Cream cheese icing quandry

I seem to have a problem with cream cheese icing. I cannot get it to stay nice and thick and spreadable. It seems that as soon as I add the icing sugar to the cream cheese, the whole thing just turns to water...well, very runny anyway and often far too runny to even put on the cake. Ends up as more of a dip really.

So I have had a look on the internet to see if I can find any help. What I really need to know is why it is going wrong and if there is a simple solution I can employ when making it in the future.

The first few sites I looked at appeared promising from the subject heading, but was just a lot of people replying saying, "oh, I don't know why yours has gone wrong. Here's my recipe which works for me every time." Yeah, okay, but I don't really want to just be trying lots of slightly differing recipes just to work out one I can use. I think that if I know what's going wrong, I can just adapt the recipe I have. Also, some suggestions are to exclude any milk. Yep, not using any milk at the moment.

There is however a useful thread on Flickr - Cupcakes Take the Cake. Some suggestions are to add more icing sugar, but I feel like I'd have to add a shed more to even get the icing to a vaguely spreadable consistency, and it's already pretty sweet! There does however seem to be an agreement of opinion that overbeating causes some of the problems, and the post from Rebecca's Cakes suggests making a butter icing first, then adding the cream cheese last mixing only until combined. This sounds doable - although the quantities she suggests are huge!

Finally I had a look on Nigella's website at the thread there and that's just offering up recipes which work. One posting suggests Rachel Allen's recipe as a really good one - how on earth did she/he get it to work!

I'm going to try making the butter icing first, and then add the cheese. See how it goes!

Rachel Allen's carrot cake

Tried another carrot cake today - this is Rachel Allen's recipe from 'Bake.' The cake is gorgeous and really tasty, however it is supposed to be topped with cream cheese orange icing.

The more astute among you will note the lack of icing on this cake! I'm not sure why it happens but ever time I try to make cream cheese icing, the mixture loses all its integrity as soon as the icing sugar hits the bowl. It's happened the last few times and I don't know whether it's something I'm doing, or whether I just haven't found a good recipe yet. So we ended up with a cream cheese orange dip with our cake this evening!

The secret life of a cardboard box

By day - ridiculously oversized packaging



But by night - super duper ace computer!

Random questions

I'm having some trouble with one of the wheels on my double buggy. So as we bought it from Mothercare I am having a look at their website to submit a query about whether I can get a replacement. Went to the Contact Us section, and here are the FAQs. Spot the odd one out? I think the Mothercare site does provide all sorts of advice about general matters as well as what they sell, but it just seemed a little out of place with the rest of the questions!

frequently asked questions

Ask your question using the search box above or browse through the categories on the left.

* I have lost my set of instructions, how do I get another set?
* What time does your customer care team operate, and how can I get in contact?
* Where is my order?
* When is the best time to conceive?
* How do I make a complaint?
* Can I track my order online?
* How can I apply for a store card?
* How can I find information on my local store?
* What are the terms and conditions?
* Does my local store have a particular item in stock?

Aha - have just noticed this is only page 1 of many questions you could look at. So maybe there are more later on in the same vein!

You know you're a parent when...

You leave the house with googly eyes stuck to your shoe.

You return from a trip to the supermarket to only then discover a large yoghurty smear over your right boob which has been there the entire time. You then realise that what you thought were simpering looks at your beautiful baby were actually sympathetic looks at you!

You feel slightly affronted when Cbeebies changes its schedule and moves your son's favourite programme. How on earth are you going to get him to sit still now while you race around trying to get everything together to leave the house??!

You judge a hotel by the size of its bathroom - after all that's where you'll be spending most of your evenings waiting for the boys to go to sleep.

Your multi-tasking skills are second to none - changing nappies, playing games and holding conversation all at the same time!

You are not sure whether to be embarrassed or proud when your son announces at the breakfast table in a hotel that he's just done 2 trumps.

You find a banana stuck in the end of your vaccuum cleaner hose.

Holidays!

We've just returned from our first, what I call 'holiday' with the boys (okay, it was a holiday, everyone calls it a holiday, but I've just been listening to too much Miranda Hart!). We spent a few days in East Anglia - visiting our old favourite haunt in Southwold and spending time with my family in Lowestoft, Norwich and Stokesby. So a busy time anyway added with the fact that although a lovely holiday, it was by no means a break or a rest!!

