Choral baking

Sorry this is a day later than expected - blogger wasn't being very cooperative last night! But as promised I'm back to share my most recent baking exploits.

As psychology students we have to run an empirical project in our third year, which is our version of a dissertation, and I was in need of participants. As it's all run online I asked if any of the members of my choir, Brighton Festival Chorus, would be willing to participate with the possible reward of cake on concert day. To my delight/slight trepidation 50 or so people signed up, so on Friday night I got my bake on!

It took me about 5 hours start to finish (with icing) and about a kilo of icing sugar, but I got there in the end  -70 cupcakes all boxed up and ready for choir. I used a couple of recipes from my trusty cupcake bible Cupcakes by Susannah Blake and improvised with the coffee ones. The ones above are all vanilla with plain icing.

And these ones are lemon, coffee and then rose water. I think the rose water ones could have done with a little more flavor as the rose water I used was fairly cheap and a bit more water than rose, but otherwise I was really pleased with myself!

I'm starting to think I should have done something baking related rather than a psychology degree as I enjoy it so much!

Have a great week,

Alex

BFC, a concert and a bear hunt!

I know I've mentioned the various musical things I do before in passing, like this post about singing on Songs of Praise, but I don't tend to give it much air time on this here blog. That's not really surprising given that this blog is primarily about my makes and bakes, but it does strike me as a little odd given that if you asked pretty much anybody back home to sum me up 'musical' would probably be the first thing anyone would say.

Music has been bred into me and is such a big part of my life that I consider it my 'normal'. Going to rehearsals every week, performing in front of people or hanging around at theaters/concert halls/churches for hours on end is just what I do. In fact not doing so would be highly abnormal for me - I can't imagine what it would be like to live in a house that wasn't musical (have I mentioned before that we don't have a dining room at home, we have a music room instead?).

What's my point? Well I'm doing a concert tomorrow and I thought maybe you would be interested in hearing about it. As I've said before, I'm a member of the Brighton Festival Chorus, and tomorrow we are doing a concert entitled 'The Glory of Venice' at St Bartholomew's church in Brighton. We're singing some truly amazing music in both two and three choir format and are being joined by Onyx brass who are performing some of their own repertoire as well as joining us for some of ours. If you're interested you can find out more about the concert via our Facebook page.

Half the choir rehearsing at St Barts on Tuesday night

It's an unusual, but equally beautiful church and I shall endeavor to take more photos tomorrow if I have time. Herein also lies a rather interesting baking challenge that shall be occupying me for most if this evening and tomorrow morning, but I shall let you know all about that on Sunday.

If choral music isn't so much you're thing then you might like this, another thing that's been happening with Brighton Festival Chorus this week...

We're performing in the Brighton Festival this year and, as the guest director for this year is Michael Rosen who wrote We're Going on a Bear Hunt, this video was made for the launch and we're in it! Keep your eyes pealed and you might be able to spot me - front row in the choir, pink scarf.

Have a lovely weekend, 

Alex

Songs of Praise Big Sing

Just a quick post today to say that I was on TV at the weekend. Yes, you heard it right! I'm a member of the Brighton Festival Chorus, who for the last couple of years have been invited by BBC Songs of Praise to take part in the Big Sing as one of their 3 stage choirs for the event.

It's always a great experience and really interesting to see how the programmes are made and what Aled Jones and the guests for that episode are like when the cameras aren't rolling. And yes, I can confirm that Aled was his usual bouncy self and Jaz Ellington (from the BBC's The Voice) seemed like a genuinely lovely person from where we were sat. As for Alfie Boe? Well, BFC have worked with Alfie before, which I'll tell you about when I get a spare moment, and he too was as lovely and ever so slightly mischievous as normal.

At the recording day back in September we filmed two episodes - this one aired on Sunday and one scheduled for some time between Christmas and new year, making a change from the usual one episode for the Big Sing and one episode for Christmas. Although I'm personally a really big fan of anything Christmas, it was nice to have a break from singing Carols in September this year, although the switch over in the break between recordings is always funny as Christmas trees and festive jumpers appear whist the stage choirs are urged to don a bit of sparkle to get in the festive mood.

Some students have festival wristbands,
I have a songs of praise one.

So if you watched it at the weekend or fancy stalking me on the iplayer before it disappears, I'm in the stage choir so dressed in black concert dress, early twenties (ouch it hurts to say that!), long blond hair... or you could just fast forward to 22:26 if you're that desperate.

It always makes me laugh that if you mention songs of praise at BFC one of the first things anyone will say is something along the lines of "and they give you lunch, nice sandwich, crisps, a bit of fruit, bottle of water and a kitkat. And tea and biscuits in the break". it's true musicians do love their food...

Apologies, this post was somewhat longer than intended and pretty much picture-less, but I had a feeling the BBC wouldn't be too pleased if I started print-screening directly from iPlayer and then posting it on here!

Happy Wednesday,

aLittleBlonde

If you want to know more about Brighton Festival Chorus then take a look at our website or you can follow us on twitter

Just a quick note...

Sorry it's been a little quiet on here over the last couple of weeks. It's nearly the end of term here at uni, so I'm afraid the coursework is calling and keeping me away from all the things I love to blog about.

However, it's not all doom and gloom! It's less than a week now until my Easter Holidays and boy have I got a lot planned for my time off, starting with a concert at the Royal Albert Hall next week with the Brighton Festival Chorus.

So, for now I'm afraid I'm signing off to return to the joys of a lab report, however I promise I will be back and definitely before next Friday!

PS you may have seen my post about Laura Ashley last week, which I've taken down momentarily, but if I can I'll put it up again as soon as possible!