Product Review: The Craft Company

I recently had the opportunity to review some products from The Craft Company, and unlike a lot of brands that contact bloggers for product reviews, The Craft Company tackled things a little differently, by giving me free reign which products to review from their website, up to a certain value. This in itself was an ingenious move by the team, and I spent a happy couple of hours browsing through their site, and I mean hours! They honestly sell anything you could want to do with cakes, baking and cake decorating. From ready-made cakes and cake toppers, to key ingredients, modelling tools, moulds, cake tins, boards and boxes and stands, they have the perfect products for any level of cake decorator, and to suit any scale of project. After lusting after some gorgeous wedding cake stands, and hovering over a selection of modelling tools that are missing from my collection, I managed to bring myself back to the task in hand, and set about choosing some products to review.

The products I chose I felt were a good selection of the kinds of things on offer from The Craft Company, from ready-made decorations, to the tools to make your own.

Culpitt Ready Made Sugar Daisies - Pack of 12 - £2.30

I chose this product to test, as I make a lot of my own sugar flowers, however it can be quite a fiddly job, not everyone has the time or desire to learn this skill, and sometimes even I am looking for a quick decoration for a batch of cupcakes without getting my decorating kit out and starting to colour and shape petals. I was also keen to judge how well The Craft Company would be able to transport the flowers, as they can be so delicate and fragile. 

All 12 daisies arrived in my kitchen in one piece, and I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised by this! The sugar daisies are a little thicker than I would normally make, which probably explains why they were more robust in transit. The beauty of this product is in their simplicity, all 12 daisies out of their packets and on top of their cupcakes in under a minutes, and you have 12 pretty cupcakes all ready to serve with no fuss or mess at all!

Leopard Print Sugar Sheet - 148mm x 148mm - £2.95

This was the product that I was most looking forward to receiving, as I had never heard of sugar sheets before I browsed the website. Basically, these are a thicker version of rice paper, totally edible, and almost vinyl-like in texture. You can use any metal or plastic cutters on the paper to cut out shapes, to make easy decorations for cupcakes or cakes. I used a small butterfly cutter to make some quick cupcake toppers, but you could equally cut out lettering for a cake for example to get a great instant effect.

These sheets come in a range of colours and patterns, my only word of caution is to plan how to use them well to avoid excess waste from cutting shapes, the sheets aren't very big and could get used quite quickly and therefore become expensive. However, for a quick, hassle-free way to create an impact, this is a great product!

Chocolate Moulds - prices start from £2.35

The website has a great range of silicone moulds available, which you could use for shaping chocolates either to enjoy on their own, or as great toppers for cupcakes. The silicone moulds are really flexible and adaptable, as well as oven and freezer safe, so you don't need to stop at chocolate either - try coloured or flavoured ice cubes, jellies, mini cakes, or get really clever like these Turkish Delight diamonds I made a while ago!

Disclaimer: The Craft Company sent me a selection of products of my own choice up to a predetermined value. I was not paid to write a review, and all opinions expressed are honest and my own. 

Product Review: Walkers Hoops and Crosses

For me, the opportunity to review a new product for Walkers was like a call from the mother-ship. I am a complete sucker for crisps of all varieties and flavours, equally happy munching on a bag of Kettle Chips as I am hunting out childhood favourites such as Wotsits and Monster Munch. Filling up my car with petrol every week comes with the added challenge of lining up to pay alongside the shelves of crisps and fighting the urge to grab a few bags for the journey home. They really are my one true weakness, and for that reason, Walkers can be assured here of a thorough review of their product, but should also know that they have some very high standards to meet! 

The product in question is their new snack 'Hoops and Crosses'. Designed primarily for kids, Hoops and Crosses are pitched as a source of wholegrain, and the press pack information that came with the sample revealed the somewhat worrying fact that 27% of children in the UK do not have any wholegrain in their diet at all! The term wholegrain is quite feely bandied about nowadays as something that is 'good for us' and that we should be eating more of, but rarely do people explain why. I'll try and cover it as succinctly as possible...

