Easter Baking

Hello Friends!

Easter heralds the start of many things, new beginnings, and for some the easing of lockdown so that a socially distanced and responsible gathering of friends outside can happen as the weather {hopefully}  improves, although we are getting a properly Arctic blast for Easter Monday.

image source: Wikipedia

I grew up with the tradition of Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday, we always had them toasted as a breakfast treat. I used the Doves Farm recipe this year, which was not without it's problems.  The dough rose absolutely perfectly, it could not have been better.

Normally, I make my crosses using marzipan.  However, not having any to hand, I followed the flour and water paste method in the recipe. Despite my best attempt, after baking, the crosses had disappeared entirely, so I panicked!  Hot Cross Buns without a cross are just buns.  Oh, dear.  Then I suddenly remembered seeing someone make water icing and using that.  So, that's what I did.  I made a thick drizzle and although not perfect by any means, my Hot Cross Buns now have crosses.

Cross~less buns, hot from the oven

and after the iced crosses are drizzled on

Probably my best effort.

I did try one, for quality control purposes, you understand, hot from the oven, before the crosses were added, but my favourite way to eat them is lightly toasted and thickly slathered in unsalted Welsh butter.  Deee~licious, even if a little rustic looking.

When is a Hot Cross Bun not a Hot Cross Bun?
When it's scone {gone}

I didn't bake a huge amount, just enough for me for the weekend, but happily shared with a neighbour. It was lovely to see her for the first time in oh! so many months, and have a socially distanced doorstep visit, so much missed, although we speak often on the phone.

Here's my chocolate and vanilla Easter Egg Cake, rich, dark, chocolatey goodness indeed.  One of my favourite things to bake for Easter Day Afternoon Tea.  I now have three killer ingredients, secret of course, for my chocolate cake!

With the weather being decidedly chilly, I won't be risking any gardening for a few days, and Easter Monday is predicted to bring a cold, Arctic blast to us, so later today I shall be doing more baking, keeping warm and snug in my cosy cottage kitchen baking Irish Soda Bread and Cherry Scones {which are new to me}.  I'll let you know how I get on, as scones are not my forte.

Until next time

Stay Safe, Stay Well

Have a Joyful, Blessed Easter Day

A Little Box of Cosy Hugs

Hello Friends!

Thank you to everyone who left such lovely comments on my last blog.  Your words and kindness touched my heart.

Much as I enjoy playing with fonts, I like this one, Eagle Lake, the best, so I shall stick with it for a while.  It is a nostalgic reminder of my schooldays, when I loved my art class, especially when we had calligraphy days!  We only had black or blue India Ink, but oh, what fun making all those deliciously swirly marks on paper, and the joy of creating small panels of words was inspirational.  I was good at calligraphy, and was a much favoured pupil as I was allowed a pot of both blue and black ink!

We've had some lovely sunny days, mostly a little windy, but, oh! my! the temperatures have dropped like a stone, and my lovely neighbour over the garden wall and I are in full agreement, it's time to put away the Summer clothes and bring out our cooler weather things.  Sad, but true, although I see it as an opportunity to indulge in hygge!

When I first encountered that word, hygge, I didn't know it was pronounced hoo-gah, and I kept switching between higgie or hugger. Well, my pronunciation was off, but the concept was already here, for hygge, to me, is like living in a cosy box of little hugs that comfort us in the colder, darker days of Autumn, right through into early Spring. I have always lived a hygge life, it just didn't have a name before.

Someone is playing Peek a Boo!

I think hygge is a different thing for different people.  Some of the delights of hygge that are special to me are my warm, cosy living room with its heavy curtains that keep out the long, dark evenings; sitting by candlelight and burning aromatherapy oils; snuggling under soft, cotton quilts and pillows; sipping mugs of steaming hot chocolate; a nip of home made sloe gin from my hip flask on a long cold walk; the scents in the kitchen of pumpkin spice, cinnamon and nutmeg; reading books {especially revisiting the old, familiar stories of old}; and quiet, slow activities such as painting and colouring in, knitting, or sewing a cosy quilt.  

