Traybakes - Apple and Plum two ways

There will definitely be recipes on this blog from time to time as I love it, and am baking constantly. In the past week I have experimented with this cake, and made it two different ways, which both turned out lovely but individual results.

First Way - Using Mincemeat

I make lovely Plum and sloe gin mincemeat every year for Christmas (in fact I'm sure I shall post a recipe for it  come November), and my biggest fear every year is that I shall run out of it before the desire for mince pies ends, so I always over make, and this leaves me with a surplus that needs using at some point. Fortunately it keeps well, so here I am in June still using some of it. I've made this a few times and its always been very popular, it ends up being a lovely moist, spicy cake, and has a much more complex flavour then the work would suggest, as all that effort is got from the mincemeat. Any type of mincemeat that you make, and have left over would work well in this recipe.

- 6 oz caster sugar

- 2 oz golden syrup

- 8 oz butter

- 4 eggs

- 10 oz self raising flour

- 1 tsp baking powder

- half a jar of mincemeat (this part isn't very precise, the more you add the fruitier the cake will end up being)

Cream butter, sugar and golden syrup. Then slowly and an egg at a time and beat after each. Then sift in the flour and baking powder and mix. Then stir in the mincemeat.

Bake in a small rectangular pan, at 180 C (gas mark 4) for about 35 mins. Its done when the sponge springs back to the touch, and a knife comes out clean.

Second Way - Using Fruit

This one ends up being more of a "plain cake", but is really yummy, and not too sweet.

- 2 oz caster sugar
- 6 oz golden syrup
- 8 oz butter
- 4 eggs
- 10 oz self raising flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 apple
- 1 plum
- 3 oz currents
- 2 oz sultanas
- 1 tsp almond extract

Cream butter, sugar and golden syrup and almond extract. Then slowly and an egg at a time and beat after each. Then sift in the flour and baking powder and mix. Chop up apple and plum, then stir in all the fruit.
Bake in a small rectangular pan, at 180 C (gas mark 4) for about 35 mins. Its done when the sponge springs back to the touch, and a knife comes out clean.

Well if you try either of these let me know what you think.

Love Eggs xxx

Arts and Crafts

I haven't posted anything since July, which seems rather a long time ago now. I was on one Christian youth camp, and then a hol with the fam in Tuscany and the my Church youth camp. Which I had heaps to get ready for, here is me starting to pack up all the Arts and crafts stuff for camp.

This is just the contents of one box. There were heaps more to try and squeese into my car and the mini bus. Another six boxes.

These are a couple of the fabrics that I bought for some of my crafts.

And some pretty scraps that always come in handy.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to get heaps of photos of some of the things people made. But here is a wee taste.

This is a wee felt tiger made by one of the boys in the upper sixth, I think its a solid effort. I did offer him a pattern for it, but he ploughed in and made it up himself from the pic in the book.

One craft that was very popular was the notebooks, we always take loads of notes in camp from the meetings, we're blessed with some amazing speakers, so this idea really appealed. A lot of girls decided to recover their bibles too, everyone loves a pretty bible. 

This was another felt animal, adapted from a  rabbit pattern in this book Home made Vintage Gifts, which is a lovely book just too look at even. As you can see its a sweet koala, and it was made using an old cashmere jumper of mine that I felted, so the baby that will be its recipient will have something extremely soft. The girl that made this did an ace job.

There was defs a large variation of skill level involved, ranging from crafty girls down to boys hanging around  because there was some girl they fancied and wanted to impress, but most of the options simplified down fairly well, so I'm pleased. I had an absolutely fab week, but am now rather catching up on lost sleep. 

Hope your summer hols were splendid too.

Tons of love

Eggs xx

Arts and Crafts

Project One (ii)

My printer is finally working so I've been able to print out larger hexagons, and so I made a nice simple pincushion.

Just one hexagon flower.

Then I stuffed it, and added a button.

So there is my pin cushion craft all ready.

What do you think?

Love Eggs xxx

Arts and Crafts

Project Three

Small notebooks are always a useful thing to have in your handbag, particularly on camp, where the campers are often taking lots of notes from all the talks, and seminars we have, so I thought another nice project, that doesn't have to involve any sewing would be pretty decorated fabric notebooks.

