She has written invitations, and as her theme is ‘rainbows’, they are colourful and pretty. She has even sent some of them, although I have just noticed some sitting by the side of me at my desk. I presume this means that it is my job to post them on Monday.
She is subtle like that.
She has spent an hour this evening flicking through the new cookbook she got for her birthday and choosing things she is going to make. The cookbook is the new Hummingbird Bakery book, called Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days. It is awesome.
She has shown me pictures of some of the things she will be making. She has chosen seven things! It was hard to get it down to only seven. I sympathised with her struggles, and was no help to her whatsoever as I kept turning the pages, seeing a new and shiny picture of cake and going: ‘Oooh!’
I am a terrible cake editor.
I am a great cake disappearer.
Once she has settled on a finally final cast list I will let you know, so you can read it and weep.
I hope she sends me an invitation.
P.A.R.T.Y.
Posted: June 9, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: FSID, FSID Tea Party, fund raising tea parties, fundraising, Fundraising for FSID, host a tea party for FSID, how to host a tea party, Katy Wheatley, Keelan Bambrick Webster, Michelle Webster, raising money for charity 2 Comments »I am at last able to say I am doing my first tea party. It will be at my daughter Kelsey’s 3rd birthday. There will be the usual party food but as a side line I will be selling cream teas for £2.50. I will be the Del Trotter of tea party’s. This will be for the adults who don’t fancy jelly and sausage rolls. I will take photos and let you know how much we raise.
Party On Dudes…
Posted: June 7, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: FSID, Keelan Bambrick Webster, Michelle Webster, raising money for charity, Tea Parties for charity 3 Comments »I hosted my first tea party yesterday.
I had such fun. Really, truly I did.
All my children were out for the day, so I got to play, all alone, and make my table pretty, and make things for grown up people who don’t demand Cheese Strings and Fruit Shoots as the height of party extravagance. There was no snot, no tantrums and no blessed pass the parcel or plastic bags full of party blowers and balloons.
It was all very civilized.
Here are my finished cakes looking fine:
This is my chocolate cake from Nigella’s Feast. It is actually the recipe for the Halloween cake, but I have just de Halloweened it. It was moist and rich and gooey, and so simple to make it is unbelievable. This cake is an utter winner if you want to impress someone who likes chocolate.
That would be almost everyone except my husband who doesn’t do chocolate cake, and Michelle, who would, if it didn’t bring her out in giant lumps and mean a trip to hospital for her pains.
Here is my Victoria Sponge all gussied up:
I made this with my husband in mind. He is a cake purist. Victoria sponge with a thin layer of raspberry jam and mountains of whipped cream in the middle is his idea of heaven. I didn’t have any icing sugar (major baking fail on my part there), so I sprinkled it with vanilla sugar instead and it all came good. I could probably make this cake in my sleep. I make one for him every year on his birthday and every few weeks when he needs a cake fix.
This is my custard sponge with melted chocolate topping and vanilla buttercream:
This also comes from Nigella’s Feast. It’s a kind of fancy ass sponge, but it is denser and sweeter than a regular sponge and has considerably more oomph.
I spent ages making the table look pretty:
and then filled it full of delicious food:
I stopped taking pictures at this point, as I still had lots to do. The table though, was only half full at this point.
Remember, the Boo motto: ‘Never knowingly under-catered.’
I catered by thinking about what I would like to eat. As I like to eat most things, the table got very full, very quickly. A random selection of things included:
- Fresh podded peas, raw. These were baby peas and as sweet as anything. mmmm.
- A huge bowl of mixed leaves, but with the emphasis on the peppery; wild rocket, mizuna, water cress, pea shoots etc.
- Another huge bowl of fresh strawberries and Tulameen variety raspberries.
- A trillion different types of cheese including a spectacular Moody’s farm goat cheese studded with hot pink peppercorns. It tasted mild and creamy and then landed a whack of heat from the peppercorns.
- French bread in hearty, rustic chunks.
