Easy Recipe: Parma Violet Shortbread Biscuits

I absolutely adore Parma Violets. They are probably my favourite sweet. I’ve had a big bag of them in my cupboard for a while waiting for me to bake with. I didn’t know what I wanted to make with them, but the other day I was craving a biscuit. One thing led to another and the next thing I know, I’m eating a Parma Violet Shortbread in the garden with a cup of tea.

These Parma Violet Shortbread Biscuits are as light as a feather. I smashed up the Parma Violets and added them into my shortbread mix, so there are tiny crunchy bits of Parma Violets throughout the biscuits. They’re really good, a little bit unusual but quite subtle. If there’s not enough Parma Violet in them, you can always add more to the mixture.

Parma Violet Shortbread Biscuits

Ingredients:
225g butter
80g caster sugar
50g Parma Violets, bashed up
330g plain flour
Caster sugar for sprinkling

Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 180. You’ll need to have a couple of baking trays covered with greaseproof paper ready.

Put your Parma Violets into a plastic bag and bash with a rolling pin until it’s a mixture of fine powder and small fragments of violet flavoured rubble.

In a mixing bowl, thoroughly beat the butter and sugar together. Once fluffy, add the Parma Violets and little by little add the plain flour. Mix with a wooden spoon as best you can. Try not to overwork it too much or the dough will go gluey.

I find the following method tidier and it stops you manhandling the dough too much. Once the shortbread dough is mixed, tip it out onto a large sheet of greaseproof paper; bring the dough together with your hands and then fold the paper in half with the mixture sandwiched in between.

With a rolling-pin, roll it out so it’s about 5mm thick and cut into rounds. I used a glass for this and carefully lifted each shortbread biscuit onto the baking tray. You should get around 18 good-sized shortbread biscuits out of the dough. Sprinkle a pinch of sugar over each round before baking.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 12-15 minutes. Keep an eye on the shortbread, they still need to be pale and not brown. Once they’re baked, remove from the oven and leave to cool on a rack.

Easy Recipe: Parma Violet Shortbread Biscuits

They’re as easy as that. Delicious with a cup of tea and as light as a feather too. A real treat for Parma Violet fans!

If you enjoyed this recipe you might also like these Crumbly Cranachan Shortbread with Whisky or these Cinnamon & Raisin Shortbread biscuits.

Easy Recipe: Parma Violet Shortbread Biscuits

Crafts: Make Your Own Hessian Monogram Letter

A few weeks ago I went to my friend Lucy’s house for one of our informal craft nights. We all bring cake and wine and the host sorts out a craft for us all to do; so I can’t claim this idea as mine but the creation is mine. Lucy bought some cardboard letters, some hessian strips and some embellishments and we set to work, each making our own hessian monogram letter.

During the evening we all worked on our own letters. We all had the same materials to work with, but we all produced quite different things.

Hessian is a strong, coarse fabric made from hemp or jute and is used for sacks and upholstery. It’s also commonly known as jute or burlap. It’s also really cheap.

Crafts: Make Your Own Hessian Monogram Letter

Make Your Own Hessian Monogram Letter

You will need:
A cardboard mache letter
Natural jute fabric roll, you will need 2 rolls per letter
A hot glue gun and glue sticks
Embellishments – buttons, sequins, beads, whatever you fancy
Scissors

How to make your hessian monogram letter:
To begin with, it’s best to work on top of a craft mat or a large-ish piece of cardboard. This can get messy and I sometimes find the glue from the glue gun gets everywhere.

You need to wrap your jute fabric strips around your letter, so think about how best to do this and where you think it would be best to start. It’s better to slightly overlap the layers if you can. I was covering the letter “A” so I decided to start with the hardest bit, which for me was working my way around the hole in the middle.

Using the glue gun, glue as you go, carefully pressing the jute into place taking care not to burn your fingers. This will take some time to finish, but it’s nice to zone out and concentrate on the task in hand. I decided once I’d finished to add an extra strip of fabric down one side of the A just to break up the look a little bit.

Crafts: Make Your Own Hessian Monogram Letter

Once you’ve covered your letter, set out the embellishments you want to use. Play about with what you’re going to use and where you are going to stick them. Once you’re happy with what it looks like, start gluing the embellishments to the letter.

