Category Archives: Baking

Chocolate fix needed

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Hello again and I hope you are enjoying the start of the Easter weekend.  I find the joy of the weather at the moment is making me wish to be out in the countryside.  I am very lucky in where I live as I look out onto fields and less than five minutes walk from here we are on a lovely riverside walk down to a country park.  It’s a lovely place to be and I can’t wait to be able to get back there again soon.

In the meantime, I am finding great comfort in baking!  I think I am not the only one judging by my social media feeds.  This week I have had a go at a couple of new recipes, the first being some chocolate chip cookies.  I found this recipe printed out in a folder in the kitchen.  It’s obviously one I’ve found on the internet somewhere, but I have no idea where.  So apologies to whoever’s it is.

Ingredients

  • 100g brown sugar
  • 125g unsalted block butter
  • 1 egg
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 225g Self Raising Flour
  • 200g chocolate (any kind!)

Method

Pre-heat oven to 200 oc Place butter and sugar in large bowl and mix well

Add the egg and vanilla essence and mix again

Sieve in flour and salt to mix and combine well.

Cut the chocolate, but not to finely and add. Mix together then roll balls of mixture to about 2cm by 2cm and place on a baking tray with baking parchment on. Be careful not to put the cookies too close together.

Place in preheated oven for 7-10 minutes. Repeat until all cookies are cooked.I use different kinds of chocolate and add nuts. For double chocolate cookies simply replace 50g flour with 75g chocolate powder.

It’s a very simple recipe and with my desperate need for chocolate it was just what was called for.  I followed the instructions and I had a sneaky try of the cookie dough – very tasty indeed and would go brilliantly with some ice cream.

Whilst the cookies taste very nice, I think I should have flattened them a bit before putting them in the oven, as they look a bit more like mini rock cakes than cookies!  I did add some flaked almonds and used a bar of dark chocolate as well as some dark chocolate chips.

Whatever they looked like there aren’t many left so they went down very well in the house, particularly good with a cup of tea!

Today I was inspired to try a microwave mug cake as I was sent an e-mail from Nando’s!  It’s amazing how many of the e-mails I am actually looking at, that I would normally just delete.  I’ve been curious about these little cakes for some time and a little dubious about them actually working.  Anyway, it was time to have a go and while I didn’t have any Nando’s sauce in the house, it was worth making the cake without it.

I was very pleasantly surprised with how quick and easy it was.  So much so I had to gatecrash my husband’s virtual team chat to show them all!  It was a bit dry and would definitely benefit from being eaten with ice cream but it was a different accompaniment to my afternoon brew in the sunshine.

Enjoy the rest of the Easter weekend.

Stay safe and happy crafting

x

 

Week 1 – Social Distancing in the Sun

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Well last week was a very unusual one for everyone.  We spent the week mostly in and around the house, which is not that unusual for me, but it’s been strange having my husband and daughter at home as well.  Fortunately the weather was lovely and I spent a lot of time outside, reading and doing some garden tidying.  I really love being out in the garden and I would very much like to be doing more out there, but being unable to go to a garden centre is limiting how much I can actually do.

My garden in Spring

My husband bought me a book for our anniversary last year, ‘This Golden Fleece‘ by Esther Rutter.  It’s basically a trip through knitting history, where the author travels around the country discovering knitting traditions and having a go at following old methods.  It’s quite an interesting read and as she travels somewhere new each month, I’ve been trying to read a chapter every month.  (I’m also reading other novels as well).  I’m finding at the moment, that I would like to have had a pattern in each chapter as well, but as I have plenty of patterns to work through, I don’t really need any more just now.

I set myself a New Year’s Resolution to read more and to finish my enormous reading pile.  My aim being to read at least one book a month.  So far I have finished 9 books!  I think these strange times will further increase my reading, particularly as I am encouraging my daughter to read for at least half an hour each day and I am trying my best to settle down at the same time and read too.

