Fruit Bread

Ever since I've been making my own bread I've been dying to make a fruit bread. Yesterday was the day, but I couldn't find a fruit bread recipe in my cookbooks, so I just used the Edmond's Hot Cross Bun Recipe...but I forgot that last time I made it up it didn't rise well, which I put down to my yeast...not this time, yeast was fresh with the last groceries, its just the recipe I've decided. So after leaving it most of the day to rise and it not getting far, I gave it its punch down and knead, divided it into four equal parts, kneaded again and rolled into long sausages. Once I had done that with all four, I put them on a floured baking tray and plaited them together. Something went wrong with my plait at the start but it came right after that. Baked it for 30min like I do my white bread and then glazed it with the Hot Cross Bun glaze.

It looks good, tastes ok. Its a bit dense. But then I toasted it this morning, and apart from losing a couple of wee bits in the toaster, it tastes almost like bought fruit bread...but better, because I made it.

I am going to hunt out a better recipe though and try again...or modify my white bread recipe which doesn't seem to fail and try that as a fruit bread.

To Market...

On Facebook a couple of weeks ago I saw a market day advertised for the first weekend of November. I'm pretty good at humming and haaing about things, so I hummed and haa-ed about this too, then finally decided that I'd put it to Mum, and ask her if she would do a stall with me to sell our cards. She was up for the challenge, and the paperwork has been sent off.

This past 10 days or so I've spent every evening that I've had free making card's to sell at this market day. I've made roughly 25 so far, and have about 10 more to make before I'll call that enough.

It also means I get to try out some new techniques and some new stamps that I've bought recently. I'm pretty happy with what I've come up with so far.

I've started on the next project for the stall...bibs, figure I'll make about half a dozen or so of them and then move on to something else.

Now to get back to the creating of cards.

All Thing Red Velvet

Last week I found a recipe on a friend's pinterest for Red Velvet Fudge Brownie, and I HAD to try it, especially seeing as I had all the ingredients in my pantry. It was to die for! Just the perfect chewiness, redness, yumminess, especially when paired with a cream cheese icing.

The picture, does not do it justice. And I should have let the icing set first, but I was so impatient to try it. This is where you can find the recipe to try it for yourself.

So then, this week when I wanted something to bake, I decided I'd make cupcakes, and as I was flicking through my cupcake recipes I found....red velvet!...thank you to my sister Sonia, who sent me that recipe last year, so once again, with cream cheese icing, I have red velvet to eat. They're good, but a bit overcooked on the bottom, and uneven, could have done with a bit more mixing. I did have a helper, who wanted to lick all the spatula's as I went.

And then...just to top it all off...I made some red velvet and white choc chip cookies, which are SO good, the perfect cakey texture. I do think I would add more choc chips next time though.

Here's the link for the recipe for those.

I am now out of red food colouring so for now my red velvet adventures are over...but I still want to make red velvet cheesecake, and an ordinary red velvet cake....next payday perhaps...

Sewing, sewing, sewing

With all this lovely summery weather we're getting so early on in Spring, I realised William had only one pair of shorts, and all my casual skirts had been worn through two pregnancies and since binned. So after a trip to the fabric shop, and a morning at the sewing machine, I'm now half way to this weeks mission of sewing 2 skirts and 2 pairs of shorts. And the bonus is, they both fit!

 A simple A-line skirt, with a zip at the side, in a quilters cotton, picked up on the clearance table at Spotlight for $10/m. Total cost of the skirt was approx $17 incl zip.

William's first pair of shorts, again fabric picked up on the clearance table at Spotlight, this time $6/m, and I probably only used 0.25m of it, so only $2-3 for the pair of shorts.

Much cheaper than $60 for a skirt and $20 for a pair of shorts in the shop...now just to find the time to get the rest sewn up.

Homemade White Bread

I've taken to making my own bread lately. I just got completely over buying bread, at minimum $1.50 a loaf when we go through nearly a loaf a day. I used to make all our own bread, when we first got married...with the help of a breadmaker, which subsequently died from overuse. With the price of breadmakers now, and our budget looking a bit sad, I decided that I'd make my bread the old fashioned way. Who needs a fancy machine to do all the hard work? Not me! And you know what?! It doesn't take all that much work after all. Mix it all up, give it a quick knead, leave it to rise, knead again, split the dough, pop into a loaf tin, leave to rise again and pop in the oven for 30min and Bob's your uncle you've got yourself a loaf of bread...and gotten rid of any frustrations you may have been harbouring with all that kneading. Plus, you don't have to wait around during the rising time, just get on and do the housework, or do something else, check on it 30-60min later and its fine. Just don't leave it til you really need bread to make the next loaf. I had planned to try a few different recipes, but so far I've only used the recipe out of the Edmond's Cookbook, it rose so nicely and has a nice taste that I haven't bothered to look any further yet, plus I've made 4 or 5 loaves now and it hasn't failed yet. I also like that homemade bread fills you up a bit more than shop bought stuff.
If you can't get your hands on an Edmond's Cookbook, here's the recipe so you too can give it a go:

5 cups Flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons yeast
3/4 cup cold water
2 tablespoons oil
3/4 cup boiling water
oil

Eggwash -
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon water

Combine 2 cups flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a large bowl. Add cold water and oil, immediately followed by boiling water. Stir to a smooth paste and stand 2-3 minutes. Gradually mix 2 cups of flour into the yeast mixture.
When flour is mixed in, turn out onto a lightly floured surface, using part of the reserved cup of flour for this. Knead dough until smooth and elastic. If the dough is still sticky, add a little of the remaining measured flour, kneading until smooth and elastic, or until dough springs back when lightly touched. Lightly brush large bowl with oil. Place dough in bowl. Brush top with a little oil. Cover. Put in a warm place until double in size. Punch dough down in the centre. Carefully take dough out of bowl and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for 5 minutes. Divide dough in half. Shape each portion into a ball. Place the two balls side by side in a greased deep 22cm loaf tin. Cover. Leave in a warm place until double in size or until dough reaches top of tin. Brush surface of dough with egg wash. If wished, sesame seeds, oat bran or poppy seeds can be sprinkled on top. Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 30minutes or until loaf sounds hollow when tapped on base of bread.

Eggwash
Combine egg yolk and water.

Choc Chip Cookies

This has to be THE BEST Choc Chip Cookie recipe ever!

Seriously, my 1 year old can't get enough of them, I'll give him one and he finishes it and goes back to the pantry and tries to get it open to get another one, when I don't let him have another we get a tantrum....all for a cookie! When he saw them cooling on the bench and I wouldn't let him have one, because it was just before dinner, we got a big tantrum too. We got giggles when I pulled a tray out of the oven....until he realised he still wasn't getting one.

They're just the perfect texture, perfect vanilla flavour.

Here's the recipe:

225g Butter
3/4 Cup Packed Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup White Sugar
1 packet Vanilla Instant Pudding Mix
2 Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
2 1/4 Cups Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 Cup Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Add pudding mix, eggs and vanilla. Sift in flour and baking soda, mix well. Fold in chocolate chips.
Drop teaspoonfuls onto baking sheets. Bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.

This made me 48 biscuits.