Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other's gold. A circles round it never ends, And that's how long we will be friends.

So, today I have been in Full 'Brown Owl' mode! Tonight we held a thinking day party at Brownies as the finale for the 'Hostess' Badge. The girls were all very excited about the party after having planned the party last week.

They designed and made invitations, organised and rehearsed their own entertainment, made decorations and decided what food they wanted.

These are the decorations that the girls made for hanging up at the party. I made the salt dough and cut them out into flower shapes. The girls then decorated the dough with beads and imprinting onto it with a stick. They made some beautiful decorations and after 2 hours in the oven the shapes were hard and I was able to varnish them with PVA glue. I then threaded pink string through the shapes so that we were able to hang them up like bunting behind the food table.

 The girls asked for a number of baked goods for the party. As the party was intended to be for celebrating Thinking Day, I tracked down some rice paper cupcake toppers from an online cake decorating shop in order to put on top of some cupcakes. I then found some yellow cupcake cases and yellow edible glitter so that the cupcakes were in true Brownie colours!

I also made some dairy-free cupcakes and biscuits for a little girl who is intolerant to dairy. This was a new thing for me and I had absolutely no experience with dairy free baking. I used soy butter to make the cupcakes and shortbread and this worked extremely well.

The girls particularly requested Chocolate Brownies and I think that is quite amusing - Brownies for Brownies! There are two types of Brownies - Milk Chocolate Brownies specked with White Chocolate and the others are Dark Chocolate Brownies specked with Milk & White Chocolate. I have to say - they were heaven - particularly the dark chocolate ones! My housemate Hannah and I just had to lick the bowl out and nibble the edges before cutting it up! 

The recipe for the Chocolate Brownies, is as follows:

• Heat the oven to 170C, 150C fan, 325F, gas 3. Melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Set aside to cool. Whisk the eggs in a bowl until thick and creamy, then add the sugar. Keep whisking until you reach the ribbon stage, which is when a trail is left in the mixture when you lift the whisk.
• Combine the baking powder and flour. Once the chocolate is cool, alternately fold the chocolate and flour into the egg mixture, then stir in the nuts. Place in the prepared tin and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the top has cracked and the centre is just firm to the touch. Leave to cool completely in the tin, then cut into 24 small squares with a sharp knife.

I also made some shortbread and got a bit carried away decorating it with edible pearls and pink sugar crystals.

And some Gingerbread shaped as flowers (because I didn't have a gingerbread man cutter!). 

The party was a great success. We had a number of special guests come with the girls and the food went down incredibly well. The girls put on mini-sketches & plays for entertainment and 2 of them sang a song. Before a couple of Brownies made their promises and we all had a lovely evening.

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