Hygge is a full cake tin or two, and baking my favourite cakes, such as Madeira Cake, rich and dense, full of ground almonds.  The kitchen fills with the fragrance of almonds and lemons when this is baking.  Madeira Cake is so called as it was once a favoured thing to eat with a glass of Madeira wine.  I'll second that!  

 My other favourite cake tin filler is Seed Cake. Another one that when baking fragrances the kitchen with the scent of Caraway seed and oranges.  Although both cakes look similar, they have their own unique qualities, and both are a perfect accompaniment for a mug of tea at Elevenses or Threeses.

It's taking a long walk along the Welsh country lanes, wrapped up warmly in a knitted hat, scarf and gloves, wearing my hiking boots with chunky socks that wrinkle around my ankles keeping out the cold as it nips at my feet, then coming home, rosy cheeked and red nosed, into a warm and welcoming cottage for a hot drink with a piece of cake, snuggling in my favourite chair by a toasty warm fire. 

I can tick the boxes for all of the above, except the toasty, warm fire, and that is something I miss so much, although the older I get I don't miss cleaning out the ashes and chopping the wood!

It's filling the kitchen with the fragrant scents, and hustle and bustle of baking for the freezer, and cooking up the hedgerow harvests.  I love making applesauce for the Winter days ahead, from my own homegrown apples.  This is a favourite gizmo of mine.  It's a very old design, although mine is new, and has remained unchanged for many, many years.  A true testament to "If it's not broken, don't mend it" if ever there was. Come apple season, I wouldn't be without it.  In under ten seconds, it peels, cores and slices a large apple.  Incredibly time saving when you have pounds and pounds of apples to process.

It's so many more than those things, and it will be uniquely different to all of us, so I hope you'll share, in the comments, your own personal hygge.

Over the years I seem to have accidentally fallen into collecting woollen blankets.  I don't know how it happened, it just did, and now I have quite a few, all travel and throw size so very useful to keep on my sofas and arm chairs if needed.  Some even roll up quite nicely to fit in a picnic basket or back pack too.  I'm saving the blankets for another blog.

Maybe Henry "Bomber" Hedgehog has one in his backpack? What do you think?  He's certainly all set for a day out rambling across the byways and country roads, with his binoculars and pipe, and his red beret.  Quite the dapper chap indeed.

Autumn days means time spent in the garden, when the weather permits, of course!  There's always lots of work to do, clearing and cleaning, and generally tidying up to tuck up and put the garden to bed for the Winter. Just the other day, I snatched a few hours between the winds and horizontal rain, and hidden away in a corner where I keep old pot and bits and bobs, I found this joyful bloom!

It's a deep pink Kaffir lily!  I already have the paler pink, and plenty of it too, for it spreads like wildfire, but I have always wanted this deeper pink, and it looks as if it's volunteered itself so I must find it a spot in the borders. 

Until next time

Stay safe and stay well

Deborah xo

A Leap of Faith

Hello Friends!

I have taken a huge Leap of Faith and now the border in front of my patio and French window that looks out over the lawn sports a gaping gap, almost end to end, where the Pieris, buddleia, and Frances E Lester rambler bloomed of late.  They are still there, but greatly reduced in size as they were getting out of hand, blocking my view of the garden and keeping all the late afternoon sunshine off the low, raised borders that mark the edges of the patio and the lawn restricting planting choices. 

It's a risk I've had to take, a Leap of Faith, for I needed to open up the space so that I can find the original edges to the lawn border to enable me to get in and clean it.  It's hard enough weeding on your hands and knees to begin with, but even more difficult when you can't see what you are doing because of leaf laden branches on shrubs, or worse, being impaled on dagger like rose bush thorns. 

I know the rambler will be fine.  Most roses, delicate though they appear, are tough as old boots and respond well to a good pruning.  

The buddleia, well, we all know that they are nigh on impossible to kill.

It's the Pieris that worries me.  It was a gift from Dad's niece.  I have researched it well, and apparently they, like camellias, can take hard cutting back, almost to ground level.  It was getting leggy, all top growth and woody stems, so I've made the Leap of Faith and cut it right back, hard.  Very hard.

 

Now all that's needed is to clean around them, feed them, and tidy up the remains to make good shapes as they regenerate and regrow.

