Wednesday 15 December 2010

More cakes...

Yesterday my sister brought over these beautiful Christmas cupcakes that her friend makes. (visit www.madebymollie.com )
My favourite was the red holly one which was raspberry and strawberry flavour. Yummy! Em x

Secret recipe revealed!


Every Christmas I make tomato chutney for our family and friends. It's been getting rave reviews so I thought I'd share my no fail recipe...

For every 1kg tomatoes:
• 1kg toms, peeled and chopped
• 200g onions, chopped
• 100g sultanas
• 250g cooking apples, peeled, cored and chopped
• 300g sugar
• 225ml vinegar
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp mixed spice
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 crushed clove of garlic

Method:
1. Put everything in a large pan and heat gently until sugar has dissolved.

2. Bring to the boil, then simmer on a low heat for about 1 hr (or until thick and pulpy). Give it a stir from time to time to avoid burning.

3. Pour into sterilised jars and cover.

4 Leave to mature for over 2 weeks (min) before eating.

Enjoy!
Matt

Monkey business

Ever wondered how our cards are printed....

Friday 10 December 2010

Christmas Cakes

After a week of being snowed in and drinking lots of cups of tea to warm up (and of course, eating mince pies) I ventured out yesterday to our local shops in Leigh on Sea to see what else was on offer in the Christmas cake variety. First stop was our local bakers. Lots of traditional themed Christmas cakes....



...plus this impressive Santa's workshop cake...
Link..But my favourite of all were these gorgeous cheeky robin cakes in the window of Fancy Nancy...
Happy cake eating! Em x

Tuesday 7 December 2010

Christmas Desktop wallpaper

We gave this wallpaper away for a few days on our online advent calender and now we're making it available here. To download, click image to enlarge then drag image to your desktop or ctrl click (mac) or right click (pc). Enjoy! Matt

Monday 6 December 2010

Christmas states of mind.











When I think of Christmas an instant array of images fill my head, mostly from childhood and probably shaped by the idealistic imagery of Disney, Jim Henson, even classic 80s American films like National Lampoons. More recent additions to my image library are also from the U.S and my love of early 20th century newspaper comic strips. I've been a huge admirer of Winsor McCay's Little Nemo for years and I always picture his version of Santa (top picture). More recently I was introduced to Frank King's Gasoline Alley, who, like McCay based his main Character (Skeezix) on his son. I love the execution of the chimney smoke in this excerpt...