Circumnavigation of Elter Water

Time for another low level walk, but quite long and beautiful.  I really like the circular nature of this one, there is a sense where you have to commit to the distance, rather than knowing you can just turn back at any time and retrace your steps.

Difficulty: 3

Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (9), Grace (7), Evie (4)

10:22, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (62)

17:17, 10.9km 6h55 280m, End (63)

We parked in the car park in Elterwater, right next to the River Braythay, and started walking along the path next to the river.  This gets to Skelwith Bridge, at which point we track west until Slater Bridge, before turning north and back towards Elterwater.

A great chance for Poppy to stretch her legs for a bit, and some great puddles to aim for.

It was spring, and the sheep & lambs were out in force, and frolicking merrily.  At one point, two of them got quite friendly, starting discussions of animal husbandry. 

View looking back towards the Langdales.

Further along the River Brathay there was a great chance for posed photos.

As in previous walks sticks, and the uses of, feature heavily.

This was on the southern leg of the journey, and Evie was struggling for motivation.  Despite telling her that she would walk quicker if she wasn't checking every gap in the stone wall to see if her stick would fit in, she persisted.

Slater Bridge, now we turn north.

At this point the kids were fairly happy to learn that we would be skirting around the bottom of this, rather than climbing to the top.

Still playing dogs, swapping owners and games.

Short piece of road walking, around Little Langdale.

Quite impressive quarry workings.

Latterbarrow from Hawkshead

The previous day involved a walk around Tarn Howes, I have a feeling it was then that the girls were playing on a tree stump and Grace managed to jump onto Evie - it turned out nothing was actually damaged, but for a while the bickering had a focus...

We'd planned a walk from Hawkshead, nothing too high or long,

Difficulty: 2
Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (9), Grace (7), Evie (4)
10:40, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (71)
14:41, 7.0km 4h01 235m, End (70)

Heading up the path, progress was sometimes slow.  Evie at the vanguard was suspected of slowing the pace.

Still, this meant that Poppy got to do some walking, helped by Grace and Isabelle.

Sticks featured large on this walk, the carrying of, the breaking of, the fighting over, and (most of all) pretending to be dogs and needing to fetch them.

 The views from the top.  It's only an outlying Wainwright, rather than a full one, but still worth the effort.

 

Loughrigg from Ambleside

First walk of the holiday, after arriving the day before and doing the Easter Egg trail at Fell Foot, at the bottom of Lake Windermere.  We were staying in Ambleside, at a house just up Kirkstone Road, so we were able to do this walk from the house.  This turned out to be Evie's first Wainwright, Poppy was in the carrier for most of the walk.

Difficulty: 3

Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (9), Grace (7), Evie (4)

10:09, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (56)

14:18, 6.5km 4h08 372m, Loughrigg Fell (335)

16:43, 11.0km 6h33 424m, End (80)

The route took us to Rydal, then skirting the south of Rydal Water, steadily climbing up before turned and walking directly to Loughrigg Fell.  We were aiming first at the caves on the way to this final climb.

However, there was an obstacle on the first section to Rydal!

This was great fun, we had to dismount Poppy and help her through.

Slightly more normal walking, with the climb up to Fairfield Horseshoe ahead - not the target for today however.

At the caves on the way, and a good chance for some easy rock climbing up the sides. 

A stop for lunch over looking Rydal Water, before the climb up to Loughrigg Fell.  A great time to restock some energy.

The view from lunch looking north.

Climbing up, Evie managing with a little encouragement.

The view from the top!  Great vantage point, even though it's not that high.

The gentle walk back down the other side and in towards Ambleside.

Snake Birthday Cake

I cooked this cake for Grace's 7th birthday.

This quite a big bowl.  That's quite a lot of cake mixture.  Oh the days before we got a kitchen aid...

Two cakes later.

Making the snake out of the cakes.The round cake makes most of the curves, then you just hack away at the square cake until it joins up. 

Plus you get a whole lot of spare bits left over.

Decorating the cake board, I bought a couple of different leaf cutters and a few colours of icing - all artistic input goes to Caroline.

Final cake with camouflage icing.   Trying to put smooth fondant icing on top of this was never going to happen.

Ben 10 Birthday Cake

I cooked this for Jamie, my nephew, when he was in the UK summer 2011.  He was into Ben 10 so the request came through!  I didn't make any notes, so hopefully the pictures are enough.

The next two show cutting the cake to size, thinking about where the arm comes across and cutting away to leave that standing out.

Slice in half, putting buttercream in the middle, then covering it all up.

The pink and white didn't overlap, which was a bit of a pain where there wasn't the black sleeve end to hide the join.  Still, joining would have meant more fondant icing which doesn't make the cake taste great.  All the other shapes, brown/green/black were cut and glued on top.  I'm pretty sure that the only reason the watch circle looks darker was being wet, rather than the other black which had dried out.

Dalmation Birthday Cake

I cooked this cake for Grace's 6th birthday.

First cook 4 cakes.  Two with a 6in square tin and two with an 8in square tin. Use a madeira cake recipe, with 3 eggs for the smaller ones, and 5 eggs for the 8in.

When cool, trim all the crust off the cakes, making the top of the larger cakes pretty much flat.  You then need to cut the cakes to make the right shape. Put the two larger cakes on the cake board (I used a 12x18 board) next to each other, and the two smaller ones at the top.  The front one a few inches from the front, and the back one quite close to the back of the cake.  The cake at the back at the bottom, cut the corners off and put them on top, just in front of the smaller back cake.

Shape the back legs, cutting into the front of the cake to make the body narrower than the legs.  You end up cutting off a bit of the cake to make the paws lower, which can then be put upside down to make the top of the back legs.

The front of the dog can be shaped into the two front legs, and a rounded bit in the middle for the head.  The top cake at the front loses the most, cutting it lower at the front and rounded to make the nose of the dog.  In front of this top cake I added an off-cut of cake to help make the front of the nose. This stage took a bit over an hour for me, and I ended up with something that looked like this:

I took apart the cakes, and cut them each in half so there were 4 layers top to bottom, so I could get more butter icing in.  I make 2kg of butter icing (500g butter, 1.5kg of icing sugar) in two batches, and had some left over.  Starting at the bottom I covered the bottom layer, then moved up.

I rolled out 1.5kg of white fondant icing, and then placed it over the cake.  I didn't quite get it wide enough, so had to patch up a few bits later.  The spots can cover up small mistakes though...

Now start arranging it so that it tucks into all the corners that you cut in the original cake.  Near the bottom cut the excess away, then work the rest together so that it doesn't bunch up so much.  I find a proper icing smoother (a bit like a plasterers float, but much smaller) really good for getting all the finger marks off the icing.

Now get some black fondant, and roll out and cut spots out of it.  I stuck them on using some edible glue from a proper cake shop, together with a really small child's paintbrush to paint the side of the icing you want to stick on. The paws have more small strips of black icing stuck on, same for the mouth and whiskers. The ears and nose are just larger spots.  The eyes could be done by piping icing, but I cut out some rolled out white icing, and stuck it onto a slighter larger circle of black icing. I rolled out some red icing for the tongue and collar, and a lump of white icing made the tail.

Jewellery box birthday cake

This was for Isabelle's 8th birthday.  I can't remember any real details, apart from that the malteasers were individually stuck onto the side of the cake with edible glue, to make the appearance of a necklace.  The basic cake was rectangular, with the top section of roll out icing slightly overhanging the front.