Crafting hasn’t been something I have felt much like doing this week.  I managed to finish off a couple of card orders before school was closed, but I just haven’t had the inclination to pick up anything at all!  I keep looking at the enormous pile of unfinished projects sat by the settee in the living room, thinking I must actually finish some of them off.  I will at some point, probably when I’ve done everything else I can think of to do instead!  Talk about procrastination.

My craft space has been transformed into a home office for my husband, so making cards is more difficult at the moment.  I really do feel like making something, but what I don’t know, and I would very much like to have my space back.  I moved my old record player from my Mum’s last year, and it’s a great opportunity to listen to some of my small vinyl collection while I peruse the various card and paper stashes.  Anyway, that’s off limits for the foreseeable future, so I will have to get to grips with a routine that includes utilising the kitchen table and includes craft sessions for my daughter!

It’s surprising how much I have wanted to bake though – I think it has something to do with the lack of chocolate in the house and the need for comfort eating.  So I have made some delicious peanut butter cookies and a gooseberry crumble.  Both very simple things to make but very tasty.

Sometimes you just need baking!

Stay safe and happy crafting.

x

 

Summer Baking

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It really wouldn’t be a holiday from school without a spot of baking, and with the disappointment of not being ale to finish my dancing hippo, we needed some cake to cheer us up a bit!

We started off with some all-in-one vanilla sponge.  Alice was given a fabulous junior baking set for her birthday, all good quality utensils, not the usual kids plastic stuff.  It’s all silicon and stainless steel, just scaled down a bit for smaller hands – ideal for me too!  So we made some vanilla sponge mix, and made it into a victoria sandwich and 6 cupcakes.  The fun was definitely in the decorating (and licking the bowl).

The kit had an icing set with three different nozzles too, so we had a practice making some rosettes.

After the cake, we moved on to some cookies.  We’ve never really done cookies before, we’ve always stuck to pretty basic butter biscuits, but we fancied a change.  I had a look around the internet and found a couple of recipes that looked simple for us to have a go at.  We started with some peanut butter cookies, which were incredibly simple to make and very tasty too.

We finished with some chocolate chip cookies. This had a few more ingredients, but again it’s pretty simple to follow. We enjoyed making it, and it was great practice for Alice with measuring out. The really great part is not having to roll out a dough and use cutters, just taking a teaspoonful of the mixture and putting it on the baking paper means less washing up and it’s a lot simpler for smaller hands.

Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the finished cookies, but suffice it to say they tasted delicious and we had plenty to share with family and friends.

Happy baking
x

Birthday Crafting

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Today is my husband’s birthday so we can finally give him all the things we’ve been making this week.

Alice made him a card in her own special style! I think he’ll love it when he gets home from work later. The envelope is a complete delight and makes absolutely no sense to anyone that hasn’t read ‘Danger in Everywhere’.

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And later it will be time for cake too! I made this sponge sandwich yesterday. It’s a simple all-in-one sponge mix with cocoa powder and Alice and I filled it with peanut butter! We then topped it with chocolate spread and flaked almonds (we’ll put a candle on it after tea tonight).

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I don’t think it’s my best ever cake and I’m really not sure about the peanut butter. I think this could end up very dry, so we might be eating it with ice cream.

I’ve also made a batch of biscuits which he’s already got and taken to work. I hope they go down well amongst his colleagues.

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And here’s my card. It took me ages to find some inspitation for this one. I’ve done so many bike racing cards over the last few years I wanted to do something different. I struggled to find a picture of a camera, so went with his other interest – red wine!

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So Happy Birthday Mr B.

Have a great day
x

A trip to Lytham

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After last night’s cycling triumphs, I was feeling rather exhausted this morning.  But it was far too lovely a day to waste, particularly as we had plans.  And with hubby having the day off work, we were able to go out and do something different.

