Halfpom

Delicious double velvet....

I'm still on the cake trail....I've been meaning to try making a red velvet cake (from the United States)  ever since I saw the recipe used for cupcakes at the Magnolia Bakery in New York and what with one thing and another just never have got round to it. Then I had a slice at the vintage fair last Saturday and was inspired to give it a whirl.....what fun it was to make. You use a whole two tablespoons....yes tablespoons!!..of red food colouring mixed into the buttermilk so the whole experience was slightly halloweenish but the end result was delicious and looked totally amazing...

I used the recipe from Rachel Allen's Bake book and it turned out exactly as planned. I also used her recipe for the marvellous meringuey icing.....and the fresh raspberries were from the allotment.  Yum yummmm.....will definitely add this into my repetoire!!

Balloon season....

Driving to work this morning along a new route through Dunstall Common & Kinnersley and just had to pull over to take this picture - fortunately it is not a busy road and my camera was on the passenger seat....isn't it a beautiful morning??

A lovely view with the folly at Dunstall Common in the bottom right hand corner of the picture and the Malvern hills stretching over the horizon... It is definitely getting much colder this week...I have a thermometer in my car and to give you an indication of the drop in temperatures this week...

::Tuesday = 11 deg Celsius

::Wednesday = 8 degrees

::Today, Thursday, it was 4 degrees!!!!! 

A bit of warning would have been nice...I'll have to dig out the winter woollies if this carries on.......  
 

Vintage Craft Fair...

A friend mentioned that there was going to be a second Vintage Fair In Worcester on Saturday and I had missed the first one as I was laid low by the dreaded swine flu so decided to check it out. Overall it was delightful but as my friend commented - some people who are very talented hide their light under a bushel & don't have the confidence to exhibit at something like this whilst others are super confident and have vastly overrated their talents.....Simon Cowell comes across quite a few of these types on the X factor too!! So most stalls were a hit but some of them you could definitely miss....and I do feel qualified to make this judgement as a veteran of many years of shopping...........

 

It was held at St Helen's Church right in the centre of Worcester's shopping area so a great location.

After a bit of browsing & shopping, it is nice to be able to take the weight off one's feet & have a nice cuppa and a great big HIT was the Royal tea shop.....

Yummy cakes and good coffee - what more can you ask for....

and the next Vintage Fair will be held in the same venue on the 12th December....

Plottment...

This past Saturday I joined Carla on her allotment.....was told to bring a book and that the deck chairs would be ready....and true to her word, they were....

Needless to say not much work was done by moi - the book (Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott..bought on my recent trip to NY...I nipped into one last bookshop before meeting the long suffering Caroline for lunch asI think by this time she was heartily sick of bookshops..) was discarded & I couldn't resist playing with my camera instead....no way could I just sit there & let all this go unrecorded..

Carla has already put in lots of hard graft getting her raised salad beds ready for the winter tenants..corn salad (lamb's lettuce), winter purslane ....

This is a time when most of the production is over...but the dahlias are still in full swing..

and the autumn fruiting raspberries - variety Autumn Bliss - are showing no signs of stopping....

I like to call this - Trio of Produce....

The artichokes have had it and the cardoon is on it's last legs too but, from an architectural point of view, still striking...

After some lovely filter coffee and a bit more harvesting we bid the allotment goobye..until next week..

These allotments in the UK are many things to many people - to numeous men an excuse to escape the domestic chaos, to parents of little ones a chance to produce healthy food and teach their offspring that vegetables don't have to come shrink wrapped from the local supermarket and to many others - working singly or communally in contemplative silence - a calm oasis from which they emerge refreshed & more able to deal with the (sometimes harsh) reality that is modern life...we love them!

Just minding my own business...

This morning we were still in PJ's just having the first cuppa of the day, a bit of a chat & minding our own business when I saw something float past out of the corner of my eye. A mad dash upstairs to grab the camera, then out into the street (still in our pajamas) with the rest of the kids from the neighbourhood....unfortunately just too slow to get the close up....

and then just as the excitement had abated.....another one...

What a perfectly lovely thing to do on a crisp autumnal morning......and since I now had the camera out I thought I would photograph the Hummingbird cake I made last night......clearly we could not wait for it to cool down & demolished a chunk almost as soon as it came out of the oven...

Light Chocolate Cake..

