A Blooming Great Tea Party...

Hey Everyone...

I am sorry I have STILL been so quiet - the nights just seem to disappear into a mountain of things I need to do and blogging doesn't get a look in! I promise I will try harder - and soon I will try to be more up to date! But tonight I really wanted to blog about a special day all the way back in July! Yes July - doesn't that seem so long ago?

Last year I had seen a charity campaign that was right up my street! It combined baking, tea and pretty china - what's not to love. Unfortunately, I ran out of time and so this year I was determined to join in! And although it meant cramming it in at the end of July with short notice, I was not going to miss out.

So I hosted a Blooming Great Tea Party in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care! It was a fantastic day, with lots of generous family and friends joining in and giving money and eating cake!

I decided to go the whole hog and bake a huge array of cakes! Unfortunately on the day I forgot to take many pictures - we were all having so much fun! But here is what I have...

First on the list was a request from a work friend - marble cake!

Next it was some colourful sponges...

Then another request and my first attempt at Pain Au Chocolat...

Then some pretty shaped biscuits...

And plain vanilla cupcakes for decorating...

And some piped meringues for sandwiching...

I iced the biscuits with pretty pink and purple icing...

Covered the marble cake in chocolate ganache...

Sandwiched the meringues with raspberry cream...

And whipped up some rocky road (with malteasers!)...

One of my lovely friends arrived early bearing gifts - it was so lovely of her...

Gorgeous flowers and a London tin she just knew I would fall in love with!

Thank you Marian!

Th spread was amazing... even if the rocky road fell apart and had to be put in little cupcake cases...

Those colourful layers were stacked to make a red, white and blue cake with cream cheese icing!

There was sooo much cake!

Ooo I forgot I made blueberry cheesecake macaroons too which you can see below!

My lovely friend Marian also went to the trouble to make some gorgeous looking cupcakes...

My vanilla ones were used for the cupcake decorating competition!

This was our best man's entry - a stegosaurus! 

(Can you spot me and my niece?)

And another...

Funnily enough my nieces won! But the stegosaurus came second!

Andrew's sister also made some delicious cupcakes and savoury scones - all of which were gluten free!

We had a fantastic raffle with prizes donated from Andrew's mum, a lovely facebook friend who I have never met (The Lovely Jen), one of Andrew's lovely cousins (who sent it in the post) and a freecycler who donated lots of lovely chocolates!

There was so much cake everyone took some home...

And I enjoyed the leftovers!

SUCH A BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO CAME & DONATED SOMETHING!

We raised a lot of money for a fantastic cause!

Love Jewel

xXx