More fundraising at Sunfest

We're really pleased to say we raised £600 at Sunfest beer festival at the Rising Sun on Fulwood Road.

It was the second year that we've been invited by Abbeydale Brewery and had a stall selling cake and savoury goods for those hungry beer drinkers.

This year, the money will be split equally between Mental Health Action Group Sheffield, our charity of the year, and Cavendish Cancer Care, who Abbeydale are supporting this year.

A massive thanks to Laura Rangeley for organising and all our bakers and volunteers. Thanks once again to Abbeydale Brewery for inviting us back!

Remember, remember the cake of November

What a splendid meeting November was! First of all a big congratulations to our new President, Grace, on her inaugural meeting in charge. I know you’ll all join me in three big cheers and we know its going to be a blinding year with you at the helm. All the new committee members did a brilliant job organizing the meeting and settling into their roles too, along with the seasons ladies running things smoothly as usual.

Next up a big thank you to our meeting guest, Meryl White, who knows everything there is to know about this history of afternoon tea. We were delighted with all kinds of stories and anecdotes about tea and cake from the Boston tea party to the correct way to put milk in your tea. 

Meryl White and Grace

It was also interesting to hear that Victorian ladies would eat cake with gloves on, which caused much rumbling of these questions…..wouldn’t you get crumbs on your gloves? and, wouldn’t you get fluff on your cake? 

In fact, she is so obsessed with tea and cake that she counted that we’d mentioned cake 37 times before she even stood up for her talk! 

Her stunning array of cakes was enjoyed by everyone too along the now infamous Di’s SHWI Pie which we’re delighted to announce is featured in the Sheffield Cook Book (great idea for a Christmas present hint hint!). 

Di, Anna, Bex and Ruth were very excited about the new Sheffield cookbook

Di's SHWI pie

Everyone had their last chance to join up for the next year so fingers crossed its going to be a great year and we’re looking forward to meeting the fresh faces ready and waiting to join with their fingers over the eventbrite buttons when it opens up soon…..

Jodie Winters

Fundraising and Campaigns Officer

All Hallows' Eve and birthday cake

October saw the 7th birthday of the birth of our lovely SHWI, but also bought with it some spooky goings on…

The meeting kicked off with a final address from our long-serving Vice President, Jen Marsden-Lambert who is one of the founders of SHWI and has decided to step down and take a break from committee responsibilities. Jen received much love and a bottle of Japanese whiskey to enjoy in her new relaxed role as SHWI member!

To celebrate another year of this wonderful girl gang, our member Nicky Campbell had baked the most incredible SHWI fist cake, which Jen sliced ceremoniously before it was demolished by ravenous members. White chocolate buttercream icing? Yes please! 

Nicky with her delicious cake

Founding member Jen cuts our birthday cake

It being the month of October and All Hallows Eve being one of the most fun times of year (following closely behind Christmas and Great British Bake Off months) members had come dressed in their best spooky head wear for a creepy competition. There were sparkly witches, Brexit themed horror crowns, crocheted pumpkin patches, skeleton ladies and a pumpkin tea cosy worn as a hat….ARRRRRGH!

Finally, our terrifying troop of ladies were seated to enjoy our speaker for the night – Jo Johnson-Smith who entertained us with tales of Sheffield past. We cringed at the stories of cannibalistic paupers reminiscent of Sweeney Todd and shuddered at the tale of the black dog, who haunts people on the urban streets at night. The legend of the naughty thug, who runs through town, knocking people into the road sent a shiver down the collective spine. One thing we learnt? Sheffield’s ghoulish history is more petrifying than we imagined……

Jen awards Mary with her spooky prize

And so at the end of the meeting, Jo kindly judged the haunted headwear of our members and ruled that Mary Beckinsale’s disembodied hand veil was the ultimate winner of our Halloween hat-off.

Happy birthday SHWI! Here’s to many more! 

Grace Escott-Tebbutt

President

Forge Bakehouse meal out

I’m writing this the morning after the night before. At one point I didn’t think I’d ever get enough blood-flow to my extremities to be able to move (let alone type) again, with my digestive system being overwhelmed yet delighted by the feast I consumed last night.

Wow, Forge Bakehouse – what an evening! I never imagined that I would go to a pizza night and come home with five out of 6 slices of my pizza intact! I mean this as a huge compliment – the quality and quantity of food was so awesome that I had to make some sacrifices – and everyone knows that cold pizza is still delicious the next day. Adding a soupcon of salad cream is my accoutrement of choice. (I mean if you want to elevate any dish to Masterchef, nay Michelin-starred standard, everyone knows all you’ve got to do is add salad cream…) But I digress.

