MARMALADE

Marmalade: an exciting challenge and a wonderful result.  Never attempted it before as it seemed all too complicated but first time at making Marmalade was an absolute success, I am not sure as to the reason for my success as I didn’t even cook it with the little bag of pips. (Those were tossed into the bin unintentionally by my husband)   I sliced the oranges, lemons and grapefruit and set it aside in the water to stand overnight.  It stood for more than just overnight in the water as I had to get to the shop to buy the Methylated spirits for the pectin check of the marmalade.  So I’m thinking that maybe it’s because the sliced citrus stood for so long in the water that it drew a good amount of pectin out or that I just had a healthy bunch of oranges and lemons!

Needless to say the Marmalade turned out beautiful not only in taste but consistency and colour.

I am planning on making some more Marmalade this winter before all the citrus fruit is finished and then throwing a “Spring Fair” where I will sell tea cosies, marmalade, crochet cushion covers and more. 

Project Blanket

It feels like ages since I have last blogged.

I have been on school holidays for the past three weeks as I work for a Grade 0 School and have the privilege of enjoying the school holidays.  During the first week of my holiday, I didn’t do any crocheting, but at the end of the week had finally decided on my next project.  It’s one of the biggest projects I have taken on in a very long time and that is to crochet a blanket for my queen size bed.  I have chosen to use Ella Rustica Chunky and it is exquisitely soft with a combination of 60% Acrylic, 20% Tweed and 20% Wool. 
I am now 110 blocks down and have calculated that I might still need to crochet another 100 blocks approximately. 

I do not want it to hang too far over the edge of the bed as I would like a blanket that is manageable when making up the bed, but then of course, I’ll just have to see as I get closer to the END! Oh, the end, actually I do not mind having taken on such a project as I know that wonderful feeling at the end when it is all finished and ones hands start itching for another project.  Not as quick as a tea cosy I might add, this one requires much more endurance as in running a 100km marathan.  I am determined to have it finished in the next 3 weeks!  Ooh, not sure if that is good or not, as some of you crocheters out there might be much quicker on the needle!

I end off with my cat Amy who she takes possession of everything in this home, including the new blanket, my lap and spot in the sun, WHAT A CHEEK!  She loves kneading blankets though, so will have to watch her with this one.

You are invited to visit

You are invited to visit.  I will prepare the guest room for you with pristinely cleaned and ironed linen, extra blankets for warmth and an electric blanket to break the winter chill of getting into bed.  In your bedroom, you will find a heater and a towel rail for your comfort.  There will be a book or two to read and a few interesting magazines.  There will also be a little jar of sweets and biscuits should you wake up hungry in the night.  There will be cupboard space to hang your clothes and place for your belongings. 

The welcome mat is laid out just for you!

In anticipation for my guests, there will be a scurry of preparation to make your stay a wonderful experience, comfortable and welcoming with an air of, “let it not be too long before we come again!”  Biscuits will be baked to fill the tins and the pantry cupboard filled.  The preferred coffee will be bought that my visitors enjoy!

It is winter at the moment in Johannesburg, so I will set the scene for you.  A warm fireplace is lit for the evening drop in temperatures, the hearty soup is cooking on the stove, and the table is being laid for supper.  A hot steamy pudding is prepared for desert; it’s a time of sharing our life with you, our special visitors. 

During your stay, we will enjoy home made scones with jam and cream; freshly baked cakes for our tea time together.  We will share meals, stories and time together, bound to our heart to hold forever!  I cannot guarantee that you won’t pick up a pound or two during your stay but hopefully you’ll have lots to take home with you when it’s time to leave, that’s not in weight of the physical kind! 

So why not get your diary out, look at the calendar and make a date, I would hate for my welcome mat to get dusty and old. 

You are welcome to visit!

Cosy in a Coffee Shop

So finally, instead of hiding our cute tea cosies in a box, they are now proudly displayed in Manna Cafe, a lovely quaint coffee shop in Fourways worth visiting.  They make the best coffee and cakes in Jozi, so why not pay them a visit, directly opposite Monte Casino where Garden World used to be.  They also have the prettiest waitress in town!

Whip this cake up in a jiffy!

I am very excited to share this recipe with you, it literally takes just 4 ingredients, 5 if you are going to make it a chocolate cake instead of just a vanilla cake, so here goes from my tried and tested kitchen.

