So I might just have mentioned before that I'm on the committee of Buns & Roses WI which is a lot of work, but really good fun. This evening for example we had a chocolate making workshop courtesy of York Cocoa House which was brilliant. Unsurprisingly our workshop was fully booked and so we had 34 lovely ladies together to make and enjoy some lovely chocolate.
First of all we got to taste the chocolate we were using which was gorgeously creamy milk chocolate. This was then made into a ganache (chocolate + butter + double cream heated to boiling point, poured over and mixed together). We piped out the ganache into what can only be described as "dollops" and then they went to be cooled. We then tempered some more chocolate for using to make chocolate lollies and dipping our ganache to make truffles. What do you think we used to melt the chocolate? I can bet that you weren't thinking hair dryer! Surprisingly this worked really well and we used melted chocolate to make lollies which we decorated with orange, lemon and strawberry flavoured chocolate buttons - yummy!
After making a lot of mess "shaping" the ganache and then dipping in chocolate we then put our creations into plastic presentation bags (sampling quite a few along the way thank you very much!).
Laura from York Cocoa House was a great presenter, really engaging. And I think it was great value for money - £12 for members and £15 for non members. My friend Jenny also started off the evening really well by giving me some fudge that she'd made for me to try.
I also have finished my embroidered art picture and so Hayley very kindly stretched and stapled it onto a frame for me - here is the finished article.
This morning I was supposed to get up very early (about 5.30 am), load up the car and do a carboot sale near Leeds Bradford Airport, but when I finally woke up my phone said 9.40 am which was far too late.
I got up (eventually) and then headed over to my friend Hayley's house for a day of stitching and crafting. On the way I picked up an apple pie milkshake and a pineapple, strawberry and cherry smoothie from Shaky Jakes, some Bakewell Tart from Costellos and some porridge with raisins from Love Rouge Bakery strangely served to take out in a coffee cup. All of these things were yummy (although can't personally comment on the milkshake because that was for Hayley as part payment for personal stitching tuition.)
I first met Hayley at Buns & Roses which is an amazing WI Group based in Leeds City Centre (I might be slightly biased now as I'm on the committee, but I do believe it's awesome). I was very disappointed that I couldn't go along to one of the workshops in August which was called Night of the Living Thread and the blog post is here if you want to read about it. Hayley very kindly offered to teach me and so I took up far too much of her Sunday learning how to do some English Paper Patchworking, Fussy Cutting, Blanket Stitch as well as lots of other hints and tips like how to sew on sequins and spray paint fabric.
In between stitching, Hayley and Flower also introduced me to Moto GP (apologies Hayley if it wasn't, but I think this is what it was called) which I found far more interesting to watch than usual car racing. The riders go around corners with their knees literally on the floor to take the corner as tightly as possible - this is not something that I have ever seen before!
Anyway, I've not yet finished my stitching project, but here it is as a work in progress - Hayley is going to help me stretch it over a canvas when I've finished it. It's very orange, neon and covered with owls and skulls. Thanks Hayley for all your help - I had a really lovely day.
