love those cupcakes

And it's only Tuesday

• A surprise parcel in the post for the mister.

What could be inside, he wondered?

Surely not his favourite, cheese?

Aaaaaah!

• An evening with Kathy Lette in the central library as part of the town's literary festival.  

I'd only just discovered there was such a thing.  I mean, this is one of the most deprived areas in the country with very low levels of literacy in some parts so maybe not the most obvious setting for a week or so of literature and writing related events.  Whilst waiting for chatty Kathy to appear I realised the last time I was in this particular library was when I was 16 and meeting up with my best friend, who had a Saturday job there, in her lunch hour. (After leaving school she went on to be a proper librarian and we lost touch.) Funny how it seemed so much bigger back then.

• A couple of baked treats.  First out of the oven was a blueberry cake using this recipe but adding just a small punnet of blueberries and topped with a drizzle of lemon icing instead of sugar. Tasted mid morning with mugs of strong coffee.
  

Next, a batch of perfectly round cherry, chocolate and almond cookies, another variation of the oats based recipe (see below) which seems to go down well in this house. 

• A long lunch here with a friend where we caught up on each other's news and came up with a cure for the ills of the NHS.  Next month:  how to stop global warming.

 *   *   * 

 

Cherry, chocolate and almond cookies (amended from here)

Makes 12-14 decent sized cookies. 

1 cup plain flour (add a pinch of salt if using unsalted butter)

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

1/2 cup soft butter

Scant 1/3 cup caster sugar

Scant 1/2 cup soft brown sugar

1 egg at room temperature

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond extract (you could up this to 1tsp if you prefer a stronger almond flavour)

1 cup porridge oats

1/4 cup dark chocolate chips

Small packet (75g) dried cherries

Small handful of flaked almonds

Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas mark 4 .

Sift together the flour and baking soda and set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugars until smooth.

Beat in the egg and both extracts.

Add the flour mixture in two batches and mix until fully incorporated.

Stir in the oats, cherries, chocolate and flaked almonds.  You should end up with quite a  stiff mixture.

Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough (I used an ice cream scoop) onto 2 parchment lined baking trays, placing well apart to allow for spreading. Bake for 10 minutes, switch sheets (alternate top/bottom and back/front) and bake for 6 more minutes or until the cookies are golden in colour.

Remove from the oven and immediately press the top of each cookie lightly with a metal food slice.  Leave for 2 mins then transfer to a cooling rack.

 

That was the weekend that was

It was a good one.  The Girlie and Boy were home for a couple of days.  Food featured a lot (buttery croissants and cherry jam, homemade pizzas, blueberry pancakes and maple syrup, peanut butter cookies, Krispy Kreme doughnuts, a vegetarian blowout at a favourite restaurant).  There was a trip into town to buy perfume and a book (shoes, too, but my size was sold out) and to browse sofas and chairs (a living room makeover is on the cards here).  We discovered a new farmers (used as an adjective so no apostrophe, right?) market at our local park where there were just a few stalls but hey, it's early days, definitely a step in the right direction and we did manage to buy chocolate (70% with caramelised marmalade for me and eaten far too quickly), duck eggs, cheese and an aquilegia plant.  The park itself (which I posted about here) was busy but there was plenty of open space. Boo, who tagged along, disgraced himself with an episode of exceptionally loud barking (seems he was objecting to having to wear his lead) and splodging (local word meaning splashing or wading, often wearing wellies) through a large and very muddy puddle.  (For more of our Smoggie dialect see here).

 

 

I love family weekends, me.