The baking urge struck me again this weekend......it's been a while...I think it is being unsettled and not having my things around me. This, however, has not stopped me buying books about baking....my latest acquisition is Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache by Harry Eastwood. Her recipes all contain a secret ingredient (a vegetable), use rice flour (so good for people who are gluten intolerant) and much less sugar than your normal cake recipe. I was was intrigued so gave it a bash.....another plus is that the cake only took 30 minutes to cook instead of 45-50 minutes......so green as well!!! I was quite taken with the result & nobody could guess the secret ingredient......butternut!

 

Franglo wedding

I was lucky enough to attend a lovely wedding last weekend - the bride is French & the groom English - therefore we have a Franglo wedding. It was held at The Fleece Inn, a beautiful pub in the village of Bretforton, near Evesham in Worcestershire, owned by the National Trust.

Weddings are held in the Barn but, fear not, regulars are never turned away thirsty as the pub stays open..

 

What a lovely setting for this happy day - the bride looked gorgeous (as we knew she would), the friends and family were lovely and the weather played ball (after a bit of a dodgy start)!!

 

 

The happy couple...Ben & Karine...

Yummy nibbles & champagne to keep us occupied whilst the photo's were being taken...

A delicious barbecue for lunch - just right for a summer's day...

and a truly wonderful dessert of profiteroles made by Karine's brother & father......heaven on a plate!

 

A few helpful tips for the non-French speakers amongst us...ie yours truly..

As this was a country wedding we had to have suitable entertainment.....here the ladies are trying to guess the size (sorry... weight) of Ben's marrow....say no more!!!!

 

  

and then the Morris dancers arrived...

  

 

Took far too many photo's of the Morris dancers...

 

Here's Ben trying to set the cake alight..

 

And finally.... a truly wonderful day was brought to close by a ceilidh with enthusiatic participation (with varying degrees of success) by all.

FELICITATIONS (that's French for congratulations) & MERCI to Ben & Karine!!!!

An English summer..

Summer is in full swing and actually it hasn't been bad this last month or so.....a few days of rain but very welcome as it keeps the garden watered. We'll start with this years favorite.....the hollyhock...

 

The next nominee for best flower is on my list every year...the old English rose.. The one that particularly caught my eye is called The Generous Gardener from David Austin - those luscious whorls of petals on petals and above all the heavenly scent. Pity we can't do scratch & sniff on this page??  

 

Isn't it gorgeous - just that one bloom perfumes a whole room....

 

 

The next contender reminds me of home where the cosmos lines the summer roadsides of the Free State & Kwazulu Natal in huge swathes of colour...

 

The one thing I dislike about gardening in the UK are these loathsome creatures...Now I'm not normally that squeamish but slugs manage to do it...especially when they are out en masse of an evening and you happen to go outside with bare feet (as you do when you are South African)...ughhhh...I've put a pound coin down so you can see how humungous this one was..it took all my nerve to retrieve the coin again..

 

On to something much cuddlier....Clarissa...a gardener's companion (or maybe that should be supervisor?)...Favourite game: trying to catch the moths that come out in the evening...

Flower of the week..

 

Today at 34 minutes and 56 seconds past 12 the time and date will read

12:34:56 07/08/09

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

This won't happen again for another thousand years !!

It's Sunday & Primrose Cottage is being constructed...

A glorious day on Sunday after a decidedly lacklustre summer.....they promised us a barbecue summer...how wrong they were.....unless of course you're using the barbecue as a birdbath!! Had a lovely walk to Newstead Abbey in Ravenshead....the birthplace of Lord Byron for those interested & coinciding with a brilliant programme on BBC2 on Byron presented by Rupert Everett...v good!

Passed a wheatfield that looked like a giant hand had ruffled it....

Purchased an ice cream & watched a game of cricket....such a quintessentially (my word for the day) English scene...

 Before heading home to start construction on Primrose Cottage.....no, not my new home....I'm still looking.....no, this is for the rabbits that are to be the new additions to the Tucker household in a couple of weeks!! Of course, being the UK, it comes flatpacked - arghhhhhh!! The instructions seem to have been translated from Chinese to Japanese, then to Russian and Swedish so by the time it comes to the English translation you have to use your imagination a bit to figure out what the final product should actually look like. The construction site looked fairly professional though....

 

 

Man with drill......

 

 

 

And finally .....after one false start & much cursing & swearing, I give you Primrose Cottage....

 

Looking good....I'm tempted to evict Flopsy bunny & Cottontail & move in after all!