Raspberries and red wine...

This week, blancmange. What can I say about this? It’s definitely not the sort of thing I’d make for a dinner party. I do recall having it on birthdays as a child though. The majority of my childhood parties were joint with my cousin. There’s only 8 hours between us, which was an absolute touch for our parents. Mainly because they could share the burden of having to make egg sandwiches. I mean we all like them but they absolute stink and as for having to de-shell that many eggs at once...savage! Back then we’d have the party in the garden with a few token friends, finger sandwiches, that were absolutely not vegan friendly (did vegans exist 25 years ago?), cheese and pineapple that was shaped like a hedgehog and to top it all off, pink rabbit shaped blancmange! Since becoming a mother I have quickly learnt that children don’t just have far more lavish birthday parties, where people hire out soft play centres or swimming pools, they also attend various parties without there even being a Birthday. Messy play is probably the one I’ve used the most. At first, the thought of taking my child to play in baked beans, then dirt, then sand made me feel physically sick. I was struggling with dinner times alone, never mind this. However, I quickly changed my mind when going to 143 Messy Music! If there’s one near you, I cannot recommend it more. I’m sure if you’re reading this you probably have a young child (or love cakes), as lets be fair that’s all I waffle on about. Well, as those of you with children know, it will never cease to amaze you how much energy they have. Go to Messy Music...Ashella, who runs it seems to have even more energy than the children. I’d love to say if I didn’t have a child then I’d have more energy but a) that would be a lie and b) Ashella has a little boy a month older than mine so both those excuses are null and void! Everything is very thought out like she’s crawled into the kids minds and understood what they want. There’s always a theme and that links in with the music, the messy stuff and even the little takeaway the kids normally have. 143 ran a hungry caterpillar trail on Sunday, which we attended. Brilliant! Ashella is so magic she turned the children into caterpillars and had the entire trail planned out. Of course, there’s always one that doesn’t want to play ball. You can guess who’s turn it was this time. He wouldn’t go through the tunnel to collect his apple, he stole plums from other children and managed to collect way more than the 5 oranges he was supposed to. As I’m writing this, I’ve started to wonder if it’s due to Dave not being present?! Dave and his masculinity would have assisted in the army roll through the tunnel, bursting the water bomb plums with his little finger and eating the leaf. That’s a man that eats his greens for sure. Only issue I see would be the butterfly...there’s no way Dave would ever be a butterfly. Anyway, despite Dave being AWOL this was brilliant and got even better when they started handing out butterfly shortbread. Yep, he’s my son alright. Energy, no. Ability to eat biscuits, anytime! Biscuits. Something I needed to make to go with the blancmange. I was ready to go this week. I usually work Wednesdays but I had the day off in preparation for holiday. I’m on the aeroplane sipping red as I write this. Sorry, I don’t want to rub it in but I feel like every Tom, Dick and Dave (am I obsessed with him?) have already been away and I’ve been waiting ages. Even with the day off I didn’t start the challenge until 5.30pm. Still with my nails to paint, hair to wash, ears to clean and tash to wax, I knew I needed to just get it done. So I began... 2.5 hours to go. Soak the gelatine. This time I bought leaves instead of sachets, which was the same as the recipe I was using. After the maths issue on wagonwheel week I didn’t want to take any chances, especially as I was having a pre holiday red wine while doing it. I then had to blitz the raspberries (I literally think I’m a pro using these phrases). 5 bloody punnets of raspberries I needed! It’s like the pistachio nuts saga all over again. After blitzing them, sieving them and adding some raspberry liqueur that was almost my job done! I boiled some milk, ground almonds, flour and sugar, then added the gelatine. Literally, it was all this easy. I stirred in the raspberry mixture and some double cream and added it to the mould. It looked like angel delight...now that would have been quicker. I popped it in the freezer. Before making the biscuits we made a quick FaceTime call to my mother-in-law. It was her birthday, so we wanted to make sure she got a very short rendition of “Happy Birrrrday you” from her grandson. He was having his dinner and even offered her some of his lasagne. Yes, this is the same child that wouldn’t even entertain the highchair the other week. We’re over that now. Thank god. We’re on our way to a nice hotel in Kos. It could have been very traumatic for us all! After saying our goodbyes, my husband went for his pre holiday hair cut. He likes to call it a sick fade, just to be trendy. Really he’s having it shaved so short to cover up the ever increasing grey. I started the biscuits. They have a French name (I think). But as I have no signal to google, I’ll call them by their other name...cats tongues! I absolutely hate cats but as you know I love a biscuit so I’ll forget about the name. I’m mixing the icing sugar together with the butter and it looks like hardly anything. Still I carry on. I then go to crack an egg for the egg white, only to discover that it’s already been boiled. There’s the mystery of my missing egg solved. I boiled one to take to work and have with my salad the week before and lost it. My husband has a habit of ‘tidying’ things like this away! Oh well, in the bin that went. I folded in the flower and put the mixture into a piping bag. Just to set the scene, I still had an hour and a half left on the clock. 8 minutes they take to cook. Piping them out, I knew it wasn’t enough mixture. I made 10 instead of 12...as I keep confirming, I’m not on the GBBO so I’ll be ok. 8 minutes later they’re done and look pretty good. After an hour of freezing the blancmange I move it to the fridge. I pour another wine and listen to the little hum my little boy is making. I ask if he wants to help melt the white chocolate. Of course he does. I mean, he probably doesn’t understand what I mean exactly but he’s clever enough to say yes to anything that has the word chocolate in it. There was no green bloody cocoa butter to be found in Sainsbury. I was in a rush and thinking of packing, so there might have been but I was done browsing. Plus, chasing after a little one who seemed to be terrorising a child double his age, was my priority. Therefore when it came to adding this to half the white chocolate mixture, I’m not ashamed to say I got some green food colouring and added that instead. Hey Pru, how do you like that? Takes loads less time and I’m sure tastes exactly the same!? I covered the biscuits and waited. Another glass of wine poured. Waiting and waiting. Finally, it’s the moment of truth. A good friend told me not to dip it in the hot water but to dampen the mould before putting in the mixture. Michelle...that didn’t work!! I dipped in hot water and turned onto the stand. Nothing. I dipped again and again before finally it came out. Not much definition but it was set. Sat perfectly, with an excellent wobble on it. Personally, I think a rabbit looks far more creative but I suppose it wasn’t for a kids party. Actually, it wasn’t for anyone. As you know I’m off on holiday and I’m not sure this would get through to the departure lounge. I piped some cream on and added some biscuits to the stand for a snap. Invited skinny mate up for her sample, a glass of wine and bonus...I even managed to get her to take it away. I mean come on guys, I had to try something. I’m on my way to an all inclusive for 10 nights. Imagine the gain I’ll have on my return. To summarise...much easier than I thought and tasted good too. Here’s to my sons second birthday and a rabbit blancmange. Let’s bring it back...along with vol-au-vents! Loved those little things. In case I haven’t mentioned it enough, I’m off on holiday so won’t be baking next week. However, as a little treat my blog will still go out at the same time to update you on what I’ve been up to. Apologies in advance if it’s a little random, I may have hit the Raki...