I knew my letter would be propped up on the mantelpiece. If you wanted to hang it on a wall you could attach a loop or hook to the back and use that to hang it up.

This Hessian Monogram Letter craft is really quite easy to do. Wrapping the hessian around the letter is the time-consuming bit, but I’m pleased with how it turned out and it looks good on my mantelpiece.

If you enjoyed this, you might also like to make an Autumnal Alphabet Wreath.

Crafts: Make Your Own Hessian Monogram Letter

Book Review: Space Number Crunch!

A little while ago we reviewed Dinosaur Number Crunch! by Kevin Pettman and we were very taken with how the facts were presented in a bite-size style, you could really dip in and out of it and it’s a firm favourite. We knew there were more books planned in the Number Crunch series, so we were pleased to get our hands on Space Number Crunch! which is published on 12th July 2018.

Space Number Crunch! contains 96 pages of facts, figures and out of this world stats to please any space fan. From the biggest planet, fastest asteroid to astronaut facts, every page of the book is packed full of space data.

Book Review & Giveaway: Space Number Crunch!

It’s aimed at children aged 8+, but it’s just right for my space loving seven and a half year old. Space Number Crunch! is full of colourful illustrations and graphics. These’s even a quiz at the end to check your learning.

Space Number Crunch! covers a whole range of space related topics, from the planets and stars, the astronaut training, comets, galaxies and space agencies. It’s a really handy reference book; we’ve been reading in a few pages at a time before bed, and in the car on long journeys too.

It’s very much the kind of book you can dip in and out of and absolutely perfect for fact fans like my son. It’s very well put together. I like the themed pages and it means you can find the facts you want quickly. It’s probably the most informative and interesting book about space we’ve read.

Book Review & Giveaway: Space Number Crunch!

If you’re interested in everything to do with space, this Space Number Crunch! book is essential reading. This flexicover book is available to buy from 12th July 2018. This would make a truly out of this world gift for space enthusiasts!

Space Number Crunch! is published by Carlton Kids and costs £9.99. It’s available in all good bookshops and online now.

If you enjoyed this, you might also like my pick of five books about science.

Disclosure: We were sent a copy of Space Number Crunch! for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.

Days Out: Lymm Historic Transport Day

Over the weekend we went to the Lymm Historic Transport Day. The Lymm Historic Transport Day has been an annual fixture in the Cheshire town for a number of years and attracts thousands of people.

Days Out: Lymm Historic Transport Day

We arrived in Lymm just before noon, we had missed the drive-in parade of vehicles, which was a shame. We parked in one of the park and ride fields and a vintage bus picked us up and dropped us off near the main event field. As we walked up the lane to the field we were tempted into the LEGO Expo in Scout HQ. It was a large room full of wonderful LEGO creations which had taken months to build. The boy was in his element, it was excellent.

Weighed down with several bags of LEGO, we headed to the Lymm Historic Transport Day main event field. There was so much to see and do, you could happily have spent the day exploring everything there was to offer. Row upon row of classic vehicles of all kinds; cockpits, cars from movies (Ghostbusters, Jurassic World, Lightening McQueen from Cars and the Batmobile were all there). There was a vintage ambulance and fire engine, modern-day fire bikes and all kinds of bicycles and mopeds.

Days Out: Lymm Historic Transport Day

There was live entertainment in the form of 40s and 50s music; plus an Extreme Mountain Bike Show, the Return of the Lymm Dinosaur, model car racing and the chance to explore all of those classic cars and other vehicles.

Once we’d done a tour of all the vehicles, we grabbed a bite to eat from one of the food stalls and sat in the shade for a while. The Lymm Historic Transport Day had organised a Spitfire fly-past, so it was eyes to the sky waiting for this iconic plane to fly over. We were not disappointed, it flew over twice and we were all in complete awe.

Days Out: Lymm Historic Transport Day

It was a gloriously sunny day, so we put on more sun-cream and headed off to have a go on the little narrow gauge steam railway. We do love steam trains, so this was well worth queuing up for.

The boys then joined the queue to have a go at driving a digger whilst I had a look around some of the stalls. I got back to the boys just in time to watch the small boy take his turn at driving the digger and trying to find the rubber duck. He did really well and this was probably the highlight of his day.

