Preview: International Cheese Awards 2018

If you love cheese as much as I do, then the idea of spending some time exploring and sampling some of the best cheeses from around the world would be your idea of heaven. I’m pleased to say that once again this year I’ll be a judge at the International Cheese Awards. But what else going on in the cheese marquee this year?

The International Cheese Awards is part of the Nantwich Show which takes place on Wednesday 25th July this year. The Nantwich Show is a huge agricultural show and a brilliant day out for families. Early bird tickets are available – adults £15, children’s £5, or just £35 for a family ticket (2 adults and 2 children). Although tickets will also be available at full price on the gate on the day.

ICA2016 Win tickets to the International Cheese Awards and the Nantwich Show

The price of your ticket not only gets you entry to the biggest cheese show in the world, but also to the Nantwich Show, the top one-day agricultural show in the UK. The Nantwich Show has over 450 trade stands, a Shopping and Craft Marquee, livestock displays, countryside pursuits and vintage cars, tractors and machinery. See, I told you it was a great family day out!

If the Nantwich Show and the International Cheese Awards isn’t enough to tempt you; celebrity chef James Martin will be cooking in the demo kitchen. He’ll be doing cookery demonstrations at 11am and 3pm, with tickets priced at £5. These tickets always sell out fast, so don’t leave it too long to book your place!

Other chefs in the demo kitchen this year include Will Holland and Jonathan Harrison; as well as artisan cheesemaker Sean Wilson. These shows are free of charge, but are first come, first served; so make sure you get there early to secure your seat.

Last year’s International Cheese Awards was the biggest yet, with 5685 entries across hundreds of different categories. The cheese marquee is huge, filled with exhibitors from all over the world. It’s a great opportunity to try some new cheeses, plus some of the exhibitors have special offers on, so you can go home laden with enough cheese to keep you going for the summer (that’s what I do).

Judging the International Cheese Awards 2017

Win tickets to the International Cheese Awards and the Nantwich Show

To be in with a chance to win a family ticket to the International Cheese Awards and the Nantwich Show for two adults and two children, simply complete the Rafflecopter widget below. Good luck!

Check out our other giveaways over on our competitions page.

Terms & Conditions:
1. The competition is open to residents of the UK only aged (18) and over.
2. The prize is non-transferable and no cash alternative is offered.
3. To enter, please use the Rafflecopter widget above, complete any mandatory entries and any optional entries you would like.
4. The winner will be chosen at random from all valid entries.
5. The winner will be sent a family ticket to the International Cheese Awards and the Nantwich Show for two adults and two children.
6. The closing date for entries is 11.59pm GMT on 8th July 2018.
7. The winner will be informed by email within 7 days of the closing date.
8. The winner will be asked to provide an email address and a full UK postal address with postcode for delivery purposes.
9. The winners name will be available on request
10. Address details will be passed onto International Cheese Awards to post the above mentioned prize out to the winner.
11. Entry to this giveaway confirms that participants have read, understood and agree to be bound by these Terms and Conditions.
12. HodgePodgeDays decision is final in all matters relating to this giveaway.

Easy Recipe: Quick Coffee Cupcakes

There’s nothing quite as good as a cup of coffee in the garden with a little sweet treat to go with it. This week I knocked up a batch of my quick coffee cupcakes and sat in the garden in the last of the sunshine before Storm Hector swept in and spoiled all our summer fun.

Cupcakes are something I make quite a lot of at home. They’re so quick and easy to do and I often have a fresh batch of buttercream in the fridge for emergencies. I know this is potentially an unpopular opinion, but cupcakes are just buns with fancy icing. If you can master a basic swirl people think you’ve got mad baking skills. I’m not going to win any prizes for my decorating, but I can do some basic piping, enough to turn a humble bun into a cupcake. If I can do it, you can too!

