Anyone for cake?

Well it turns out I have an opportunity to bake for a local cafe, with a carte blanche,"make what you want,  I want your cakes". Ok. My cakes are nice, but come on! I mean I used to bake a lot, but mainly cupcakes and loafs and stuff at Christmas, but this is the real deal, big, sumptuous, gloriously flavoured layer cakes. I don't do big yummy cakes with finesse, but it seems too good an opportunity to turn down I reckon. So lilac swizzler the baker emerges, from an icing sugar dust cloud (imagine the music).

So, as well as frantically trying to still unpack boxes, find homes for stuff (how difficult is that!?!?) and renovate our house, I am now furiously reading cake books and flour bombing our kitchen trying out a variety of successful/unsuccessful cakes.  Monkeychops (@fellmonkey) is loving it, but judging  by a text earlier today" I just bust out of my trousers",  I don't think his waistband is. He is the official tester. I don't like eating my cakes, too critical. I also thought it would be cute to set up a wee cake table in our kitchen, always stocked with some home baking and an excuse to use one of my many cake stands, bad plan. Simon has seen it as a permanent feeding station for Breakfast, snacks, lunch, pre-dinner snacks, washing up snacks and any other excuse he can find. Anytime I talk to him from another room all I hear is a muffled "noo um nut eatin cakeeee". There is no disguising however, the sparkly glitter spread all round his mouth but. Chump.

So today was an attempt at making a lot of cakes at once, to see how I'll cope.  First off, they are all recipes I have never done before.

-A peanut Butter bundt cake
- Orange, lemon and poppy seed bundt cake
-Victoria sponge with rose jam and mascarpone
- A cappucino cake

I was also going to make scones and cupcakes, but having run out of baking powder within the first five minutes, an impromptu visit to the shop was needed. Some baking fairy thief then pinched my vanilla paste, which I spent 30 minutes trying to find, another impromptu visit to the shop, and a gas oven i cannot get the hang of for cooking cakes!

Success is not looking good today and neither is my patience. Peanut butter cake is cooling and awaiting decoration, poppy and lemon one in oven and the others in tins. I'm now overwhelmed by the mess and have decided to drink tea instead.

Either way I know what is for dinner, some form of cake mash up.

Watch this space....

*Post cake note. 

Well I made three out of the four cakes. Managed to drop the third Victoria sponge on the floor and burn my arm whilst trying to catch it, bashed my head on the oven when I stood up and splattered chocolate buttercream everywhere.  All in all I'd class it as a success, I mean I still have all my fingers.

Cakery Bakery 

Published by @lilacswizzle

What a year.....

I know it seems a tad early for a review of 2013, but it has been a year since the greatest thing ever happened to me. Like really. About exactly one year ago I took a leap of faith and met the man I was put on this earth to be with, Simon Green, or as most know him @fellmonkey78.

We had chatted for months on twitter. It seemed too good to be true. He was funny, a fell runner, loved music, artistic, nature boy, really hot (way too hot for me) and a really, genuinely nice guy. Oh and he was single!! The only downside really was Simon actually lived in Sheffield and me, with my ever loving and supporting folks in Glasgow. But hey, it’s not that far away…..

So with some encouragement from others, we took a leap of faith and met at the end of November in Ambleside. From then on my life has changed completely, in ways I can’t even describe or even at times, get my head round. 

Yeah, yeah, I know it all sounds airy fairy, too good to be true, not real, I mean “we met on twitter”. He could be anyone, told me anything (I didn't exactly have a good track record with nutters)! But, Simon was and is exactly what it says on the “fellmonkey tin", with the kindest heart and most loving soul.

For years I believed in deep down true love and happy endings and had a view in my head of how a relationship, or life with someone should be. But, on the other hand, after years of heartache (losing my husband at 25 and a subsequent 7 years in an abusive relationship), I had firmly come to the conclusion that it was a “lot of crap”. Relationships were overrated, not for me, people would always let you down etc. Friends and family said, oh the right person is out there somewhere, yeah yeah I thought. I heard the recurring message of “you’ll know when it’s right”. AYE RIGHT I thought.

But, this last year has blown away any cynical thoughts I had about relationships and has truly been the best year of my life. Yes, we have had difficulties, but nothing we can’t ever overcome, together, and with the love and support of our families, which is truly awesome. We are blessed.