I had planned on making the borders deeper and having a little less lawn, but now I have found the stone edging, which has been hidden for years, I realise it's the original edging put in place by my Mum about thirty eight years ago, and I like it more than I remember, so am leaving it as it is.

Finally, the small, raised border will have better light and fair play for me to plant out the potted and patio roses and lavenders that I so long to see from my window.

Storm Ellen battered us, followed by an unprecedented second named August storm in under a week with Storm Francis. On the day in between I got out and did as much post Summer tidying up as I could manage, and picked another 2lbs of blackberries.  That's four pounds in two picks.  I have already enjoyed an apple and blackberry pie, and turned the rest into juice for making jelly.

I successfully avoided walking headlong into these lovelies and although I doubt they survived the recent weather I know more will have already taken their place.  It might be time to cut those seed heads if I'm going to use them this Autumn.

One of the great comforts during lockdown life has been rediscovering bread making. What a joy it is, to create something so simple yet so immensely satisfying as a loaf of bread.  Here's one I baked the other day, a rustic Farmhouse loaf.  Perfectly crusty on the outside and delightfully light and soft on the inside.  Absolute heaven toasted and slathered in unsalted Welsh butter with Marmite and slightly softened cheese on top.  Of course, you may prefer a different topping.

Then, there have been several bowls of windfalls after the storms.

Sometimes, these apples are Snow White red all the way through.  So pretty, and often the applesauce turns out quite pink, but not this time.

My favourite way to use these up is to make applesauce, but think I'd like to make another applesauce cake again, or an apple topped cinnamon cake. Delicious.  This time, I kept it chunky.

In clearing some corners, I found these.  Mum and Dad were given some garden centre vouchers about twenty years ago, and picked these garden ornaments.  I had forgotten all about them but am so happy to have found them, and I love how they are weathering.

It's funny, I have never been a fan of garden ornaments, but now I cherish these dearly.  I've cleaned them up, not too much, for I love the aging affect of lichen growing on things, and now they adorn the lawn, along with my Ddraig Goch.  I wonder what he dreams of?

Do  not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup!  

He needs a small make over, and I think we can arrange that.

In honour of the turning seasons, I have brought out my Autumn Sunflower socks.  They're ever so comfy as well as looking pretty.  Almost too pretty to wear shoes with, but in the cottage of a seamstress, going barefoot, no matter how comfortable, is not a good idea at all.  

My Happy Socks! How can you not smile when you see Happy Sunflower Socks?

Until next time

Be responsible, and stay safe

Deborah xo

An Easy Spicy Applesauce Cake

Hello Friends!

I don't know about you, but I am baking a lot more these days. Is it the craving for comfort food and something sweetly satisfying?  Is it driven by the need to do something familiar and soothing? Or is it the need to make sure nothing goes to waste?  I am using up a lot of out of date things that might otherwise have lingered too long in the cupboard and ended up wasted.  I know one thing, as a nation we must be baking a lot more as, following on from the toilet paper shortage of seven weeks ago, we now find ourselves struggling to find flour, sugar and eggs!

I found some chunky, home made applesauce lurking in the freezer. It has been there since last Autumn.  It needed using, and as I have not been baking much since Christmas I found I have some slightly out of date flour and baking fat that needed using up too.  I don't know why, I suddenly fancied an apple cake of some sort, so I Googled Applesauce Cake.  I found a lot of different recipes, so I took elements from several of them, converted from metric and cups into Imperial {I am an old fashioned girl when it comes to my baking} and devised my own recipe, which follows.

Cooling in the tin

A slice showing the chunky apple sauce and raisins

It makes quite a dense texture, maybe I didn't add enough baking powder?  Maybe I should have used self raising?  It is not unlike a Bread Pudding {do not confuse with a Bread and Butter Pudding}and for that reason I really like it.  A lot. It is good warm with yogurt, or a drizzle of Golden Syrup.

Here's what I did.