 

Savouring lately

My word of the year is 'savour'.  And this weekend has been about being determined to really enjoy what's on our doorstep.   I find it all too easy to dwell on, to bleat about, what's lacking (a decent bakery, a theatre, shops which sell items costing more than a pound, good restaurants, a mainline station, an airport that actually has flights, jobs) where we live.  So I parked Moaning Minnie and set out with a smile on my face and a knapsack on my back (well, not really but you get the gist) to take the time to  appreciate:

* The last of the tulips at the back of the house, the first poppy in the front garden and a basking Buddha

* The evening walk around the neighbourhood with the always enthusiastic Boo and the unmistakeable iridescence of fluttering fairy wings (you know I'm right) in the woodland

* Fruity tea, coffee cake and frangipane tart down the road at Ormesby Hall (more about our visit here to follow)

* The fragrance of spring blossom and wild garlic

* Time spent with the friendliest of stables' cats who was minus a tail

*  *  *

Him:  Why are you taking photographs of those?  They're dandelions!                    

Her:  Sighs deeply, raises eyes heavenward and exits stage left.

A quiet weekend

* Starting with coffee (two spoons identifying the one made with soya milk) and cake (him) in the nearby market town whilst the Boy, home for the weekend, had an appointment with the dentist.  Just for a check up.  Fortunately, neither of my children, both now in their twenties, have experienced dental problems or treatment and have perfectly healthy tussies.  *  Grocery shopping at Sainsburys. No list but at least we remembered the wine. * The weekly visit to my elderly aunt. She has a habit of getting rid of ('filing') unpaid bills (she refuses to have direct debits set up, suspicious of any automatic withdrawals from her account) and, on a couple of occasions, her complaints of the phone being out of order have turned out to be as a result of being cut off.  * Watching an Arena programme about photographer Norman ('Oh, I just take snaps') Parkinson. His pictures of Wenda, his wife, are especially stunning. Maybe you spotted the Google Doodle as you searched online yesterday, the day which would have been his 100th birthday.  * Another batch of oatie peanut butter and chocolate chip biscuits, after tinkering with the original recipe from here to produce much less sweet and much more chocolatey results.  Recipe below, if you fancy making them. * Vegetable, lentil and coconut curry with homemade chapatis for supper. * Evening walks with the dog, interspersed with bouts of jogging.  Boo wonders what that's all about.  So do I.  * Ending with a very scary, watch from behind a blanket film.  It didn't give me nightmares.  Only because I didn't dare sleep.

Oatie peanut butter and choc chip biscuits

Makes 12 biscuits

 

4 ozs plain flour

3 ozs porridge oats

1 level tsp baking powder

Pinch salt

3 fl ozs sunflower oil

3 ozs (approx 6 tbsps) peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)

2.5 ozs caster sugar

2.5 ozs soft brown sugar

2 fl ozs milk/soy milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 ozs dark chocolate chips

 

Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan assisted/gas mark 4.

Line 2 baking trays with baking parchment.

Mix together the flour, oats, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.  You should end up with a fairly stiff mixture.

Uisng your hands/spoon/ice cream scoop, form 12 evenly sized balls of dough and place 6 on each baking tray, spacing well apart.

Bake  for 12-15 mins until lightly browned.  Halfway through cooking, lightly flatten each cookie, which will have puffed up, using a metal slice or a palette knife.

Remove from the oven and leave the biscuits to firm for a couple of mins before placing on a rack to cool.

Eat and enjoy.

 

Good Friday

Sticky hot cross buns

Chocolate mini eggs

Proliferating gold bunnies

Almost Simnel cake

Lots of good stuff and a giveaway winner

A batch of crunchy buttery ginger biscuits.  Rustic looking chocolate rum truffles to give to Aunty M. with some left over to sample and savour.  Mother's Day delivery of favourite flowers.  Another gift of a box of macarons which disappeared before the camera was out of its case.  Signs of life in the garden pots.  Pizzas with the Boy on Saturday night.  Buying the ingredients for a new crochet project.  Playing around with blog photo special effects. (All the pictures in this post have been fiddled with, for better or worse.)

The mister kindly did the honours

and the winner of the giveaway is..........

Happy birthday, Moira, and please e-mail your details so that I can pop your parcel in the post.  

Too chocolatey for crows and my dog*

When I was younger I didn't have a sweet tooth.  Not at all.  Which was a bit of a waste, really, as from the age of three I lived in a shop which sold all manner of cakes, confections and chocolatey treats. Including biscuits, of course.  My brother was mad for Wagon Wheels and mint (toffee ones at a push) YoYos.  I preferred a Jacob's cream cracker with a chunk of Cheddar.  