- Real, salted butter to go with it.
- A trillion different types of Italian and Spanish ham; prosciutta, parma, coppa, lonza, serrano. mmmmmmm.
- Home made potato salad with Jersey Royals, mayonnaise, sea salt, cracked black pepper and spring onions chopped in for zing.
- Baby plum tomatoes and other salady type goodness.
- Beef tomato and red onion salad made with a vinaigrette of balsamic vinegar, garlic olive oil and lots of sea salt and black pepper.
I have to stop because I’m making myself hungry again.
It was good.
Then the house was filled with friends, and we laughed and ate and had a really lovely time together.
And I made another £30 for FSID in the process.
It was really a joy to host and a joy to prepare and a great prelude to my daughter’s birthday party later that afternoon.
Remember. If you want to host a party on our behalf we would be very grateful. It doesn’t have to be big. It just has to involve you, some food and drink and some friends.
We are raising money for the Foundation for the Study of Infant Death.
We are raising money to help people who are going through grief and anguish after the death of a child from SIDS or Cot Death.
We are raising money for research to try and make sure that one day we can prevent these kinds of deaths happening at all.
We are raising money to remember with joy and positivity, Michelle’s son, Keelan Bambrick Webster, who died this January aged only five weeks from SIDS.
We want to host 100 tea parties over the next few months and we really need your help.
And you can help by doing what I just did.
Please at least give it some thought.
If you want to host a tea party for us please contact us. Our e-mails are in the side panel of the blog, or simply drop a comment in the box below.
Thank you.
Countdown to my first party
Posted: June 5, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cake recipes, emma bridgewater, FSID, Keelan Bambrick Webster, Michelle Webster, nigella lawson, nigella lawson feast, Tea Parties for charity 1 Comment »I have been baking all evening.
This is because there are two very significant events happening in the Boo household tomorrow. Firstly, my daughter Tilly is going to be twelve. Secondly I am having my first FSID tea party in memory of Keelan.
Both of these celebrations require cakes.
I have made three large cakes and some small muffins. As there are only four guests at my tea party, and only five of us for dinner tomorrow night, this is a lot of cake. I still had to be restrained from baking more. Once I get going I just love baking.
My cakes are as follows:
Your classic Victoria sponge.
A sponge made with custard powder. Trust me, it really works. It is delicious. It is from Nigella Lawson’s excellent book: ‘Feast’.
A moist chocolate sponge. This is also from Feast.
They do not look that spectacular at the moment, but that is because I took the pictures as the cakes were cooling, and I am not going to fill or ice them until tomorrow. I will take more photographs then.
You can see, however, my lovely Emma Bridgewater comports. The top design is surprisingly called Union Jack. The middle design is my favourite and is known as Black Toast or Toast and Marmalade. The third design is called Starry Skies. I love them all.
I also test baked Sharon’s coconut and raspberry muffin recipe which we posted earlier.
They don’t look quite as plumptious as they should because I didn’t have muffin cases, only fairy cake cases. But they taste delicious. I can vouch for this, having just burned my tongue hoofing one down before the writing of this post commenced.
Here is my progress in pictures, with more gratuitous Bridgewater shots for my own amusement:
I have spared you the shot of my burned tongue.
And the crumbs in my cleavage…
The Jam has landed..
Posted: June 4, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: host a tea party for FSID, Katy Wheatley, Keelan Bambrick Webster, Michelle Webster, Tea Parties for charity, Thursday Cottage jams Leave a comment »I just had to tell you that Thursday Cottage Jam Company were true to their word. The 166 mini jams arrived safe and sound and totally free of charge. So a big round of applause for those fab people. Yeah!!
The plot thickens
Posted: June 1, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: emma bridgewater, emma bridgewater black toast comport, emma bridgewater black toast mixing bowl, emma bridgewater sampler half pint mug, emma bridgewater tea parties, FSID, Keelan Bambrick Webster, Michelle Webster, mile in memory, Tea Parties for charity 4 Comments »I think I ought to tell you about my own tea party plans.