4 oz butter
7 oz sugar {I used golden granulated}
up to 10 oz apple sauce {smooth or chunky} unsweetened if using a sweet apple.
8 oz plain flour, sifted
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon powder
a scant 1/4 fresh grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger powder {optional}
2 oz dried fruit {cranberries, raisins, sultanas etc} optional
sugar for sprinkling {optional}

Cream together the butter and sugar.  Stir in about 8 oz of the apple sauce and combine well.  Add the rest of the ingredients.  Add more apple sauce if mixture is too dry, and make sure all ingredients are well incorporated.
Tip into a greased and floured 20cm round baking tin.  Sprinkle with a little sugar, if using, or add when cake comes out of the oven, depending how you want it to look.
Bake on Gas Mark 4 for approximately 40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
Cool in tin for 15 minutes then carefully remove from tin to finish cooling.

I may try adding walnuts next time, which I think would be a good addition.  I will also bake it in a suitable loaf style pan too.

As there are no eggs, if you use a vegan baking fat I think it would be good for vegans too.

with home made yogurt for pudding

Next up to the oven are the two long term resident oranges in my fridge. I fancy an Orange Drizzle and maybe a small batch of Orange and Blueberry Muffins.  Waste Not, Want Not, and my freezer has space now, at last, but not for long.

Today is VE Day. Normally, street parties and all manner of social gatherings would have occurred, along with events from Buckingham Palace and all up and down the length and breadth of Great Britain, but Covid-19 has put a stop to almost all activities.  A lot of people put up bunting, and this afternoon a few of us gathered, carefully observing social distancing, in a neighbour's car port. We each brought our own cup of tea, and our own plates of food.  We sat, a good six feet apart, and chatted for over an hour.  Up and down our street similar groups gathered outside on the pavement. I cannot begin to tell you how good it was to talk to people face to face instead of over the phone, but it was a strange time too, celebrating that which brought us all closer together seventy five years ago, by keeping our distance from one another.

Here is my tray.  I picked a tiny posy from the garden, including Forget-Me-Nots and London Pride, which seemed appropriate inclusions, and Treasure had his own, special, tiny picnic hamper too.

Did you do anything to celebrate VE Day? I hope you managed something to alleviate the current mood.  We do know how to put on a good street party in Great Britain, and excel at celebrating all the anniversaries, jubilees and royal weddings!

Until next time
Deborah xo

Mincemeat Palmiers

Gentle Reader ~~~ ooops! A while back I promised to share my Mincemeat Palmier idea. So, I'm sitting here today, the day before St Valentine's Day, curled up in front of the fire nursing a nasty head cold ~~~ feeling a tad sorry for myself as the weather is horrible and the world looks as glum as I am feeling today ~~~

I did make a mistake, as you will see, but they are very easy, and great for using up those odds and ends that haunt the fridge and freezer after Christmas, but, of course, you can make them at any time of year.  Sometimes they are called Elephant Ears or French Hearts ~~~ 

I made mine using up leftover frozen puff pastry {which I always keep on hand in the freezer for emergencies} and a half jar of mincemeat that was languishing in the fridge ~~~

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.

I used a half jar of mincemeat, an orange, bought puff pastry, and some left over marzipan from icing the cake ~~~

I always add extra spice to everything ~ I love spice, but of course this is optional ~~~

In a small bowl, place the contents of the jar of mincemeat and the grated rind of the orange ~~~

Add your spice if using and grated marzipan ~~~

Unroll the puff pastry and spread the mixture across, leaving a small margin on the longer sides ~~~ these are a little over filled, and you will see what happened ~~~

 Roll up the edges to nearly meet in the middle of the pastry ~~~

Fold in half ~~~

Cut into pieces, about 1/2 an inch ~~~

Place cut side down on a baking tray ~~~

Bake in the oven for about 15~20 minutes until all puffed up and golden ~~~ as you will see, a lot of my filling oozed out because I'd overstuffed them. I didn't mind though, they were not for anyone else, only me, and they tasted really yummy and didn't last long ~~~ {I'm not afraid of showing what went wrong, we learn from our mistakes!}

Plated up with a light dusting of icing sugar snow to mask the imperfections ~~~

I might not get 10/10 for looks but they tasted just fine and it is better than wasting the ingredients!  Next time I'll get them right!

In the UK, Valentine's Day is a celebration of the love between couples, but in the spirit of an American Valentine's Day ~ where it is for everyone to share love and friendship ~ I send you all greetings for a Very Happy St Valentine's Day and thank you for the friendship we share through our online writings and photographs ~~~