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Strap in folks. This will be a long series. Kate and I have the Green Germanic dresses, our Falling Leaves dresses, and the Always Winter Never Christmas Italian inspired dresses that have seen a few revisions. I wanted to tackle something more English inspired. This meant a more column like bodice, and a BUM ROLL. I had experimented in this direction in my first ever Renaissance dress. That I made out of polyester. Big mistake. I've since then completely overhauled the dress, but don't wear it much because: polyester. Also, the bum roll is a stuffed cotton shape, and heavy on the waist/hips. The end of summer brought a revelation: why not try a pool noodle strapped on my backside to get that shape? An evening with scissors, pins, ribbon, and a tube of E6000 glue brought me to this:
It did not look promising until I put a skirt over it. Then the traditional English Tudor shape started to appear! It might work! I just had to convince Kate this silhouette was the way to go. But, more on fabric choices and overall design in further posts...  And, while my enthusiasm and maternity leave/sleep deprived brain said I could get these dresses done by the upcoming fall Great Plains Renaissance Festival, Kate's more level head prevailed and we'll be debuting the dresses at the spring 2019 festival.
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One of the YouTube holes I find myself falling down are cooking videos. I find them relaxing but interesting. But I can't just watch all the time and never try anything! I managed to snap pictures of two of my attempts here. Firstly, one of the channels I watch is Cooking With Dog, a Japanese channel with an English voice-over. Because of that, one of the suggestions on my homepage was CookingTree, a Korean pastry/ASMR channel (I know, weird cross-over, right??). Anyway, one of the recipes that caught my eye was for Peach Mousse Cake. Maybe it was the challenge of trying a truly foreign recipe. Maybe it's the allure of the precision in the instructions. For whatever reason, I was mildly obsessed, and I had to recreate the "cake" for myself. Here's the video: You can decide for yourself if I made a decent version of it:  I will note that the "peach flavored drink" called for in the recipe is a little vague. We certainly don't seem to have a popular similar soft drink. I chose to use Jumex Peach Nectar drink, a popular Mexican juice/soft drink that we can get here in the states. Also, I went the easy route, and used a boxed yellow cake mix, rather than a recipe from scratch. Box cake mixes tend to be closer to a chiffon sponge, so the texture was a little fluffier and the crumb larger than in the original. All in all, I really enjoyed the little cake. I could see it being perfect for a summer birthday, especially if the birthday person is not a huge fan of traditional cake. Continuing with a theme here, second is Hokkaido Milk Bread. I first saw the recipe when Emmy from Emmymade in Japan tried it. This time, at least, the chef in question is American, so no translating. She actually used a recipe adapted by King Arthur Flour for Japanese Milk Bread Rolls, and just made it into loaves. The video is here: This first time, I didn't use bread flour, just my trusty Hudson Cream Flour. So, the bread wasn't maybe as chewy as it could be. However, it was fairly straightforward, for bread: Surprisingly, the flavor reminded me more of homemade biscuits - the kind you put under sausage gravy, not the kind you dip into tea. The claim of this bread is that it is more springy than other breads, and that it stays fresh longer. It certainly was springy! I cant say if it stays fresh longer than usual - it was gone too quickly for that ;)
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