Category Archives: celebrations

simnel cake :: 2

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cakeHere it is, this year’s Simnel cake basking in the only sunshine we’ve had this Easter.

According to Jenny Baker, who cites The Art of British Cooking, by Theodora Fitzgibbon, as her source, Simnel cake derives its name from the Roman siminellus which was a special bread eaten during spring fertility rites. Later, the name attached itself to a fruit cake enriched with marzipan which girls in service were allowed to take home to their mothers on Mothering Sunday. Perhaps the Roman bread was transformed over the years, and it became the enriched cake. Who knows? Either way, the cake has become associated with Easter and, like its Christmas cousin, it is a cake that keeps well. So although Easter Sunday has been and gone, for most families the school holiday has only just begun, which means that there is plenty of time to bake and consume this cake.

So here is the recipe I use, from Jenny Baker’s Kettle Broth to Gooseberry Fool,  though I imagine that there are many other versions out there online.

This one calls for an 18cm (7inch) tin with tall sides, and I think the dimensions are important as the cake doesn’t rise much — there is no raising agent.

Ingredients:

350g marzipan (the recipe in the last post will give you more than enough, I roll the scraps into balls and dip them in melted chocolate as you can see here if you scroll to the end of the post); 100g butter or margarine; 100g soft brown sugar; 3 large eggs, beaten; 150g plain flour, sifted; 1/2 tsp mixed spice; 350g mixed dried fruit; 50g chopped mixed peel;1 lemon, grated rind and juice; Apricot jam;1 egg white for the glaze.

Heat oven gas mark 3/325/160. Grease and line tin.

Take one third of the marzipan and knead it and roll into a disc the same size as the cake tin. Set to one side

Cream butte and sugar together and once it is light and fluffy add the eggs, one at a time. Fold in the sifted flour, mixed spice , dried fruit, mixed peel, lemon juice and zest.

Pour HALF the mixture into the tin, level it and then place the marzipan disc on top. Pour the rest of the mixture on top, smoothing it over.

Bake for 1 hour at gas mark 3 / 325/160 and then lower the temperature to gas mark 2/ 300/150, and bake for another hour.

Allow cake to cool and turn it onto a rack after about ten minutes. Once totally cold, brush the top with apricot jam, roll another third of the marzipan into a disc and place this on top. With the remaining marzipan make eleven balls (to represent the eleven faithful apostles). Brush with egg white and then return to the oven for ten minutes until the top is lightly browned – gas mark 4/350/190.

happy christmas

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P1190649                                   We had a lovely day, hope you did too.

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and, better late than never, our wreath …

P1190516made from a swatch of weeping birch twigs which I found on the pavement on Christmas morning last year and kept for just this purpose. A rare (and embarrassingly excessive), bit of forward planning.

wreath round-up

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P1190454Last year I became so obsessed with the wonderful local wreaths I started photographing them, much to the embarrassment of the girls who were usually with when I took the pictures. This year, having made a note of the whereabouts of my favourite Christmas displays, I went out alone and photographed them over the course of one very circuitous walk up to school. I recognised some of the wreaths from last year, though the brussels were adorning a different door last December.

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This is by no means a comprehensive survey of local weaths – since taking these photos more and more have appeared, all very photogenic but the weather has been against me  (incessant rain and terrible light), so I haven’t been able to photograph them.

I haven’t been able to photograph our wreath either, as it only went up an hour ago and the light had gone, so I’ll post it tomorrow along with a picture of the tree – though I’ve discovered that Christmas trees are very hard to photograph.

NB There is another nice wreath round-up at Spring Cottage.

back on track, sort of…

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P1190367A week has passed by in a blur of coughing and paracetamol. Ten days ago, I was
ahead of the game, this morning I realise that this is no longer the case and the annual Christmas panic, the panic I was hoping to avoid this year, is upon me once more. It’s
part of the tradition, I suppose. On the bright side, the girls made some paper chains, and there is a half-decorated tree in the sitting room.

P1190369 I had planned a few more Bristol Christmas shopping posts, but time is running out on that front. I will however, mention two nice shows which are worth visiting if you are in Bristol and  still searching for one or two special presents.

centre space

The first is the annual Centre Space Studios Christmas exhibition, Spruce, a mixed show featuring prints, paintings, textiles and sculpture. Prices range from £5 to several hundred pounds. The gallery is open daily from 11am to 5pm until Thursday 20th December. The gallery is on Leonard Lane, just off Corn Street and a stone’s throw from St Nicks, so you can easily combine a visit to both.

P1190112The second show is The December Gallery Group at Bristol Guild, which includes works by five Bristol-based artists, the most interesting of whom is Joanna Wright. I must register a slight bias here in that I have known Jo all my life, but the fact remains her paintings, her prints and her exquisite screen-printed, appliquéd and beaded cushions, are all really wonderful. I am a huge fan of her work, not least I suppose because so many of her images contain my two great passions – plants and lovely old bits of china.

