After our visit to Glen Nevis in May last year, we’d been hankering after returning to the Highlands – be warned they are extremely addictive! This time we decided to head over the sea to Skye.
May is the perfect time to visit the Highlands – the climate is temperate, the flowers are in bloom, and the hordes of midges (and tourists) have not yet descended.
I have so much to say about this mystical isle, I’ve split it into several posts:
Ian on Sgurr na Sgri
We were invited to take part in a bake off organised by friend of the palace, Lizzie White to raise funds for BAFFA (Building A Future For Africa).
BAFFA is an Aid Camps International project, in which a team of fifteen volunteers will travel to Cameroon in January 2014 for three weeks to build a school.
Our entry was a chocolate Brokedown Palace filled with cookies – and it was the winner!
Here’s how we did it…
The cabin is made using a Lakeland ‘Fairy Tale Cottage’ mould. We melted the chocolate in Granny’s mixing bowl, over a pan of boiling water.
Then we poured the chocolate into the mould and left it to set. It’s best to do this at room temperature, which takes about 2 hours. You can speed it up in the fridge but you risk the chocolate blooming (turning white-ish).
When the chocolate had set we placed the pieces on a cake board and piped melted chocolate along the edges to cement them together. We then decorated it with icing flowers and desiccated coconut.
For the miniature cookies to go inside we used Granny’s super easy recipe:
Ingredients
Method
The cabin can be made from gingerbread too. We’ll be trying that next time…
If you’d like to donate to the project you can do it on Lizzie’s Aid Camps page.
We at The Brokedown Palace LOVE wool, so we were very excited to visit ‘the world’s biggest ever celebration of Wool’
– Campaign for Wool‘s Wool House at Somerset House.
Wool Planters by Wooly Shepherd – even the pots are made from wool!
Hummingbird Wallhanging by Alexander McQueen – The Rug Company (photo courtesy The Rug Company)
Crochetdermy Brown Bear by Shauna Richardson
Scoured British Wool and unscoured Merino
Real Shetland fawn top. This is the wool that our Real Shetland throws are made from!
Wool Chair and lamp
WOOL letters with woven rug by Jason Collingwood
Tabletop loom demonstration
‘Composition Blue Composition Yellow’ tapestry by Claudy Jongstra
Spinning wheels – the hand held style was used in Tudor times
Bedroom by Kit Kemp with Vi-Spring Bed
V-Spring mattress filled with Real Shetland wool, the same wool as our Real Shetland throws!
Classic Drawing Room by Fox Linton Associates
Metal Sheep and Lamb in Classic Drawing Room by Harriet Mead
Our favourite – the Natural Room by Josephine Ryan
I loved the Nursery by Donna Wilson
Pendleton cushions and blankets – we will soon be stocking Pendleton at The Brokedown Palace so watch this space!