It's a bit late but ...

Happy Valentine's day!



The great thing about these fancy cupcakes from the Maison Blanc bakery in Oxford is that they actually taste of something. The pink one has strawberry flavoured frosting and the white one is coconut and they were both totally delicious.

Woolly hat weather

I started this hat about a week ago when the recent cold snap was at its very frostiest. It's not so much that I needed another hat but I definitely needed a warmer hat.
After a quick trawl through Ravelry I settled on the 16 sixteen cables hat by Circe Belles Boucles. It looks stylish and cosy and a few people have already knit it in my chosen yarn, Rowan Lima. It's my first time knitting with Lima and I really love it. It's basically an aran weight icord which makes it very lightweight for an alpaca yarn.
Of course the weather's now getting warmer which is great but I hope it will stay cold enough to get a couple of wears out of my new hat before Spring really sets in.

Rainbow Battenberg cake

No, that's not the version of Android that my new phone is running but rather my birthday cake. I first saw and tried this cake at Teacup in Manchester and immediately wanted to try and have a go at making it for myself. I followed the recipe for Battenburg [sic] cake in Leiths Baking Bible but made one and a half times the quantity of mixture and of course added colouring.

I created the different layers by first dividing the mixture into three and colouring it red, green, and blue. I don't know the exact quantities of food colouring used, just that it was enough to get a satisfyingly vivid shade of each colour. I then took roughly two quarters of each colour and combined them separately to make green, orange and purple. I then put the mixture into two square 20 cm tins with three stripes in each tin. I didn't bother to separate them in any way, just put them in carefully and hoped they wouldn't mingle too much. I baked the two cakes at 180°C for around 20 minutes.Once the cakes were cooled I cut each cake into three, sandwiched them with apricot jam, trimmed the edges and wrapped the whole thing in marzipan. I should warn you that the cakes will not look rainbow coloured when they come out of the oven, their technicoloured tendencies will only appear once you cut into them.

I will definitely be making this again. I'd like to make the division between the colours neater and (although it tasted fine) I'd like to do a little more to promote flavour over colour, maybe by using natural fruit colours.

Written on my shiny new Android phone.

Greetings from Prague

[photo credit: Hélio]

Having a lovely time with Jenny and Nadine in Prague - home tonight. Liz x

o w l s sweater

I finally finished my first* o w l s sweater the week before last and I love it. It's like a great big cuddle from the wool fairy (to paraphrase Greg Wallace) and I've worn it several times already. Before I finished it I was worried that it might be too warm, thus limiting opportunities for wear, but it's perfect - just the right amount of cosiness for the office and it will definitely keep me warm during my Prague trip** this weekend. I've left the owls eyeless as I tried about half a dozen different buttons in John Lewis and none looked better than without buttons.



The sweater is knit from almost 600 grams of Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds chunky weight yarn in grey Suffolk. I really like this yarn, it's soft enough to be wearable next to the skin but is sturdy enough to be characterful and it has excellent stitch definition - very important for making those owls pop out. It's the same yarn which Kate Davies used to make her original owls sweater and in fact the yarn was a gift from Kate when she was destashing before Christmas. It seemed like there was only one sweater which I ought to knit with it!



Pattern: o w l s by Kate Davies
Yarn: Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds chunky in Grey Suffolk (600g)
Needles: 6mm and 6.5mm circs
Size: Medium to Small (i.e. started off knitting the medium but realised at the yoke that the number of stitches I had was nearer to the small - not really quite sure how).
Modifications: missed out short rows below the yoke
Location: Somerville SCR - I must do more photoshoots here, I love the decor
Ravelled: here

* note there is another one on the way.
** of course if Jenny is also planning to take her sweater too we may end up looking worryingly matchy matchy.

Wee cardigans

I got a commission over Christmas to knit two more of these wee short sleeved cardigans for my little niece Kate. Apparently she's nearly grown out of the last two that I knit due to (i) her growing and (ii) my sister achieving what I thought was the near impossible feat of felting Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino.





The pattern is (once again) the snappily titled 0-684 Baby Cardigan with Short/Long Raglan Sleeves. The first one is knit in Artesano Merino dk (I only just found out they do wool as well as alpaca) and the second is in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in a rather fabulous red.





The buttons are from John Lewis and are clear plastic with a tiny flower design which makes them very easy to match to any yarn.




I'll try to get pictures of Kate wearing these once they're delivered. In the meantime here's a shot of her with some of her bunny friends.

Favourite things

I seem to remember that Maria von Trapp sang about warm apple strudel under this category but that's probably because she never tried rhubarb sharlotka.



Earlier in the week I made apple sharlotka following the recipe on Smitten Kitchen. Given that I was down to my last slice of that and that my husband had brought home rhubarb from the supermarket there was really only one course of action.



I loved the apple sharlotka but I think this might be even better. The tart rhubarb contrasts wonderfully with the sweet meringuey sponge and visually the pink rhubarb is fantastic. I served this wolfed this down with a dollop of half fat creme fraiche (because there is absolutely nothing that doesn't taste better with a dollop of creme fraiche on the side).

Somehow three sticks of rhubarb don't seem to bulk up quite the same as 6 Granny Smith apples so rather than making a single 9" cake I made two cakes using 5" ramekins and two thirds of the mixture. Obviously if you have more rhubarb then feel free to make the full size cake following Deb's directions over at SK.

Ingredients:
3 sticks rhubarb
2 eggs
2/3 cup/133g sugar
2/3 cup/83g plain flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
ground cinnamon and ground sugar for powdering
butter to grease ramekins

Directions:
Line two 5" ramekins with buttered greaseproof paper and pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C.
Chop rhubarb into half inch slices and divide between ramekins.
Beat eggs and sugar together until thick and moussey then beat in vanilla extract.
Stir in flour until just combined then pour batter over the rhubarb.
Stir rhubarb and batter mixture around a bit so that some bits of rhubarb poke out of the top.
Put ramekins in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until top of cake is golden brown and a skewer comes out clean.

5-a-day

It still counts if it's in cake form, right?



As soon as I read this recipe on Smitten Kitchen (my absolute favourite cookery blog) I knew I wanted to make it. Actually I have that response to most of the recipes on Smitten Kitchen but this has so few ingredients and looked so straightforward that I picked up some apples on my way home from work and a couple of hours later had my very own apple sharlotka. It's delicious with a dollop of creme fraiche.