Chocolate Sauce

This week I tried out a new recipe for chocolate sauce which I found on Hazelnuts blog.  It can be used to make milkshakes and as a sauce for ice cream. We also tried it as a warm chocolate sauce and poured it on to a chocolate and cream sponge cake, it was gorgeous. The recipe is very easy and quick to make and has been a hit with people in this house. Thank you for posting your recipe Jacqui .

What-a-lotta-chocca cookies

Having some time off work and amongst my spring clean I treated myself to a new baking book . There are some fantastic recipes for cakes and biscuits . Imade what-a-lotta-chocca for my kids and parents the other day and they didnt have to be stored ( they never left any)
Ingrediants
125g-plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
25g- cocoa
125g-dark chocolate
85g-soft butter
175g- light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
350g-milk choc chips
55g white choc chunks

Preheat oven to180c/350f/gas4 and line baking trays with greaseproof paper.
Sift flour/cocoa and bicarb into a large bowl and set aside.

Break dark chocolate into pieces and melt over a pan of simmering water.Let it cool slightly.
Cream together the butter/sugar and vanilla extract then beat in the eggs.

Stir the melted chocolate into the mixture.

Then add the milk chocolate chips and white chocolate chunks.

Fold all this mix into the flour and cocoa mix. Next put spoonfulls of the mix onto your baking trays allowing space for spreading.

Bake for 10 minutes then leave on the trays to firm up. once they have hardened slightly transfer them to wire racks.

ENJOY!!!

If you enjoy these then definetly buy the book there are loads more yummy recipes in there

Visitors & De Cluttering

Its been a bit busy in this household lately for anything craft wise. I have a lot of little things that just need finishing off though.

Firstly the boys were on their half term school holidays so I took the opportunity to get their wardrobe sorted out. Which involved me throwing clothes at them to try on to see if they fit or not. Little L didn't want to be left out and tried some on too. The boys must be going through a massive growth spurt as some of their clothes they have only worn a couple of times and are now too small.Next Little L's clothes were sorted. Any clothes which are still in good condition then get passed on to two of my friends for their children. I then had a quick sort through my airing cupboard but only found some tatty cushion covers to get rid off and I did unpick the zips off these before they went into the recycling tub. When I actually thought that I maybe getting somewhere with my de-cluttering frenzy my mum rang and asked me if I wanted two sets of curtains for my living room - well I'm not going to say no am I ? I may as well face facts now, this house will never be clutter free.

When the boys went back to school after their break, I had a nice visit from my sis, niece and nephew ( their school holidays were a week behind the boys ).

Jay made these lovely cakes to bring with. They were gorgeous. She always makes excellent cakes ( a far better baker and cook then me ). I may dabble with soup and jam making now and again but it doesn't seem to matter how many pinnies I have, I'm never going to a 'Ma Larkin' not matter how much it appeals to me.

My sis also bought a variety of eggs for us laid by her hens and as soon as my youngest boy came in he asked for an omelette so omelette's for tea it was.

Just before Jay arrived I had a visitor of the feathered kind. I didn't know what it was but I know we have had a sparrowhawk in the garden recently so I thought it might have been that but when my sis saw it she said it was a kestrel. Sorry for the poor photos. I was stretching over the kitchen sink trying to take the photo through the window before it flew off.

My Etsy Buys

Having never bought anything from Etsy, I took the plunge last week and bought these Japanese craft books. I bought them both from the same seller who sells lots of different Japanese craft books and I was really impressed with the delivery time. They only took a week to arrive from Japan - delivery of items from within the UK usually takes longer than that.

The first book that I bought features crochet items to use in the home, mainly cleaning cloths but also covers for household items such as air freshers, spray cleaning bottles etc.

I was actually drawn to this book because of this little blue octopus. I thought it might make a cute wash cloth for Little L.

I also like the idea of these keyboard brushes. They might even encourage the older children to give their laptops a brush.

I don't even know what the name of the craft in the second book is, or if it has a name. The book is filled with lots of little characters made by winding wool in to tight balls and tightly around wire. I bought this book as I have seen key rings with figures on made by this method and wanted to give it a try myself.

At the moment I am trying to reduce my stash of wool so I think that both these books will come in handy as the projects don't take up large amounts.

Mr & Mrs

After suffering with tonsillitis on and off for years my niece has finally had her tonsils removed. She went in to hospital on Monday and came home on Tuesday and now has to stay in for two weeks. I haven't seen my lovely niece yet but hopefully will when she is on her next school hols.By the sound of things she won't be getting the chance to be bored as her lovely brother is going round to her classes and picking her school work up ( she is leaving school this year so can't afford to slip behind ).At the moment she is in to anything scary and creepy like horror films, zombies, etc. I made these bride and groom skeletons for her - I just hope shes still in to cute stuff as well.

Baking And Buttons

Today I did a little baking again using a recipe which I found on the Attic24 blog .. Thank you Lucy :). I've made these Oaty Cookies a few times now and usually use dried apricots as my dried fruit ingredient.

After baking I decided to try and sort out my buttons. I have been saving up my 'posh' jam jars to put store them in but they are not big enough to put some colours in. Plus while it has sorted a few buttons out, I now don't have the space anywhere to put these jam jars. Oh well, at least I have made a start and really it was just an excuse for me and Little L to play with them for a while.

Recycled Calendar

Anyone who knows me knows that I loathe to throw anything away if I think I may find a use for it so I hung onto my last years calendar trying to think what to do with it. The pictures on the calendar were these William Morris designs and I thought they would be ideal to cover something with.

Having nothing to cover, they ended up being made into a paper garland instead. I used spray adhesives to glue two pieces together so that there was now a different design on each side of the paper, instead of a nice design on one side and my scribbled appointments on the other. I cut out circles, rectangles and squares then using my sewing machine I sewed them into a string.

I apologise for lack of colour in this photo - we have an extremely dark hall way.