Happy Strawberry Parfait Day.

Hands up all those who knew that today June 25th was National Strawberry Parfait Day.



As I have been glued to Wimbledon since it started on Monday and getting a little envious of seeing people eating strawberries and cream, I thought perhaps I should make myself a Strawberry Parfait.

I couldn't find a recipe that I liked the sound of, so I decided to take a bit from one recipe and a bit from another and add a few bits that I liked and I came up with this....

Ingredients: Strawberries, Double Cream, Brown Sugar, Condensed Milk, Brandy (not essential!), Black Pepper, Muesli (or a flapjack!)

 

Keep a few strawberries for garnishing the finished parfait.

Add the remaining strawberries to a frying pan and sprinkle one dessertspoon of brown sugar over the strawberries.

 

 

Heat the strawberries gently - you don't want to make jam!

 

 

Once the strawberries have softened add a dessertspoon of Brandy (only if you fancy) and grind some black pepper all over the top.

 

 

Squash the strawberries a little and mix well.

Remove sufficient of the mix to fill your bowls/glasses.

 

 

Beat together 125ml of double cream and 125ml of condensed milk.

 

 

Once the cream and condensed milk are mixed together well, add the strawberry mixture that is still left in the pan.

 

 

Leave some of the juice in the pan for later.

 

 

Keep beating until this now pink mixture thickens.

 

 

Choose your bowls/glasses and add the strawberries to the bottom, then carefully add the cream mixture onto the top.

 

 

 

Slice the strawberries you kept back for garnishing and place on the top (mine are a little too large).

Scrape the juices from the pan and pour over the top.

 

 

 

 

 

Place in fridge to chill until required.

My original idea was to sprinkle muesli (or flapjack) over the top just before serving - but as my strawberries are so large I don't really have the space, and anyway I can always eat the flapjack later!!

 

Please let me know what you think if you make it.

Better still send me images of your Strawberry Parfait.

It is best not to blink.

I seem to have been so busy recently, I blinked and half of April and May just disappeared!

So I decided to get some help... meet my new helper!
He is called Toby.

I had to go away for a few days on business which meant working in the day and then spending quite a bit of time in the evening on my own, so I thought I would take Toby with me as I would have plenty of time to make some accessories for him.

So here he is... making himself at home in my room,

 

 
 
 

               



                not looking too bad after a long
                journey.

 Luckily we don't need one of these

 

  

 

and we definitely don't need one of these!

 

 

 

However we do need one of these,

 

 

 

and these will be very useful.

 

 

 

 

Time to freshen up

 

 

 

 

and now we're ready for a bit of crafting!

 

I felt as though Toby needed something to show that Winter was over and it was now Spring, what better than a basket of flowers. So I opened my box of goodies and set to work on making a basket.

 

Using the string I made a 'snake' coil by just wrapping round and round, keeping it flat to make the base of the basket. I sewed the coils with blanket stitches every so often to secure it all together. When it looked as though the base was big enough I began to come up the edges of the basket by wrapping on top of the previous layer of string, again using blanket stitch to secure it all.

 

 

Here is a close up of the basket in progress...

 

 

I must admit it took a lot of wrapping and sewing before I thought the basket was large enough and as you can see by the lights in the car park it took a lot of time as well!!

 

 

I made the handle by plaiting three lengths of string and tying a knot at each end and then sewing it onto the sides of the basket.

 

 

I then loosely sewed the basket to Toby's hand.

 

 

Now for some flowers. Using the yellow felt I cut around a 20p piece and a 5p piece (for each flower) and then I fringed the edges of the shapes.

 

 

The next picture shows how I threaded first the larger 20p shape and then the smaller 5p shape onto a cut length of pipe cleaner. Scrunched and sewed them together. I then cut out two of the moustache shaped leaves from the green felt, put a small hole in the middle and threaded them up from the other end of the pipe cleaner.

 

 

Now if only I could have found the green pipe cleaners when I did my packing I wouldn't have had to do the next bit....

 

 

I made 6 flowers in total, 4 in his basket and 2 in his hand.

 

 

 

Here is Toby on my stall at the Bakewell Show

 

 

 

and here he is checking out the local talent!!

 

 

 

Looking forward to fashioning his Summer wardrobe!!