Days Out: Lymm Historic Transport Day

We celebrated his digger driving success by having some ice cream in the shade (it was a very sunny day). I wanted to go and see the canal boats and some of the other vehicles scattered about the village, so we left the main event field to explore Lymm. We were glad we did, it’s such a pretty village and we found a yard of full of large steam-powered traction engines which were very interesting.

The small boy loved the canal boats and declared that he wanted to go on a canal boat trip, so I’d better add that to our list of things to do. There was the Historic Sail Past at 4.30pm; a flotilla of canal boats and barges bringing the Lymm Historic Transport Day to a close.

We were starting to flag; the sunshine was getting the better of us, so we bought a bag of chips from the chip shop in Lymm village, sat on a shady bench and watched the world go by for a few minutes before catching the Park and Ride bus back to our car.

Days Out: Lymm Historic Transport Day

The Lymm Historic Transport Day was a brilliant day out. Tickets Are £5 per adult, £3 per child or £12 for a family of four. It was terrific value, there was definitely a full days worth of things to see and do. It’s so well organised, I couldn’t fault a single thing about the day. Lots to see and do for all of the family, we will definitely be back next year!

Lymm Historic Transport Day is separate to, but happens at the same time as the Lymm Festival. This year, highlights of the Lymm Festival include Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Suchet, the Family Garden Party, Open Gardens event, Martin Edwards (crime writer) and much more. You can find more details on the Lymm Festival website.

For more information about Lymm Historic Transport Day, visit their website.

Capture the good times with a Merlin DigiPass!

We are Merlin Annual Pass ambassadors and our Premium Passes give us so much family fun each year, they really do pay for themselves over and over. Recently Merlin have added an extra bonus for Premium Passholders, read on to find out more about the DigiPass.

Normally £50, the free DigiPass enables Premium Passholders to get unlimited action shots of themselves having a blast on awesome attractions, such as the brand new Wicker Man at Alton Towers Resort, Tiger Rock at Chessington World of Adventures Resort, The Walking Dead: The Ride at THORPE PARK Resort and the LEGO NINJAGO Ride at The LEGOLAND Windsor Resort. What’s more, existing Merlin Annual Passholders can also get an additional £20 off all Premium Merlin Annual Pass renewals as well as the free DigiPass if they renew before 1st September, so it’s about time everyone was in the frame!

A DigiPass enables passholders to get unlimited action shots on specific rides at Merlin theme parks – Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, LEGOLAND Windsor and Chessington World of Adventures.

The Merlin Annual Pass opens the door to 32 incredible attractions around the UK; so wherever you live, you’re guaranteed to have the ultimate passport to fun! Passholders can enjoy the Coca-Cola London Eye, which shows breath-taking views of the capital; SEA LIFE Aquariums and Sanctuaries with creatures from all around the world; Madame Tussauds, where visitors can take a selfie with A List celebs and national icons, and so much more.

My friend Jen from My Mummy’s Pennies is a huge fan of the DigiPass. She’s kindly let me use some of her DigiPass photos for this post so you can see them in action. They’re great momentoes of the day. The photos are available for 12 months, so once you have them taken, don’t forget to download them.

The DigiPass sale starts at 10am on Thursday 14^th June and will be ending at midnight on Saturday 1^st September; so don’t wait around; snap up this offer so you can enjoy a summer of memories before the summer holidays disappears in a flash!

For more information please visit www.merlinannualpass.co.uk.

I’m a Merlin Annual Pass Blogger Ambassador. I was not paid to write this post.

Board Game Review: Dobble Animals

Dobble has been an incredibly popular game since it was launched a few years ago. It’s kind of like snap, but better, more interesting and a bit more fun. We’ve had Dobble for while now and it regularly comes on trips and meals out with us. I knew there were other versions of Dobble, so we were very pleased to put Dobble Animals to the test.

Board Game Review: Dobble Animals

Dobble Animals is a speedy observation game where players race to match the identical animal between the cards. Each player turns one card over. Each card has a number of different animals on. The first to find the matching creature shouts “DOBBLE!” and slams their hand down on the cards – just like snap.

It’s genuinely brilliant fun. Some matches you can spot almost instantly, others can have all the players puzzling for a minute or two. Each pair of cards has a matching animal, even though sometimes you can’t for the life of you spot it.