So we started with a B&B in Southwold - Newlands. A bit more expensive than I was expecting to be honest, but then it is Southwold in the summer! The B&B was great though, very accommodating of the boys (it was surprisingly difficult to find a B&B that would take children) and they had an indoor swimming pool. We didn't use it in the end but it was handy to have somewhere I could take Leo when he woke up so that Leigh and Zachary could have a bit more of a lie in. Zachary loved being away - within 2 minutes of arriving he was bouncing on the bed, and Leo had managed to open a drawer! Spent the first afternoon discovering we had left all the nappies at home, buying some very expensive nappies in the town, wandering along Southwold prom, introducing Zachary to the sea (which he adored)



fish and chips for tea, and a session with the Expressive Photo Booth on the wonderful Southwold Pier...



from which we learn that Leo only has one expression - confused! Then back at the B&B discovered we had also left ALL the toiletries at home. Great.

The next day we headed up to the cannons at Southwold to try and repeat a photo opportunity from when we came with Zachary as a baby

(2008 - I'd forgotten how mardy Zachary looked that day!)


(2010)


and then headed over to Lowestoft for some paella and an afternoon on the beach with my dad and his wife - more sandcastles,



and a play with the sunglasses.



Again a lovely afternoon - doughnuts this time!

Next we headed to Norwich where we planned to stay 2 nights at a Holiday Inn and the final night with my sister and her family. Spent time with my mum and my sister and also managed to catch up with a couple of friends I haven't seen for more than a year, which was fab. Had a good wander round Norwich cathedral, a lovely lunch at Cafe Morello (highly recommended), and an afternoon at Melsop Farm Park where we met a burping sheep and where Zachary would have been happy just spending the whole time on the trampoline, without us forcing him to feed animals!



So a great holiday all in all and the boys had a fantastic time, despite both of them being slightly under the weather at varying stages. Some of the Zachary highlights - the look of absolute amazement on his face when he saw the self-closing seat on the toilet working, his declaration that "I like trumps," and randomly in the middle of the night he turned over, said "clap" and then went straight back to sleep! At breakfast on the final morning at the Holiday Inn, Zachary looked at the TV showing Sky News Sunrise presented by Eammon Holmes and announced that Mr Holmes was in fact Shrek, and then proceeded to tell us very loudly that he'd just done a trump. When Leigh tried to gently tell him that we don't usually say that in public, the volume increased and Zachary repeated himself and carried on saying "trump, trump, trump, 2 trumps..." until we managed to distract him with Coco Pops. We could not stop laughing and I'm still having to make a real effort not to burst out now as I'm typing!

Naive, Naive, Naive

I have been passing the PixieFoto studio every time I visit Mothercare and pondering whether to arrange a shoot with the boys. They've got an offer on over the summer (which included up to 60% off an order of photos made on the day) so I took the plunge and we went there today. Leigh warned me I might end up spending lots there but I was confident I would be able to resist temptation and just come back with the complimentary photo. Oh how naive I was!!!

The shoot went brilliantly and both boys were absolutely adorable. Then came the viewing of the photos. Oh they were beautiful and it was so hard to just pick a few of them - in some weird way it felt like I was rejecting the boys if I didn't choose a picture!! Anyway I settled on a few and they totalled them up for me - £636. Yes, that's with the discount. So I picked myself up off the floor, realised that the prices I had been quoted over the phone must have been already reduced (!) and reset my expectations. I didn't manage to not buy any, but I was reasonably restrained and we do now have some good presents for grandparents at Christmas. That said, it still seemed pretty expensive..but the photos were so lovely!! I'm such a sucker!

Zachary was really good, although he got a bit bored when I was trying to select pictures and make an order. He'd picked up a balloon from the display outside and then started bashing the photographers with it! Fortunately they were really good about it (I guess they're used to children!) and it was a good job there was noone else waiting. But Zachary had a great time and one of the photographers took him under her wing and let him play with some of the props and toys they use. He loved it, and I had to laugh when to call the photographer over, I could hear Zachary just shouting 'lady, lady!' Nice.

Let's just call them Yogi and Boo Boo

We had a picnic out in the garden this lunchtime with free-ranging chickens. We thought it would be lovely. Leigh and I both had sandwiches, the boys have toast and crackers with some grapes, apple and pear puree for afters. Leo also had some tomato.

We sat ourselves pretty close to the blueberry bush so when the chickens came up behind us and started pinching blueberries we thought nothing of it. Then they began circling Leo who had a piece of toast in each fist. Correction. Did have a piece of toast in each fist!!! Bubbles was very interested in it and eventually managed to snatch a piece out of Leo's hand. Then as we were trying to fend off Dax, she ran across the picnic rugs, straight over Zachary's crackers and tipping over the pot of pear puree. Although that wasn't so bad as she then ate the spilt puree from the rug and cleaned it up. Next a piece of toast was half-inched from Zachary's plate and the birds chased each other across the lawn for it! There's something about toast which just sends them completely mental. Leigh had a small amount of a nut, celery and apple salad on his plate. Dax pinched the last peanut, ate it, then daintly wiped the mayonnaise from her beak onto the rug. All during this we were trying to keep both chickens away from Leo and his toast and breadstick...fail. The breadstick got snatched and then Dax had a go at Leo's toes!!! Picnics with the chickens? Never again!!! Well...never on the lawn again!

