Our mission is to seek out good cake! Having offloaded our offspring into the school system, we meet up to walk, waffle and gobble child free (well, almost) ….
My 20 year old self would have firmly believed that tell-tale sign of middle age is acquiring a Wyvale Garden Centre loyalty card. We of the Sisterhood all have such a thing in our possession. However, I would protest that the only reason I got one was because it entitles the children to use the soft play for 50p less than the non-member price – and Sister Y suggested it!! (we used to frequent the Wyvale at Stanway regularly when our little ones were of pre-school age). Anyway, it did come in very handy this week when we all got our weekly/monthly? email containing all the current offers. Obviously, the ones about actual gardening are of no interest (pah!) but the one that declares ‘FREE hot beverage with any slice of cake’ is a sure fire winner. How could we possibly resist such enticement? So off to Stanway Wyvale we went. I did not require the buggy but it is a big, open café and there would have been room for it if necessary. They have lots of high chairs but never enough staff at this place. There is always a long queue of retired folk and frazzled looking mums waiting patiently for one woman to take orders, make all the hot drinks and take payment single handed – despite the fact that there are two tills.
I went for a Victoria Sponge and the sisters both opted for a Chocolate Orange Drizzle Cake. Mine was a little on the dry side (I think it must have been a few days old) but very tasty nonetheless. The orange cake was apparently very scrummy – not a crumb remained on either plate!
So, I reckon, discounted ‘member’ price taken into account, about a 7/10 for Wyvale. The soft play is great for little ones and, whilst being in the café, it is shut off so not a disturbance for other customers but mums can enjoy a drink in semi peace knowing that the children are safe and visible through the windows. And they have an outlet of The Works (love it!) which we always end up spending loads of money in. But they need to rethink the staff ratios and till operating system. Shame there’s nowhere to walk nearby as all our trousers are getting a little tight now – we really must put more effort to finding some new places with exercise opportunities!
It was cold last week – snowflakes actually fell for about 5 minutes – so we decided it was too chilly to go for walkies and that we should just go straight to tea and cake. That and the fact that Sister X has recently had her kitchen renovated (by the Diet Coke Break men-children of previous blog post fame). Myself and Sister Y thought it was high time we got to have a gander at it. So we trotted round to where the posh people live and weren’t disappointed. Very swanky indeed! Sister Y and I, upon returning to our respective kitchens later that day, immediately began googling replacement kitchen doors and worktops. Sister Y did mention something about tile paint – steady on girl – but it turns out that her eldest has a peculiar and very strong attachment to their current tiles, which are circa 1978!
As Sister X does not have an in-house bakery and we were desperate for cake, having not frequented any tea rooms for an outrageous number of weeks, I had the spiffing idea that we should make use of one of my Christmas presents – a Mug Cake cookbook. What better way to experiment with messy microwave mug cooking than in someone else’s brand new kitchen? Having flicked through, I was quite surprised by the amount of ingredients one is actually supposed to fit into the mug in order to make the cake, so I opted for a simple chocolate recipe which had the fewest. Although few, the amounts of each still seemed rather excessive for one mug:
5 tbs plain flour
3 tbs caster sugar
2 tbs cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 egg
4 tbs chocolate spread (we only used 2)
I bagged up little ready-made mixes for us all and we duly made a horrendous mess on Sister X’s new island attempting to beat them all together in the mugs! Then came the best part … Sister X let me play with her new microwave which is like something out of Star Trek – I’m easily pleased.
A bit of a mess but it tasted good!
The recipe said to heat for 50 seconds on high but they took more like 90 seconds each to cook through. They weren’t pretty but they were tasty – very dense (probably should have put the extra chocolate spread in) and very rich. None of us could actually finish a mug full which is saying something – you know how we love our cake! Sister X did admit to having had another go at hers later that afternoon but figured she’d subsequently burned enough calories attempting to clean the mugs, upon which the fruits of our labour were well and truly caked – pun very much intended!!
Happy New Year all! We haven’t managed to get to any new tea rooms yet this year so I thought I’d write a recommendation for the above instead. We had a lovely get together with all the children just before Christmas at Danbury Country Park where we often go for picnics in the summer, once memorably involving one of our little poppets who was potty training at the time pooping themselves and then somehow managing to stand in it. After we’d all stopped laughing/gagging, the poor little mite was of course cleaned up, as was the surrounding area where he’d managed to spread it (wiping poo off grass with baby wipes is surprisingly difficult). Needless to say, the location of the picnic was hastily moved ….. Anyway, back to the more recent past.
We wanted to do something where they could be free and blow off some steam as, my, were they hyper on the build up to the school holidays! I think we all felt a little stressed with the pre-Christmas hype and so we decided that the Big Bird Feed would be perfect – outdoors, not a Grotto or candy cane in sight – just running around the Country Park like maniacs with a bag of wild bird seed, tipping it into hundreds of socks and stockings that had been strung from trees in order to provide all the birds with plenty of food over winter. Fun with a good deed at the heart of it – the perfect Christmas activity.
Sister Y and I failed miserably in the fairly obvious task of dressing the children in suitable attire – i.e. wellies. Sister X on the other hand, who had also brought Husband X along for some pre-Christmas mayhem, looked like she’d come from a Horse & Hound magazine photo shoot. They all looked extremely stylish – fully kitted out in wellies and waterproofs, backpacks and walking poles (okay, they didn’t really have walking poles). I’m just jealous ….. sigh!
It’s so lovely when they all get together, they really enjoy each other’s company. They all go to different schools and only see each other in the holidays or the odd special occasion and it’s heart warming to see them ‘click’ back in where they left off the last time they were together. They duly ran around the trail like maniacs, totally overexcited at the prospect of being allowed to carry their own pots of bird food, and proceeded to tip it all over themselves, the ground – I should think the official receptacles probably got about 30% of what they started out with!
We knew it was time to head back to the fire pit for hot chocolate and marshmallows when a few of them decided it was more fun to empty the stockings back into their own pots … !!
The Country Park employees had their hands full making hot chocolate for an amazing amount of people – it was so well attended. The children then found twigs to stick their marshmallows on and toasted them in the fire pit, managing to eat them without injury to themselves or anyone else which was quite a feat with so many people around to potentially stab/scald.
I’m not sure whether this is a once a year event but there is always something going on – they do “Wild Wednesdays” – all the info can be found at http://www.visitparks.co.uk. This was a free event, you brought along your own bird seed and your own mugs and marshmallows – they provided the hot chocolate. Parking charges apply for the car park.
We hope to be back eating cakes – purely for research purposes – very soon …. x
You know when you suddenly realise there are only a few days left until Christmas and it dawns on you that you don’t have gifts for aunts/uncles/neighbours that you’ll be seeing over the festive period? This fudge is a perfect present – delicious, easy to make and it has that homemade personal touch. I used it for all my children’s teachers this year (and last year come to that).
You will need:
A 397g tin of condensed milk
420g sugar – the recipe calls for Demerara but I have used regular soft brown sugar in the past which works fine.
115g butter (flora buttery or similar works perfectly well if you don’t have butter)
150ml milk – I use semi skimmed
A handful or two of dried, chopped cranberries (raisins can be used but cranberries look more Christmassy!)
A good amount of mixed spice or cinnamon/nutmeg (2 teaspoons ish)
Put everything into a pan over a low heat and let the butter melt and the sugar dissolve.
Bring to the boil and stir constantly for about 10 minutes until it’s the right consistency* – don’t let children do this as it does get really hot and can spit it bit. *what you want is for a little drop of the mixture to form a soft ball when dropped into a cup very cold water*
Remove from the heat and add the fruit and spices
Beat for about 10-15 minutes until the fudge is starting to set and come away from the edges of the pan (this is a great workout for the bingo wings).
Pour/scoop it into a lined tin and leave to cool. Voila! Perfect, yummy fudge!
Chocolate Orange is a great alternative for those who don’t like the traditional Christmas flavours. This year we tried a batch with the grated zest of two clementines and about 50g of dark chocolate (I’m not great at weighing ‘stick it in and see’ ingredients!). When it had cooled down in the tin a bit I studded the fudge with more dark chocolate chips which added a little something extra!
Quite a lot of this one got eaten before it was out of the tin – the children were a bit partial!
Twas just myself and Sister X this week as Sister Y’s youngest had received a visit from ‘The Chunder Monster’ so she was housebound, clearing up vomit and watching daytime tv – ah, the joys of motherhood! Another chilly, damp day so we decided to go to Perrywoods Garden Centre, just outside Tiptree, for a squiz at their Christmas decorations (they have some beautiful things) and to try their cakes as I have recently been told that they are pretty delicious.
We were slightly perturbed by the enormous queue heading into the tea room but quickly realised that they were all after ‘proper’ food and that there is a separate counter for cakes, which was a bonus as there was nobody waiting at it. We were practically drooling at the sight of the delicious looking cakes that awaited us but looked at each other in horror when we saw the price – £5.29!! For a slice of cake. Seriously?! We decided there must have been gold leaf in it to warrant that price tag. Luckily, there were lots of other yummy offerings at far more sensible prices. I had a Christmas Tree Brownie and Sister X went for a Gingerbread Scone, which she said was incredibly nice. Mine was also scrumptious and very pretty to boot. £4.75 with a cup of tea …. think they might possibly be a threat to the Wilkin & Sons ‘best cake’ crown!
The tea room is huge, plenty of space for the buggy and loads of tables. It is set out in several sections though, so it still feels quite cosy. The staff were lovely – a very nice lady carried my tray for me and, when I went to sit at a table for two, she kindly suggested that I choose a bigger table so that we would have more room and then scooted off to get a high chair for us.
We were building up to our Christmas plays at school this week and so had been frantically making or throwing together shepherd/donkey/sheep/camel costumes for our little ones to look super cute in. It’s such a shame that so many parents just go online and order some generic costume these days. I know people are busy and pressed for time but the homemade outfits are so much more special and full of character. One of our school mums got a white chenille bath mat and cut a hole in the middle for her son’s head – voila! sheep outfit – how clever! And I do love to see a child wearing their dad’s old shirt with a tea towel on their head, it just kicks the festive season off for me! Merry Christmas, cake lovers xx
Every year I fully intend to buy my children one of those beautiful wooden drawer advent calendars. Every year I forget and think that I’ll get one in the January sales for next year instead. And then I forget! Luckily, however, my little people do love a bit of craft. When my eldest was about 2.5 she helped me make one from yoghurt pots which was actually really sweet and lasted us a couple of years. When it got to looking really bedraggled, we recycled it and tried to make one of those plastic cup snowman jobs that was sweeping the internet – complete disaster and really not as easy as it looked on Youtube! Anyway, the last few weeks they have been saving their yoghurt drink bottles for this very purpose. My eldest did point out that it might be difficult to get chocolate/sweets in and out of them which is a fair point – I’ll have to think on that some ….
So, take 24 yoghurt drink bottles – we have the Tesco version but I’m sure any kind will do!
Cut and peel off the plastic wrap/labels.
Use whatever you have lying around to decorate! We had lots of wool and twine left over from a crafty party my eldest had earlier in the year and it does look really effective. Just start wrapping it around from the top (just wrap over the loose end to keep it in place) and either use a glue gun or some pva, or even Sellotape/double sided tape, to secure the bottom piece and then snip off.
We did 8 like this and then rolled some in pva for a full on glitter fest – it is Christmas after all.
The children decided that they would like some wrapped in brown paper with stamps on so we stamped a big section of paper and then cut to fit and stuck on with pva.
These were the trickiest – we couldn’t wrap the whole bottle neatly because of the shape so we improvised with tissue paper and glitter and just wrapped the bottom half.
Added some numbers and voila! Fill with whatever takes your fancy: sweets, chocolate, non-edible treats, challenges …
We had originally planned to tie them with string numerically and hang them but, to be honest, we were a bit crafted out and so decided to arrange them on the shelf out of order for an extra challenge in the mornings (my youngest is very keen to practise her numbers at the moment so I’m taking any opportunity to encourage that!). Who says Advent Calendars should be banned? All that crafting effort surely worked off enough calories for a tiny piece of chocolate (and we’ve covered half the curriculum making ours – totally educational!) xx
This week the weather was miserable and so the Sisters came to mine for lunch. I was planning to try and recreate our afternoon tea from Prested Hall – without the frozen scones and stale sandwiches (or maybe with, just for an authentic experience!) – but decided it was too tall an order last minute so I opted for one of my current favourites: pasta in a creamy, cheesy pesto sauce with peas and garlic flatbread. The pasta element is basically a steal from the Pioneer Woman – https://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/pasta-with-pesto-cream-sauce/ – with a few tweaks: walnut-basil pesto and cheddar as well as parmesan. It is pretty yummy, and probably pretty calorific too!!
For the flatbread I used this recipe – https://www.recipetineats.com/easy-soft-flatbread-yeast/ – which is really easy and yeast-free. These were premade and had already been fried so I just smothered it in garlic butter before letting it sizzle in the oven for 10 minutes.
Sister Y’s offspring had finally forgiven her for her faux pas of last week and she celebrated by bringing her fave cake from Aldi – Sicilian Lemon Swiss Roll – which was really scrummy for a shop bought cake. So scrummy, in fact, that we ate the whole lot .. oops! To be fair, I did cut three modest portions but we decided there was no point leaving any for my lot to fight over so we did the sensible thing and polished it off!
So, carbed up to the max, we somehow got on to the subject of Theresa May’s dancing – don’t ask me how. We don’t really do politics in the Sisterhood as we are all fairly different in our political views but we were all in firm agreement that, regardless of her performance on Brexit or other political conduct, we felt sorry for her on a purely human level with all the negative backlash. The poor woman was basically damned if she did and damned if she didn’t. Had she stood and watched, motionless and detached, people would have said she was boring and miserable. So we of the Sisterhood applaud you, Theresa, for attempting to get your groove on and then being able to laugh at yourself for it (and obviously our opinion is of great importance) – ‘keeeeeeep dancing!’ xx
Time for Sister X to have a spiffing idea this week: Hylands Park. A fabulous, free public space in Chelmsford, home of the Rize Festival (formerly ‘V’) where you can park for free, walk your dog, take a stroll around the delightful Pleasure Gardens, feed ducks on the pond, check out the awesome Adventure Castle playground, book in to Forest School, visit The Stables Café and artist studios and, of course, take a tour (or even get married) at Hylands House itself. There are two entrances – the house entrance, off the A414, or the park entrance on Greenbury Way.
We had a good old walk around the parkland. In fact, I’d go so far as to say we were marching at one point – we’re definitely getting better at the exercise element, especially seeing as my current buggy is not an all terrain model! Sister Y was in need of some love today as she’d had a big mummy fail on the school run when she realised she’d forgotten Non-Uniform Day! Seriously, who holds a non-uniform day on a Thursday? I think it’s a fairly acceptable mistake – these schools should really stick with protocol and not throw these curve balls at us. Life is complicated enough, people!!
Anyway, Sister Y duly consoled, the topic of conversation moved on to that school mum. You know – the one you can’t stand that everyone else seems to love? We all know someone like that. At least, we of the Sisterhood do and, bearing in mind our children all go to different schools, there are at least three of them currently in existence in Essex. My personal grudge with that mum began with a party invitation. Oh the stresses and politics of primary school birthday parties! Let’s just say that there are ways of inviting children to parties so that the all the children (and parents) who aren’t invited won’t know about it and therefore won’t feel excluded and upset. Handing out very conspicuous, hot pink, A5 pieces of card and posting on the year group parent’s Facebook page is not one of them! Enough said.
After our invigorating walk and respective rants about these awful women (we do try hard to maintain solidarity with the rest of womankind but some of them make it very difficult!) we were more than ready for cake at The Stables, a self service – i.e. you can very carefully eye up the cake slices and pick the ever so slightly larger one! – café in a sweet little courtyard. Of course, being a new joint, I had to check out their carrot cake which was gluten free and, with a pot of tea which easily gave 2 cups, came to £4.75. A little dingy in the farthest corners but lots of space for the buggy and plenty of high chairs for the teeny tot who happily enjoyed spreading a malted milk biscuit all over herself whilst we tucked in. The Sisters both went for coffee and walnut which they heartily enjoyed. We were all in agreement though – Wilkin & Sons do definitely have the edge on the cakes so far.
I really will try to get a photo of a whole piece of cake next time!
It’s that time of year when we start thinking about organising a Christmas meal out for the Sisterhood but this year we decided that we really deserved a proper treat after spending the last few months trekking around Essex eating cake (it’s hard work, really). We thought that a Spa Day was in order and, after googling thoroughly and finding some shockingly poor value deals (£79 for use of the facilities and a buffet lunch at some places – all treatments extra!) I suggested Prested Hall where I had been several years ago and spent a relaxing day with my sister before her wedding. It’s a brilliant deal in comparison to any others I could find – £75 for a full day (Saturday 9.30-5.30) including two 30 minute treatments; full use of the pool, sauna, steam room and gym (as if!); a welcome drink and cookie on arrival and either afternoon tea or a two-course lunch in their Bistro.
As much as we love our children, the thought of a whole child-free day to ourselves, chatting, relaxing, being pampered and eating was a truly rare and exciting prospect and the race to be ‘spa ready’ commenced. Decisions, decisions: one-pieces or tankinis? (the word ‘bikini’ never surfaced, thank heavens) to wax or to shave? The use of a hedge trimmer was briefly mentioned ….
And so, to the day itself and our critique of the venue:
The Spa was lovely and tranquil and the treatments were absolutely divine – we all opted for facials and back, neck and shoulder massages – Sister X actually fell asleep in the Relaxation Room after her facial! The only criticism of the Spa would be that they have a little seating area where you can help yourself to herbal teas but there are no magazines or anything to read in it, apart from the Spa Treatment Menu which took me all of two minutes to thumb through. One Health Club member actually commented that she had never seen anyone else using the area – perhaps that is why!
The pool, sauna and steam room were as you would expect and we enjoyed paddling around lazily with woggles until our fingers were wrinkly. The Sun Room, however, looked like it had been decorated by a 7 year old (in fact, I think my 7 year old could have done a better job) as the paint work was pretty shabby which detracted somewhat from the care and attention given to the décor in the Spa itself. It could also do with some new magazines and a bit more variety – my dentist has a better selection, to be honest. The changing rooms were fine but the showers, again, could do with a bit of tlc – a few mouldy, cracked tiles just spoiled that feeling of luxury pampering.
Obviously, being the expert cake critics that we are, we went for the afternoon tea food option. Now I may be fussy but I cannot stomach egg mayonnaise or smoked salmon, which seem to be staple fillings for unimaginative afternoon tea providers county wide. I know, I know, millions of people love both but, what can I say? Not my bag (Sister Y doesn’t like egg either – just saying). However, I had checked the ‘current’ menu on the website and no mention was made of either so I thought I was safe. Imagine my dismay, then, when we sat down to indulge in our decadent sandwiches only to be confronted with smoked salmon and, you guessed it, smelly old egg mayonnaise! Bearing in mind that I have quite severe baby brain and cannot rely on much of the information in it at present, I thought it possible I had just made up alternative fillings to satisfy myself. However, since returning home, I have indeed checked the website and the sandwiches should have been: mozzarella, plum tomato & pesto; chicken mayonnaise with salad; prawn & marie rose sauce and cucumber with cream cheese. So my post-natal brain was not playing tricks on me.
This is not an image of the afternoon tea!! We had decided to ban our phones in an effort to completely relax so could not take photos – for illustration purposes only.
Disappointing sandwiches aside (not to labour the point but they were actually starting to go stale too, so had obviously been made quite some time in advance) I’m afraid the rest of the afternoon tea didn’t really come up to scratch. We were told that the scones were ‘still warm from the oven’. They weren’t. Mine was actually still slightly frozen in the middle so clearly not freshly baked as it states on the menu (I just checked) and definitely not warm. This, I did point out to the waitress who apologised but clearly didn’t really care. The cakes did look very pretty and there was a good selection – mini choux bun, lemon tart and chocolate layer cake to name a few but by that point I had the hump a bit and couldn’t be placated with delicious petit fours! So, in a nutshell, we would not recommend the afternoon tea (well, Sister X might as she has issues with ‘telling it how it is’ – her own words – she is too pleasant for her own good. On the other hand, perhaps I’m just narky and hard to please!)
In summary then we would give Prested Hall 5/5 for the Spa treatments, 3/5 for facilities and 3/5 for food. On the whole though, we would say that the day was excellent value for money.
Sister Y had the spiffing idea of heading to Cressing Temple this week. Again, somewhere we have been with the kids several times. We have done a few Halloween Spooky Fun days which we’ve always enjoyed on the whole (I say on the whole as we cannot lie – there is a fairly dire puppet show which Sister Y and I have endured on more than one occasion. We think the puppeteer must be a relative of the organisers – either that or he does it for free … you have been warned!) and I have taken mine to the Christmas/Santa one which was fab but we have never thought to just go at any other time. In fact, I didn’t even know you could go on non-event days but it’s completely free to visit and wander around – okay, it might not be the most exciting place if you’re not into the history of the region and ancient farm machinery but the barns and buildings are very impressive and the Tudor walled garden is lovely – the whole place has a very serene quality. They also sell their own organic honey and beeswax candles and, on this occasion, had lots of pumpkins going begging for a voluntary donation. We have always given the café a swerve because it has been absolutely rammed on the event days so this was a good opportunity to check it out.
TheBarns is another owned by Wilkin & Sons. Personally, whilst I prefer the setting of the Heybridge Basin site, I preferred the tea room itself and thought that the staff were friendlier. It is quite large and bright and was easy to manoeuvre the buggy around. Having said that, there was only one other table occupied on what was a very rainy, grey day. However, they were doing a fantastic offer of tea/coffee and either chocolate fudge cake (yes please!!) or fruit cake for £3.95 – very reasonable. The Sisters both went for the fruit cake, which they said was yummy. I could not knowingly refuse chocolate fudge cake and we all tucked in with relish, so much so that we had gobbled half of it before we remembered to take a photo.
Even Sister Y forgot the obligatory ‘taunt’ photo before tucking in!
This week we were catching up after Half Term so their were lots of tales to be told of family holidays. Let’s just say that the lesson here my friends is to be careful what you wish for. I’m always rather envious when others say that they are going away on big family get togethers i.e. grandparents, siblings, cousins etc all sharing a lovely old cottage somewhere, all mucking in and participating in quality family time. However, it transpires that it may not always be the joyous, relaxing, bonding experience one had hoped for. Not so much Kum Ba Yah and gathering round the log burner in a warm, fuzzy glow of family harmony as Baby Shark on repeat, sniping and simmering sibling tensions … oo-er … who needs Eastenders, hey?!
Being back on the school run also led us to be lamenting the frustrations of getting the children ready on time in the mornings and we hit upon a fantastic idea. You know how, in Islamic countries, they have the call to prayer? We were thinking, ‘call to school’! A great idea, no? It would save hundreds and thousands of parents from losing the plot every morning after having asked for shoes and coats to be put on 5 times only to find their children still wandering around the hallway, shoeless and coatless, in a daze trying to make the highly important decision of which toy to take for break time. The commanding voice of their Headmistress/Headmaster over a tannoy at 8:30am would surely galvanise them into action …. maybe … We can but dream, cake lovers! xx
![IMG-20181111-WA0001[1]](https://thesisterhoodofthelongboobs.family.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/img-20181111-wa00011-e1541967647258.jpg?w=291&h=345)
The Sisterhood of the Long Boobs 