love those cupcakes

Today

About a week ago, I read somewhere that if your tulips hadn't already flowered, they wouldn't flower at all.  Happily, the ones in pots here have put in an appearance at long last.  Better late than never.

In the front garden, the better weather has coaxed the weeping cherry tree to blossom, though maybe not quite as spectacularly as in previous years.

New arrivals have popped up in the field at the end of our road.  This is the field which is part of one of several  farms hereabouts, was recently sold, along with the rest of the farmland, to developers who have been given the green light to build 290 houses starting next month, but which was being rented by a local company for animal grazing.  You know the sort of company, the ones that turn live animals into joints of meat.  Now I'm dreading the day we notice the empty field.  Maybe I should just copy Babs and pretend the sheep have gone on a lovely holiday. 

Tonight we're meeting the Boy at Sunderland Empire to see this.  I'm more than a little anxious after reading Derren's tweet.  Well, you know what happened last time........

A few treats

It seems I was in spend mode this week (not, you understand, that I've ever found it difficult to part with whatever funds happen to be at my disposal).  Nothing particularly significant, just odds and sods that I could probably do without. 

1. The change in the weather has had me thinking about clothes.  I'm sure that my extreme discomfort in warmer weather (you've more than likely picked up by now that I  much prefer the autumn and winter months, being cold and well wrapped up, with the dream holiday destination of Antarctica) is in part to do with never really knowing what to wear.  Each year finds me requiring surgical removal from my coats and polo necks and I've yet to experience a summer without the comfort blanket of opaque black tights.  But, in the spirit of 'I need to wear something', a few linen items have been popped into the virtual shopping basket. I know linen creases badly but that should link in very well with the grooves and wrinkles which are increasingly popping up elsewhere.

2. Cake cases.  I definitely didn't need these as there's a big tub full of them, in all colours, in various sizes, for multiple occasions, in a kitchen cupboard. But I couldn't resist these from the supermarket.





3.  New book.  Despite several to-be-reads on the Kindle, I need to see that reassuring pile of the real thing.  Plus, I can't park my coffee cup on top of the Kindle.

4.  This week was National Stationery Week so what better excuse for treats of a new pad and pen.  I love fountain pens, have done ever since I acquired inky fingers from using that first Osmiroid when I was in junior school, and have a modest little collection which includes the last one my brother (who always wrote with a fountain pen and always with turquoise ink) treated himself to and a treasured Montblanc which only sees the light of day every now and again.  This new one is more of an everyday pen and uses cartridges.  Though having come across this website, and seeing those lovely bottles and colours, buying a converter may be on the cards.

5.  A print destined for the soon to be decorated dining room or maybe somewhere upstairs.  We took it to the local picture framers the other day only to find they've closed down.  Sign of the times, sadly.


6.  This weekend treat of a fruit cake didn't involve any spending and was more about using up leftovers from Christmas baking and the dregs from a bottle of brandy.  Very tasty it was, too.

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.

 

Last night

An evening at the ballet.  Up the road in Newcastle.  Courtesy of lovely friends.

So, Matthew Bourne's take on an old favourite.

This is far removed from a traditional tutu and pointe offering.  For starters, the well-known fairy story has been tinkered with.  Carabosse snuffs it early on and it's her son who is hell-bent on wreaking revenge on her behalf.  Unsurprisingly, Aurora first appears as a baby, but in this version she's a brilliantly manoeuvred, curtain climbing, show stealing puppet.  Celebrating her 21st birthday, the Beauty still pricks her finger and sleeps for 100 years.  But our hero and her rescuer is a gamekeeper.  And a vampire. 

We begin in 1890, progress to 1911,  2011 and 'Last night'.  There are bare feet, bare chests, conveyer belts, Helena Bonham-Carter lookalikes, wings and heavily kohled eyes aplenty.  It's at times dark, at others funny, occasionally Downtonesque with a dash of panto, sometimes intimate, always visually stunning and thoroughly entertaining. All in all, a sharp contrast to that first experience.

Yet I did find myself a tad wistful for that unmistakeable clattering of block ballet shoes across the stage. 

And wishing for a more palatable Pinot Grigio in the interval.

 

Hitting the spot

Sunday had me craving pretzels for some reason.

Soft, buttery, bread pretzels.

So I set to and baked a batch, using this recipe.

