Monday Review - Edinburgh

We have had another lovely busy week in Edinburgh.  We stayed with BestFriend at the start of our week away - it now seems like ages ago!  We went to see Hotel Transylvania on Sunday, which was good - not laugh out loud but a enjoyable film.   It has been a week of going to the Cinema as we also went to see Madagascar 3 and Skyfall.   Skyfall was excellent - my favourite Daniel Craig bond film so far.   

We had a very exciting afternoon on Tuesday - Minibakebakegirl and I met a Twitter friend for the first time, @mhairigirl who is a fellow #twitknitclub member. I have tweeted with @mhairigirl for well over a year so it does feel like I know her well, however, it could have been really awkward meeting and not having anything to say but we chatted away over lovely coffee/hot chocolate and cake at Eteaket.  We swapped presents. @mhairigirl gave me a lovely shamballa bracelet that she had made and homemade tablet - yum!  I gave her a little knitted owl I had made (filled with Hitchin Lavender) and a owl mug.  We chatted about our fellow twitknitters and that we hopefully will be able to have a larger meetup - we are all dotted over the country so location could be an issue - but I'm sure we can work something out! 

On Thursday Minibakebakegirl and I went for coffee at Brewlab.  I was intruigued by the coffee lab concept having followed them on Instagram and seen their brewing pictures.  The coffee did not disappoint - delicious and so was the spiced treacle gingerbread cake that I had.  Minibakebakegirl had hot chocolate and a brownie and gave it 9/10!   Their selection of cakes was good - we will definitely go back. 
  

We met Sister in the Grassmarket in the afternoon who whisked us to Victoria Street as they were filming Case Histories.  We walked up and down and eventually saw Jason Issacs at the window - not the best photo but that is him!  When I lived in Edinburgh I worked in the building at the top of Victoria Street that they were filming in.   I'm sure the room he is in was where the IT department was!  Can't wait for the new series to start - I love seeing all the bits of Edinburgh - and of course Jason Issacs who makes a perfect Jackson Brodie.

 

 

 

 

On Saturday we went to Pressmennan Wood - which is a Woodland Trust wood in East Lothian.   It is beautiful with Pressmennan Lake at the bottom which is one of only four true lakes in Scotland, the rest are lochs.   In some of the trees are little windows and doors where the Glingbobs and Tootflits live.  It really is a magical place and so pretty  this weekend with the autumn colours.

 

 

 

 

 

Bakebakegirl

Todays top three radio songs:
1. Forever Autumn - Gary Barlow
2. Candy - Robbie Williams
3. Will you still love me tomorrow - The Shirelles

Thursday Makes - Twit Knit Club the story so far.....

I joined twitter to follow people, tweeted a few times, then discovered #twitknitclub and my love/addiction of twitter started :o)

Twitknitclub is a fabulous group of people on Twitter who were brought together by @scarlykfcurtis with a love of all things knitty (and lots of other things, shoes, films, tv, stationery anything sparkly!).  A project is set with a theme,  then we all tweet about our progress, posting pictures, encouraging and helping each other along the way.

When I was wee my Mum would cast on and I would knit rows and rows - if I went wrong she would fix it then I would continue knitting until I got bored, Mum would cast off and ta-da Teddy had a new scarf.   Back in 2010, Sister (who is an excellent knitter) taught me how to cast on and off and purl and I knitted a couple of blue squares. They were lurking in a plastic bag in the spare room.

Project One  - A patchwork blanket.
This was great for me as I could only knit squares and had already done a couple!  I have added to it and sewn it together since this picture was taken.

Project Two -  A toy.
I chose a ladybug from the Stitch London Blog and ended up knitting a little ladybug family.  For this pattern I learnt how to M1 and K2tog. 

Project Three - A hat.
My pattern came from a knitting book Hubby had bought Minibakebakegirl.  I learnt how to rib (via youtube - amazing for how to knitting videos!)  The flower also came from the book and I added a button.

Project Four - Food
My favourite project so far.  Ernie!  I got the pattern from Ravelry. I learnt how to do colour work for the MILK.  The knitting was the easy part of this project - the sewing up....not so!

