Wedding Biscuits

Last weekend we celebrated the marriage of my oldest friend Alana to her man Liam in our village church and at a beautiful venue after. Being at this time of year, the manor house was decked with gorgeous decorations, and the occasion for celebration really got us into the Christmas spirit.

For the wedding I made a collection of bride and groom heart shaped cookies that Alana had spotted on Pinterest earlier on in the year. For the biscuit base I made a basic dough and added vanilla essence for the brides and orange zest and cinnamon for the grooms, a more Christmassy flavour.

I had never done any icing like this before so YouTube videos and blogs were really useful in learning techniques. Sweet Ambs creates absolutely beautiful biscuits and has fantastic pages on royal icing consistencies and decorating techniques. I have invested in a narrow piping head so making patterns like on the free-hand swirls on the dress and the pearl necklace were much simpler (squeeze-stop-swipe). For the "flooding" of the base colour I just snipped off the end of the piping bag. It's important to use royal icing as it contains dried egg whites which means the icing will dry solid.

These biscuits were really fun to make and with the baking equipment that I'm collecting up, I'm hoping to decorate more in the future. They're great for making gifts - I've have made some snowflakes for Christmas - and with the biscuit dough, the flavours are endless.

By the Lake

The idea for our trip around Italy blossomed back in January when my cousin Ed and his now-wife Lisa announced that they would be getting married on the shores of Lake Como. As we arrived at the lake as dusk was falling, the towns were being lit up and I remembered the utter beauty of our surroundings. For our time in Como we were staying at Kate's place in Tremezzo a lovely family home in the town on the western side. On our first day we popped across the lake and explored Bellagio, literally wandering off the tourist trail and discovering quiet untouched lanes and boats mooring on the other side. Back on the other side, we adventured through the gorgeous villages above Tremezzo.

Saturday was the big day and what a day it was. The venue for Ed and Lisa's wedding was incredible, an old monastery with gardens and lawn - where the ceremony took place - over looking the the lake. WOW! It was a beautiful occasion that we'll never forget, cousin Kate and her band Sheerocks performing and dancing later down in the Rave Cave! Luckily the weather was beautiful as the following day, the heavens opened with torrential rain all day, so we recovered indoors ready for the next leg of our journey...