52 MMMC Week 3: Sugar Crusted Fruit Scones

Having watched The Great British Bake Off I was intrigued by the "Sugar Crusted Scones" ... I LOVE scones, but don't think in all of my many afternoon teas that I have ever had a sugar crusted one ... and my fail safe recipe does not include this crust either ...

So, off I went to The Pink Whisk and tried out Ruth's recipe ... my first mistake was to assume that the recipe made 9 scones (the recipe I always use does ...) so the scones turned out a little small (the recipe should make 6). And, to be honest, I'm just not sure about the sugar crust ....

With crust, or without crust - what kind of scone do you prefer?

52 MMMC Week 2: Scrummy Coffee Cake with Chocolate Buttercream

Baby Plum and I have started to get a "sort of" morning routine going ... when she takes her early morning nap, I have an hour to get into the kitchen and do a bit of baking!

So, here it is ... week two of my Marvellous Makes Madness Challenge ...

another cake ... Coffee Cake with Chocolate Buttercream.

Mmmmm Mmmmm

You can find the recipe here

I made this cake to take to the first postnatal meet up of the friends I made at the NCT class. It went down very well! I think I will make another carrot cake for the next one!

Boozy Christmas Fruit

Well, I managed it! I popped Baby Plum into her bouncy chair, moved her into the kitchen, stuck Mumford & Sons on and made my Boozy Christmas Fruit!

The recipe is from The Pink Whisk and I have adapted it to include my homemade Sloe Gin rather than brandy. The fruit is now stashed away in a tub ready for daily stirring before the next stage of the recipe.

My first Christmassy thing done!

Ditching Delia ...

It is that time of year again ... the time when people start thinking about Christmas.

It is at this time of year that I start to think about making my Christmas Cakes. Yes, that's plural ... I like to make cakes as presents for friends and family but ... as I am not working this year, I don't have the need for as many homemade gifts for work colleagues ... so will just make the one cake this year....and I always use my trusted Delia Smith cake recipe.

Well, not this year!!

This year I have decided to try a recipe from The Pink Whisk - Ruth is posting this recipe in two parts. The first part is "Boozy Christmas Fruit" which will take 6 weeks of soaking and stirring. The second part will then be posted. I think that I will be soaking my fruit in my homemade sloe gin, rather than brandy.

Have you made your Christmas Cakes yet?

The 52 Marvellous Makes Madness Challenge Week One: Carrot Cake

Having had my first week at home on my own with Baby Plum I have decided to join in with The Thrifty Mrs's 52 Marvellous Makes Madness Challenge! Yes, maybe a little crazy ... do I not have enough to do looking after a 4 week old baby?

We have had a good week ... Monday was a bit stressful and I cried when Mr Plum went off to work. The week has improved, apart from a minor meltdown on Thursday when Mr Plum made a mad dash home at lunchtime to check that I was okay! (I was, just had had a morning of Tesco Delivery, NPower Boiler Service and Crying Baby ... a bit much for me!)

But ... I did manage to knock up a carrot cake on Thursday morning while Baby Plum was having her early nap (before "The Meltdown") ... so, I thought that I would incorporate it into the 52MMMC! You can read about the challenge in more detail on the Thrifty Mrs Blog ... but the general gist is that you make something (anything!) every week for a year ... there you have it, the 52 Marvellous Makes Madness Challenge!

I LOVE carrot cake ... but have never, ever made one myself! I had visions of having to peel loads of carrots and it being a bit of a faff ... actually, it wasn't too bad at all! I used this recipe.

Are you watching ...

The Great British Bake Off on Tuesday nights on BBC2? It is fab! I have just discovered the blog written by contestant Ruth called The Pink Whisk ... definitely worth a look as it is full of lots of lovely recipes!

Oh ... this was just a flying visit to blogland ... Baby Plum is ready for a feed!

Introducing Baby Plum

Here she is!

Baby Plum.

Born Friday 20 August at 1523, weighing in at 8lbs 14 (too many afternoon teas?!)

In the end she came along on her own ... after a 3 mile walk along the River Wandle in South London on Thursday ... I have to say that I was relieved not to have to go through being induced. We are both back home now after a couple of days in hospital.

Isn't she a beauty?

41+1

Today I have ...

Put my second £2 coin into my new money box ...

Made my little brother a birthday cake ... he is 30 tomorrow! He's popping round tonight for a curry (hurray! Mr Plum hates curry ... and I'm in desperate need of one!)

Picked some blackberries from the bottom of the garden ... only managed 1/2 a pound ... before being scared off by the wasps! I'm hoping that Mr Plum will pick me some more this evening. I need to make jam!

Admired 3 of my recently picked courgettes. Aren't they impressive? I think that the recent rain must have been very good for them!

Taken delivery of my new knitting book "Knitted Nursery", had a walk around the park and am now at home with my feet up watching old episodes of Friends while drinking tea and eating cake!

Feeling fat and fed up at 40+5 weeks pregnant ...

Hello!

Yep ... still pregnant (and yes, I know that the first baby is often overdue ...) and just feeling huge at the moment! I just want to have this baby NOW!!

I found out at my midwife appointment on Wednesday that naughty Baby Plum has decided to disengage herself ... silly girl! I have now got to go and see a consultant next Wednesday ... not sure what he will do - and there is a chance that I will have had the baby by then anyway (I do hope so!). Only one of the girls from antenatal has given birth now ... another one who was due on 1st August was booked in for an induction tomorrow - but has just sent me a text to say that she has started having contractions! Hurray!

So ... what have I been up to since Tuesday?