Project Five - Christmas
I bought a little book 20 to Make - Mini Christmas Knits and knitted a robin.   I learnt so much knitting this little chap.  Icords for his legs and major shaping was involved! Again youtube was a huge help.  I'm looking forward to seeing him again when we get the christmas boxes down from the loft.

Project Six - Valentines
I had been poorly for a couple of weeks and having spent a lot of time with a hot water bottle on my face (I had sinusitis) I decided to knit a cover for my mini hot water bottle.  I googled a few patterns but ended up making up my own (look at me!).  I sewed a knitted heart to the front.

Project Seven - Knitrelief
Scarlett had the amazing idea to set up Knitrelief on ebay for us to auction off crafty items for Sport Relief.  I decided to knit another Ernie. 

The auction went live on the Friday and I thought that if he went for £10 that would be quite respectable.   On the Thursday night Scarlett sent out an email stating that if we could deliver our items to her house they might be on Sunday Brunch on Channel 4.  I emailed Scarlet to say we could deliver on Saturday.

By Friday night Milky was at £16!

On Saturday morning me and Minibakebakegirl set off on our exciting delivery trip.  Arriving at Scarletts at the same time as us was the lovely @goldenblades91 delivering her beautiful rain cloud.  Scarlett was so sweet and Posy her dog was a cutie.  Minbakebakegirl was very quiet the whole time - she later admitted that Scarlett was her hero and was a bit awestruck :o) 

The next morning we were going to Sisterinlaws to wish  Nephew1 and Nephew2 both happy birthday.  We watched about an hour of Sunday Brunch (no sign of Milky) and then got in the car - recording the rest.  My twitknit friends kept me updated and yes Milky made a (very) brief appearance!  

The auction was ending at 7pm that night and from about 6pm the three of us and Ernie were huddled round the laptop watching the bids go up!  We counted down the last 10 seconds and in the end he went for £56!  Well of course, he was a television celebrity!

I don't know who won him and Ernie does miss him but I have bought pink wool to knit him a girlfriend :oD

Bakebakegirl

Monday No Bake - Lemon Cheesecake Spider Webs

I bought these halloweeny cases for cupcakes and then saw a recipe for individual cheesecakes in Sainsburys magazine.   I usually either make baked cheesecakes or cheesecakes made with condensed milk and lemon juice. This recipe uses gelatine which I have never used before.  The leaves are exactly as Nigella describes - little fairytale castle windows!  I found it very easy to use.

Ingredients:
1 x 160g pack Taste the Difference Lemon Shortbread Thins (or digestive biscuits)
40g butter, melted
6 sheets leaf gelatine
50g caster sugar
150g full fat cream cheese at room temperature
200ml double cream at room temperature
zest and juice of 2 lemons
1 x 197g tin condensed milk
50g dark chocolate

Method:
Line a 12 hole muffin tine with paper cases .
Bash the biscuits in a freezer bag until they resemble fine crumbs.  Pour into a bowl and stir in the melted butter.   Divide between the cases, press down - I found this easiest with a shot glass.  Chill.

Soak the gelatine leaves in a shallow bowl of cold water for 5 minutes, remove by hand, squeezing out the excess water and place in a small saucepan with 3 tablespoons of water.  Stir over a very low heat until dissolved.

Put the sugar and cream cheese in a large bowl and whisk until combined,  Add the double cream, lemon zest and juice, condensed milk and dissolved gelatine, whisk with an electric hand whisk  until smooth and slightly thickened.  Divide the mixture equally among the paper cases, filling them to the top.

Pour the melted chocolate into a disposable piping bag and snip off the tip.  Pipe a spiral on to the top of one cheesecake and immediately draw lines from the centre out to the edge to make it look like a spiders web.  Repeat this with the remaining cheesecakes.  At first I piped four spirals on the top row of cheesecakes and then when I went back to draw the lines the chocolate had already set! 

Chill for 3 to 4 hours until set.

 

 



 

This could also be made as one big cheesecake in a springform tin - delicious! 

 

See you next week,
Bakebakegirl

Todays top three Spotify songs:

1. Never Tear Us Apart - Paloma Faith 
2. Carmina Burana - O Fortuna - London Philharmonic Orchestra
3. Devil Woman - Cliff Richard

Monday No Bake - Chocolate Dipped Honeycomb

 

I love halloween/bonfire night.  When I was a teenager BestFriends Aunt and Uncle would have a party every year and I loved the fireworks and the food!  Baked potatoes,  sausages, BestFriends mums slab cake....ooooh I must seek out a recipe for that! 