We're not expecting any blueberries this year..

The combination of free-ranging chickens and a blueberry bush in the garden is proving to be an interesting combination. First they began by just pecking off the unripe berries from the lower branches. Now some of the berries are ripening, so they're pecking off the ripe berries from the lower branches. Okay, so we're thinking that the higher ones are pretty safe. Wrong! Chickens can jump and flap quite effectively...

Ready -


Set -


Go!

Some milestones

Leo's hit a few milestones over the last few days. His first tooth is making an appearance - at least we can see the place where it will come through, although it doesn't seem to have actually cut yet. There are also strong indications that he's thinking about crawling - he got onto his hands and knees in the bathroom this evening and I don't think it'll be long until he works it out! Two on the move. Not sure how good that'll be!!!!

He had his first swimming lesson on Friday and that was ace. He really seemed to love being in the water and spent most of the lesson splashing around. He was also very calm when he had to lay on his back and I'm so pleased he's taken to it well. It's really important to me that even if the boys can't swim for a while yet, that they're confident in the water and understand simple water safety. Finally this evening Leo managed to vomit in Zachary's hair. That's never happened before. And hopefully never again!

My little magpie

So this morning in Zachary's bed I found him (obviously!), Leo's spare sleepsuit and muslin (which started out the night on Leo's cot), a tub of Vicks and a packet of baby wipes (which started out the night on the shelves). Hmmm...night time shenanigans.

Meet the girls!

Here are Bubbles and Dax - new arrivals today.




Bubbles is the black hen, she's a Miss Pepperpot. Dax is the ginger Gingernut Ranger and they're great. An Omlet chap brought them and the chicken coop this morning, set it all up, explained how to work and clean it and even clipped their wing feathers. It was great. They have to stay in the run for 5 days to acclimatise and get used to going into the house to roost at night, but then we can let them out to run in the garden. The wing clipping is only done on one side so that the chickens are unbalanced if they try to flap, so hopefully they won't be able to jump the fence!

We were warned that they may not lay for a couple of days and that the first few eggs might be quite small or the shell not formed properly, but a couple of hours after they arrived, look what Leigh found in the nesting box!



And it was a double yolker!



The first day has been really good.

Under the sofa

Decided to clear under the sofa this evening. We held a small competition - winner being the person who guessed closest to the number of items under it. I guessed 25, Leigh 18. There were 36 - more if we'd counted each individual raisin rather than all of them as one group! Other delights included a fluffy ball of playdough, about £2.50 in change (including a £2 coin so not that huge a number of coins!), playing cards, half a cabbage (plastic!), a crayon and hair clip. Good job done.

Experimenting with alcohol

So recently I've tried Amaretto with cherry Coke (lovely), toffee vodka with Coke (also yum), and today - Pimms with Lilt. Yep, ran out of lemonade. Think I'll stick to lemonade in the future.

C-Day!

The chickens arrive tomorrow! It's all very exciting and a little bit scary too. Leigh's been talking about getting chickens for a couple of years now and finally the time seems right. We're getting 2 and an Omlet enclosure which should hopefully keep the local foxes out.

We have friends who have chickens and they seem to get on really well with them, and we went to a demonstration of the Omlet coops last year so we have some idea what we're letting ourselves in for.

The most tricky thing so far has been deciding on names for them! Leigh wanted Dax and Kira to start with but that was a bit too Trekky. Although I can hardly talk when my suggestion was Jane and Hercule. Leigh reminded me that they're both girls so I suggested Tuppence (as in Beresford - Partners in Crime) and Jane. Jane didn't seem all that popular however - Zachary's suggestion was Bubbles, though as Leigh was washing up at the time, it may not be that reliable!

So for a while it was going to be Bubbles and Tuppence...until a friend pointed out that 'tuppence' is Derbyshire slang for lady bits. Um. Bessie and Bunter were considered but Leigh pointed out that if we pick a pair of names and one dies, that won't be great. We have now determined on a pair of names...but you'll have to wait until they're here!

A glut of strawberries

Went fruit picking this morning and it was great! We tried to find some PYO last year but failed miserably - this year however, Leigh's excellent searching turned up Scaddow's farm, which is just outside Ticknall on the A514. Not too far from us.

So off we trotted and found strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries aplenty (well, there will be more raspberries in a couple of weeks). Leigh was anxious that we got plenty of strawberries, so despite Zachary eating them almost faster than we could pick them, we managed a full punnet. Discovered Leo also likes strawberries and raspberries. Well, what he enjoys is squashing the fruit in his fist until it is almost just juice and then jamming the whole thing in his mouth. Funny and very messy! Both he and I tried to look nonchalant as we passed the paying area - Leo with a juice covered face, and me with a juice covered shoulder where he'd rested.