Board Game Review: Dobble Animals

Dobble Animals relies heavily on players having a sharp eye and quick reflexes. It’s also a brilliant game for travel. It comes with its own tin which keeps the cards together and dry. We take our original Dobble everywhere with us. It’s great for a quick game, or several rounds and the instructions are so easy, it takes no time at all to pick it up.

I really like the animal version, the pictures are always colourful and interesting and this does not disappoint. This really is a family favourite for us. I’m pleased we’ve got a new, different version to play with and the boy is pleased too. He can choose which one he wants to play with dependent on his mood.

Board Game Review: Dobble Animals

Dobble Animals is available from a wide range of retailers and costs around £12.99 (and is worth every penny).

We were sent the Dobble Animals game for review for the Asmodee UK Blogger Board Game Club. All images and opinions are our own.

Find other board game and toy reviews here.

Recipe: Sticky Rosé Braised Ham Hock

I was sent some Marques De Caceres wine to use in a recipe. All images and opinions are my own.

I really enjoy cooking with wine. Not just the kind of cooking where you’ve got a glass of wine on the go to keep you company while you stir the pot; but the kind where you use a whole bottle and slowly cook a piece of meat until it virtually falls apart. This week I made an unctuous Sticky Rosé Braised Ham Hock using virtually a whole bottle of Marques De Caceres Rosado Rosé, and it was worth the wait.

Recipe: Sticky Rosé Braised Ham Hock

I’ve recently decided to make more of an effort to buy better quality meat. So this week I popped to our local butchers, Little Pigs in Didsbury to pick up some sausages and chicken. I spied a ham hock for £3.50. I’ve never cooked with ham hock before, but after a chat with the butcher he gave me a few tips and off I went to have a think about what I was going to do with it.

I decided that low and slow would be the way to go with my ham hock. Braised in a bottle of Marques De Caceres Rosado Rosé and some herbs for three hours, I had a feeling it would be good. I was almost right, it was great!

Recipe: Sticky Rosé Braised Ham Hock

I thought a bottle of Marques De Caceres Rosado Rosé would work well with the ham hock. It’s a crisp rosé made from a blend of Tempranillo and Garnacha grapes and it has hints of redcurrants and aniseed. It’s a lovely, easy drinking rosé, and just the thing to drink on a summer evening.

My Sticky Rosé Braised Ham Hock does take some time to cook to perfection, but the results are well worth taking some time over.

Sticky Rosé Braised Ham Hock

Ingredients:
1 red onion, sliced
1 Ham Hock
A bottle of Marques De Caceres Rosado Rosé
3 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
2 bay leaves
10 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 teaspoon of pink peppercorns
2 tablespoons of runny honey
1 tablespoon of English mustard

Recipe: Sticky Rosé Braised Ham Hock

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 200°. Wash your ham hock under running water, if you don’t do this it will be so salty it will be virtually inedible. Put your ham hock in a large lidded casserole dish and add the sliced red onion, wine, garlic, bay leaves, thyme and peppercorns. You might need to top up the liquid in the pot up with some water, it should just about cover the ham hock.

Put the lid on the dish and put in the oven for 3 hours. Make sure you check it every hour or so, adding extra water if it needs it and turning the meat in the pot. When it’s ready the meat should just fall off the bone.

Remove the meat from the dish and set aside. Sieve the liquid in the casserole dish into a pan and reduce the amount of liquid by about half. This just means simmer it until there is half the liquid in the pan than when you started. Add the honey and mustard and whisk them into the sauce.

Take the meat off the bone and remove the layer of fat from the meat. Lay the meat in a roasting tin. Pour over the reduced liquid and put it back in the oven for 20 minutes, turning and basting the meat half way through. Remove from the oven and serve with a drizzle of the sticky sauce.

Recipe: Sticky Rosé Braised Ham Hock

I served my Sticky Rosé Braised Ham Hock with creamy polenta and asparagus; but it would be great on buttery mashed potato or served in a similar way to pulled pork.

For just £3.50 we got a really good meal for four people. The rosé really helped to give the rich glossy sauce a distinctive flavour. For such a delicate wine, the Marques De Caceres Rosado Rosé made such a robust sauce. Delicious!

