love those cupcakes

Millionaire lifestyle

Not really. 

In fact, far from it.

Though we do have the shortbread (recipe from Mary Berry's Baking Bible).

With a triple chocolate topping.

And we also have staff to serve the pre dinner nibbles.

 

 

Miscellany

• New arrivals, spotted earlier today in a field close to home.

 

• Cheese and fruit scones, baked yesterday and tested whilst still warm.

• Camellia, planted in the garden late last year and covered in buds.

• New novel, purchased in a real book shop (Waterstones, the only one left in town).

• Boo, catching up on the latest news from Crufts.

 

A special day

We don't do any of that Valentine's stuff here.

 

But we do celebrate Cake Tuesday.

 

A celebration

In answer to the question at the end of the previous post, yes, it could.  And it did.  Sort of.

Yesterday was the mister's birthday so, after he'd walked some of the dogs at the RSPCA shelter and opened his cards and presents, we popped up the road to Stokesley for a wander round and coffee stop.  I'd forgotten it was market day so we stocked up on fruit (I bought Seville oranges with the maybe overly ambitious aim of having a go at marmalade making), veg and flowers.   We took the scenic route back, through Great Ayton where the river was partially iced over and it was far too cold for an ice cream.  The day finished with the three of us going out for celebratory pizzas, the birthday boy's supper of choice, and then home for cake (Nigella's buttermilk birthday cake).  

Oh, I almost forgot.  I also got red hair.  How exciting is that?

 

Lately I've been......

.....enjoying the last of the granola I made (adapted from this recipe) between Christmas and New Year.

.....trying to motivate myself to crack on with the consultancy work I've taken on so that I can get paid.  But there are so many distractions.......

.....catching up on series 2 of this.  Having learned that a third series is being filmed, I've just one thing to say to the producers.  Tak.

.....baking Roman style ("crusty, crumpety") spelt bread, using the very straightforward recipe on the back of the flour bag.

.....watching this, one of my Christmas presents.  Very different from the usual "wagons, roll!" Western, and with minimal dialogue, this film is about the struggle of three families travelling the Oregon trail in 1845.  It's bleak, it's grim, it's powerful.  It's going to leave you feeling very thirsty (and possibly wishing for a different ending) if you watch it.

.....marvelling at someone's efforts to get at the catnip.  Just look at that tongue!

.....listening to this, another Christmas present.  I love it.  You can get a taste here.

.....booking a (planes, boat, train) holiday.  More on that later.

A couple more ticks

The mince pies have been baked and are now stored in the freezer awaiting the start of the festive feasting.  Of course, we tried some, for the purposes of quality assurance.

We actually prefer a sweetened pastry and this one gives very shortbread-like results.

The little chestnut rolls have also been made and frozen (uncooked).

Using a recipe  from Rose Elliot's vegetarian Christmas book, the rolls were made with buttery rough puff pastry (turned and rolled eight times!) with a filling of chestnut puree, breadcrumbs, soy sauce, grated onion and garlic and a good pinch of chilli powder, all mixed together.  I did bake some but they were polished off before I managed to get a picture. 

The cake is yet to be iced and I usually make rum truffles and peppermint bark (the candy canes arrived today) to nibble when people fancy a change from Quality Street.  We also need to fit in the big supermarket shop and hopefully there'll be a trip here for cheeses and one or two other treats. Not to mention ALL of the gift wrapping. 

Tempus is certainly fugiting.

A not very exciting weekend

• There was a bit of baking:

wholemeal bread and a second, smaller, Christmas cake. (To give away.  We're not that greedy.)

Most of my cake tins were my dad's.  I think this one was bought to make one of my birthday cakes, in the days when all celebration cakes were of the rich fruit with hard as rock Royal icing variety.

• There was a bit of Christmas magazine reading, in the hope of finding inspiration (I didn't) for presents. 
  

• There was a bit of trying on of new winter coats and Christmas outfits. 

Someone was more co-operative.....

.....than someone else,

 

 

who appears to have perfected the art of sulking.

Ticks on the to-do list

• Christmas cards ordered from Cancer Research

• Advent calendars (including one for me) purchased

• Panto tickets booked

• Christmas pudding made (yes, ahead of Stir-up Sunday)

• Christmas cake* baked (well, almost. It's still in the oven.)  

Think I'll just have a little lie down.

 

* Recipe from this book

Baking sessions

Cooler, darker afternoons, before Boo has his last walk of the day.

Perfect for pottering in the kitchen.

Sunday's tray of simple fairy cakes, quickly mixed and baked whilst the bread dough (Mary Berry's cottage loaf) was proving.

Yesterday's lemon buns, just out of the oven

and with a coating of lemon icing whilst still warm.

Reminding me of the ones I used to buy when I was at university many years ago, when dinner was often just a bun and a cup of coffee.

These were so much better - soft, sticky and very lemony. 

I used this recipe, halving the quantities and opting for a basic glacé icing using lemon juice.  

You should try them.

A celebration

Today is Aunty M's birthday and this is her cake.  It's a basic Victoria chocolate sponge with a ganache frosting, topped off with sugar flowers and a sprinkling of glitter. 

Aunty is my (late) mother's sister, with a twenty year gap (and seven other siblings) between them.  She's the unmarried one, the one who remained at home with my gran, the one who taught me to knit and embroider, the one who always made the picnics on family day trips, the one who always bought unusual birthday and Christmas presents, the one who worked in my parents' shop two nights every week to give them some free time, the one who took me to "the pictures" on Friday nights, the one I stayed with after my gran died, the one I was, and still am, very close to. 

Aunty was an extremely skilful dressmaker (she did this for a living for many years) and made the most beautiful clothes without patterns.  This came in very handy when I was in my teens and all of the latest fashions were only available in London and the other big cities.  We'd spot an outfit on television or I'd show her what I wanted in a magazine (usually Petticoat), I'd then choose the fabric and she'd produce it very quickly.  She made me skirts, dresses, jackets, coats (one being a spectacular long velvet number).  I was often asked where I'd bought whatever it was I was wearing.

She still has her cabinet style sewing machine, which her parents and brothers and sisters clubbed together to buy for her 21st birthday, which was always stuffed full of the most gorgeous fabrics, buttons, zips and reels of cotton, and on which she created those fab outfits.  Sadly, it hasn't been used for years and is now just a piece of furniture used to display family photographs.

Aunty is now the one I share memories of my original family and childhood with and we often indulge in those "Do you remember.....?" conversations when I visit each week.  Here's to lots more reminiscing, birthdays and cake.