Our group of 22 lucky SHWI-ers arrived for the sell-out event ready and raring for pizza and dessert, all pre-ordered from a bespoke designed menu. What we weren’t expecting were the starters. I mean, we knew we had some tapas style starters awaiting us, but we didn’t expect the range that greeted us. Martha and the team at Forge Bakehouse had provided us with 8 dishes per table! And the portion size was extremely generous. 

We started off with a platter of bread, oils and dukkah, with a butternut squash dip and coriander and butterbean hummus. Happy bunnies all round. 

Then they brought s deceptively simple ‘Tom Pom salad’ – mixed tomato and pomegranate salad with fresh oregano and pomegranate molasses. WOW! The sweetness of the pomegranate combined beautifully with the freshness of the tomatoes, and I would never have thought to add fresh oregano, but I am going to try and recreate this baby at home. 

Next came the grilled slices of baby aubergine with a bulghur wheat and herb salad, topped with pine nuts and feta. Again, this is something I will (no doubt very poorly) attempt to replicate at home. So subtle, but soooo good! 

We thought that was it and were feeling pretty stuffed already when the panko friend green olives with yoghurt and salsa verde came out. They went down a STORM, with Rhian ‘just checking’ that she didn’t like olives by scoffing several – something tells me her opinion may have changed! 

And finally, a lovely retro-style dish FILLED with aubergine fries (with a polenta crust) and some of the loveliest arancini I’ve ever had. The herbs complemented the mouthwatering molten mozzarella centre perfectly. See, I’ve even cracked the alliteration out here, so you know it’s gotta be good! 

Then came the main event – the pizzas. We’d pre-ordered and knew what we were getting, but the process was made even more fun by the waiting staff jotting our numbers down on the paper-topped table in front of us. It was at that point that some of the less observant of us (i.e. me) realised that we had been provided with crayons to doodle away on the ‘tablecloths’! A brilliant touch! You can see some of Grace’s WI-inspired art work here:

Back to the grub – the team had designed 4 pizza topping options for us: Pizza One was king prawn marinated in lime and chilli, mozzarella, grilled courgette, chilli, coriander and optional chorizo. Pizza Two was a #vegan option of Sri Lankan pahi with aubergine, ramiro pepper, onion, parsley and tahini sauce - if I was blogging this from my phone right now, there’d be an array of heart-eyed emojis right here! Pizza Three was purple potatoes, garden peas, grilled asparagus, mint pesto, pea shoots, ricotta and mozzarella. Pizza Four was sausage meat with shredded tenderstem broccoli, oven-dried tomatoes, smoked onion and mozzarella. 

Nobody needs me to crack out my thesaurus right now to bombard you with adjectives to describe them, I’ll let the pics do the talking. Suffice to say, we had VERY happy customers.

And still, there were the puddings to come. Three options had been provided, based around specific flavour combinations and catering to all dietary requirements – vegan-friendly choc dessert anyone?

Dessert A was ‘Apricot and Almond’. This comprised of quite frankly the BEST vanilla panna cotta I’ve ever had (ooohhh the jiggle!) This was complemented by roasted apricots, cherries, apricot jellies and amaretti morbidi (for the uninitiated, these were chewy amaretto-flavoured biscuit-y balls). 

Dessert 2 was ‘Raspberry and Pistachio’ – raspberry sorbet baked Alaska with pistachio sponge, Italian meringue, fresh raspberries and jellies. Every portion was perfect – I have no idea how you can make 8 perfect portions of baked Alaska all served at the same time, but Forge Bakehouse managed it with aplomb! 

Finally, we had dessert C – ‘Chocolate, Lime and Rum’. This was vegan chocolate and lime pudding with mango salsa, coconut and lime granita and passionfruit. This deceptively simple-sounding dish was presented so beautifully (with a chocolate work garnish no less), that it seemed such a shame to eat it. We soon got over that! 

10pm flew round and it was time for us to stagger home (some of us even turning down lifts in a vain attempt to walk off our fullness). All I can say is that we all absolutely loved every aspect of the evening. We were very happy to be Forge Bakehouse’s bistro guinea pigs – although you would have thought they’d been running nights like this for YEARS. Thank you, thank you, thank you once again to Martha and the team for arranging a wonderful evening. When can we come back?

