Birthday Cake Time!

It was the 17th birthday of my daughter this week and she is obsessed with farming, cows and John Deere  tractors so a special request was put in for a tractor cake and a cow cake.

I was tasked with making the tractor cake, which had to be John Deere green, no other colour would do so I turned to the good old internet to do some research. It's amazing that when you type 'tractor birthday cake' into the search engines that 99% are green and yellow!

After looking around a bit I got an idea of what to do and this is how I did it. The main body of the tractor is a sponge cake baked in a loaf tin. When cool I cut a piece of the end for the cab, split it, put jam and buttercream in the centre and then covered in green fondant. I did the same with the larger section and then attached the 'cab' to the top with more buttercream.

The wheels were made by cutting out circles of sponge cake, covering in black fondant and adding yellow fondant the centre of them for the distinct 'John Deere' look. Black fondant was also used for the windows and radiator and the amber beacons were orange jelly sweets. The exhaust was made by attaching a chocolate finger biscuit as you can see from the photo.

My daughter was really pleased with her cake, although as usual I could find some niggles. I'm never completely happy with my efforts. I'm just glad that I didn't have to do the cow cake! She was extremely lucky as a friend from her college made her one, as did her older sister. What a spoilt girl but she had a great birthday weekend which is the main thing :-)

Dry Shampoo - I've not used it before

My latest products to test have arrived! This time they are from Batiste, smoothing conditioning mist, strength and shine dry shampoo and XXL plumping powder.

I'm really looking forward to using these products as my hair is dreadful at the moment, the hot weather doesn't help, so once I've given them a go I'll let you know how I get on.

Testing Colman's Season and Shake

I've been very lucky recently to receive various flavours of  Colman's Season and Shake from Colman's  to try for free. Although the weather has been rather hot to think of eating a casserole, I have tried the Piri Piri Chicken and Mediterranean Chicken flavours.

For the Piri-Piri  I added chicken drumsticks to the bag provided, added the spice and then sealed it and cooked in the oven before finishing on the BBQ. The Mediterranean Chicken was also cooked in the bag, just add vegetables, chicken to the bag, shake and cook.

I didn't try the Piri-Piri flavour, but those that did said it was quite hot but tasty. I really enjoyed the Mediterranean Chicken, I served it with rice and it made a lovely family meal.

I only have a couple of qualms, when you split the bag and seasoning it's easy to destroy your instructions and the bag seal tag was a little fiddly so I wouldn't recommend if you have dexterity problems as I struggled a little.

All in all a great idea, and some lovely flavour combinations. I'm looking forward to trying some more at a later date.

Product Testing

A while ago I joined a website bzzagent.co.uk and have had the opportunity to test and review many different products. My first was for Sure Compressed Deodorant, and since then I have tested and reviewed  E45 Nourish & Moisture Cream, and Vanish Oxi Action. I am currently testing Veet Easy Wax and am waiting to receive Colman's Season and Shake.

I'm finding this is a great way to try new things and to offer my opinion to the manufacturers and other consumers on what a product is like. I hope to share through this blog my experiences and hope you find my reviews useful.