Ingredients:

125g Margarine

125g Sugar
125g Self Raising Flour
2 Medium Eggs(room temperature better as the cake will rise better)

Preparation:
1.  Heat the oven to 180C
2  Grease/Spray and Cook two 18cm cake tins, line with wax wrap if you prefer.  I used my oven proof rubberised type cake pans(if you can even call them that as they are rather floppy and I can't seem to see how they can be pans but, they most certainly make getting the cake out very easy) that I got from Clicks.
3.  Throw all the ingredients together, seriously yes, I didn't read the instructions and when I saw I had already added the flour in with the butter and only then added the sugar.  Give it all a jolly good beating, adding a little milk to get a nice dropping consistency, the result should be equally successful and YES, it was!

4.  Divide the mixture between the two cake tins, gently spreading with a spatula.

5.  Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, mine took just 15min in my thermofan oven.
6.  Allow to cool in tins and turn out.
7.  Sandwich the cakes together either with butter icing or whipped cream.

This little cake,(as it is a small cake) is perfect for a small family or even if it is just the two of you at home(children have left the home) as you will not have a huge cake to get through.  If you want to make it bigger, just double up and the result will be just fine.  If you prefer, you can just throw all the dough into one cake tin, bake and ice the top.

For the chocolate cake:
This is all purely Ala Janine as I figured if you substituted 25g of the self raising flour for cocoa powder, you would have a nice chocolate cake and YES again, so go ahead make a chocolate cake instead if you are craving chocolate!  When you make your butter icing, you usually need to add a little milk, instead of the milk make up a strong mixture of Ricoffy(or any other instant coffee), about a heaped teaspoon of coffee with a little bit of boiling water.  Add this to your butter icing for a nice chocolaty, coffee flavour, remembering that you will have added cocoa to your icing for the chocolate cake.

Disclaimer:
If your cake has turned out an absolute flop, this disclaimer protects the duplicator of this cake recipe from your demeanour in the kitchen and suggests you make sure that you added the eggs and more importantly, used "SELF RAISING" flour and not just ordinary cake flour.  It is suggested though that if you do use normal cake flour that you add 1 heaped teaspoon of baking powder to ensure a nice riser!

BAKE AND ENJOY!

Find original recipe at below link -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/sponge_cake

Where have you been?

Where have I been since the last time I blogged, and what have I been up to. Ok well I have been busy crocheting as always; I am busy with some stripy tea cosies.  

They are lovely cute tea cosies and turn out very pretty with an appliquéd crocheted heart or cup cake on the side just like the one in the photograph.  We, that is Sophie and I have also been very busy building up our stock of tea cosies as they are going into a coffee shop very soon for sale to the customers.  So we had better get cracking or should I say crocheting!  

In the meantime, it has been Emma's 6th birthday and as always I have totally exhausted myself in throwing a birthday party for her and baking an absolutely beautiful cake for the day.  Thankfully we only have one birthday per annum which allows us to totally forget about all the hard work that went into organising the previous birthday party. We, I say, meaning Tara (my eldest daughter) and myself gave Emma a Disney Princess birthday party.  Having viewed quite a few "Cake Boss" shows on TV and Googling for some images for Princess Castle cakes, we came up with a castle cake creation of our own.  It took Tara and me about 2 hours to ice the cake; it was great fun with everybody, including my Andre and Joshua sitting around the table while we were icing the cake.  We had to do a lot of guarding (from Andre and Joshua) of the sweets which we had poured out into bowls on the table for decorating. 

Emma with her Rapunzel Barbie from her Nanna and a beautifully knitted jersey from her Granny!

 Before all of this I finished a tea cosy for my mom for mother’s day, popped it into the post to Port Elizabeth and other than that, have just had my parents in law visiting for the weekend.

Excuse the grammatical errors as I am sure there are, but I must go and make supper now.  Busy, busy, busy, but all very enjoyable!

There is always time to bake scones on the weekend for breakfast!

Pretty in Pink

I love soft pink colours, in flowers, on teacups, on tea cosies, in roses and more.  I do not wear much pink though I do have a pink summer jersey. Here are a few photographs of some of the pink items I have photographed.

Pink Chrysanthemums

Pink rose with soft yellow stripes.

There is much inspiration in nature to get me crocheting another tea cosy!