Anna Pilson
Committee member

Raising money with cake at Eroica Britannia Festival

We've just about recovered from a weekend in Bakewell at Eroica Britannia festival - and what a fab weekend it was! 

Photo: Brook Hayes

It was at the beginning of the year when Eroica invited us to have a stall at the festival. They had seen how successful we had been at events like Sheffield Food Festival and wanted us to bring some WI flavour to Eroica. 

Eroica (not Erotica like some people think!) is a 3-day family lifestyle and cycling festival in the Peak District not far from Sheffield. Now in it's third year, the festival is based on the original L’Eroica (meaning 'the heroes') cycle ride held every year in Gaiole, Tuscany, since 1997. It's a of good old-fashioned cycling before carbon fibre, lycra gear and energy gels.

But it's not just cycling - there's lots of vintage clothing, crafts, music, entertainment, and most importantly for SHWI, food! 

Photo: Brook Hayes

Grace and I worked together on organising our stall like previously at Sheffield Food Festival. We try and divide it straight down the line - she deals with our WI volunteers and I sort the logistics and liason with the organisers. 

This time we were camping which provided an extra layer of complexity! But luckily, we had some excellent help all weekend from Charlotte, Brook and Cat who helped Grace and I get fed and stay dry. We had been concentrating so hard on our stall that we forgot essentials like toothpaste, wellies (we arrived to a mud bath on site), and food. 

We were supplied with extra hands bringing fresh cake every day too which meant we got to have a wander round the festival, soak up the atmosphere or go for a much needed kip! 

Photo: Brook Hayes

Saturday was our best day and we had a steady stream of customers buying our brownies, flapjack and lemon drizzle cakes. It was great to see so many WI members too from groups around the country! Grace and Lucy had entered the Best in Show cake competition and Lucy came third place. Other competitions included Best Dressed, Best Home Brew, Best Dressed Dog and Best Moustache! 

Photo: Brook Hayes

Sunday was the day of the big bike ride and cyclists set off from Bakewell early to ride 30, 55 or 100 miles through the beautiful Peaks. It was a quieter day for us as families and friends were busy watching the ride. However, we still had a good day and loved watching all the bikes arrive at the finish line. 

We're so happy that we raised another £600 for Light Sheffield, our charity of the year who support families affected by perinatal mental health illnesses. 

Photo: Ellie Last

Thank you to everyone who made cake or volunteered, or came to buy some cake from us! And a big thanks to Eroica for inviting us. 

Our next fundraising event will be SunFest - Abbeydale Brewery's beer festival at the Rising Sun, Fulwood Road, Sheffield. 

We raised over £1000 at Sheffield Food Festival

We've raised over £1000 selling homemade cake for a local charity at this year’s Sheffield Food Festival.

For the fifth year in a row, our city centre WI group have been at the festival by baking and selling cakes. This year’s stall in the Peace Gardens was extremely popular with the stall selling out of cakes every day. We raised £1024 in total.

Kirsty Bowen, President of Seven Hills WI said “Our stall was a massive hit once again at Sheffield Food Festival. Thank you to everyone who came down and bought cake or entered our raffle and a big thank you to all our members who worked hard to volunteer or bake.”

All the money raised will go to Light Sheffield, a local charity run providing support across Sheffield to families affected by perinatal mental health illnesses, including post natal depression and anxiety. Our members voted to support Light Sheffield as their charity for 2016.

Jess Rennie from Light Sheffield said: “It’s fantastic that Seven Hills WI have raised so much money from cake! We want to thank all the members who volunteered or baked cake. The Money will go to helping mums and their families who are affected by perinatal mental illnesses in Sheffield and the surrounding areas, to access valuable support provided by Light Sheffield.

Seven Hills WI have been invited to take part in Eroica Britannia family festival in June, bringing our popular charity cake stall to Bakewell Showground. We will be at the festival on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 June 2016.

Seven Hills WI return to Sheffield Food Festival

South Yorkshire’s largest Women’s Institute group, Seven Hills WI will be selling cakes once again for a local charity at this year’s Sheffield Food Festival.

The group have taken part in the festival since it began in 2011, selling homemade baked treats by women from the group. 

Members at Sheffield Food Festival 2015

This year, the Seven Hills WI stall will be in the Peace Gardens on Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 May 2016. All money raised will go to local charity, Light Sheffield.

