Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day can get expensive fast. Cards, chocolates, flowers, gifts, and that’s before the table for two and a couple of bottles of red. You can save your bank account (a bit) by whipping up this batch of Valentine’s cupcakes decorated with ready to roll icing. And what’s more romantic than taking the time to actually make something for that special someone, using your own fair hands?
You will need the following ingredients to bake and decorate your Valentine’s cupcakes:

For The Cupcakes

• 100g/4oz self-raising flour
• 100g/4oz caster sugar
• 100g/4oz butter
• 2 medium eggs

For Decorating

• White ready to roll icing
• Red ready to roll icing
• Green ready to roll icing
• Strawberry jam
• Buttercream
• 2 x piping bags
• Paint brush & cocktail sticks

Baking Your Cupcakes

The cupcakes are pretty simple to make. Preheat your oven to 180^oC and line a cupcake tray with cases.

1. Add the flour, sugar and butter to a bowl and then mix in the eggs. Beat the ingredients until they form a creamy mix.
2. Spoon the mix into the cases, filling each one half way.
3. Bake for 10-15 minutes then leave to cool on a wire rack.

How To Decorate Your Cupcakes

Now that your cupcakes are ready, hollow a small hole in each and pipe in some strawberry jam before decorating.

1. Pipe some buttercream on top of each cupcake and then smooth over with a knife.
2. Dust your work surface with icing sugar and knead your red and white ready to roll icing until pliable then roll out to a depth of about 3mm.
3. Press out circles of ready to roll icing and then place onto the tops of the cupcakes. The buttercream will hold the toppers in place.

Now you can now fashion different extras using ready to roll icing. The simplest of which is a heart.

1. Roll out some ready to roll icing to a depth of approximately 2mm.
2. Use a heart-shaped cutter to press out as many hearts as needed.
3. Paint a little cooled boiled water onto the back of the heart and press gently into place on the topper.

If you want to get a little more creative then make a bed of roses from ready to roll icing. Sounds tricky at this scale, doesn’t it, but actually it’s quite simple.

1. Firstly emboss the outline of a heart into your cupcake top by gently pressing a heart cutter into the top.
2. Take a small piece of red ready to roll icing and shape it into a thin sausage. Cut this into about 25 pieces.
3. Take one of the sections of icing and roll into a small sausage then flatten with your finger.
4. Carefully roll the flattened icing from one end into a small rose.
5. Paint some cooled, boiled water onto the outline of the heart on your cupcake.
6. Using a toothpick, lift your rose up and place it onto the heart outline.
7. Repeat for the remaining roses.
8. To finish flatten some tiny pieces of green ready to roll icing to create leaves and position around the roses.

Ready to roll icing can help you turn any baking project into something beautiful. So wow your significant other this Valentine’s Day with a batch of romantic cupcakes.
 

Bath Time

Bath times at our house can sometimes resemble something of an assembly line: one child goes in, comes out and is swiftly followed by the next child who goes in, comes out and is swiftly followed by the next… and on it goes. I often consider inventing some kind of a sheep dip model for children in large families to make the process easier – I am sure it would be successful.
One thing I do love is the freshly bathed smell of a new baby – is there anyone who doesn’t? It reminds me of the scene in Everybody Loves Raymond where the grandfather stands over the twin babies’ heads, breathing in deeply and exclaiming that he’s ‘sucking in that youth!’ It always reminds me of savouring the freshness of downy soft newborns after a bath – it’s one of those smells I am sure I would never get enough of!
There is more to bath times than simply getting clean. We all know the effects that low lights, bubbles and a little me-time with nothing but peace and quiet have on the soul.
Let’s not forget too, the importance of bath time when it comes to discovering scientific principles – although I would like to point out that it is unlikely that Archimedes ever cried out the word ‘Eureka!’ given that the word doesn’t exist. It is far more likely that he cried out ‘Evreka!’ (with a ‘v’ after the E instead of a ‘u’), which means ‘I’ve found it!’ in Greek.
So you see, bath time isn’t just about getting clean. Now you know one interesting fact about bath times (sort of), here are some more following research from Johnson’s for their global campaign to highlight why bath times are #somuchmore than we might think they are: