ASent that too early, i'll know for next time tho, taste fab though.

AAw Maisie poor Leah, and you :( Hope she feels better soon. I'm useless with anyone being sick, can't go near them or I start too......

Chezzabelle, glad you got a good sleep, that's half the battle. Hope the pain eases soon, just keep taking the tablets and resting x

Fab cake Suzanne!

Glad you've had a nice chilled day Tiddy, how's mr Tiddy?

Well red velvet cake was pretty good, I'm not a huge fan in general, just recipe checking before an order, but apart from the redness being a bit more maroon than bright, it turned out rather well!

ANanny still feeling in pain although I did manage to make a cup of tea this evening and paint my fingernails (thought it might cheer me up a bit

AAwwwww bless you chezza.

Ok, it's official, I hate making cakes and covering with ganache, it's mucky.

AAw thanks everyone. :-) Leah kept her soup down and is in bed asleep. I hope she sleeps all night now, she really needs it.

I love the smarties cake Suzanne. I love all those type of cakes but yours is the first one I've seen with smarties, it looks good, really colourful. I want to make one, I might for my mams birthday in January, with maltesers cos she loves them. I wonder if it would work with matchmakers round the side, they're her favourite. Btw Suzanne don't think if you don't mention the dress photo we'll forget about it! My mam called me an elephant today (that sounds well doesn't it!) and you know roxy remembers everything! :-D

Btw, where is roxy? Not like her to be away for long. How are you roxy?

Oh and tiddy you so have not got a fat backside!

Did you get your tree up chezza? I finished mine tonight. Well my tree was done the other day but the rest if it I finished tonight.

Mel I'm not a huge lover of red velvet either, I don't see point of that much food colouring tbh. And I think it puts me off a bit. I know it doesn't taste but I think I convince myself it does.

I'm off to bed now, I'd have gone hours ago cos I'm knackered but my great lummox of a son forgot his key so I had to stay up to let him in. I was furious, I almost made him sleep in the shed! See you all tomorrow, night night. :-)

AGlad you're feeling slightly better today Cheryl.

Hope Leah has a better night tonight too Maisie, I hate puking. Makes me wanna puke too!

Love the anti gravity cake Suzanne. Can't wait to see your other cake. And your dress!

Nanny that sounds like very runny ganache. Do you always use those quantities? I can just about get it to set with 3:1 chocolate to cream I don't think it'd ever make it onto the cake if I had more cream. Funny how everyone does it differently.

Wishing everyone a good night's sleep tonight, no illness or pain or puking!

AMorning, Nicola, no usually I always make 600mls cream to 400grms of asda choc, always always works fine, never ever have any issues, only thought i'd give galaxy a try as it sounded nice, thought i'do use the same quantities as i'very been making for yrs, but it was so runny. I looked at the cocoa solids and for galaxy it's 25% whereas the one I use is 52% so I can only assume that's the difference, but I added a 200grms bar of my normal choc and it's fine, it's done now, all ganache'd.

AOh great, one set of lights just went on the tree, grrr.

How is everyone's aliments today?

Day off and up early as normal, gumpaste John is still blocked up and sneezing,grrr.

Well gorra tell you this, talk about a near disaster, I fb my bride yesterday asking what time her wedding is, she replied, 12.09 lock on the 20th sat, I sat there and froze, for 1 mths since she booked this cake, I was led to believe it was the 21st on the Sunday, so said,ok fab.

Got home went thro my big note book that I had put all the details of her cake down in, in front of her, including a sketch of the cake , and there in front of me was the date, the 21st, now I can only think as it was February maybe she thought the 21st was a sat, and I didn't question it as some peeps get married on a Sunday, nowt unusual there, talk about heart stopping, there was me thing I have all day on the sat to assemble, grrr, sorry, lots of grrr's today

AGrrr, lots of typo's there, do apologise it's early. Besides i'm looking at a tree with half the lights gone, grrrr.

Morning all - won't lie to you - I cannot catch up!  Saw the gravity cake Suzanne and loved it.  I haven't seen a Smarties one.  Good job.  Sorry to hear Leah isn't well.  Half our office is throwing up and I feel like I'm sitting on a time bomb.  You know it's going to happen.  Only problem - it's the big Xmas dinner dance in the West End next Saturday......  Hate sicky bugs - they are horrid.  I hope she feels better today.

Chezza hope today is a better one for you too.  I'm procrastinating....should be getting dressed to go to the dentist.  Ho hum.  Barbara - Galaxy ganache sounds lush.  I couldn't get any of the cheap Galaxy in my Asda so I wonder what you are putting it with as I would like to have a go but not sure what flavour to pair it with and seriously I cannot afford to eat it all if it doesn't work!  So I bet you're glad you messaged your bride, eh?   That was a stroke of luck I'd say!  Haven't even got my tree down from the shelf in the garage - need help for that.  I bought some new lights - haven't plugged them in yet so I think I had better do that.

Well - I can't put it off any longer.  Byeeee

Kathy

AMorning all :) Been there done that nanny so I will grrr with you :D

We also had light issues last year so another grrrr from me! Glad your ganache was ok in the end...did you eat the leftovers :D

Well ladies....Maisie.....i have given in, todays the day! Wish me luck!

AMorning all. :-)

Thanks everyone, Leah seems much better today - we haven't long got up, she slept really well. I didn't I was awake worrying, I didn't want her to be sick and not hear her. I'm not complaining tho, as long as she's better anyway.

Good luck at the dentist today Kathy. x

Aw bless you nanny, are you having a bad day already? I hate it when tree lights go! Such a pain. It takes hours to find the offending bulb or take them off and put new ones on. I had a set go last year but they were out before I put them on the tree so I got a new set. I bought LED lights, they're much better. Not cheap but worth it. The only trouble was they were a brighter white than my existing sets and you could see it obviously. I couldn't afford two sets last year so I made do but I bought another set this year and they look lovely. I'll see if I can get them to show up on a photo now in a minute. Good job you got in touch with your bride eh? I know you've lost a day but at least you know in time. Imagine getting up on sat 20th, starting to decorate the cake and the bride ringing to ask where you are, that would've been a disaster.

Here's the lights, they look much better in real life. [IMG]http://www.cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3310752/width/200/height/400[/IMG]

AYay, good girl tiddy! Good luck, :-) x

AThanks Maisie! Tree looks lovely :D will try and get a snap of mine later :)

AMorning All!

Ooh lovely tree Maisie :) we've not put ours up yet, but might this weekend. Hubby put Christmas music on this morning for some reason lol so we must be in a festive mood! Hoping to get to a Christmas fair today too, at a manor house near us, which should be nice!

Glad Leah slept through, that's a good sign! Chezzabelle hope you slept ok again x

Ooh nanny thank goodness you found out now! Phew! Glad you saved your ganache too :)

Good luck Tiddy x

I think I've cracked the jelly sequins, after drying for a day, they are firm, but not rock hard, sort of wine gum consistency, which is perfect! Just have to make a ton more now. And hope they store ok!

AMaisie I hope Leah is feeling a bit better now.

Cheryl I'm glad you managed to get some sleep, continue resting.

Suzanne beautiful cake I bet your son and his friends were amazed by it.

AWell just covered my cake, what a nightmare, trying not to get any ganache on the icing is pants, grrrrrr, and it's slightly uneven, grrrr, very big.John fixed my lights, had visions of me taking it all off, buying new lights and starting again, done that before more than once I can tell you.

How's leah today maisie?

How you Mr &Mrs Tiddy?

How is your mam Lynne?

Nic, how's your tooth?

Chezza, you ok?

Be better to find out who isn't ill first, ha ha, only joking honest

Where's roxy, jo, Bashini and kushter?

Gray, Marvel, where are you all?

AOh nanny wow close regarding that wedding cake or what, like maisie said so better you found out now rather than the bride calling you in a panic on the day imagine how you'd feel then. Are you off on that Friday or will you be working all day?

Tiddy hope you get the answer you want and it puts your mind at rest.

While we are talking of ganache has everybody got them set squares to perfect their ganache?

About to go and get dressed to take my oldest to football then I'm going to try and have a day of tidying and want to write a list of Christmas stuff to get as going shopping in manchester tomorrow and then have Monday afternoon off as a shopping afternoon to get my own two's stuff sorted.

AAlso love the tree Maisie, mines not got going up til next weekend.

Lovely tree, Maisie! 

We usually have a tree, but not decided if we'll put one up this year...  but if so, it won't be until after Daniel's Bar Mitzvah next weekend (yeah, I get the irony of that!!!!!!!!! LOL!)

Hope all those poorly get well soon...  my elder son was off school most of last week with some sort of virus (but he has a suppressed immune system, so things like that hit him hard!)

Today's to-do list.

Make model for top of cake.

Make Monopoly pieces to place on cake.

Do inscription for cake.

That will be CAKE FINISHED!!

Make cookie dough and bake 140 cookies.

Tomorrow I need to decorate them.  Then once dry (royal icing) bag them up.

Probably be a good start if I get showered and dressed!!! LOLOL!!!!

AThankfully I booked 2 days off that week, got the Wednesday anyway, but booked Thurs and Fri off too. Then xmas week off back to it the week after, got one cake 30th and one for 31st Dec, had another order, she wants the same as I did for Sarah's birthday, the duck egg one.

AJust waiting for the anaesthetic to take and am fretting because he's worried about two of my teeth and just wants to monitor them. Hes decided to fix a different tooth in the hope that it gives me a better bite. I'm sitting here petrified. I hate the dentist so much.

AMe too, never go, am a total baby.

ALovely tree maisie.

AAw Kathy try not to worry, worrying will only make it worse. I will say my dentist wanted to save one of my teeth once and ended up taking it out about a month later. I wanted it out, it was giving me too much grief but he said no, he thought he could save it. If you think they need to come out you tell them! I hate the dentist. Never had a problem with my teeth, never had a filling, still had baby teeth at 39. I had to have my first baby tooth out and since then I've had nothing but trouble. Try to think of a nice treat you can have for being brave to take your mind off it a bit. x

Thanks everyone, I want to see photos of everyone's trees as they go up please, I showed Leah Nanny's and Kuuushi's fireplace and she said "aw cwissmas, so pwitty"! She loves Christmas!

Lmao Suzanne. Do you celebrate Christmas then? Hope you don't mind me being nosey. We used to live by a family of Jehovah's witnesses who didn't and I used to feel so sorry for the kids. They couldn't even take a Christmas card home from school. And I know a Jewish family who don't celebrate Christmas but still have Christmas FOR the kids so they don't feel left out. I don't think they're very religious actually. But then neither are lots of Christians who celebrate Christmas.

Glad john got the lights working nanny, it's a pain taking everything off and putting it back on again isn't it.

I don't think jo will mind me telling you, she's ok, just really, really busy. She sent me a photo of her Christmas cake (she used my recipe) and it looks beautiful. :-) Don't know where the others are tho, hope they're all ok and just busy with Christmas stuff.

How are you today chezza? Slept well and feeling better I hope.

Any news tiddy? Fingers crossed it's good. x

A

That's lucky nanny.

Hope it goes well Suzanne, I always feel after I've been dentist even just for a check up my teeth hurt so much, it must be all the prodding and poking.

While there's talk of Christmas cakes mine is quite light in colour it's not dark like others I've had in the past. Is that normal for a homemade one or is it due to the recipe I've used? It does look like the picture in the recipe which does give me hope.

I think all those who have gone AWOL are trying to get to places and stuck in traffic.  I tell you.....it's gone nuts everywhere.  Had to abandon getting petrol as the garage was gridlocked at Tesco. Been and got all my stuff for my boiled fruit cakes!  Despite the lady in Tesco not understanding a word I said as I feel like Donald Duck right now.  Yes my dentist was good to me - he even sang to me!  I started giggling and the rest sort of just happened.  Might even go back for a check up!  Lol.

Love the tree Maisie.  Really Christmassy.  How is Leah now?

How are you Tiddy?  Hope everything is OK.

Kathy

AGuess it will be fine Loubee.

My mother always put gravy browning in her xmas cskes, and do do I, it makes them very dark, doesn't add anything to the flavour tho, thankfully.