We ended up buying 2 kilos of strawberries. Far more than were actually needed. So this afternoon and evening, Leigh has made 2 lots of strawberry icecream, one lot of strawberry frozen yoghurt lollies and a double quantity of mixed fruit jam. It all smells fabulous, and there's still a huge pot of very ripe strawberries in the fridge. Good job we have guests tomorrow!

Yet more roof

Well, it's still going! Roofer reckons another day's work and he should be done our side - bar the chimney which affects boths rooves. Next door is having 4 skylights put in so roofer has been focussing on finishing us so that the scaffolding at the back can come down.

There still seems to be some edging to do and finishing off bits, but it's looking good!

Bad mother and clumsy wife

It really has been a spectacular day for me. Started off by dropping the last jar of homemade marmalade on the kitchen floor at breakfast, smashing said jar and sending shards of glass skittering across the room. In which neither Zachary nor I had anything on our feet! Classy.

While I was getting dressed, Zachary had got hold of my makeup bag which I do let him look through. He had a play with the eyeshadow - for some reason (and I'm not going to disabuse him of this just yet!) he applies it to his nose and chin. I neglected to clean it off and he had a shiny sparkly nose for the rest of the day! We had a pretty good morning with music then some baking and I took the boys to the Westfield Centre in the afternoon for some shopping and play.

By the time I got to the car park, both of them had fallen asleep, and being pretty tired myself, I rested my head back...and dropped off. Only to be woken by a very concerned parking attendant who wanted to make sure we were all right! Very embarrassing!!! When we got home, I needed to cook up some mince and wanted to clean up the kitchen as well. Zachary was happily playing with his playdough, and Leo was playing with...well, a tea bag. Leigh had a new glass tea mug delivered today and there were some individually foil-wrapped sample tea bags included. Leo got hold of one in the front room and I thought 'it'll be okay for him to carrying on chewing it...it's keeping him happy.' Hmmmmm. Turned around first time from washing up, spotted that one tea bag packet had come open and threw it away. Turned around second time to see Leo with tea bag string in one hand, soggy empty tea bag in the other and absolutely plastered in tea leaves (raspberry and rosehip tea, which his mouth smelt of for the rest of the evening!), his mouth, his hands, his clothes and all over the floor! Whooops.

So vacuumed up the mess and gave Leo a rice cake. Much better. Zachary carried on vacuuming for me and doing a good job (he kept turning it off, sighing and saying 'bit hot' before turning it back on again. What a martyr!). Then he came over for a banana - I off-handedly said that he should wait until after dinner, but the banana bunch mysteriously vanished and when I looked round, he was trying to stuff one up the vacuum cleaner hose!! Disaster safely averted, I returned to the washing up and promptly broke the handle off Leigh's new mug. Yes, the lovely glass one which arrived today.

I really should not be let out of the house.

More roofing!

Here's an update photo of the roof - this is the section at the back of the house as seen from the loft window, and the work area. The front of the house now seems to be done, but I think there's a section still needing tiling. It looks a bit awkward to get to, but as we're into week 3 now I'm hoping it doesn't take too much longer. I'm tending to keep out of the garden in the day in case of falling debris and am missing it!

Also had Emma and Rachel over today with Edward and Isabelle and took some more piccies. Here they are with Leo at Rachel's party in March...



and here they are today.



What a lovely bunch of babies. Although something tells me there may be trouble brewing when they all get together!

Feeding children, cleaning bottoms and housework

This seems to have pretty much been my day today. Well, actually that's a bit of a fib to get some sympathy (!) but the first part of the afternoon went like this. After lunch (feeding children), went straight out to ASDA. Fed both children snacks round ASDA to stop them interfering with each other in the trolley (Zachary just can't get far enough away to stop Leo stealing things from him!). Zachary filled his nappy in the car on the way home. Got home, unpacked shopping. Changed Leo's nappy and gave him some milk in the hope he would go to sleep. No joy - for reasons which will become clear later. Changed Zachary's nappy. While doing this, Leo filled his nappy (aha - probably the reason for not dropping off...maybe). When I returned from putting Leo's nappy into the nappy bucket, Zachary was standing by the kitchen bin filling his again. Changed his nappy again, applied cream for his eczema to hands and arms, hung out the washing.

But then played with Playdough, and did other non-titular stuff. Now both boys in bed and I have wine and Maltesers to hand, the prospect of 2 (yes count them, 2) garden fete thingys tomorrow and a BBQ with friends on Sunday. Brilliant!