I do have them. I’m just not being very organised about them this week. It’s all the fault of half term. I am slacking.
So. I have plans for a few parties actually, because I love tea parties so much I cannot contain all the tea party goodness in one party alone.
Firstly I have a tea party lunch planned for some lovely friends on Monday when the children are back at school. This is my lovely daughter Tilly’s twelfth birthday, so I will be holding two parties that day, but what the hell. I’ve never been one to say no to a challenge.
The tea party lunch is quite simple. I have been trying to get together with these ladies for a very long time. We are all busy mum’s with busy lives and lots of children who also have busy lives. When we can get together it is great, but rare, and normally we are so sick of cooking for other people that we unanimously slide off to town and go and sit in a restaurant instead.
This time I will be doing the catering, and all my lovely friends have agreed to put into my fund raising bucket what they would have spent on lunch in it, and I will give it to FSID.
How simple is that? You see, you too could have a tea party in a similar way, with little or no effort, and lots of people you love sharing food with you. And you will be helping to save lives and support people who are struggling with unbearable sadness too.
Hooray.
My next batch of parties involve the children. I have promised them they can all host their very own tea party each. They are so keen to help, and they did such a magnificent job last time. I love the fact that they are learning about caring about other people and making positive change, and that they are so enthusiastic about it.
Every Friday until the end of term I am allowing them each to host a party. They choose the theme. They invite their guests, and they sort out the invitations, decorations and as much of the food as they can. Tilly is having a rainbow themed party, and has picked five friends she wants to invite. Tallulah has changed her mind on several occasions. She started out wanting a Mr. Gum party with big ginger beards as costumes and entrails made of pasta to eat. I was all for this. I thought it was a brilliant idea. Sadly this has now gone for a burton, and we are back to the old chestnut of fairies. Sigh! Still. I may well hold a Mr. Gum party of my own now that she has planted the seed. It’s such a brilliant idea.
Oscar is rotating between going for a pirate themed tea and going for a dinosaur theme. I might suggest Pirate Dinosaurs. There are some very cool picture books by Russell Ayto about pirate dinosaurs we can use as inspiration.
In the holidays I am going to hold a moustaches of the Nineteenth Century party. I suggested this in jest on another blog post and have been so excited by the idea I feel that it needs to be done, and photographs need to be taken!
And then there is my big party. I am going to hold an Emma Bridgewater tea party. I am already collecting cake plates (or as we in the trade call, comports) for this very event. I took delivery of my latest one today, and very happy I am with it too:
and I shall be mixing my cake mix in this:
while we drink tea out of cups like this:
Twice The Goodness
Posted: May 31, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: FSID, Keelan Bambrick Webster, Michelle Webster, raising money for charity, roody's cake shop hinckley, Roody's Creation Shop Hinckley, roody's ice cream parlour hinckley, tea parties 4 Comments »I have been doing extensive testing of Roody’s Creation Shop, the amazing ice cream and cake shop in Hinckley, who are going to host a tea party for us.
I am all about the self sacrifice, and I am too old to go and partay with Gina and her beau, Pablo Contraband over at Disco Deviant. I don’t want to be put on the list for a hip replacement just yet.
You are never to old for cake though, and I have bravely fought my way through sleet and snow, wind and rain, and Hinckley town’s ridiculous parking prices to go and make sure that they are really on the ball when it comes to tea and cake knowledge.
It has been wearisome at times, to go into their warm and welcoming cafe, and sit down with a cup of coffee you could swim laps in, and sample cakes as big as your head, but I have persevered, bravely and without complaint.
Even when my fingers have been worn to the bone with typing nonsense and pushing those numbers on the bank machine to pay for yet another piece of pottery I don’t really need, I have put fork to mouth, with fortitude.
I have manned up.
I have caked up.
I am permanently sugared up.
