Afternoon tea! Bistro 1847, Manchester

Last week I was invited for afternoon tea by the lovely Susan of Old Fashioned Susie and the Vintage Manchester blog. It was a balmy day, and it was lovely to retreat to the cool and calm atmosphere of Bistro 1847, Manchester city centre's vegetarian restaurant. I love this place so had high expectations - I went for their Christmas menu, again for my birthday, and for Valentine's too!

We had the vegan option for our afternoon tea, as I am vegan and Susan avoids dairy. A vegetarian option is also available, which comes with clotted cream for the scones and different sandwich fillings. The meal was lovely! Here is Susan with the spread, we were provided with a refreshing glass of Pimms each, a large pot of tea, and an array of tempting sandwiches, cakes and scones.

The sandwiches were served on a light rustic ciabatta style bread, and consisted of pesto with tomato, avocado with olive salsa, and a scrumptious paté which I think was white bean with sundried tomato. Cakes included a sticky marmalade cake, tart rhubarb cake, some little pastries which were a bit like palmiers, and a tasty walnut confection. The scones were light and served with a raspberry preserve absolutely bursting with flavour.

Here I am about to devour the last sandwich - luckily the one where I had it halfway into my mouth, chewing away like a beast, was deleted.

I loved this afternoon tea, it made me feel very fancy indeed! Hopefully I'll be able to go again soon for a special treat. Thank you Sue! xxx

My new baby Neice, Vivien of Holloway and a Scary Birthday!

On July 11th, my sister Ginny gave birth to baby Elanor Paige, my first neice. Here she is! I am bemused by babies, as you can see.



July 11th was also the day Areospace Boyfriend turned 30! We spent the day together on our own, I got him lots of presents including DVDs and Star Wars collectibles, and made him a lovely three-course meal and birthday cupcakes to celebrate and allow him to hide from the rest of the world (he is not taking it well).

Here are the birthday cocktails I made!



Mmm, garish!



Slurp.



The umbrellas had absorbed quite a bit of flavour.

Our friend Ciana's birthday also fell during the same week, so we arranged a joint birthday party at The Hellfire Club, Manchester. The restaurant is horror-themed and we got the place to ourselves, as there were over twenty in our party. The food was lovely and the atmosphere was great, they also made me my own special vegan menu which consisted of some gorgeous spicy roasted peppers, a tasty mushroom and rosemary risotto, and an enormous exotic fruit salad.

Here is the birthday boy tucking into his prawn cocktail starter, stuffed into a huge pineapple! He then proceeded to eat a steak which was bigger than his face, and a sticky toffee pudding.



Here is Ciana looking lovely, and eight months pregnant, not that you can tell! (hat made by me, available here!)



We stayed there drinking for about five hours, as you can tell.



Our tables stretching off into the distance:




In the last picture you can see my lovely new dress, which was bought for me from Vivien of Holloway. My friend Kathy also has these in stock at Rockers England.


(Picture copyright Vivien of Holloway/Jazz Hans Photography/Anna Fur Laxis)

Raspberry Cupcakes and a Giveaway!

Naomi over at Arthelia's Attic is having a fantastic giveaway of one of her crocheted 1940s snoods, a vintage hat, a tote bag, mug and a copy of her favourite vintage book! She has a lovely Etsy shop and her blog is full of interesting vintage fashion, cooking etc. so do take a peep for details on how to enter the giveaway!



Last week I also had another go at some vegan cupcakes! These were for my friend Steff's birthday, and I devoured the leftovers on Friday night with Aerospace Boyfriend and my friend Laura Lee with some blueberry and pink fizz bellinis!

Here they are going into the oven. Lurid!



The recipe was the basic vanilla cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World (link for the book in my previous cupcake post!) modified with two spoonfuls of raspberry syrup and a drop of pink food colouring.

Also, I was right about the cupcake wrappers; here is one of the American-sized ones dwarfing a British fairy cake case.



Here they are cooled and glazed with a Kirsch syrup:



I cut out a cone from the tops, and filled each hollow with a whole fresh raspberry and some raspberry coulis made by sieving fresh raspberries and adding icing sugar and raspberry syrup.



Here they are finished! In an obsessive cake-baking shopping frenzy, I purchased two new icing bags and lots of nozzles. This was done using the largest rose-shaped nozzle, with the icing bag filled with two shades of pink rasberry vegan buttercream frosting. The cakes are topped with silver balls, fresh raspberries and blueberries, and lots of beautiful edible glitter, which unfortunately did not show up at all in the pictures.



Hurrahs!