P1050467So following my plans from previous posts, I found a low cost event outdoors with the RSPB in Lytham-St-Annes.  I’ve been a member of the RSPB for almost thirty years now and thought it’s about time we started going to the nature reserves.  This is our second one this year!!  The event was £3 per child member (£5 for non-members) and accompanying adults were free. So I’ve been sat in the sun overlooking Fairhaven Lake, while Alice and her Dad explore the mudflats of the Ribble Estuary under the expert guidance of some RSPB and WWT volunteers.  They were apparently dipping for the creatures that live in the mud, although I’m still not quite sure what they did find.

P1050460I went armed with my binoculars, notepad and guidebook, but all I succeeded in doing was hobbling to the café for an ice cream and then having a doze in the sun! After an hour or so I decided to have a walk (rather a hobble) around the lake.  I need to move about or I get stiff, but I didn’t manage very far. I did catch the ‘mud-dippers’ making pictures in the sand though and it looked like they were all having great fun. I had to have a rest before heading back to the RSPB centre. I can’t believe how tired I am all the time – breaking a bone really does take it out of you!

P1050456The Discovery Centre is a little treasure trove of information and they have loads of activities on all year round, so it’s definitely worth a visit. I’d like to come back when I’m able to walk properly as there are loads of migrating birds that come to the Estuary. And I’ve still never found a mermaids purse when beach-combing and rock pooling, after over forty years of trying!

I feel like a tiny bird...

I feel like a tiny bird…

While the others went out in a rowing boat on the lake, I took the opportunity to browse the RSPB shop and I found some beautiful scarves which will do nicely for a couple of birthdays coming up. It’s also made me think there is more scope to make my little bird cards. I think I might have a go at turning them into robins for Christmas. I’m also planning to make some more masculine owls from a number of old OS maps my husband has donated to me, so there’s plenty to be getting on with for another couple of months card-making.

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But my focus for this next week has to be hubby’s birthday. So there will be at least one crafting session and probably some baking too! I did promise I would make him a batch of biscuits to take in to work. Mmmmmm, I’m getting hungry at the thought. Now, where are we going for tea I wonder?!

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Happy summer crafting
x

School Holiday Baking

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Well it’s been a tough first week or so of the school holidays.  It’s not much fun hobbling around with an equaliser boot when you have an active seven year old wanting to get out and do things.  Fortunately we’ve had some mixed weather here so we’ve had to stay in and concentrate on indoor activities.

I felt quiet good today so decided we could spend some time in the kitchen making some yummy treats to share with friends and family.  So we started with our trusted all-in-one sponge recipe from Delia Smith, to which we added some raisins, chocolate chips, cocoa powder and mini marshmallows.

P1250130We didn’t have any golden syrup or chocolate digestives so we couldn’t make any rocky road tray bake, so these mini cakes made up for it and are our version of a rocky road style muffin!  They certainly tasted chocolatey and went very nicely with a cup of tea.

Wile these were cooling we decided to make some scones and biscuits.  The simple Easter biscuit recipe was brought out and modified slightly as I didn’t have any lemons to zest.  I rolled out the dough a bit thicker than normal, so it made a few less biscuits than usual, but they tasted great straight from the oven and only took nine minutes!

P1250127I thought it would be nice to make some chocolate chip scones too as they didn’t take very long and could be ready to go in the oven by the time the biscuits had baked.  Not a big batch, only eight this time, but again lovely with some butter and a cup of tea.

All-in-all a good afternoon’s work and very tasty.  Time for a cuppa and a cake with a rest with my foot up now I think.

Happy crafting
x

Fudge

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I’ve been thinking about what I could make with the rest of the can of condensed milk after making the marzipan hearts. Eventually I just looked at the can and there was a recipe on it to make chocolate fudge.

It was a pretty easy make – condensed milk, chocolate, and icing sugar! I wasn’t hopeful though, it looked a bit odd while I was making it, but the suggestion was to add some nuts and then leave it in the fridge to set.

