{the leaning tower of cupcakes}

Step back in time two weeks. Take one ninetieth birthday party, two days to get it all sorted, three tons of moving supplies from my parents' garage, and a glimpse of this Lakeland cardboard beauty. It could only be a job for the butcher, the baker, and the cupcake stand maker.

It all centred around sliding artist's palette-shaped cardboard pieces onto an old kitchen roll. Now, if Kate Spade or Paul Smith made kitchen roll, this is what it'd look like: brightly striped. Unfortunately, neither of them has had that idea yet, so I used coloured tape (that matched our cupcake flags) to cheery the whole thing up a bit. Because, let's face it, bare cardboard hardly says "Get your party on." 

What does say "Get your party on" is a dozen Bakewell cupcakes (again, from our recipe, inspired by Britain's second best amateur baker, Holly). As do the Union Jack cake cups. But what most definitely does not help the party mood is when adding the cupcakes to your cupcake stand makes the whole thing topple over. Ever think you're going to be the least popular person in the room? Well, drop twelve Bakewells on the floor fifteen minutes before a hoard of hungry pensioners arrive, and you will be. Guaranteed.

Kitchen weights to the rescue. Of course, meticulous Holly might throw a razor-edged meringue at me if she were to see her prized cakes being served on such a precarious pile of old cardboard and rusting metal. But she'd have to throw it rather hard to reach me in Texas, so I feel relatively safe showing you the photos now.

So, there you have it -- cardboard box to cupcake monstrosity in twenty-five moderately difficult steps. What can I say, at least it didn't overshadow the cakes. Which were, as always, scrummy. 

{the great british cake off}

Round here, we are crazy about The Great British Bake Off, a BBC cooking competition that has contestants cooking everything from loaves of bread to meringue pies. An hour of deliciousness every Tuesday evening at 8pm. (And, lucky for those of us outside the UK, episodes can be seen online here)

Of course, after seeing all that amazing food, we wanted to try it for ourselves. Many of the recipes are available on BBC Food, and we've also found that some of the contestants have blogs -- not only do they share the things they cooked on the show, but add other things that they're cooking in real life, too. My favourites are Jason (because I wanted him to win) and Holly (because her recipes seem the tastiest, if a little too perfect), but the whole list of sites can be found here.

The first dish to be cooked up by our very own home cooks: Best Ever Bakewell Tart Cupcakes, (our recipe, based on Holly's recipe). Slightly almondy sponge cake, raspberry jam, and a dollop of icing. Here's Chef Alice gently blowing crumbs from the tops of the cakes, while Chef Louise finishes filling them with jam, Chef Mum adds the icing, and lucky little Chef Tilly eats the cut-out middles of the cakes.

Twelve of them disappeared frighteningly quickly. Make sure you check out the finished cakes over at The Fable of the Table -- with fresh raspberries on top, they are rather pretty. And, dare I admit it, we're making another batch tonight, with a different kind of icing...