Light Sheffield is a small local charity run by volunteers providing support across Sheffield to families affected by perinatal mental health illnesses, including post natal depression and anxiety. Seven Hills WI’s members voted to support Light Sheffield as it’s charity for 2016.

Kirsty Bowen, President of Seven Hills WI said: “Every year, our members pull out all the stops to bake some impressive cakes for visitors at Sheffield Food Festival.

“We hope to beat last year’s amount raised and help Sheffield Light who provide a really important service to women and families in our community.”

Jess Rennie from Light Sheffield said: “We are absolutely delighted that Light Sheffield were chosen as Seven Hills WI’s charity of the year.

“We are a small charity so the money raised at Sheffield Food Festival will really make a difference to our work supporting women and families who are affected by perinatal mental health illnesses.”

Sheffield Food Festival is an annual event in the city centre, celebrating the quality and diversity of food and drink produced within the region.

Happy 6th birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEVEN HILLS WI!

Wow what a great night! As a relative new comer to SHWI I wasn't sure what to expect from a birthday party for a WI. Would there be party hats and cake, pass the parcel or singing birthday songs to each other?

Birthday cake!

Well, there was definitely cake amongst the vast array of yummy food everyone brought for the pot luck. I spotted a few fancy hats too, including a fascinator made from tights, very WI I must say.

After the usual business, we all formed a very orderly polite queue for the food - then could be seen shovelling in Guinness brownies, stilton bread, onion tartlets and sticky toffee things to name but a few. As we quietly stuffed our faces, we were ushered into a semi-circle ready for the next portion of the night.

Just some of our party food

This was in the form of Dotty Winters, a fabulous women with a penchant for telling fibs and poking fun at herself and others. In her defence, she did admit to the fibs after she'd lured us in so convincingly with her comedy act so I think we can forgive her. To be honest, I think we can forgive anyone who can pull off wearing a cape to do their weekly Tesco shop. This, I hasten to add, was not a fib as she brought it with her to prove it while giving us a warm and funny insight into her life as a female comedian. It was both refreshing and sometimes a little gritty to hear of her experiences as a women in a male dominated world, which is surprising to say in 2015. But her lust for the centre of attention and passion for making others giggle soon had us rolling in the aisles.

Jodie, Chella, Dotty and Jen

All too quickly the night came to an end with huge rounds of applause and leftover food snaffled up, we all went on our ways after a great night, looking forward to what the next 12 months will bring.

Jodie Winters
SHWI Member

We raised £1024 at Sheffield Food Festival 2015

Anna, Jen, Kirsty, Grace and Chelle help on the stall

We're very happy to say that our stall at this year's Sheffield Food Festival raised an amazing £1024 for our charity of the year. Our members worked really hard to bake some delicious treats and volunteer on the stall all weekend. Committee member Sam made two beautiful rainbow pinata cakes for us to raffle on both days. Thank you to everyone who helped, bought a cake or raffle ticket from us!

All the money we raised will go to SAYiT Sheffield. They provide support for young people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) or who are affected by HIV.
 

One of Sam's incredible pinata cakes

Sheffield Food Festival this weekend

Last year's volunteers on our stall

It's Sheffield Food Festival this weekend (Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th May) and once again, Seven Hills WI will be peddling our wares! We have a stall in the Peace Gardens (close to Browns Restaurant) selling homemade cakes and baked goods from 10am - 5pm on Saturday and 11am - 5pm Sunday. All the money raised goes to our charity of the year, SAYit.

The Sheena Amos Youth Trust (SAYiT) is an independent charity which has been running in Sheffield since 1999. A sexual health charity, they work with young people up to the age of 25, particularly those who are most vulnerable or marginalised including LGBT people or those affected by HIV.

Please come down and help support our charity of the year!

Tasseled bracelets with Bobbins & Buttons

March's meeting kicked off in the 'usual' way with an introduction and welcome from President Kirsty and then it was onto the normal monthly WI business of announcements, spin off group details and information for planned events and news from WI federation. I should perhaps point out to new members and guests that whilst the news announcements and highlights are always interjected with a little SHWI humour - March was slightly 'unusual' and we had the awesome treat of a Birthday Bainbridge! This led to a lengthy and somewhat hilarious take on our normal SHWI announcements, I only wish we'd got it on video! If you missed anything, don't forget to check out Facebook for details of spin offs, events and to chat to other members.