Easy Recipe: Quick Coffee Cupcakes

These quick coffee cupcakes are great to make in a hurry. I piped plain vanilla buttercream on these, but if you’re baking for a real coffee fan, then you can easily make coffee buttercream. You can ramp the coffee flavours up further by adding a Roasted Coffee Cacao Truffle from Beech’s Fine Chocolates to the top, this turns a simple cupcake into a lovely grown up after dinner treat!

Win a selection of Beech's Fine Chocolates Gourmet Packs

Quick Coffee Cupcakes

Ingredients:
150g butter or margarine
150g caster sugar
3 eggs (large)
150g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 heaped teaspoon of instant coffee dissolved in 1/2 tablespoon of milk

For the buttercream:
250g icing sugar
250g butter (softened)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Beech’s Fine Chocolates Roasted Coffee Cacao Truffles

Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 180° and put paper cases in a bun or a muffin tray.

Cream your butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and using a hand mixer combine until the batter is smooth and airy.

Dollop a large dessert spoon of the cake batter in each case and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Once cooked remove from the oven and leave cool on a rack.

While your cupcakes are cooling, sift your icing sugar and beat together with the softened butter. Add your vanilla extract and beat it in thoroughly.

Once your cupcakes are cool, put your vanilla buttercream in a piping bag with a star piping nozzle – I use a Wilton 2D nozzle. I did a standard buttercream swirl, if you’re not sure how to do it, watch this short video.

I then decorated the buttercream swirl with a Roasted Coffee Cacao Truffle from Beech’s Fine Chocolates. Serve with a cup of very good coffee.

If you wanted to up the coffee content of your coffee cupcake, you could add some coffee to your vanilla buttercream. Dissolve some coffee in a splash of milk and beat it through thoroughly.

Easy Recipe: Quick Coffee Cupcakes

If you enjoyed this recipe, you might also like these popcorn cupcakes, tangy marmalade cupcakes or romantic rose cupcakes.

Easy Recipe: Quick Coffee Cupcakes

Review: Beech’s Fine Chocolates Gourmet Packs

Beech’s Fine Chocolates have recently launched a new range of chocolates. These new Beech’s Fine Chocolates Gourmet Packs are little sharing bags of really good quality gourmet chocolates. I tried the Cocoa Nib Cacao Truffle, Roasted Coffee Cacao Truffles and the Milk Chocolate Honeycomb chocolates.

Beech’s Fine Chocolates have been making quality traditional British chocolates in Preston, Lancashire since 1920. They use 100% natural ingredients, and all of their products are gluten-free and many are suitable for Vegans. I have a lot of love for Beech’s Fine Chocolates, they make great gifts and they are really good quality. These Beech’s Fine Chocolates Gourmet Packs are among the best chocolate I’ve tasted (and I’ve tried quite a lot of chocolate in my life).

Win a selection of Beech's Fine Chocolates Gourmet Packs

The Milk Chocolate Honeycomb is handmade honeycomb chunks coated in milk chocolate. It’s what I remember as cinder toffee but covered in really silky chocolate. They’re more than a bite size and a couple is just enough of a sweet treat for elevenses. They’re really, really good, like a grown up crunchie but better.

The Cocoa Nib Cacao Truffles are really rich, smooth dark chocolate with crunchy cacao nibs speckled through and dusted in cocoa powder. They’re delicious and they taste so grown up. They’re so smooth and creamy – a real treat. Out of the three different Beech’s Fine Chocolates Gourmet Packs I tried, these cacao truffles were my favourites.

Win a selection of Beech's Fine Chocolates Gourmet Packs

Lastly the Roasted Coffee Cacao Truffles, they look very similar to the cacao truffles, but they’re slightly darker and have a subtle coffee aroma. They’re made with real coffee and have little crunchy pieces of coffee beans throughout. They’re as smooth as anything and would be brilliant with a good cup of coffee, a real after dinner treat.

