I'm a little teapot, short and stout...

Better late than never! I wrote this post a few weeks ago but haven't got round to adding the photos yet so it's been sat waiting...I've had enough now though so here goes...

It was week two of the Big Brew last week and I've been busy in the kitchen again. I decided on a bit of a teapot theme and spent a good few hours creating sugarpaste teapots to go on top of some cupcakes. And then another hour or two baking and decorating said cupcakes.

That was going to be all I baked for week 2, however, as I was pottering about the house, doing some jobs and getting ready to head out to see some friends, I glanced out of window to see white stuff falling from the sky. SNOW!!! We weren't forecast snow...it was only supposed to rain not snow! It looked so cold and horrible out there that we decided to abandon plans of heading out, stuck the kettle and the heating on and settled down for an afternoon in. G had some homework to do so I headed to the kitchen to bake some biscuits. Digging about in my tin of cutters (well, my 2 tins of cutter) I found one shaped like a teapot. I have no idea when it appeared or where it came from as I've never made teapot biscuits before, but it has now been used for a very good cause.



I took my baking into work on the Tuesday and, as on previous occasions it didn't last very long at all!

And by Friday when we counted up our pennies, our team had raised over £80 for Fairtrade Fortnight's Big Brew. Not bad for some tea and cake!

Stick the kettle on

It's Fairtrade Fortnight (27th February - 11th March) and in Libraryland we holding a Big Brew. Basically you drink lots of tea and coffee, eat biscuits and cake, and donate some money to help families flourish. It's something one of my lovely colleagues suggested that we did last year and so in 2011 we held our first Big Brew (donating money to help bees and bee-keepers.) But that was just within our team at work. This year she has persuaded other teams to get involved so we can raise even more money. Once again, I volunteered to bake some yummy goodies to help the cause. Originally I had just been baking for our team, but after a meeting this morning I was asked if there would be enough goodies to go round a bit further. Of course, I said. I'll just bake an extra cake.

And so, after a full day at work followed by an hour in the gym (gotta do the exercise so I can keep on eating the cakes) I headed home for an evening of baking. After dinner, with G snoozing on the sofa, Kipling and I set off on our baking marathon.

First off was the chocolate brownies, using fairtrade chocolate of course, with a hint of orange as chocolate and  orange go so well together. Second on the list was a coffee and walnut cake, with fairtrade coffee. And finally, making it's second Big Brew appearance (I made one for last year's Fairtrade Fortnight) a honey cake using, of course, fairtrade honey.

The house smells wonderful, I've just taken the last cake out of the oven, and my kitchen is upside-down. But it's now 10.45pm and time for me to head to bed so the last of the washing-up will have to wait for the morning.

If you want to find out more about the Big Brew and Fairtrade Fortnight then visit the Traidcraft website here for more information.

I'll be back with an update and more Big Brew baking soon.