A cold, rainy day for being cosy and baking rather than having adventures outside.  I could just about manage opening the door and picking a few violets. One of the prettiest things in the garden at the moment as everything else needs some sun, violets definitely lift the spirits on a grey day. As does baking fairy cakes in Ruby’s view.

Ruby had been a really good girl and I said she could choose anything she wanted to bake from her own cookbooks. But despite bracing myself for a more garish concoction, it turns out that fairy cakes are still top of her list. We decided to decorate them with violets and Ruby wanted to mix some icing that was a paler shade of their colour. In fact the colour of the t-shirt she had on.

As Ruby mixed icing sugar to water, I confidently added drops of a pale blue food colouring to pink colouring, forgetting how little was needed. Despite loving baking, I don’t have the most gentle of touches in such matters and was a tad heavy handed, resulting in a murky dark purple. Ruby wasn’t impressed. “No problem” I optimistically continued, “we just need to add more icing sugar.” A full packet of icing sugar later and it was a lot better. Maybe more a light purple than a delicate lilac but Ruby was happy to spread it over her cakes and arrange violets.

The result was definitely more home-made fairy cakes than Magnolia bakery style cupcakes, but we had good fun.