A garden still life

Glorious weather means sitting outside for as much time as possible. The laptop is great until the sun is so bright that it is impossible to see the screen so other acrtivities are called for. Knitting is alright until the hands become sticky so small items are in order - my building blocks blanket in bamboo cotton. Reading is perfect - with prescription sunglasses - Richard Russo - The Risk Pool. Gardening is an inbetweeen activity - too hot to do anything too physical so a liitle light planting and pruning. Listening to music - the old wind up solar powered radio makes its annual appearance - Radio 2 for the easy listening and Popmaster in the morning.
My garden still life:

Pruning the dead branches above my head resulted in:

The odd bit of planting - some marigolds can only be evidenced from the handle of the spade left behind:

The strawberries are looking good:

Date and Walnut Bread

I like notebooks and journals and keep six or seven going at any one time. Sometimes I use them for family history research, sometimes for notes about knitting and recipes but quite often they are there just to jot down thoughts and things to do. Searching for something on the shelves in the kitchen I came across an old notebook with green pages. Looking at the notes - menus for the week, books to purchase - I would date this notebook at about 1989. Towards the back I came across a recipe for Date and Walnut Bread. I have no idea where it originally came from but I must have liked the recipe as this particular notebook contained only four others and they were for some of my favourite cakes. This is definitely a bread - not sweet nor rich, best kept for a day and then served thinly sliced with butter - though the husband is currently spreading a thin layer of Damson and sloe gin jam on his!

12oz self raising flour
half tsp mixed spice -sift into bole

3oz caster sugar
3oz chopped dates
3oz chopped walnuts - add to bowl and mix

2 eggs beaten
10 fl oz milk - mix together and add to bowl

2 oz butter melted -  stir into bowl and beat well for 2 mins

Turn into greaseproofed loaf tin and bake at gas mark 4 for 1 and a half hours. Mine was well done at this point so next time I will take a look a little earlier

My Cowichan

I am inordinately pleased with my Cowichan inspired cardigan which I completed tonight whilst attempting to watch the subtitles of the final episode of The Bridge. This multi-tasking did involve my sewing on the button band and collar the wrong way round but I managed in the end and the result is a delight. Surprisingly the colours are identical to the cat and milk cardigan I was wearing some 50 years ago.

Baking for a wedding

Dominique is getting married at the beginning of June. She has requested a "bakeathon" for the dessert course and today has been my wedding bakeathon day. I have known Dom  and her family since she was about 3 years old and, as one of my daughters is to be a bridesmaid, I decided to make a particular effort in my contributions to the feast. Contributions in plural as I am baking on behalf of said daughter too who will not have the opportunity to bake and transport a cake for herself.

The trial run of the celebration chocolate cake - the one that was well risen!! - was sampled by the parents and grandmother of the bride at the weekend and the decision taken to repeat the recipe as my entrant to the bakeathon. The recipe is from this June's Good Housekeeping magazine and, as it is described as capable of serving 40, the extravagance of the ingredients does not seem so great. This morning I had ordered a grocery delivery to contain the necessary blocks of dark chocolate, extra sugar and a new round baking tin. The earlier trial cake had been made in a square tin which had not been the recommeded size - but it was simply delicious anyway. Whilst awaiting the delivery I started my day of baking with a gingerbread cake which I have been making for years and which is a firm favourtie of the children. Inevitably, I discovered that I did not have golden syrup only black treacle so I played around with  the ingredients and substituted the syrup from a jar of stem ginger for part of the golden syrup and doubled the amount of black treacle. It looks wonderful but I will have to wait a while for it to mature to fully appreciate the deep ginger taste of this cake.

My second cake was my  - it never fails - lemon drizzle cake. It failed. I have never known this to happen before. The recipe is simple - 8oz of butter, sugar and flour and 4 eggs with the rind of one lemon to be drizzled with the juice of said lemon with additional sugar. It is usually predictably good but today,  I really don't know what happened, it just sank in the middle and left a huge hole. The edible parts have now been cut up into squares to be used in trifles and a second attempt has just come out of the oven - perfect.

The third cake was the celebration chocolate cake in its round tin. It rose again! However, the rise has now subsided and it is cooling in its tin. It is looking good.

The fourth - lemon drizzle mark 2 was followed by another Good Housekeeping recipe - an orange and apricot and walnut load. This is currently in the oven and due out in about 50 minutes.

The tempting aroma throughout the house today makes me want to eat cake but these have to be frozen in readiness for the wedding. Decoration can be done the day before and there will be no worries about disasters. What on earth could have happened to that first lemon drizzle? At least there is one saving grace, the bits around the edges seemed fine so I do have some cake to eat with the cup of tea just waiting for me in the  - still quite messy, ktichen.

When you want a cake to rise....

it doesn't and when you don't want it to -  this is what happens:

April showers - a typical day

One of the wettest Aprils in many years seems to have moved on to a very wet first day of May. A day to stay home and get on with indoor pursuits ( after a quick coffee with dear friends!)
Knitting:

Updates:
Charlie's cardigan was finally completed a few days ago and is awaiting a visit from the said son and his approval - or not.
A baby blanket for Lucy's baby was also started and finished - this involved the purchase of more yarn in an appropriate colour and thus 2 balls of cream dk left over has joined the stash.
A little baby girl cardigan was completed - this also entailed an addition to the stash as I bought some additional Bamboo which appeared to be going cheap
A baby boy cardigan in the said Bamboo

Items on needles currently include:
Chicken teapot for Dawn - not sure if I am happy with this improvised project
Bright baby jacket
Building blocks blanket in beautiful Bamboo
The green log cabin which is now amongst the sorely neglected
The second pair of socks for Jessica which have been on needles for some considerable time now and seem to keep looking at me for movement
A green child's jumper which may be unravelled - yet more wool which was added to the stash - reduced in the new wool shop which I had to pass on my way back home from the hairdresser....

Baking:
I want to try a recipe in the latest Good Housekeeping for a special chocolate cake. The recipe calls for soured cream and I bought a tub on my way back from the coffee earlier. If it works then this will be a contribution to a wedding supper in a few weeks time.

Hens:
Sadly Kevin was taken ill a couple of weeks ago and is no longer with us. We never knew her age or provenance but she had never laid and had been looking miserable for some time. The other hens are producing some 5 or 6 eggs a day and baking would be a good idea to use up some of the supply.

Family History:
Baking and knitting are taking a back seat to the latest family history research. An e mail out of the blue put me back on the track of a Welsh family who, obligingly, left detailed wills when they died. The e mail correspondent was himself descended from two branches of my family tree who joined together in his. Enticingly he has photos of siblings of ancestors. It is one of my regrets that I have so few photographs. What I have I treasure.

Reading:
Richard Russo -The Risk Pool
Music:
The Lighthouse Trio - who I went to see on Friday - but more of them later