The Beech’s Fine Chocolates Gourmet range includes –

Chocolate Cacao Truffles
Belgian Chocolate Fudge
Canadian Maple Fudge
Chocolate Cacao Truffles
Cocoa Dusted Almonds
Cocoa Nib Cacao Truffle
Crystallised Ginger Slivers
Dark Chocolate Brazils
Dark Chocolate Ginger
Hazelnut Cacao Truffles
Milk Chocolate Brazils
Milk Chocolate Honeycomb
Roasted Coffee Cacao Truffles

The Beech’s Fine Chocolates Gourmet Packs cost £3.99 each and they’re just the right size to share with a couple of friends over coffee. For more information about Beech’s Fine Chocolates or to place an order, visit their website.

Disclosure: We were sent a selection of Beech’s Fine Chocolates Gourmet Packs for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.

Crafts: Make a Tour de France inspired Bicycle Card

This year’s Tour de France takes place from Saturday July 7th to Sunday July 29th 2018. This is the 105th Tour de France and it is made up of 21 stages, covering a total distance of 3,351 kilometres. The Tour de France is a real spectacle, especially for fans of cycling. One of the sponsors of this year’s event is Bostik, and as a Bostik Craft Blogger I’ve been asked to put together a craft to mark the 2018 Tour de France!

I admit to being a bit out of my depth talking about the Tour de France. I know very little about cycling, other than how to ride a bike. But I do know how to stick some buttons onto some card, so I will play to my strengths and tell you how I made this Tour de France inspired bicycle card.

Crafts: Make a Tour de France inspired Bicycle Card

How to make a Tour de France inspired Bicycle Card

You will need:
A blank greetings card and envelope
Two large buttons and one small one
Some coloured card
Some small coloured foam pieces
Bostik Foam Pads
Bostik White Glu
A pair of scissors

Crafts: Make a Tour de France inspired Bicycle Card

To make your Tour de France inspired Bicycle Card:

Decide where best to stick your two large buttons on the card. These will be the wheels of your bike. I fixed mine on with four little foam pads. Take the smaller button and stick that on where the chain goes, again using a foam pad.

Carefully using some scissors, cut out some thin lengths of card for the frame of the bike. It will take a few minutes to get the measurements and angles right. Glue the coloured card onto your greetings card with the Bostick White Glu. Press the edges down and leave the card to dry a little while. You could also make the frame out of pipecleaners if you’d like.

While the coloured card is drying, carefully cut out the shape of a pair of handlebars and a cycling seat out of the coloured foam. Glue these pieces into position and leave the card to dry. Your card is now ready to write and send off to anyone who is mad about bikes.

Unless, unless when you’ve finished it and put all your craft stuff away you realise you’ve forgotten the pedals. In which case you can either deem them non-essential, or you can draw them on with a pen. Failing that you could unpack all of your craft stuff and stick on a couple of small rectangular foam pieces where the pedals should be. I’ve left them off because my bike is fine without them. Obviously.

Crafts: Make a Tour de France inspired Bicycle Card

If you enjoyed this, you might also like these tulip handprint cards.

Disclosure: We are Bostik Bloggers and we were sent a box of craft items to use to create this post.

Children’s Books: Five Awesome Activity Books

The summer holidays are only a few short weeks away and I’m starting to think about how we can fill those (hopefully) long summer days. One thing is for sure, we will need things to entertain the boy during long journeys and when we’re out an about. We have an activity bag which we can grab when we go out; there’s usually a packet of Top Trumps, some activity books and some pens. That bag is a real life saver and contains enough for a few hours of fun.

We try not to stick him in front of a screen for too long. For two reasons; we’re out as a family so all of our screens are off and we’re trying to be social. He also turns into a real grumpy so and so if he watches too much stuff on the iPad. With summer fast approaching, the activity bag needs some new activity books, so here is our pick of five awesome activity books.

Five Awesome Activity Books

My Brilliant Big Activity Book by Andrea Pinnington covers a wide range of topics, including dragons, pirates, space adventures and holiday fun! It’s the ultimate activity book to keep kids busy and entertained; full of clever colouring pages, drawing tips and tricks, puzzles and mazes, make-and-do activities and games. From solving mazes, connecting the dots, colouring in pictures or spotting the difference, this book guarantees hours of fun! Read our full review of it here.

