Recipe: Blackberry and Marshmallow Cake!

 It's the time of year when Blackberries are coming into season and you see them growing in abundance in the hedgerows. I'd been thinking for a while that I'd like to come up with some new recipes using Blackberries this year and whilst watching Dragons Den one evening there was a pitch for Marshmallows (love love love marshmallows!) and this started the cogs turning! The Great British Bake Off is also back and making me hungry on Wednesday nights, so the natural choice was to make a cake. So this is what I conjured up, a Blackberry and Marshmallow cake! I've kept the sugar in the filling to a minimum as I didn't want it to be a sugary overload and I hope you'll agree it's just right! Enjoy!

Serves 12

Ingredients:

For the cake

• 200g Self-Raising flour
• 200g butter
• 200g caster sugar
• 3 medium free range eggs
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Icing sugar, to dust

For the filling:

• 150ml extra thick double cream, or double cream whisked until thick and spreadable
• Handful of Blackberries 
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar
• 8 pink Marshmallows

For the cake:

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees. Grease two 8" sandwich tins and line the bases with baking parchment

1) Cream the butter and sugar together with a spoon or hand mixer until smooth and no lumps remain

2) Beat the eggs into the mixture one at a time

3) Sift in the flour and baking powder. Add the vanilla extract

4) Beat the ingredients together with a spoon or your mixer, taking care not to over beat the mixture. If it looks a little dry, mix in a tablespoon of milk

5) Divide the mixture evenly between the prepared tins

6) Bake for 20-25 mins, or until golden and a skewer inserted into the centre of the sponges comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes before turning out onto a wire rack. Allow to cool completely

7) Shortly before assembling the cake, prepare the filling. First make your Blackberry "jam." Add the handful of Blackbereries to a small pan with a tablespoon of caster sugar and a tablespoon of water. Cook on a low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is syrupy and the Blackberries are soft. Roughly crush half of the Blackberries with the spoon

It's best to make this mixture straight away right before you need to use it, but if you do prepare it in advance it can be made syrupy again with the addition of a drop of hot water

8) Spread the cream onto one sponge

9) If you've managed to resist eating them all (I found this very hard... nom) put your marshmallows into microwavable dish and microwave for 10-15 seconds. You'll end up with a marshmallow fuff. Work quickly here while the marshmallow is soft and spread over the cream. If the marshmallow starts to set again, microwave for five seconds. Top with the blackberry mixture

10) Add the top half of your cake and dust lightly with icing sugar. Enjoy!

Have you come up with any inventive recipes using Blackberries? Post them in the comments below! Happy making!

How To... Transform a Vintage Metal Tray Charity Shop Find

Today I'm sharing a really quick and simple How To... using the metal trays you often find in charity shops. I spotted this one whilst charity shop thrifting recently and knew it would be perfect to use to serve drinks or for tea in the garden, but I wanted to give it a bit of a modern makeover. So... I gave it a colourful  transformation with spray paint! Here's the How To..!

1) You will need

Metal tray, small can of spray paint of your chosen colour, dust mask, cardboard or newspaper to protect your work surface

Note on using spray paint

Always wear a mask when using the spray paint, work in a well ventilated area and protect your work surface. I find it best to spray outside on a sunny day

2) Spray away!

Hand wash your tray in warm water and dry thoroughly

Following the instructions for best usage on your can of spray paint, give your tray a light coating of paint and leave to dry fully before giving a second coat. I have found that you get a better, smoother result if you spray two or three light layers of paint rather than one heavy one

3) And you're done!

It's as simple as that, one old fashioned tray transformed into a stylish and colourful way to serve your tea, cakes and drinks! I love how the spray paint highlights the edging details around the tray and you can find these trays in all sorts of shapes and sizes so you could spray them all different colours!

Washing your tray

I'd recommend gently hand washing your tray in warm water and avoiding putting it in the dishwasher

Tomorrow I'll be sharing the recipe for my Blackberry and Marshmallow cake, perfect for serving on your lovely colourful tray!