In this months Sainsburys magazine I spied a recipe for Chocolate dipped Honeycomb.  I have never made this before but felt the wizardry bit of the reaction of the bicarbonate of soda would interest Minibakebakegirl!

Ingredients:
25g light brown soft sugar
125g caster sugar
4 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
100g plain chocolate

Method:
Line a 20x30 cm baking tray with nonstick baking paper.
Gently heat the sugars and the golden syrup in a medium pan, stirring until the sugar has melted.  Bubble vigorously for 1 minute.
Remove from the heat and stir in the bicarbonate of soda and see the mixture froth up.  Immediately pour onto the lined baking tray.  Leave to cool.

Melt the chocolate in a small bowl.

Break the honeycomb into shards and dip the ends in the melted chocolate. Set in the fridge.  Store in an airtight container.

Please be careful if you make this as the molten sugar is very hot - I burnt my finger....but we did oooooh when it frothed up like magic!

 

 

 

This is yummy - far too moreish and didn't last long in our house!

Bakebakegirl

Todays top three Spotify songs;

1. Ghostbusters - Ray Parker Jr
2. Devil Inside - INXS
3. Hungry Like The Wolf - Duran Duran

Monday Inspiration - Apple Streusel Cake

 

What beautiful autumn weather we have had again this weekend.  I love autumn when it is really cold with bright blue skys - I can wrap up and wear my winter boots.   One other thing I like about autumn is apples.  The house at the end of our road leaves out bags of apples for free and another house leaves huge bags of apples for £1.....but they haven't this year.  Am I too early for them, are people being stingy or are there just not as many apples this year.....I use them in so many recipes from simple apple sauce to puddings and cakes to chutneys - I need my free/cheap apples!  

We have had a small crop of apples from our little patio apple tree so I looked through my cook books for a special new apple recipe to use them in.  I found a recipe in the Hummingbird Bakery Book - Cake Days. 

 

For this recipe you make a sponge, put sliced apples on top and then a crumble mixure on top of that.

 



 

 

We had a slice after tea with custard but it would be fine on its own with a cup of tea/coffee, oooh or with icecream or just cream.   Nice warm or cold!  I'll definitely be making this again - so many possibilities!

 

 

 

Keep cosy, see you next week.

 

Bakebakegirl

 

This weekends top Just Dance 4 songs:

 

1. Rock Lobster - B52's

2. Maneater - Nelly Furtado

3. Crucified - Army of Lovers







Monday Inspiration - Sticky Toffee Pudding

 

I have been away this weekend with 4 friends staying in FriendV's holiday home in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park.   We had such a beautiful weekend - the weather was fantastic.  Bright blue skys and lots of sunshine.  We did 2 large walks and  lots of chatting and laughing - it was really good to spend a good chunk of time together but the time went too quickly.  I shared a room with BestFriend and we realised we hadn't done that since the night before her wedding....14 years ago!

FriendS brought a bag of Mojito to have before dinner - what a great idea for a party - seemingly they do Cosmopolitans too - so may have to pop to Asda to investigate..... 

With pudding on Saturday night we tried Chocolate Wine.   I really liked it, more like sherry than wine, smells of chocolate, very sweet but with the chocolate taste at the end.  (Good grief - what an awful description - I am no Jilly Goolden!) 

As I was travelling back from Edinburgh today my baking comes from last week.  I made Lorraine Pascals sticky toffee pudding from her Baking Made Easy book. I used this recipe as I wanted to use the pudding tins I bought for nigellas Chocolate Baby Cakes and made individual portions.    However I found this recipe filled 8 pudding tins - so I think next time I will half the quantities.  The sauce is gorgeous and a perfect amount though!  It was a good recipe and everyone enjoyed it!  I usually make one large sticky toffee cake (sometimes Rachel Allens chocolate one - yum!)

 



Finally here are some more pictures from my weekend away - hope to see you next week.  (If you double click on the first picture you can scroll through them.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This weekends top radio songs:

1. Gangnam Style - Psy
2. Moves Like Jagger - Maroon 5
3. Where is The Love - Black Eyed Peas