A day by the pool

Last week I was lucky enough to asked my the quite lovely Kate Fletcher to assist her at a styling shoot for Macarons and more.   

We had the perfect day on location at the poolhouse at Maison Talbooth – and the most wonderful cakes, macarons, brownies and marshmallows from Dr Tim Kinnard, the proprietor of Macarons and more and finalist on last year’s Masterchef.

The photographer was Charlotte Griffiths – her images are quite stunning and I hope to be able to include more soon enough, but for now here are the ones taken by me on my trusty iphone to give you a little taster. Full image blog to come.

Styling – Kate Fletcher from Vintage Style Hire (and me!)

Sweet treats – Dr Tim Kinnard from Macarons and more

Photography (the proper ones, not my amateur offerings) Charlotte Griffiths

All of a quiver

Round two of jelly making and I decided to experiment with agar agar. It seems it could just result in vegan jellies that won't melt in the summer sun. I had invested in some new flavour syrups (more on them soon) and so mixed up a few wobblers to the recommended ratios. 


But it seems that the recommended ratios are only to be used if you want jellies that could double as bouncy balls. They were hard, with not a quiver in sight.

So it's back to the drawing board. I think agar agar might be the the way forward and a definite alternative to gelatin - I just need to play around with the amounts.


And just to show you just how hard the jellies were, here's a video...

Jelly making: round one

And in the beginning there was jelly. Or perhaps not quite the beginning, first came cafes and cakes. But they've been done before - you can barely move for cupcakes round these parts. So I wanted to start something that meant I could indulge my passion for food and perhaps start a little hobby business along the way. I wanted something different, I just didn't know what yet.

Once the idea came to me, that was it. I was up at 1.30am on Saturday night, unable to sleep and desperate to make jelly. I would make jelly and ice cream - but not any old jelly and not your bog standard ice cream. This would be a sweet shop of different flavoured delights. Mix and match, try something different and enjoy great tasting jelly and ice cream - that was the idea

Back to 1.30am one Saturday morning though. I had four precious leaves of silver leaf gelatin and a fridge of odd ingredients. But it was all I needed. 

CLEMENTINE

A couple of juicy clementines resulted in a fruity, tasty jelly but it was a little tart. Lesson learnt, I will add sugar next time.

HORSERADISH

Yep, your eyes do not deceive you. The second flavour I experimented with was horseradish. Brave I know, but it actually tasted better than you might think. And it is step one in my quest to come up with some savoury flavours.

FRESH MINT

Some sprigs of mint and a touch of sugar didn't result in the intense jelly I was after. Next time I will need to somehow infuse the flavour from the mint. 

ELDERFLOWER

And finally, with a little help of the guys at Belvoir I made elderflower jelly. This one tasted the nicest and is certainly a flavour for summer 2011.