Sausage Rolls

 Sausage rolls (literally sausages in pastry) are a staple of British party food, and actually pretty easy to make (with pre-made pastry sheets). We like to have these for Holiday and Birthday celebration, or just for tasty snacks . Here's my recipe. 

16oz ground pork or pork sausage (I see no reason why this couldn't be recplaced by ground beef or turkey, but traditional in the UK is pork)

Bread crumbs ~1 cup

1 egg (mixed - put about half in the sausage mix, reserve some for an egg wash)

1 tsp ground sage

2tsp thyme

salt and pepper to taste

1 packet puff pasty sheets

Preheat oven to 425 F

Mix meat, breadcrumbs, most of the egg and flavourings together well. 

Cut puff pasty sheets in half. 

Make long "sausages" with the meat mixture down the middle of the pasty 

Paint egg wash around the edges and seal into a long roll. 

Cut each into 6 (or size as desired)

Egg wash the top, make small knife cuts to decorate.  

Cook for ~30 mins until meat is cooked through and pastry golden brown. 

Chocolate Orange Pokeball Cake

Made this Dark Chocolate and Orange Cake, well actually two of them. I substituted regular oranges for Seville as couldn't find Seville.

Decorated with ready-to-roll icing to look like a Pokeball.

Also made my favourite ginger biscuits, in heart shapes, and decorated to resemble Pikachu (inspired by this baker, but not quite up to her standards!).

Went down well to celebrate the birthday of a friend at work!

Stegasaurus Cake

Octonaut Cake Photos

Octonauts Gup-A Birthday Cake

Birthday time again, and this year an Octonauts Gup-A cake. Pictures will follow soon, but for my own recollection here's the blogs I used for inspiration:

Octonauts Cake from Mummy Wife Woman (this one really close to what I did).

Octonauts Cake from Bronnies Bakes - for making models of the characters, although in the end I used the toys.

Shellington Amigurumi

Lottie Doll Beret and Poncho

Spring Celebration Ballet Lottie

My daughter got a Lottie Doll for Christmas. She got the "Spring Ballet Lottie" which comes with a leotard, and tights, but Lottie looked a bit cold.

So I wanted to make Lottie some winter outer wear. Something simple and quick, and using some remnants of sparkly purple wool I had from another project. There are many Barbie clothing items online, but Lottie is a bit shorter than Barbie. So I modified a poncho pattern I found on Ravelry, and also made a beret to match with the same wool (also slightly modified from a barbie pattern online).








Here's the details:

Beret 

(based on "Barbie Basics" beret by Lynne Sears)

Lottie in her beret and poncho.

Cast on 24 st
Row 1-2 K1, P2 rib for 2 rows
Row 3-4 st st for 2 rows
Row 5 Inc in each st across
Row 6 (and all even rows) P across
Row 7 as 5 (or if tighter fit desired knit across)
Row 9, 11, 13 - K2 tog across
Cut thread
Pass thread through loops, draw and finish.

Poncho

(based on Poncho Barbie, by Silvana Catallo - modifications are making it shorter, and to knit in the round)

Cast on 88 sts, place marker

Row 1 (and all odd rows until Row 17) K around

Row 2 K10, 3x(s2kpo,K19),sk2po,K9 (80 sts)

Row 4 K9, 3x(s2kpo,K17),sk2po,K8 (72 sts)

Row 6 K8, 3x(s2kpo,K15),sk2po,K7 (64 sts)

Row 8 K7, 3x(s2kpo,K13),sk2po,K6 (56 sts)

Row 10 K6, 3x(s2kpo,K11),sk2po,K5 (48 sts)

Row 12 K5, 3x(s2kpo,K9),sk2po,K4 (40 sts)

Row 14 K4, 3x(s2kpo,K7),sk2po,K3 (32 sts)

Row 16 K3, 3x(s2kpo,K5),sk2po,K2 (24 sts)

Rows 18-24 K1, P1 ribbing (6 rows, 24 sts)

Cast off. 

(Patterns provided free for use, but with no warranty. This is my first attempt at writing down the modifications to a pattern).