Christmas is just around the corner girls!

And the baking continues...boiled up all my fruit/butter/sugar yesterday while I was on a mission with the wedding cakes...and left overnight. This morning I got up and mixed up the batch of Christmas cakes...five in total (mind you 3 are tiny individual ones for gifts!)..but still!! Don't they look divine in the oven cooking...a stole a peek in order to photograph them! All wrapped up in good old newspaper to stop the outsides drying out...mums tip...I usually use brown paper and newspaper, but didn't have any brown paper, so all newprint it is!! I like to cover the top of my christmas cakes with blanched almonds as they toast beautifully while the cake bakes and are deliciously nutty to eat...I don't ice my cakes as I don't like icing and only one of my children likes fruit cake at all so I get to do it my way! Hubby doesn't like fruitcake either..:(...so my visitors over the Christmas season get to indulge with me!!

Almonds ready to stud the tops of the cake with....
The proof of the hand mixing!! It was all I could do not to scrape the remains off the bowl and eat them...aghh...as I write I realise I didn't put the golden syrup in...a minor ingredient but will be missed just the same...ah well...

The cute vintage tobacco tin that is my string tin...used to day to tie the newspaper around my tins..

And there they are baking away in my oven...two large ones on top, three littlies underneath (can't really see 'em)...can just see the edge of one. Those are baked in tiny springform tins that I'll leave them in and give the whole thing as a Christmas gift...so the recipient gets a gorgeous cake, in a brand new tin, and they get to use the tin again themselves...forever!!

Well that's it for now...we're off to find shirts and shoes...for my darling hubby for the wedding. Now that I changed my dress the shirt he had does'nt match! (oops! :( )...ah well...hoping we'll find something today...

have a great weekend fellow blogerettes!!

ciao for now

luv jessie xx

Wake up and smell the...BAKING!

Ahhh...the smell of baking in the house! I personally never get to wake up to it...but other members of my lovely family do...cos I like to get up and bake!! Mind you...I have a very good excuse right now...with Evan's (my son's) wedding next weekend, I really do need to be making cakes!! They're having a multi tiered cake with Raspberry Mudcake as main cake, and another tier being Lemon Syrup Cake...which I'll make just two days before as it won't keep like the mudcakes do....but man! they look good on my counter...and smelt divine cooking! So there's several tiers there...plus a dozen Mud Muffins with the 'leftovers'...was a HUGE mix!! lol...

Yum...if I wasn't restricting my intake of BAD, BAD (BUT TO DIE FOR! NOT TO MENTION DIVINE!)FOOD (just up until the wedding , you understand! lol)...I'd whip up some chocolate frosting RIGHT NOW and have one of these delectable choc berry mud muffins with a nice latte...

This will be the bottom tier...

And these will be the other tiers...but with a lemon cake inbetween...

And the other ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS smell around the house this week has been the russian fudge for the wedding...not to be confused with what we kiwis call Fudgecake (but I think the USofA's call it simply Fudge - made with crushed biscuits (cookies), butter, cocoa etc...??) Fudge in NZ is a confection...butter,sugar,milk,vanilla,glucose,conensed milk - all boiled up till setting temperature met...and whipped and poured to set....m..mmmmm!!!! two batches down, one to go (180 pieces done...) It is my sisters DIVINE Caramel Fudge recipe...to die for!! Smooth, soft to the bite (no hard sugary fudge here thankyou!!)...and keeps for months...but it never lasts that long!!

mm..mmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!

so that was the start of my baking week...continued in next blog!...

ciao bellas!

luv jessie xx

Mother of the Groom's dress....:)

This is a close up of the layered fabric...patterned cotton underneath with pink organza layered on top...

Close up of the bodice/midriff...

And this is the final result...hem looks uneven there but its not 'in the flesh'! On my poor old patched mannequin...haha

Back view...obviously the manny has a wider back than me cos couldn't do up!

Nice side view...ahhh

Sooo...here is the dress I've made for my son Evan's wedding in two weeks...TWO WEEKS!!! EEEK!!! ....breathe Jessie :)....I'd bought a pretty awesome dress when away in Auckland in September, but each time I tried it on (in my quest to lose a few kilos/pounds before the big day...had to check on progress by fit)...well...it just didn't look right...something wasn't right, you know? Like...my 51 year old knees really shouldn't be on display! Well, not 'right' at hem length...just below is way more flattering!! (when I'm in shorts they look fine...but just below the hem of a beautiful dress?? ah, no!)...and the fit at the back (which i couldn't see well when I bought it)...well, it just wasn't sitting right...and so I began a new search for plan B...another dress. But we are a small city...only a few shops to choose from for this type of event....and sad to say, I found nothing...sigh.

So! There was nothing for it but to make one...and then began my quest for 'the' perfect pattern...having had such dramas with Beth's Balldress (see posts in September)...I was a little nervous! But as luck would have it (or as I prefer to thing, divine intervention! ;))...I found a great pattern...well, two - a mix of two - bodice of one, skirt of another. I'd spied the most gorgeous fabric - a cotton mix, white background with big dark pink roses all over it...and to make it more dressy I bought pink organza to overlay it with...and I began! Four days later...VOILA! it is done...and I'm SO SO happy with it. My girls think it's beautiful...Emma(23) said..."oh mum, you look like the pretty doll you'd put on top of a cake"!! haha...a compliment, I think!! hehe...how cute. Must admit I do feel very 'pretty' in it...it's a very girly dress...fitted bodice with full circle skirt - ah I shouldv'e been an adult in the 50's! All that whirling on the dance floor!!

Anyways...will post a pic of me in it after the day! Now...how to have my hair...and will I make some organza flowers to put on the dress...shall I make a gorgeous flowery fabric cuff or have a traditional 'real' flower wrist corsage...and what jewellery...and I haven't even STARTED on about shoes!!! hehe...