Victoria Sponge

  

Sunday morning after spending some time picking berries I was inspired to bake a cake.

I have enjoyed A Table in the Orchard by Michelle Crawford very much. Hugo and Elsa is Michelle's blog.  So lovely to enjoy her beautiful home and garden.

I had a beautiful bottle of lemon butter in the fridge made by my Mum. Always delicious!

I hardly every make a cake.  But cake it just had to be. 

The recipe for Vicotria Sponge was lovely. Easy to follow and worked out perfectly. 

As I prepared the ingredients and the tins, I caught myself thinking about my Nana and her beautiful sponge cakes she would make. I'm not even brave enough to try her recipe! But as I buttered the tins and dusted them with flour I thought about her and wondered how many sponge tins she had prepared during her many years of baking. 

Now this cake is not a light and airy sponge like my Nana used to make but it is so very delicious.  I filled mine with a layer of lemon butter and freshly whipped cream, topped it with more cream and some beautiful berries.

Mum, Dad and I sat outside under the tree on Sunday afternoon, cups of tea in hand and enjoyed the Victoria Sponge together.

What a lovely end to the weekend.

Oranges in Springtime ..... And a little Marmalade

  

I finally picked the oranges!  What a harvest it was.

Beautiful sweet, juicy oranges.  Right at my back door.

I doubled the recipe which called for 1kg of oranges.  Hmmm, that took care of three of these large beauties!

The need for four cups of orange juice took care of a lot as well.

Sixteen beautiful bottles of orange marmalade.

I also boiled some of the oranges and pureed them ready for the freezer for future use to make Orange and Almond Cakes.  Five of them!  

What a wonderful morning of finally enjoying my little home.  I just love to create and I think that making jam can safely come into the category of creating. 

To grow produce and use it is a most satisfying feeling.  I just love it.

Not only to be able to use my own produce in my own home, but to be able to share it with family and friends is truly something that I enjoy.

This part of my life is certainly nothing new to me.  I have lived my whole life watching the women of my family make and bake not only for our immediate family but to share with the community in which we live.  Whether it was our immediate family, our neighbours or our extended community in which we lived.

I feel truly blessed to have been part of this wonderful experience of learning from my Mother and my Grandmothers. The gift of giving of ourselves however large or small the gift, whether it is a physical gift or just a thought, to be able to be a blessing to others is truly something wonderful we can share.

I will hopefully continue to share myself with others through my creating. 

With Spring finally here comes the promise of a new crop of beautiful oranges.

My garden smells delightful!

Pink Custard Kisses....

Oh my, this heat wave is unbearable.  I am so thankful for my air conditioning in extreme weather such as this.

It is so very quiet here today, so a little baking filled my morning. 

Mr Buble and I in the kitchen.

Kisses....        With love.....

 

Don't forget my little giveaway in the last post - at the moment there's one entered.  Lucky lady if she gets all three!!!  Draw in a few days.

A Little Giveaway

I'd love to host a little giveaway here as a thank you for any who still check in to see if there are any happenings on my blog.

I have been so quiet I know.

I had a bit of a drama with the delivery of my beautiful magazines. Thankfully all sorted now. But to cut a long story short I ended up with some double ups. New and never opened ready to share with three of you.

There is the October issue and November issue of our lovely Australian Country Style and also the October /November issue of Donna Hay. 

So if you are interested leave me a message, make a link in your own blog and if your over on Facebook make a mention there too. 

Open to overseas friends too.

A Little Baking....

 

 

Time worn utensils.

 

 

 

Favourite recipes...

 

 

 

 

and new recipes.....

 

A lovely day indeed.

Citrus Fruit Harvest....... Making Marmalade

 

 

My house currently smells all citrusy!  Delightful.....

 

This morning in the rain I went out and picked some of the fruit that was ready.  Since it was a rainy day I couldn't really paint and certainly not garden.

 

 

 

I don't think it really gets much better than fresh fruit covered in raindrops.

 

 

 

My tiny cumquats weighed in at 200 grams! Not much to work with at all.

 

 

 

The limes weighed in at 1.2kg - so that was a little better going.

 

 

 

 

This is the most limes I have ever harvested - two is the biggest crop before this year!

 

 

 

I've finished up with six bottles of lime marmalade and 1 1/2 bottles of cumquat marmalade.

 

I also made two bottles of lemon butter and used one whole lemon!  I've got a bag full of them still to go - so had better come up with some ideas so they don't go to waste - like last years harvest did!  Maybe some lemon delicious pudding will be the order of the day.

 

 

Still to pick is the orange tree - yum - I love making orange marmalade. I think there might even be a orange and almond cake in there somewhere too.   Hopefully now to just get the time to enjoy some more kitchen fun.

 

I love getting to fiddle with baking and cooking when I get the time.  I loved today being able to use my lovely big boiler that belonged to Nana - beautiful Bakelite handles and knob - and of course the juicing with a lovely old depression glass juicer.  I will admit though that the cutting of the fruit was much more up to date - my wonderful new food processor!!

Pumpkin Soup...