If you enjoyed this recipe, you might also like to try my slow cooked beef in red wine.

Recipe: Sticky Rosé Braised Ham Hock

Kids Crafts: Disney Pixar Cars 3 Aquabeads Playset

Despite the recent sunshine, we have had a couple of rainy days. Over half term we had a rainy afternoon and decided to spend it doing some crafts. I had put aside Disney Pixar Cars 3 Aquabeads Playset for a rainy day, so we decided to crack it open and make our own Lightning McQueen!

Kids Crafts: Disney Pixar Cars 3 Aquabeads Playset

The Disney Pixar Cars 3 Aquabeads Playset contains a table tray, a bead palette, four templates, a sprayer, a bead peeler and 7 different colours of beads. The set is suitable for ages 4+ and it was just the thing for my 7 year old. Aquabeads (and any bead craft) can be quite fiddly for little fingers, but this is what makes them excellent for fine tuning hand-eye co-ordination and working their fine motor skills.

Kids Crafts: Disney Pixar Cars 3 Aquabeads Playset

There are four templates to follow in the set; Lightning McQueen, Cruz Ramirez, Mack and Jackson Storm. The templates each show two sections of car, one is the main body and the other is a section which you make separately and then stick on with water once they’re both dry. This makes them into 3D characters.

Kids Crafts: Disney Pixar Cars 3 Aquabeads Playset

The boy look his time making Lightning McQueen. He struggled a bit to put the individual beads on the board, so I lent him my rainbow bead pen from my Aquabeads Deluxe Studio set and then he just rocketed through. He spent around 40 minutes carefully putting all the beads on the board with the template underneath. Then he sprayed it with water and we left it to dry for the afternoon.

Kids Crafts: Disney Pixar Cars 3 Aquabeads Playset

The instructions say that you can peel the beads from the board after ten minutes; but we find if you leave them for longer, then they set a little better. Once they were dry and peeled from the board we then sprayed Lightning McQueen all over and fixed the 3D part to his front; then we left him to dry a little longer.

He was pleased with how his Lightning McQueen turned out. He was easy to make and Aquabeads are a really lovely rainy-day craft for both kids and adults alike.

The Disney Pixar Cars 3 Aquabeads Playset costs around £20 and is available from a wide range of retailers including Hobbycraft.

Disclosure: We were sent the Disney Pixar Cars 3 Aquabeads Playset to craft with in exchange for this blog post. All images and opinions are our own.

Review: Orchard Toys What a Performance Game

This week we’ve been playing a new board game from Orchard Toys – What a Performance! It’s kind of like charades, but with a lot more going on. We properly laughed when we played this game and it would be a great game for small-ish groups of people or families.

Review: Orchard Toys What a Performance Game

What a Performance is great to get the whole family laughing and playing together. Race your way around the performance board to be the first player or team to reach the finish. Along the way you’ll have to act out a scene, make lots of fun noises, do funny actions and activities along the way. Can you pretend to be a monkey, make a noise like a firework or wiggle your ears? If you can’t, use the magic decoder and reveal your hidden forfeit on the back of the cards!

There are over 300 fun challenges to perform, so there’s never a dull moment.

Review: Orchard Toys What a Performance Game

The box contains a jigsaw game board, 100 activity cards, a spinner, a sand timer; a card holder, a performance star, four character stands; four playing pieces, a magic decoder, a dice and an instruction leaflet.

The game is fairly simple to set up. You put the jigsaw board together, this comes in four pieces and takes seconds to do. You choose which colour you will be, red, green, yellow or blue and take your playing pieces and put them at the start.

The youngest player starts by rolling the dice and moving along the board accordingly. When you land on a square Say/Act/Do you take a card and read the corresponding instruction. If the instructions has “Guess” written on it, the other players have to set the timer and guess what you’re doing within the time. There are other squares, Spin means you spin the spinner which will choose your challenge. Landing on the ? square means you take a card and using the magic decoder, you follow the hidden instructions on the back of the card.

Review: Orchard Toys What a Performance Game

It’s all very simple and really lots of fun. The game had us doing monkey and dinosaur impressions, sit ups, touching our toes, it had us wiggling our ears and talking in silly voices. It was tremendous fun and just the kind of thing to bring out the silly in anyone.