Fair Isle Felting Experiments!

I'm currently teaching myself Fair Isle knitting using Wendy Ramsdale British wool with an aim of creating a Fair Isle jewellery collection for the Winter. I'm trying out lots of different techniques at the moment to find out how the yarn behaves and here are some felting experiments I've been trying out, combing Fair Isle with other processes and then felting the samples in the washing machine. Here are some before and after photos!

For this piece I hand knitted a Fair Isle sample and then felted it in the washing machine at 60 degrees to see how the patterns came out when felted. I had tried washing it at 40 degrees but it only partly felted. It's made a lovely thick felt which would be great for making brooches and I'm pleased that you can still see the patterns- further experimentation required!

For this sample I knitted a plain piece in Ramsdale yarn and embroidered Fair Isle influenced patterns onto it using the same wool. Again I felted the piece in the washing machine at 60 degrees. I like the effect both before and after felting, especially as you can still see some of the embroidered detail, although I'd like the felt to be a little less fuzzy looking

I then knitted a piece combing Fair Isle and cable patterns, again putting it into the washing machine to felt at 60 degrees. Unfortunately the detail of the cables has been lost through the felting process, but it's all part of experimenting

 Take a look at more Fair Isle patterns I've knitted with Ramsdale here and read about how I tried Fair Isle in fabric! Now I'm off to experiment with combining cable, Fair Isle and embroidery in other ways, so I'll keep you posted!

The Cornershop- a whole shop filled with groceries made of felt!

This weekend I was lucky enough to visit The Cornershop, a former derelict shop in Bethnal Green, London, which artist Lucy Sparrow has completely filled with everyday grocery items, all hand made in felt! Such a fun idea! The shop contains over 4,000 felt versions of everything you can think of that you can find in a grocery store, ranging from newspapers, tins of beans, packets of biscuits, chocolate bars and frozen chips! It's just like walking into your local corner shop, except the stock isn't edible and is much more cuddly!

Such is Lucy's dedication to her theme, even the till is made of felt and Lucy stood behind her counter (in front of the felted tobacco kiosk!) making more felt groceries. The whole project took Lucy 7 months to complete and Lucy's aim is to engage the local community within accessible art and through sewing workshops.

Guilt free Chocolate Digestives! No calories!

The shelves were fully stocked, just as you would expect in a regular grocery store. It really is a feat of the handmade and great craftsmanship that Lucy and her assistant handmade each of the 4,000 items themselves

Read all about it! In felt!

The felt confectionery was my favourite part of the exhibition, there is such an amazing amount of detail in each piece

The shop in Bethnal Green will be open until the end of August, before moving on to Brighton in October. Find out more and how to get there here! I thoroughly recommend a visit to admire the craftsmanship that's gone into the project and perhaps even buy your very own felt can of beans! Grocery shopping doesn't get more fun than this!

How To... Make Recycled Fabric Wrapped Bangles With Two Variations

I had some neglected  plastic bangles in my jewellery box that I hadn't worn for ages, so I decided to give them a makeover! This is a really simple How To... but I think you'll agree, the bangles you create are very pretty and it's a very thrifty make too. How about recycling the pretty fabric from an old top to make a matching set of bangles and adding beads from the broken necklace that you love but you know you'll never get fixed? Oooh and they also make great gifts! Here is a tutorial for making the basic recycled fabric wrapped bangles and a couple of variations- happy making!

For a basic fabric wrapped bangle;

1) You will need

PVA glue, paintbrush, plastic or wooden bangles, strips of fabric

Note on fabric: My strips of fabric were aprox half an inch thick and 25/30 cm long. For one small bangle I used aprox two and a half fabric strips. For a larger bangle it may be easier to cut wider strips of fabric, to cover the bangle quicker

 2) 

Add a small amount of PVA glue to the inside of your bangle and add the end of your first fabric strip. It's much easier (and less messy!) to only add glue to the inside of the bangle, rather than gluing the fabric!

3) Start to wrap!

