Magic Pudding explained.

 

Vanilla ice-cream is the perfect accompaniment for this pudding.

A few years ago I wrote a blog on Magic Pudding ….. or at least I thought I did but when I actually searched for the post, I realised that I had only done the recipe with a picture of a portion of the pudding. I hadn’t explained why it has ‘magic’ in the title!

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A belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Some of the treats baked for Christmas & the Mudlets’ house

Time has flown this year, more so than in other years I feel, and even Christmas has whizzed by in a blink of an eye and 2019 is just two more sleeps away. This Christmas I’ve baked new and old favourites and will be making more sweet treats for the Mudlets over the next day or so.

Middle Mudlets’ Garden: May

Middle Mudlet planting out her beans.

Over the last two weekends the Mudlets have spent some time in the garden with me, Little Mudlet helping with the general garden whilst her sister worked on her own patch. The improving weather has really benefitted our own plants but on the flip side, the weeds have also relished the warmth and have started to break through in those areas where we have cleared the mulch away. 

Tea for four

Not perfect but I was really happy with how well this cake turned out

Little Mudlet turned 10 a short while ago and to celebrate this special birthday, I decided that not only did she need a more grown up style party and I would have to come up with a cake to match the venue. We settled on the idea of a pottery painting party for Little Mudlet, two of her friends and Middle Mudlet, at the local pottery studio/shop called “Live, Love and Create”, followed by a rather grown-up tea party at “Shipley’s Curiositeas”, a lovely little tea shop opposite the studio. I’ll cover the pottery and tea party in another post because THIS post is all about the cake ………..

Tunic dress in King Cole Riot dk

The tunic I’m making and the yarn

Having experienced the challenge of Middle Mudlets’ pretty but complicated lace sweater, I opted for a project which uses a mostly plain stocking stitch for my next make. I found many ‘okay’ patterns whilst I was looking for a project for myself but nothing really sang out at me until, that is, I found a King Cole leaflet with a beautiful pair of patterns on it. One was a sweater dress with short sleeves and the other a tunic length dress with three quarter sleeves. I really liked both patterns but chose to make the tunic rather than the dress this time, although I do intend to make both eventually.

Another year, another cake

Middle Mudlet was thrilled with her cake

When Middle Mudlet started secondary school last September, the one thing she was really looking forward to was the chance to study a musical instrument and specifically the guitar. The school she attends is a Music and IT specialist school and so all pupils are offered the opportunity to audition for music lesson and she sailed through her audition, even though she had never held a real guitar in her life. Now 8 months on, she has become quite adept and the sound of the guitar being played is the norm, as she puts in the practice required by her teacher, in readiness for her grade 1 exam.

Cottage loaves

I was quite pleased with the detail on these loaves

My derelict gingerbread cake village has long since vanished into the mouths of the Mudlets but the urge to try and produce something using the mould, that captured all the fine detail of the windows, roofs and chimneys led me to try a completely different approach. The absence of baking beans or spare rice meant that I was still unable to try baking an actual gingerbread village just yet but what I did have in abundance, was the ingredients needed to bake bread and specifically bread buns and so I though it would be fun to try and make some cottage shaped bread buns – some cottage loaves if you like.

A (derelict) Gingerbread Village for Chuck

A new toy for me: my fabulous gingerbread village mould

We received a surprise package the other day, a parcel of gifts from Chuck in America and one of the items was this really rather special looking silicone gingerbread village cake mould. I couldn’t wait to try it out but Mud reminded me that it was a Christmas Present and so I put it away and tried not to sulk too much. Then in an email to Mud, Chuck commented that he would be watching with interest to see if a post on using the mould appeared on my blog and that was all the encouragement I needed to get baking. I’ve never used a silicone mould of any description before and so I read up about other peoples experiences and with a mixture of apprehension and excitement, I set about trying to make a gingerbread village.

Cold enough for parsnips

The first roots of the year

As November marched onwards with no obvious indication that Jack Frost would be putting in an appearance any time soon, I began to grow impatient and was even starting to wonder if my homegrown parsnips would be ready by Christmas. All season I had watched the gloriously healthy looking parsnip leaves grow tall and strong, hinting at the root, buried beneath and hopefully developing into decent sized parsnips, protected from pests and predators by an ultra-fine mesh. September slipped into October and I eagerly awaited the first decent frost of the year but it didn’t arrive and as October waved goodbye and November took hold, the urge to go dig up the first of the parsnips grew stronger but I knew that to do that would be a waste of a root and I had no choice but to wait and wait and wait some more.

Autumn Apple Cake

Autumn Apple Cake

With several apples I’d picked from my friends orchard, left over from the Autumn Chutney I’d made the other week, I decided to make one of my favourite puddings: Autumn Apple Cake. I say pudding but this particular cake is just as tasty cold, as part of a packed lunch, as it is fresh from the oven with hot custard, cream or ice-cream to accompany it (ask the Mudlets’ if you don’t believe me).