The method is very similar to bagels, which I've only made once, starting off with a yeasty dough and then a dunk in a boiling hot bath before finally baking. 

As there are only two of us here, I halved the recipe which produced half a dozen decent sized pretzels.  We were out of coarse salt so I sprinkled the tops with sea salt and caraway seeds.

They baked in no time and were delicious eaten straight from the oven.  (I did eat a cold one later and recommend eating them hot.)

Next time I'll line the baking trays with parchment as most of the pretzels stuck and needed a fair bit of chiselling to free them.  

And, as you can see, I definitely need more practice with the shaping.

 

Snippets from this week

- A trip to the cinema to watch Trance (art theft, a bump on the head, romance, hypnotherapy, double crossing, James McAvoy's dodgy accent) and munch on Revels (why don't they get rid of the raisins and bring back the coconut ones?) 

- Baking Paul Hollywood's bread and Jane Brocket's rock buns.  There was also a raspberry buttermilk cake but it vanished

- Filling vases with Spring flowers bought very cheaply from Aldi

- Finishing a blanket and managing a scalloped edge

- Buying a couple of new reads and ordering another.  My third magazine this month and all have failed to engross.  I need to find new titles or just stop buying

- Mad Men, series 6.  Wednesday night sorted

 

Loved these cupcakes

There was leftover sour cream to be used up and the Boy had a cake tin to be filled before returning to his student flat.  So chocolate cupcakes it was. 

I don't tend to muck about with vanilla cupcakes, sticking with the standard Victoria mix, but I'm always on the lookout for the ultimate little chocolate cake.

Today, it was the turn of this recipe (very slightly amended) from here which makes approximately 16 muffin sized cakes.  I used half the given quantities which made 12 fairy cake sized morsels.

 

Chocolate cupcakes

1 cup granulated (I used caster) sugar
¾ cup plain flour
¼ cup plus 2 tbsps unsweetened cocoa powder
¾ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp bicarb of soda
Pinch salt

1 egg

½ cup  sour cream
¼ cup  sunflower oil
 1 tbsp vanilla extract

½ cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan assisted/gas 4.  Line fairy cake or muffin tins with paper cases. 

In a large heatproof mixing bowl, mix together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarb of soda and salt.  Add the egg, sour cream, oil and vanilla extract. Mix with a wooden spoon just until smooth and combined. Pour in the boiling water and slowly mix in. The batter will be very liquid.

Fill the cake cases to just over halfway.

Bake for 15-19 minutes or until the cakes are firm to the touch and a cocktail stick or skewer inserted into the centres comes out clean.

Allow the cakes to cool slightly in the tins then remove and transfer to cooling racks. Let the cakes cool completely before topping with buttercream or your favourite icing.

 

This is a quick and easy recipe (even quicker if you don't drop the freshly opened tub of cocoa powder onto the floor then spend the next 10 minutes clearing up the mess). The addition of boiling water certainly produces a very runny mixture which probably could be poured into the cake cases if you have a lipped bowl instead of using a spoon.

For the icing I stuck with my usual chocolate buttercream: double the amount of icing sugar to butter, a good dollop of full fat cream cheese to cut through the sweetness, a shake of cocoa and a splash of vanilla extract.

Of course, I had to try one.  The verdict?  Light, moist, satisfyingly dark in colour and not overly sweet.

 

In fact, so good the Boy went back to uni with just four. 

 

'A house with daffodils in it is a house lit up, whether or no the sun be shining outside.' *

I've not had much success over the years with houseplants and prefer to fill the motley collection of vases here with various blooms and leaves.  There are plans to grow more flowers to cut in the gaps in the garden borders this year, though I'm not quite sure what.  At the moment, though, there's not a lot happening out there.  The Spring bulbs I planted in pots are displaying leaves but nothing else.   There are a couple of clumps of daffs flowering in the front garden but I don't cut those.  This bunch providing a splash of colour in the hall was picked up with the weekly grocery shop at the supermarket.  Just two quid and Nectar points, too.
 

Joining in with Littlegreenshed's Nature in the Home series

*  From A.A. Milne

So far today I've ..............

...... knocked over a mug of coffee onto my knitting.  And the table.  And the rug.

...... baked cheese scones with the wrong flour so that they've come out of the oven the same size as they went in. 

...... dropped a favourite large mixing bowl.

For the rest of the day I'll be avoiding sharp knives and naked flames.