Wrap your fabric strips around the bangle, overlapping it slightly. After each couple of wraps, add some more glue to the inner bangle to secure the sfabric. Wrap until the entire bangle is covered, securing you end with PVA glue on the inside of the bangle. Leave to dry

4) It's finished!

It's as simple as that to transform a boring unused bangle into something pretty. You could leave your bangle plain like this, or read on for further ideas!

Fabric wrapped bangle with chain

1) You will need

The materials listed above for the basic fabric wrapped bangle, old jewellery chain, tube of all purpose strong glue, fabric wrapped bangle

2) Follow the How To... above to make a fabric wrapped bangle

3) Choose your chain!

 I got this necklace in a bundle of old jewellery on ebay and immediately knew that the tangled chain would be great used in a How To..! The chains on this necklace were quite easy to break off by twisting them, but if your chain is made of stronger stuff, you may need to use a small pair of pliers to remove the chain. You can experiment with different weights of chain to give your bangles a different look

4) Add a thin squeeze of your strong all purpose glue to the inside of your bangle and use to stick the end of your chain

5) Wrap your chain!

Wrap the chain around the fabric covered bangle, using the strong glue to secure it in place on the inside of the bangle on every couple of wraps. Leave to dry

6) It's finished!

That's all there is to it- pretty effective and very simple

Fabric wrapped bangle with beads

1) You will need

The materials listed for the basic fabric wrapped bangle, beads removed from an old necklace (I have used glass pearls from the tangled chain necklace), needle and thread, fabric wrapped bangle

2)  Follow the How To... above to make a fabric wrapped bangle

3) Remove the beads from the necklace

How you remove the beads depends on the necklace you have- I was able to remove the glass pearls from my necklace using a small pair of pliers, but it may be as simple as snipping a cord. You can use as many or as few beads as you wish, depending on how heavily you'd like the bangle to be embellished

4) Stitch your beads onto the bangle

Stitch the beads to the bangle in any pattern you wish, catching the thread between the wraps of fabric. This is easy to do as the fabric is only glued to the inside of the bangle

5) Ta-dah! 

That's all there is to it, so simple but so effective

Enjoy wearing your lovely updated bangles!

Louise Dawson Design on Instagram- July

Although it went by way too fast (where is this year disappearing to?!) July was a lovely month, mostly spent making the most of the outdoors, out walking and working in the garden. Here are a few of my Instagram photos from July! 

It's been very much a foodie month, trying out new recipes (Beef Wellington, yum!), cooking for friends, making apricot upside down cake using apricots from our tree and out for a cake treat with my sister (I can't resist a slice of cake!)

 I've been out walking locally a lot this month, making the most of the sunshine by the river

Picking plums and greengages in the garden, catching up with Mollie Makes, working in the garden and noticing the first signs that Autumn is round the corner with the Conkers in the trees

Learning Fair Isle knitting, getting stuck into a great book (The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith, aka JK Rowling, nearly finished it now and it's brilliant) and making jewellery box labels in the garden

So that was July! Happy August everyone!

Vintage Friday

Are you watching This Old Thing on channel 4? Presented by Dawn O'Porter (I have huge style envy over her amazing vintage wardrobe!), it's all about celebrating Vintage clothes and having a unique wardrobe, as well as offering lots of great inspiration for customising and altering your clothes too- right up my street!

 Today, This Old Thing is teaming up with Oxfam (a great to place to hunt for vintage pieces) to promote Vintage Friday, which is a chance to support the brilliant work of the Charity by texting Vintage to 70066 and donating £3. It's also a chance to show off your favourite vintage clothes, so I'd like to share with you my very colourful coat! To be honest I don't know if it's old enough to be true vintage, but it is vintage style and by far my best ever charity shop find!

I bought this beautiful coat about 6 years ago for £30 from a charity shop in Hertfordshire. I was walking past, saw it in the window and new I had to have it! It's by NancyMac and I love it. 

Do you have any favourite Vintage/charity shop finds? I'd love to see, link to them in the comments below!

Happy Friday everyone!