Children's Books: Five Awesome Activity Books

Little Children’s Travel Activity Book by James Maclaine is a brilliant collection of activities to keep children busy while they’re traveling. The book includes puzzles, word searches, dot-to-dot, spot-the-difference, mazes and more. It’s such a fun book, I want my own copy!

Orchard Toys Things To Do Sticker Activity Colouring Book. Colour in the pictures, match stickers, complete the fun activities and much more with this range of six colouring books featuring fun and familiar Orchard Toys Characters. Each book includes clear, age-appropriate pictures plus fun activities to help reinforce early learning skills in true Orchard Toys style! You can read our review of the full range of these books here.

Pencil & Paper Games from Usborne is a classic activity book for kids. Pencil and Paper Games is a tear-off pad featuring over one hundred games to play. The book is mostly games for two people to play together; noughts and crosses, or hangman, that kind of thing which is just the kind of game we enjoy playing together. It’s brilliant fun for kids to play together in the back of the car, or to play against a parent on a plane!

The Anti-Boredom Colouring Book by Chris Dickason. You can’t beat the simple joy of a good colouring book. The Anti-Boredom Colouring Book is packed with weird and wonderful pictures to colour like pet sharks, mutant hamsters, household robots and doughnuts that rain from the sky, there’s something for everyone in this fun and funny colouring book.

What’s your go to activity book this summer? I’d love to hear your recommendations.

Children's Books: Five Awesome Activity Books

Toy Review: Meet the New StikBot Dinos

StikBots were launched a couple of years ago now. They’re little plastic figures with sticky suction cups on their hands and feet which you can animate. There’s even a free app you can use to animate them. If you don’t fancy animating them, you can just play with them normally. I’ve heard they make good fidget toys. We were sent some of the new StikBot Dinos range to have a look at, so what did we think?

Toy Review: Meet the New Stikbot Dinos

We were sent two StikBot Dinos to play with. The StikBot Mega Dino Brontosaurus and a StikBot Dinos Egg. The StikBot Dinos Egg is one of 24 StikBot Dinos to collect. There are Seven different Dinos in nine different colours and some rare ones too. The egg comes with a collectors leaflet, so you can see what you’ve got and how rare it might be. When we opened ours up we discovered that we’d got a rare one.

Toy Review: Meet the New Stikbot Dinos

These StikBot Dino eggs really tap into the trend for blind-bags and collectibles. They cost around £6.50 each and are available online and in some toy shops.

The Stikbot Dinos have a really unique design, with suction-cup hands and feet, so you can position them on any flat surface. Their legs, body, mouth, tail and neck can be positioned in all kinds of different angles which makes them great to make stop-frame animations with.

Toy Review: Meet the New StikBot Dinos

The StikBot Mega Dino Brontosaurus is bigger than the egg and they cost around £9. You can choose from Stik T rex, Stik Carnotaurus or Stik Brontosaurus, each is available in three different colours.

Th sticky pads make these StikBots perfect for making stop-frame animation films using the free to download mobile Animation App. The app is easy to use and helps you create a professional animation, with built-in music and sound effects.

Toy Review: Meet the New StikBot Dinos

I wasn’t sure what my 7 year old would think of the StikBot Dinos but he really enjoyed playing with them. We haven’t tried making an animation yet, but he’s played with them all weekend, making a Jurassic story of his own. I can see us putting together a StikBot animation in the future as he’s very keen to try them out, so watch this space for the next dino blockbuster movie!

Disclaimer – We were sent these StikBot Dinos for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.

Meeting the Japanese Spider Crab at SEA LIFE Manchester

When we heard that SEA LIFE Manchester were unveiling a new exhibit, we had to go down and check it out. SEA LIFE Manchester is one of our favourite places to spend a few hours and we were keen to meet the new resident – a Japanese Spider Crab!