P1190117 P1190116My photographs really do not do justice to her work, but the show runs until Christmas Eve so if you are rushing about on Park Street over the next week or so, make a point of popping in to The Guild, and head up to the top floor gallery space.

christmas: making and baking

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baking plansTime to dust off a favourite cookery book – Linda Collister’s Christmas Treats to Make and Give. The girls are still in full baking mode (both Martha and Bea have been to GB Bake-off themed birthday parties in the last fortnight, and their cousin is threatening Matilda with something similar along the lines of Come Dine With Me), so I thought it would be a good idea to channel their enthusiasm and get them to bake some Christmas presents.

For my part, I am planning to make a few treats from Diana Henry’s excellent Salt Sugar Smoke. I have already raided Ikea’s kitchen department and have a large stash of jars at the ready, along with some really lovely labels (also from the Swedish giant). Just need to brave the high street in search of the ingredients…

only in bristol…

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P1190130Since moving to Bristol six years ago, barely a week has gone by in which I haven’t thought “only in Bristol…” at some point; usually in a good way, though sometimes (whilst waiting for the unbelievably s l o w arrival of a cup of coffee), in a bad way.

Today’s “only in Bristol” moment was 100 per cent good …

P1190137P1190136P1190146… several hundred Father Christmases (and one Kermit the frog!) rumbling and roaring down Park Street on their motorbikes. At one point it looked as though a very noisy red carpet had been rolled down the hill – if you squint at the rather bad photo below you’ll get some sense of what I mean (oh, for a telephoto lens!).

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The event, Santa’s on a Bike, takes place each year apparently, though this is the first time I’ve been lucky enough to witness it. Bikers gather all over the South West before converging on Bristol and heading to The Children’s Hospice South West laden with gifts.

creepy

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The rain came down but that didn’t put anyone off. Although only nine houses hosted happenings, the street was so full of children in fancy dress it looked like the set of ET.

As you can see, I managed to make Martha’s cape. I kept putting it off, the material felt so slippery and horrible I didn’t want to touch it, and beyond Martha’s drawing, I didn’t have a pattern to work from – cape construction is not really my thing. But at 5 o’clock this evening I had to face my demons and get on with it. Amazingly it took about five minutes – incredible what you can do when you are against the clock and beyond caring. The drape of the fabric is very forgiving, completely concealing my shoddy pleating. Martha, who had given up all hope of wearing a cape, was suitably impressed.

We are all off to Dorset tomorrow to recover.

planning

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I know that Halloween is not to everyone’s taste, but in Montpelier it is celebrated with great enthusiasm (previous years’ fun here and here), though this year’s bash may be a rather low-key affair as it falls in the middle of half term and lots of families are away.

But of course none of this has dampened the girls’ excitement. In fact discussions have been underway for some time now: the picture above, which I thought was just another one of Martha’s endless drawings – she produces a lot – is actually a costume design. A design she is expecting me to follow when I make her costume. From scratch. Today. Eh?

When I complained that I’d had no warning, there was a loud chorus of “but mum you said you’d make me a dead bride/zombie red riding hood/creey doll costume” which, when I glowered at them across the breakfast table, quickly became a slightly sheepish, “well you didn’t say you wouldn’t!” So we are all off to Fabric Land in an hour or so, in search of red fleece, white netting, and whatever else I think I might be able to magic into something spooky with my limited sewing skills. We’ll tackle the pumpkin tonight.

eek!

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It’s Bea’s eleventh birthday on Tuesday and so we threw a little party on Saturday.

Matilda and Martha usually have very clear ideas about what they want to do for their birthdays, who they want to invite and what they want in the way of presents.

Bea is only ever clear about one thing – the cake.

This year she wanted a zombie.

Hidden beneath the thick layer of green icing is my go-to birthday cake – Nigella’s buttermilk birthday cake which I have written about many times (prettier version here).
I make one cake, slice it in two and then layer it back together again with Nutella into which I whip lots of double cream. If you are tempted to try this, be warned: the Nutella always resists the addition at first, and then sort of gives up and goes soft and glossy and completely delicious.

chin, chin

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One morning last week, as the end of term chaos reached its peak, I tilted my head back all the better to yell something along the lines of “please do hurry up my darlings, we are really rather late”, and my neck went ping!

And that was that.

I’ve been in bed or at the osteopath ever since.

But this morning, all the pulling, pushing, twisting and prodding, not to mention pill-popping, of the past five days has finally worked, and I woke feeling bruised and stiff, but able, at last, to move my head without pain.

Hurrah! The girls and I celebrated with homemade lemonade*.

Interestingly, although I was completely incapacitated, the world continued to turn, and the house appeared to run itself rather efficiently without me. Not sure how I feel about that.

*Home made lemonade – recipes for this abound. We took the peel from four lemons and steeped it in around 1ltr of boiling water along with 100g of caster sugar, for three hours. I then squeezed the juice of the lemons into the pan before straining it all into a jug. The colour you see is entirely natural, the flavour is delicious: not too sweet or sour, but properly lemony. The recipe comes from the River Cottage Family Cook Book.