I decided to add some marshmallows and raisins as well as some almonds and this is the result!

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It was a nightmare to get out of the tray and to cut up, but it tasted fabulous. It is pretty rich though so only a little piece at a time for me!

I will definitely make it again, though I will have to find a better tray to put it in.

Happy crafting
x

Making Marzipan

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My daughter, Alice, was given a lovely baking set and set of recipe cards for her birthday and we have been looking longingly at all the lovely things we could make. So with the weather being so miserable this weekend, we got everything out and decided to have a go at making almond hearts. Now we could have done this very easily and just bought some almond paste / marzipan, but we thought we’d do it properly and use the whole recipe. Having quickly looked in the baking cupboard I thought we had everything we needed, so it was with great dismay I discovered we had no ground almonds at all!

This meant a much lengthier than planned walk round the neighbourhood shops looking for ground almonds. Eventually after 4 local shops and over an hour of walking we found some and head back home for a cup of tea and to get making.

The recipe is very simple but involved quite a lot of kneading. We split the paste in half and coloured one half with red food colouring. Then left it in the fridge for a while to harden up a bit and make it easier to roll out.

We were both quite impatient to make the hearts, so I did the rolling out and Alice cut out the shapes.  We did think about making some stars too, but the hearts looked so lovely in the different colours we thought we’d stick with them.  They’ve really got us in the mood for Valentine’s Day too, although I don’t think they will last that long to give out to all her friends!!

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This is definitely a recipe we will try again.  It’s fairly simple although it has left me with most of a tin of condensed milk.  I shall have to get my thinking cap on and see what I can make with the rest of it, it’s far too good an ingredient to waste.

Happy crafting
x

Christmas Cake

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This year I tried to be really organised and managed to make my Christmas cake in early October. And as I should I have been feeding it with some brandy every week since, that is until I ran out last week! So today was the day to take the plunge and decorate it.

I haven’t had much time between finishing Christmas orders and Alice’s dance classes and shows to really even think about a design this year, so it was a bit of let’s see what we’ve got and do something spontaneous! I cheated and used some ready-to-roll icing and I used some strawberry jam to stick the marzipan to the cake. I didn’t have a great deal of the icing, so I rolled it quite thinly – my husband isn’t a big fan of icing anyway so that’s a bonus. Having a root round by baking cupboard I found some little roses and silver balls, so I decided to have a red / white theme on the cake, with some little silver balls between each rose.

Alice then found my little snowman and Christmas tree so they were also added before we finished off the little scene with some sifted icing sugar ‘snow’ and a large handtied ribbon bow.

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I normally don’t get round to eating the cake until mid-January, but in the meantime it looks nice on the pre-Christmas table!

Happy crafting
x

Early Christmas Baking

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Now that the Christmas holidays have started it’s time to get into the spirit of things and do a spot of festive baking. It’s very therapeutic to get out the mincemeat and make up some tasty treats. I decided to begin with a batch of my mincemeat parcels. They are so tasty and make a lovely alternative to a mince pie. I have a number of packs of frozen filo pastry in the freezer that need to be used, so this was an ideal quick bake.

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After the parcels were finished, I enlisted Alice to make some festive ginger biscuits that we could share with friends and family over the holidays. The recipe we have is in a little Hello Kitty Christmas book that we bought for Alice a few years ago. It’s a really simple recipe and makes absolutely loads of biscuit dough. We chose some different Christmassy cutters and set about making the biscuits.

It was a good job there was loads of dough because I had a minor moment with my oven and completely burned the first two batches! I forgot just how fast my oven is when I’m baking. Anyway, we still managed to make about 60 or so biscuits for sharing. Alice’s favourite part of the baking process is the decorating, and we used plenty of icing pens, hundreds and thousands, and other little Christmassy bits from my cupboard.

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Once finished we took some round to the neighbours, wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!

Happy crafting
x