I must report that things are A1 with a gold star and several smiley faces, and that no matter how many times I go there hoping to catch them slacking, and unwrapping boxes of Mr. Kipling’s French Fancies in the back room, I have always been disappointed.
They are consistently brilliant.
I have no complaints. Which is hard for me, because, as you know, I am a complaining sort of woman.
Anyway. I went in there today, to eat things like this:
and Mrs. Roody pulled me to one side to tell me that they were so excited by our plans for saving babies lives via the power of tea parties, that they are holding not one, but two parties for us.
I must meet her next week and get the low down.
I am very excited. Not only because this means our tea party o meter can slide down two more notches, but because I may well have some more onerous cake quality control testing type duties to do as well.
Entente Cordiale or whatever the German equivalent is
Posted: May 30, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized 6 Comments »Other great news this weekend is that we have had a wonderful write up, and a promise of a tea party from my lovely blogging friend Bev over at Confuzzledom. Bev is an English girl living and making a life for herself in Germany. She has come a long way in the few years I have been reading her blog. I sometimes think she forgets quite how much progress she has made. I remember the days she was living in student digs and worrying about getting a job, and now she is settled in a beautiful flat with her boyfriend and a steady job, and she still manages to do a good bit of globe trotting despite having settled down!
Bev has promised to host a tea party for us. As she explains in her blog post, most Germans believe that it is the most English of things for us all to down tools and have tea and cake at five o’clock every day. As she also explains, for those of you who may be holding on to this as a truth, no Englishman in their right (or even wrong) mind, does this, and it has NEVER been a British tradition.
Would that it were.
In order to honour both her native English roots and her adopted German heritage, Bev is going to start the tradition of English tea at five, by hosting a traditional English tea party at five o’clock for all her German friends.
She is looking for suggestions as to what makes a perfect British tea.
Answers over at Bev’s place, or in the comments box below.
Cha Ching!
Posted: May 30, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Disco Deviant, FSID, having a charitable tea party, Just giving, Keelan Bambrick Webster, Michelle Webster, Pablo Contraband, tea parties Leave a comment »I’m sorry there has been radio silence on the Katy front. I have been inconvenienced. I had a vertical hold problem caused by a migraine that put me out of the loop there for a while. But I am back in the saddle so to speak, although I expect is is against health and safety regulations to saddle up a dormouse these days.
Tsk.
Even from my sick bed I have been keeping abreast of progress on the tea party front. Isn’t it fantastic news about our jam eh? I shall have to borrow my mum’s recipe for jam tarts. She is a ninja at jam tarts.
Michelle is now officially our Jam Wizard.
Other fantastic news includes the fact that Gina and Paul hosted their Secret Rooftop DJ party that we blogged about this weekend, and raised us £85! It went into the Just Giving account today and is our first tea party triumph. Shout out to the Disco Deviant Massive.
Gina told me that there were pictures, but she had such a good time doing the fox trot and drinking tea, that she lost her camera in the proceedings.
I believe these old tyme tea dances do get a bit boisterous every now and again, and she has always had a fatal weakness for a double lapsang souchong on the rocks. I’ve always said it was wisest to stick to a good Earl Grey. No surprises there.
I have now seen Facebook evidence that the party took place, which leads me to believe that she may have found her camera again and I will be pestering her for some photos to stick up here.
I felt like I had been to the party and had one too many helpings of sherry trifle, but that was just the migraine talking. No such luck.
I have been a stay at home Jane while they have all been gadding about, tripping the light fantastic and chucking cucumber sandwiches at each other.
It will change next Monday when I host my very own first tea party. I have plans. I will blog about them later.
We have jam
Posted: May 28, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: FSID Tea Party, Keelan Bambrick Webster, Michelle Webster, Thursday Cottage jams 2 Comments »If you crossed your fingers then thanks it worked!! The Thursday Cottage people emailed me last night. They are fab, they didn’t do us a discount or free shipping they went one better and are sending lots and lots of jam for free no cost for the jam or the shipping. Wow!! What lovely people.