There was then a quick break for cups of tea, coffee, mingling and some sampling of the amazing cakes and bakes brought by our lovely members - did you know that when you bake, you get free entry to our monthly raffle? I always say I'm trying to watch my weight, and was sorely tempted by the white chocolate blondies but when I saw the beautifully presented chocolate cake with the hidden star inside I weakened, and yes it was as good as it looks. 

Our guest craft activity leader for March was another of our members (you really are a talented bunch!) - Lauren Misiukanis, from Bobbins & Buttons skilfully demonstrated tassel making and bracelet construction to an enthralled crowd.

Then it was time to grab our cups, fill them full of beads (42 small or 32 large - unless you have somewhat chunkier wrists, such as myself in which case you may need a couple extra).

Lauren worked the room and was on hand to deal with tassel traumas as well as any extra hints and tips needed - the resulting bracelets all looked fantastic and all so different. 

After a long day at work there was something calming about sitting at a table with some new and old SHWI chums, just threading beads and chatting. We ended up with a room full of happy and glamorous SHWIers!

Big thanks to Sharrowvale based, Hudson & Wood for the raffle prize of a Citrus Massage & Facial! I'm now off to stick tassels onto anything and everything!

Caryl Carson

SHWI Committee member

We choose SAYiT as our charity of the year

At our February meeting, Seven Hills WI members voted SAYiT as our charity for 2015. A local independent organisation, SAYiT (Sheena Amos Youth Trust) supports young people who are LGBT or who are affected by HIV.

Fundraising events planned include Seven Hills WI’s annual baking stall at Sheffield Food Festival. Last year, we raised £1170 over two days by selling cakes and organising a best in show competition.

Sally Carr, Strategic Manager of SAYiT said “In the on-going quest to address homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in our society we know that we still have a long way to go, and the support of the WI will help to address this outdated and hurtful prejudice. We will use the money raised to continue our educational and awareness raising work which aims to make society a better place for everybody.”

Kirsty Bowen, President of Seven Hills WI said “I am very pleased that we have chosen SAYiT to be our charity in 2015, the WI’s centenary year. The WI has never shied away from important issues and we hope that we can make a real difference to young people affected in our local area.”

For more information on Seven Hills WI and our fundraising, email us at sevenhillswi@live.co.uk

Charity and Cake

February 2015 brought a visit by one of our own - Claire Kemp and voting for our 2015 charity. As always we started the night with this month's WI business. We really are busy ladies with more activities than ever - we have nearly every base covered: You can gorge on tasty food with SHWI Eats, then burn off the calories with SHWI Runners and the SHWI Slimming group, whilst keeping busy with SHWI Mad Skills, SHWI Crafts, SHWI Cine-Club, SHWI at Night and SHWI Mummies! And now, with a SHWI night out in the diary, we can even get our groove on. Anyway, back to business … 

Our wonderful Fundraising and Campaigns Officer, Sarah Willoughby, introduced the charity voting process. We had 5 truly deserving charities to choose from this year put forward by  our members. But the winner was The Sheena Amos Youth Trust (SAYiT), an independent young people’s charity based in Sheffield that provide support, information and opportunities for young people aged up to 25 who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) or who are affected by HIV. Now onto the cake… 

Claire kicked off the evening by explaining how she became a cake queen. Originally from an architecture and design background, Claire created her cake empire to combine her passion for baking with her professional design skills and artistic flair. 

She launched Claire Kemp Cake Studio, in 2011, with a 1:100 scale cake of The University of Sheffield's Arts Tower building that was almost 80cm high. Her bakes are extraordinary, not only are they very pretty but they are mini feats of engineering. 
 

Claire gave us a demo of her exquisitely smooth icing skills – divulging a few secrets along the way. So what did we learn? Claires’ top tips included:
· Use icing sugar to roll out icing, but only on the underside. DO NOT flip over the icing (like one would with dough).
· Avoid wooden rolling pins.
· Always roll forward (rolling backwards creates air bubbles).
· Grey icing is surprising gorgeous!

I was really impressed with Claire’s cakes and will definitely be trying out her tips - I hope everyone else found it just as informative as I did! Next month we have jewellery-making with another one of our wonderful members – Lauren from Bobbins & Buttons (extra materials charge of £2 per member, and the start of our fundraising for SAYiT … see you there!


Alice Bullas 
Commitee member 

P.S A big thank you to The Broadfield for donating voucher for a pie & a pint for our raffle.