The Anatomy of a Grain: Source - Whole Grains Council

The grains themselves can be from any cereal product, including wheat, oats, rice, rye, barley and maize. The grains themselves are made up of three parts, the bran, the germ, and the endosperm. In white (refined) products, only the endosperm is used, and the bran and germ discarded. In wholegrain products, all three elements are used. Essentially, the endosperm is almost entirely carbohydrate in its make-up, whereas the bran and germ elements contain high levels of fibre and iron in particular, as well as protein, Vitamin Bs, Omega 3 and other lovely good stuff. When you know this, why on earth would you eat the plain white stuff!?

So back to the task in hand...

The samples came from Walkers in a lovely box, and when I opened it I found Monty the Monkey inside! The sample pack was a Roast Beef flavour, and a little bit of digging told me that Hoops and Crosses are currently available in three flavours; Salt and Vinegar, Roast Beef and Prawn Cocktail. Something about this pleased me, I think it was a pleasant surprise to see that they hadn't stuck to the usual suspects of Cheese and Onion and Ready Salted.

The bag itself felt very light, and when I checked the details, one bag contains 18g of product. Upon opening and emptying the contents into a bowl however I quickly revised my opinion, there were plenty of crisps in the packet, even for an adult crisp monster like me! The crisps were so tasty! They had plenty of flavour, and because they are baked not fried they aren't greasy to the touch or taste. Gary and I shared the bag, and he was equally impressed with the flavour, which is a big deal, as unlike me he can take or leave crisps, and is a bit fussy about flavours.

The best part, each bags is only 85 calories, so as well as being good from the whole grain, and good from the baked-not-fried bit, there is a feel good from knowing that as a snack they are about as low-cal as you can get. I will definitely be buying these again, and they will be replacing a lot of my lunchtime/ late night crisp binges I think!

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored, however all views and opinions expressed are my own, and I was asked to be honest in my critique. 

Product Review: Paper Themes Personalised Cupcake Wrappers

This week I was sent a few of these gorgeous looking cupcake wrappers to review by Paper Themes. I was really excited to receive the samples for these, as I have agreed to bake wedding cupcakes for two of my close friends this year, so have been researching a inordinate amount of wedding cupcake related paraphernalia over the last few months, but I hadn't come across personalised wrapper yet. 

Doing a little pre-review research, I googled Paper Themes and learned that they are primarily a wedding stationery business, based in Shipley in Yorkshire. Not only that, but they have been in the wedding stationery industry for over 100 years! I'm a big fan of supporting British business wherever possible, and I was really pleased to see that all the design and production of their products comes straight out of Yorkshire. The other thing that really struck me as I surfed their website was that for a company that is over 100 years old, they have done a fantastic job of keeping up with the times. Their website is fresh, their online shop is slick and easy to use, and the products themselves are wonderfully reflective of current trends and fashions, with a strong vintage influence, and trends such as 'Keep Calm and Eat Cake', and 'OMG' featuring in some designs. Their full range has expanded out from wedding invitations and stationery, and there are some real gems on here such as Lottery Ticket Holders, Personalise Table Plans, and Bunting. 

The wrappers came flat in the post, and have a tab and slot to assemble. Nice and easy so far! My first observation was the thickness of the card that the wrappers are made from. The board is really nice and thick, and has a great texture to it, there were a combination of matt and gloss finishes. It is obvious that the company is first and foremost a stationery company by the quality of the board that they are using. In addition, the cut of the wrappers is flawless, there are no rough edges, and the printing is clear and sharp in focus (unlike my photography...) 

To assemble the wrapper, simply bend the wrapper round into shape, and slide the tab into the pre-cut slot, as shown below...

I have to be honest and say that one of the wrappers I was sent refused to hold together by itself, however I was able to fix this easily by fixing a small square of sellotape on the inside to hold the tab in place. 

Once the wrappers are assembled, the idea is to use a cupcake that has already been baked in a standard cupcake case. The wrappers will completely cover the case, so there would be no clash of colour if you were unable to get cases that matched the scheme of the wedding. Take a baked and decorated cupcake, and drop it into the wrapper, and voila! 

All together, there are currently 18 different designs of these wrappers available, to see the full range you can visit the site here. The wrappers are priced at £12.99 for 24, which for the quality and the personalised element I think is reasonable, and they would certainly add a great personal touch to a wedding or other special occasion such as a milestone anniversary. 

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post, however I was asked to be honest in my review, and all thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.