 

I love beautiful winter foods.  Comforting, nourishing...

 

I particularly love Pumpkin Soup.  I had never really made it before a couple of years ago.  My Mother's recipe seemed tedious with all the cutting of of the pumpkin.

 

 

Then I found the Donna Hay recipe for Roasted Pumpkin Soup.  It is so easy - pop the pumpkin in the oven to roast and you are more than half way there.

 

One word - yum!

 

Donna Hay Roasted Pumpkin Soup

 



Ingredients

1 x 2kg butternut pumpkin
1 onion
Olive oil for drizzling
sea salt
3 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 cup cream
1 tbs honey
sour cream to serve

 

Preheat oven to 200 degrees celcius. Cut pumpkin in half lengthways. Scoop out seeds. Place pumpkin {cut side up} & onion on baking tray. Drizzle with oil and salt & bake for 1 hour, or until golden and roasted through.

 

Once pumpkin has cooled slightly, scoop pumpkin into a saucepan. Scoop onion into saucepan.

 

Add stock to saucepan. Add cream and honey. Puree with a stick blender. Turn on a medium heat. Heat through. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

 

 

I make it for the Bakery along with a Beef and Vegetable soup - full of beautiful vegetables and pearl barley and split peas. 

 

Beautiful comforting, deliciously warming, winter foods.

 

What do you love to eat in Winter?

Orange Cake...

Some weekend baking.

 

Delicious...

Ingredients

2 oranges
250 g caster sugar, plus extra for dusting
6 eggs
250 g almond meal
1 tsp baking powder
icing sugar
Margarine or oil spray (for greasing the pan)

Wash the oranges and cook in boiling water for 2 hours.

 

Drain and allow the oranges to cool before pureeing. This can be done ahead of time.

Preheat the oven to 160°C.

 

 

Butter a 20 cm springform cake tin and line with baking paper.

 

Place the eggs and 250 g of caster sugar in a mixing bowl and beat well.

 

Stir in the orange puree followed by the almond meal and baking powder.

 

Pour into the tin . Bake for 1–1½ hours, until the top is golden brown. Dust with icing sugar to serve.

If the top starts to get a little dark cover with another piece of baking paper (I'll do this next time!)

 

Christmas..3 days to go

 

 

Goodness, Christmas is here!

 

I can hardly believe that we are about to celebrate this season.  This year has passed in a blur of busyness.

 

 

Finally a little Christmas decorating has taken place as we prepare to begin our Christmas celebrations tomorrow with some of our family.

 

The decorations are streamlined and minimal this year - I just couldn't come at the whole decorated bit this year - the thought of having to put it all away was just too much.

 

 

In some ways I think I am the most organised I have ever been and I started way later than any other year.  It has been an exhausting week.

 

Just a few more little gifts to wrap and all will be complete.

 

 

A little baking has been done.  Hopefully a little more to come. 

 

We do so much at the shop that we just can't hardly look at by Christmas, so it's always nice to have some different bits and pieces to enjoy over the break.

 

With love, Christmas wishes and blessings to all who visit here.  May this Christmas be peaceful and restful for your family.

Oranges and Lemons

I harvested our citrus crop on Saturday. Seven oranges and five lemons!

 

The oranges yielded a similar amount to last year - the lemons were just disappointing - about fifty lemons short on last years total!

 

I thought I should put them to use.

 

 

 

A batch of Marmalade.

 

And

 

A batch of lemon butter.

 

 

 

I used the recipe from A Year in a Bottle by Sally Wise for the Marmalade.

 

And

 

The Lemon Butter was made using our tried and tested family recipe.

 

 

 

 The eggs for this beautiful Lemon Butter also came from the girls who live at the bottom of the garden.

 

I used the larger grater attachment in the food processor to chop the oranges - it's not terribly neat or even, but it certainly does the job in no time flat!

 

 

 

I made some little pastry shells to have with the Lemon Butter - I really shouldn't have - it is just too wonderful to leave at one.

End of Year Harvest.........

Where to begin with the happenings of the past weeks.  I haven't updated here for weeks - school finished, dance concert over for another (the 10th) year and Christmas has been and gone.

I am now on a 10 day break from work - less than a week left now unfortunately. 

 Christmas was a lovely time shared with family.  It went on for a week!  Busy but lovely - tired now!  I am so enjoying my time at home.  Not achieving anything really - but lovely nonetheless. 

Today I felt as though I am starting to surface - but not enough to have achieved any more than the drudgery of catching up and doing housework - I long for some time for me.

Today I spent a little time picking some lovely veges from my Potager - I then prepared them for the freezer.  So lovely to have some home grown back in the freezer.  My lovely trug was a gift from my Mum & Dad - I don't think anyone "got" it at all - too bad - I love it!

I cut our Christmas cake for morning tea- it was very enjoyable!

The year is almost at an end - I almost feel as though I need to do a catch up post to document some very important family occasions this year - maybe I will get that done in the next few days.

I hope my friends have all enjoyed a lovely Christmas time. 

I'm hoping for a much more enjoyable 2012 - but I somehow don't see it happening!