Advent Day Twelve

Hello Friends!

Although not of any particularly high standard, I have always enjoyed baking and do so with a reasonable level of competence for a home baker.  I have a good, basic repertoire of stand by recipes that please those who have tried them.

These include, but are not limited to the classic Victoria Sponge, a variety of sponge cakes including Coffee and Walnut, Chocolate, and Mocha, Lemon Drizzle, Seed Cake, Madeira Cake, Bara Brith and a few others, also Flaky Pastry Sausage Rolls and various breads.

Caveat: I bake, I don't decorate!

At Christmas, though, something comes over me and I go all out with everything baked goods!  Well, it used to before Parkinson's robbed me of my mojo.  These days it's all shop bought in my home.  Sad but true. 

Here's a question for the bakers out there.  When you make a sponge cake, do you weigh your ingredients by 2oz each of flour, butter and sugar to each egg or do you use the weight of two eggs method?  I find I get a better mix using the weight of two eggs method.

When I was a teenager, I baked for the local WI Market and had regular weekly orders for my sausage rolls and gingerbread, the latter from an elderly gentleman , a retired baker himself, who declared it the best gingerbread he'd ever had!

At Christmas time, there were some big orders coming in for both my mother and me.  We were going flat out with orders for Mince Pies and Sausage Rolls by the dozens!  Mum had to bake 300 mince pies for one customer alone!  No mean feat in a domestic kitchen.

One year, not so long ago, at the Eleventh Hour, I was asked for some baked goods for our cathedral St Andrew's Day Fayre.  Short notice meant it had to be from ingredients on hand, so I made a dark Gingerbread traybake cut into cubes to be sold individually.  

Little did I know my reputation was about to be trashed!

To cut a long story short, the label I provided got lost, the cake got sold as Chocolate Cake, and almost everyone said it was the worst Chocolate Cake they'd ever eaten.  Those who knew it was Gingerbread said different, but the damage was done.  

Here are some of my favourite things, or as Jo Brand would say "Show us your bakes!" time . . . 

Today the Icelandic Yuletide Lads begin the journey out of the mountains.  I have written about them several times but here is a quick LINK to an online article if you want to refresh yourself on the folklore of an Icelandic Christmas.

All Icelandic children will be waking up this morning to find if today's lad has left a treat or a moldy potato in their shoe left on the windowsill.  

Until tomorrow . . .