I came back from that weekend in Ambleside, with a glow and look in me that my parents had never seen. They knew something was different and I couldn't contain my excitement. “Dudes, I have found the lid for my teapot, the man I want to spend the rest of my life with”. They were overjoyed, but obviously concerned (I mean my last few choices hadn't exactly been great)!

Within two weeks, I was making a trip down south to meet Simon's family, with the wise advice from my Dad “hold something back, don’t give too much away, play it cool”! Bwhaaaaa, not really my style, as my Dad well knew.

Simon drove me back up to my parents three days before Christmas and told them he wanted to spend his life with me and the rest they say is history.

He passed the glaring cynical eyes of the J’Doll (my mum), the late night questioning from my Denzo (my Dad), the extended family Burns Night, (we told him he needed to sing and play guitar, and he did, wearing a tartan “see you Jimmy wig”), and the whole time I knew this had been the missing part of me.

By mid February Simon and I were heading south with most of my worldly possessions packed in a van and embarking on our first adventure, setting up home as "Team Swizzlemonkey".

The rest has been a total whirlwind of fun, laughs (lots of laughs), some sadness and crazy adventures. We bought a camper van and travelled around the peaks, running and goofing about. We launched the “Bingo-Bongo VDub Club" with my bro Paul @pyllon (and haven’t have had any where near enough adventures yet). We supported my brother on some epic race performances, winning the West Highland Way Race 95 mile Ultra (#whw) in June, in a record breaking time, being the best and most emotional journey ever. We had family weekends and surprise trips. We went to Chamonix for the UTMB. We danced in our living room, drank gin (lots) and made goofy stuff. We got tattoos. We lived life the way you should, which has been our new motto since.

Monkey Boy's Tattoo

In early spring we took a trip to the Lakes and Simon asked me to marry him. We quickly decided that we wanted to do it this year and promptly set about planning the type of wedding “we” wanted.

Within weeks we had a plan and a date and a theme we wanted, September 21^st 2013 in Wasdale, Cumbria and set about organising and making stuff. Yup, I was in my craft element and pretty much made everything for our wedding, from cake stands, to teacup candles, to jars of jam.

Craft Heaven, Wasdale Head Inn.

I can’t actually put into words yet how amazing our wedding day was. It was truly perfect. We had our family and friends there in the remotest, most stunning location. It was relaxed, fun, full of cake and full of love. I cried, like really, but have never been happier.

Our families embraced it in ways I didn't think possible. The cake buffet being testament to their love for us, as well as their own craziness! We had a "lilacswirl" twitter cake, crocheted cakes, a mountain cake with two runners on, Mexican wedding biscuits and a full scale cake periodic table-"Team Swizzlemonkey, It must be chemistry!

Blinged up Paulo VDUB

Tears & Smiles

No rain here.

I also don’t think I really have had time to take in the enormity of it and how truly wonderful it was. A week after our wedding we moved house and so another adventure begun. Since the end of September we have been furiously renovating out house, from an unloved hovel into a beautiful home.The hardest part I guess has been having no wifi until this weekend!! Wedding was over and it has been full on and into paint mode.

Its been really hard work, but I am loving building our home together and creating a beautiful space we want to live in. Swizzlemonkey HQ is taking shape nicely.

I have written this post  for no other reason than I wanted to. It has been the most manic, crazy, fun filled year ever, from being a single girl living in Glasgow, to a married wifey living in Sheffield. Life works in mysterious ways sometimes and am grateful beyond belief for it, every day, and for having the families we do and the love of my life to share it with. I didn't think this type of life was possible for me.

I am always the first person to put myself down, the first one to think the worst, that I didn't deserve things to go well, cause they never did for me,  but this is the new Nicola. One that doesn't think the worst, one that goes with the flow and stops worrying about silly things or what other people think, doesn't feel guilty and worthless. I am worth this and God knows I am enjoying the journey.

So what does 2014 hold? Man, I don’t know, but I really am going to enjoy it and have never started a year so excited. I am on the verge of setting up my own company baking cakes, lots of cakes, (watch this space), so I am guessing it will involve a lot of icing sugar, mess and mixing bowls. I've also found the craft bug for restoring old furniture, so who knows. And hopefully, if we are lucky, one day, we might think about some wee swizzlemonkeys.

In the meantime, we will continue our adventures and maybe try and lose some of this post marriage celebration flubber we seemed to have gained!

Yes, I even changed my name, something as my family know, was a definite no-no for me,. But I love it. I love being a wife, sorry, I Love being Simon’s wife, Mrs Nicola Green.

It's official, our shoes say so!