I just wrapped this as one would a present, or a hymn book at school (did anyone else use the Come and Praise books when they were little?). I stuck it down with PVA glue.

Then the idea is to decorate how they see fit. Lace, scraps of fabric, buttons, I even bought a nature book, from our Oxfam books, to cut up and use the flower/butterfly/bee pictures. There is something abhorrent about cutting up a book like that, but I managed to hack through the first couple of pages, so I shan't feel so bad on camp now.

Here is my one. I decided to go for a bunting theme, but after a trip through the new Paperchase, that has opened on the high street, I'm really wishing that I had done strawberries. Oh well.

This is the wee bit, I embroidered and stuck on the back.

Hope you are all enjoying the Sun shine.

Love Eggs xxx

Rule Britannia (or it's never too hot to drink tea)

One of the things that I really love making is tea cosies, they don't take too long, as they're not very big, and quilting them is a dream, as they are titchy in comparison to quilts, and have a mentioned how much of the stuff I drink, it's always worth while making up a pot. When we went off to Uni I made them for all my friends, as we faced the dreaded freezing halls. My tea cosy is practically a pillow, but then that is what you need when you go to uni in Scotland.

Some of my friends are moving to Italy, and although its rather hot there one of the things they are going to miss the most about the UK, is the ease of buying proper tea, I think half their luggage is taken up with tea leaves and bags. So I thought I'd make them a tea cosy.

This was the design I decided on, just in case they forgot where they're from.... 

I used Dandylion's daydreams tutorial to make it, and it was great. For a long time I have been frustrated with the fact that I can't find any Union flag blocks with uneven white diagonal strips. It just looks completely wrong when they are the same width. But this tutorial makes the flag properly. I used some of my Lario fabric, by 3 sisters for Moda. I think the red is just right, though I'm sad I couldn't find a darker blue.

It was really clear, and well explained. There was a wee bit of ripping stitches when I rushed ahead with the St Georges cross, without being told to, whoops. Please don't anyone mention the upside down top right block. By the time I noticed it was all together, and I couldn't bare to pick it apart again. But if I was making more then one of these, those problems would be quickly fixed.

On the back I used a simple cream and green fabric, from the 3 sisters Martinique collection, and stuck with just simple stipple quilting all over.

I added a wee embroidered tag in the corner.

I also embroidered this on the back, as tea really is the Elixir of Life, I don't think I could survive with out it.

What do you think?

Love Eggs xxx

"Its a Boy" (or at least that's what every newspaper reads this morning)

Look I completely unintentional, but clearly unconsciously and serendipitously managed to be patriotic at the right time yesterday.

I made this lovely Union Flag block yesterday afternoon, clearly as a celebration of the birth of our future King (at least that is how history is going to relate it). More on this and its purpose tomorrow.

Love Eggs xxx

Blocks for my Scrap Sampler Quilt

I have been making some blocks for a Sampler quilt I am working on, that you may have caught sight of in some of my pictures, so I thought I would share them with you. As far as they have come along.

This one is a Grandmother's fan block, I still haven't added the centre quarter circle as I can't decide whether to go low or high volume for the fabric. What do you think?

The pattern magazine that I got this template from called this a Lazy Daisy block, which I think is a lovely name, but I haven't seen it called that anywhere else. Again, I need to add a centre circle to this block, but need to decide on fabric.

I used the Missouri Star Quilt co. tutorial to make this star block. I absolutely adore this way of making half square triangles, particularly in this case when you need four of each type for the block. I love the grey fabric in this block, which I have used else where, I never realised how much I liked this soft colour, and I think I shall buy more of it at some stage.

Then for another block I am doing a strip of  patchwork hexagons, I think I need to add another row of hexagons on each end of this to be the right length. About nine inches I think? I might end up doing another Block of appliqued hexagon flowers in this quilt?

I think I'm going to embroider a Bible verse for the central block, and am pretty sure I have one in mind. (Isiah 14v 26-27) I'll sew it then decide whether thats the one I want.

I'm also getting on with my quilting of the rose trellis quilt, which is staying on my desk, until I get it done. As you can see its still rather sunny outside.

If anyone has any suggestions of blocks (or verses), I could do, I'd love to hear them.
Love Eggs xxx