As with all Orchard Toys games, What a Performance does have some educational benefits. It promotes imaginative play, encourages personal and social skills and can encourage group play. I think one of the biggest things we noticed with it, was it was really great for getting him to think about how to follow the instructions. This gave him more confidence to stand up and be silly, which is an essential life skill, or it is in my book.

What a Performance is a properly fun game. It’s just the thing for building a bit of confidence whilst having a whole lot of fun!

What a Performance is suitable for ages 5 to adult and for 2 or more players. It costs £16.50 and is widely available.

Review: Orchard Toys What a Performance Game

Disclosure: We were sent the What a Performance game for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.

Eight Unmissable Family Festivals for 2018

The last few years have seen a huge increase in family festivals in the UK. We’ve been to a few of them, this year we’re going to both the Timber Festival and Just So Festival. There are a few other festivals happening over the summer, here’s our pick of fabulous family festivals this year…

Timber Festival, 6th – 8th July

July sees the first ever Timber Festival. Timber is set to be an extraordinary new camping festival exploring the transformative impact of forests. Music, art, philosophy and sustainability. Timber takes place on the 6th – 8th July in Feanedock, in the heart of the National Forest. The Timber Festival is set to be a thought-provoking three days in the forest, getting back to nature and learning to love the woods.

Eight Unmissable Family Festivals for 2018 / Preview: Timber Festival - a brand new family festival!

Just So Festival, 17th – 19th August

Taking place on 17th – 19th August at the Rode Hall Estate in Cheshire this year’s Just So Festival is packed with familiar old favourites and an array of exciting new things to see, do and experience. Step out of your everyday life and enter a wonderland of world-class literature, arts, theatre, dance, music, comedy and creative pursuits together as a family. Immerse yourselves in a weekend full of magical midnight feasts, curious creatures, raucous pillow fights, hidden retreats, top-notch food, drink and boutique camping options and breathtaking beauty.

The Good Life Experience, 14th-16th September

The Good Life Experience is located Hawarden, Flintshire. The festival was founded by friends Cerys Matthews, Steve Abbott and Charlie and Caroline Gladstone. It is a celebration of great food, axe throwing, campfire cooking, group sing-a-longs, comedy, beer, raucous music, poetry, literature and so much more. It’s a real back to nature experience for the whole family!

Bluedot Festival, 20th -22nd July

Bluedot is really unique festival, located in the incredible grounds of Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, it’s an event that brings together science, education, music, food and culture and wraps it up in a big festival shaped bow. This year the headline acts at Bluedot are The Flaming Lips, Future Islands and The Chemical Brothers and each day is packed with really interesting things to see and do.

Geronimo Festival / Eight Unmissable Family Festivals for 2018

Geronimo Festival, 30th June – 1st July

Geronimo has been going for a few years now. This family festival features the stars of CBeebies and lots of old favourites, plus a host of new activities. When we visited Geronimo in 2016, we loves the arena area which had different shows on throughout the day. There are lots to see and do, but do take a picnic!

Lymm Festival, 21st June -1st July

Lymm Festival is a 10 day festival which runs each year in the lovely Cheshire town of Lymm. The Lymm festival features a wide range of events celebrating various aspects of the village, from the amazing Transport Day where the village is filled with all kinds of transport, old and new including the Batmobile and steam engines; to foodie events, music, literature, comedy, charity dog walks. We’ll be going along this year, so do have a look at what’s on to see if anything floats your boat!

Foodies Festival, various dates

The Foodies Festival does an annual summer tour around the UK, but sets up camp in Cheshire each July. It’s a real celebration of global food with stands and stalls from all over the world. We have visited the festival a few times over the years and it’s an interesting day out for foodies; they even have special cooking sessions and demonstrations for children!

bOing! International Family Festival, 25 & 26 August

The bOing! International Family Festival returns to Canterbury this August Bank Holiday to celebrate its 5^th birthday in style, with its biggest and best line up yet. bOing! showcases the very best in theatre, dance, music, films created for all ages across Europe. This (mostly) free family festival is a brilliantly theatrical day out for all the family.

There are so many great family festivals on this summer, whatever you’re interested in, there’s bound to be something to suit your family. Which festivals are you going to this year?