Sunday, May 16, 2010

Save the Children Playbus

This is an excellent service which comes to Thomas Hogan reserve, at the end of Francis Street ( Old South Head Road end) from 10 - 12 on Thursday mornings apart from school holidays. It is a free service and a real treat. Tilly has loved playing on all the different toys, the staff are friendly and helpful and it is in a shady reserve with lots of great mature trees. Can't recommend it enough. Find out more about it here. www.savethechildren.org.au/where-we-work/australia/a-great-start-to-life-for-aussie-kids

Pumpkin Muffins




We had loads of pumpkin and so I made soup suitable for Tilly (no chicken stock) and adult soup with chicken stock and adapted a recipe for squash muffins to make pumpkin ones. I used spelt flour and left off the icing so that Tilly and her friends could eat them at playbus. They went down a treat.






Friday, April 16, 2010

Happy Hummingbird Cakes




My friend Helen turned 40 at the weekend and we had a treasure hunt and picnic extravaganza. It was a wonderful day and Andy worked hard on creating an excellent treasure hunt around Paddington so that we could end up at the wonderful Paperbark Grove at Centennial Park. there were wonderful salads, fabulous wheels of sourdough bread from Iggy's, delicious elderflower and passionfruit punch as well as sausages galore and sparkly wine and beer. I made Hummingbird Cakes from a recipe taken from Delicious magazine. After reading all the posts about it on their website I decided to halve the oil and the sugar, leave out the walnuts and dessicated coconut and use mascapone cheese, lime zest and juice for the icing. It was a total winner. And once again I was ably assisted by Tilly who is getting a dap hand at stirring.

Here's the link to the recipe http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/6470/hummingbird+cake

Buntastic



Tilly loves the buns

Traditional Hot Cross Buns
Iced Buns

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Finn and Tilly help with Spelt Hot Cross Muffins


These are a hybrid of hot cross buns and muffins. The dough is made in a bread maker so that you can enjoy shaping and baking. They take about 3 hours. 1.5 hours in the bread maker and then about 1 hour to shape, rise and bake. Makes about 10 muffins. And is really easy.

275 ml of milk
2 eggs, beaten
50g butter, cut into pieces
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp spices (mixed spice or a combination of nutmeg, allspice, powdered ginger)
finely grated zest of lemon
450 g spelt flour
7g sachet easy blend dried yeast
200g luxury mixed dried fruit (I used dates and sultanas and chopped up the dates into bitesized pieces)

1) Put all dough ingredients, except dried fruit, in breadmaker following order in your manual. I've listed the ingredients in the order they go in my breadmaker but yours may be different. Set to dough programme.

2) Once ready, turn it out onto lightly floured surface. I used a round tray so that it didn't go everywhere and I could move it about for FInn and Tilly. Punch the dough down to deflate and pat into large circle. Tip fruit into circle, enclose in the dough and knead. Cut dough with sharp knife and then knead some more to distribute fruit.

3) Cut out 10 squares of baking paper about 14cm square and prepare a 12 hole muffin tin. Cut dough into 10 pieces, shape into balls. Push square of baking paper into hole and drop in ball of dough. Once you've done all 10 cover with lightly oiled cling film and leave in warm place to rise to double size or about 30-45 mins. Preheat oven to fan 180/conventional 200 and gas 6.

4) Bake for 15 min or until golden. Put on cooling rack and sweep over with a bit of golden syrup, honey when warm or some lemon icing when a bit cooler. Icing is 100g icing sugar mixed to smooth paste with 4 tsp of lemon juice. If you are going for the icing option totally cover the top with it.





Saturday, March 20, 2010

Nameless Dread: Kevin



Almost as much fun as naming your first born!

Wearing first creation: thimbles


I completed a fabulous sewing course ages ago. The teacher was brilliant, knowledgeable, interested in what you wanted to do, very practical, pragmatic with an eye for detail that is totally unrivalled. I made one skirt at the course with high hopes and plans for many others. I haven't really done anything since.

When I tried to work out why I wasn't sewing up a storm I was finally able to
admit that it is because I'm worried that the things that I make won't be amazing. In fact they will be rubbish.

Now I can actually voice this fear, and name it. I've decided to call it Kevin, with apologies to Judy Horacek. I've come up with a plan.

First off I wore the first skirt for the first time this week. In public and everything. No one commented. Could have been worse. Second I've spoken to a mate who also wants to get better at sewing and we are going to tackle our next projects together. Safety in numbers, two heads better than one and other such cliches. In any case means that it might be more of a laugh and might actually have a go. Will let you know how we get on.


Releasing my inner nanna

When I was younger, I was lucky enough to have 4 nannas; Nanna Celia, Nanna Barr, Nanna Bowden and Nanna Lee. I was thoroughly ruined, particularly (as I remember it) by Nanna Celia and Nanna Bowden.

Every Saturday my brother, Matthew and I would go to Nanna Celia and Pop's house and have yummy lunch. Ham and coleslaw sandwiches on white bread for me and tomato soup with milk to cool it down, for Matt. There were always lots of treats; sweets, chocolate crispy cake with angel delight and whipped double cream, spiders, milkshakes, fairy cakes and comics. As Pop watched sport all afternoon, Nanna Celia would teach me how to bake, sew and knit and take me shopping. There were never cross words and always plenty of understanding and support as I attempted to master chocolate eclairs, peppermint chocolates, scones and Victoria sponge. On special occasions we got to stay over and were subjected to Paul Daniels and Come Dancing before running upstairs to be tucked in to beds with bedspreads and hot water bottles in cold rooms without central heating.

Those days are happy memories of family times. Through adolescence I became estranged from most of my family and it is with deep regret that I never got to say goodbye to Nanna Celia. I would have liked to tell her how much I enjoyed those Saturdays, how I appreciate all the love that she gave me and what an impact she has had on my life. After many years of focusing on other things I decided it was time to release my inner nanna and rekindle my creative gene. Many of my attempts don't really go according to plan and as I say that I believe that failure is the best way to learn, this blog is a way of seeing whether I get any better at the things that I try. I hope that I enjoy writing it and that you enjoy reading it.