In the early days of the shop, sweet biscuits were displayed in glass fronted tins and purchased by weight.  The more adventurous shopper would ask for 'an assortment'.  My dad didn't sell the broken ones.  They were the province of Marshall's biscuit stall on our local market which sold enormous mixed bags every Tuesday.

Even being Biscuit Monitor in my last year at primary school (I think my headteacher, who ordered her own groceries from my parents' shop, assumed I'd inherited the necessary skills), with a choice of chocolate digestives, dinky mallows and rainbow wafers on sale, didn't convert me. 

The first biscuit I remember eating in its entirety was when I was about 17 and with a group of friends in a coffee bar in town one Saturday afternoon.  They'd bought little packets which contained three or four biscuits to dunk in their 'froffee coffees' (in his defense, the proprietor was known more for his ice cream cornets).  Not wanting to be different I joined in and, lo and behold, started an on-off love affair with the bourbon cream (which, incidentally, I never dunk, that's why gingernuts were created, and I never remove the top layer to eat first).

Last night, the kettle was on but the biscuit tin was empty.  So I had a go at baking a batch of bourbons using this recipe, which can be veganised using soya spread in place of the butter if you so wish and which resulted in 12 biscuits.

 

They were quickly made and surprisingly bourbon-like. 

Consequently, the biscuit tin is still empty.

* With apologies to Kia-Ora

Culinary adventures

I've been enjoying baking for many years, since the time my dad helped me and my friend Marian make currant fairy cakes in our very basic kitchen at the back of the shop when we were both about eight.  Lots of recipes have been tried since, with a fair number of failures along the way.   I love the whole process involved: choosing and reading the recipe, preparing the equipment, the mixing, the vague wondering, even with old favourites, if the mixture will rise/crisp/colour/stick in the tin, and finally, of course, the tasting.  (I'm not including the washing up and putting away.  I detest that.)

Being vegetarian means I can use eggs, butter, milk and cream in my baking endeaviours.  But lately I've been trying recipes which don't use conventional ingredients.  Yep, I've dipped my toes into the challenging waters of vegan baking. (I thought, why not?   My diet is about 80% vegan and change is good, yes?)

First up were the oaty peanut butter and choc chip cookies which featured in this post and which were so very melt in the mouth tasty if a tad on the sweet side for my taste.  I'll certainly reduce the amount of sugar next time and post the amended recipe.

Next were cherry bakewell cupcakes.  I used this recipe and, whilst mine were certainly not as pretty as Siobhan's (I toasted the flaked almonds, halved the quantities and couldn't be bothered with the piping bag for such a small batch), they were moist and tasted pretty damn good.  The frosting was much sloppier than my usual buttercream but the recommended spell in the fridge sorted that.

Yesterday we had vegan pancakes.  

They looked similar to the American-style pancakes I usually make and bubbled reassuringly in the pan whilst cooking but all of that baking powder (at least I think it was the baking powder) left a rather unpleasant aftertaste.  And the mister delared them 'dense'. 

Oh well, you win some.......

Still savouring

A batch of perfectly crunchy, oaty, peanut buttery, chocolatey biscuits using a new recipe book * Waiting for the mister in an almost empty coffee shop and finishing a terrific read * Our vegetarian take on a Burns Night supper with Quality Street afters * Unexpected snowfall overnight and bright skies this morning * Twenty nine years of being a mum *

 

Savouring

Yet another picture of the cold white stuff.

You can blame Rachel.

The word I've chosen is 'savour':

verb  

• [with object] taste (good food or drink) and enjoy it to the full

• enjoy or appreciate (something pleasant) to the full, especially by lingering over it

 

So I've been savouring this wintry weather and the view of a snow covered Roseberry Topping in the distance.

I'm now about to savour a soya latte which has magically appeared on the table next to me.

Later I'll be savouring a cauliflower and chickpea curry.

I'll spare you the pictures.