I have watched an awful lot of "The Tudors" which I really enjoyed (once I got over the historical inaccuracies and put my John Guy "Tudor England" aside!) ... I have also made good progress with the teddy bear I am knitting for Baby Plum ... today I met up with another friend from antenatal (who is due tomorrow!) for a coffee in the local Starbucks and then came home and did some baking! I do enjoy my "Baking Fridays"!

On this week's menu we have Victoria Sponge and Mary Poppins' "Strike Me Pink Raspberry Cakes" the recipe for which can be found in the wonderful book by Jane Brocket "Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer" YUM!

I also took delivery of my Terramundi money box this morning which I picked up for the bargain price of £6 on ebay (the rrp is a rip offingly £20 or so!) ... and have put in my first £2 coin!

Don't you just love it when ...

a friend finally returns the DVD you lent her about 4 years ago!! To be honest, it had been so long that I thought that maybe I had lost it when we moved house ... or had lent it to someone, but couldn't remember who! Anyway, on Saturday "Bright Young Things" was returned to me! I love Evelyn Waugh, and especially "Vile Bodies" ... so am sitting on the sofa amongst a nest of cushions as I just can't get comfy at the moment (yes, no sign of Baby Plum yet ...), with a cup of raspberry leaf tea (so sick of drinking it!), and my Debbie Bliss "Simply Baby" book and DVD playing ... trying to decide what to knit next .... and wishing I was a 20's flapper off to supper at The Ritz!

A Thrifty Tip from The Thrifty Mrs

I like to think of myself as a relatively good saver ... being a civil servant in London with a mortgage, and baby on the way ... doesn't leave an awful lot of spare cash, but I do save what I can. I find it easier to save when there is a certain goal in mind (wedding or a baby!) My current goal is being able to afford to take a whole year's maternity leave (luckily I do get 6 months on my full salary, then 3 months on statutory maternity pay, but then this drops to a final 3 months on nothing ...) so I need to squirrel my pennies away so that I can spend as long as I can at home.

The Thrifty Mrs posted a tip for saving a little bit extra on her blog yesterday. I often put my coppers into a jar ... but this will take ages to amount to anything. So following her tip for today, I will be putting any £2 coins I get into a jar (I may even invest in a money box which would require smashing to get any money out so then I can't be tempted to dip in to it!!)

I thought that I would give myself a 6 month target for this ... and will smash the money box on 8 February!

In the garden

Poor Mr Plum ... I think that even though everyone has said that it is highly unlikely that our baby would arrive today ... he was secretly hoping that I would wake up this morning and be in labour! Which ... I wasn't!

We have spent a few hours in the garden ... I haven't been able to do a huge amount as it is too much effort to kneel down (and even more effort to attempt to get up again!).

Here's the veggie patch ... the courgettes have been brilliant this year and are still going strong! I have a few green tomatoes - but I don't think they ever recovered from their neglect earlier this summer .... the squash are flowering so am hopeful that I will get some veg off them this year too!

My strawberry plants which I ordered from The Guardian arrived yesterday. They are late strawberries - so, you never know, we may get some fruit this year .... Mr Plum very kindly dug over this bit of soil and planted them for me.

Three cucumbers growing in the greenhouse ....

More tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse!

Blackberries at the back of our neighbours half of the garden (which they never use). Mr Plum is currently out there hacking away at brambles at picking fruit! Hopefully we will get enough to make some lovely jam!

Late potatoes in pots which will hopefully be ready for Christmas ...

Lavender picked for sachets ...

Cup of tea and a piece of cake for me ...

What have you been up to today?

Scottie Dog Cushion

Today I made a cushion cover using the lovely Scottie Dog fabric I picked up in Worthing a couple of weeks ago.

We had friends over for afternoon tea and they ended up staying for a curry takeaway which was lovely (Mr Plum, who is not a fan of curry, had fish, chips & a battered sausage!)

I have had lots of texts from friends asking whether there is any baby news yet ... no, not yet!! Maybe the curry will kick start it?!

A Baking Day!

My fourth week of maternity leave comes to a close and I am wondering whether Baby Plum will make an appearance as scheduled on Sunday? I hope so ... I ache and feel HUGE and I was supposed to be going to see Sound of Music in Birmingham with my Mum on Saturday ... but am having to miss it as I don't think that I could sit through the performance without needing the loo every 5 minutes ... and it would be a bit of a trek to get back down to the ghetto and go to my maternity ward!! The first girl from my antenatal class had her baby girl on time yesterday morning which was very exciting ... who will be next? (I hope it's me!!)

Today I met a friend from work and her cute 4 year old son for a coffee to catch up on a month's worth of gossip ... well, all I can say is thank goodness I am on leave and not at work!

After saying goodbye to my friend I gave Mr Plum a call and met him for lunch in Marks & Spencers (very glam!) then headed home for a spot of baking!

We have a couple of friends coming round tomorrow afternoon so I thought I would bake a cake (cup of tea, naturally! My favourite cake of the moment!) and some cookies ... and once I got started ... I couldn't stop!!

As Mr Plum loved my Breakfast Muffins so much, I have made another batch of those ... and then remembered that I had some cranberries in the freezer - so have adapted (or, made up as I went along!) the recipe and made a batch of Cranberry, Orange, Apricot and Dark Choc Muffins as well!

After so much sweetness ... I also knocked up a batch of zero point weight watcher (!!) vegetable curry ... in readiness for Sunday - ha ha

A work in progress...

I thought I would share with you a current and ongoing knitting project ....

Inspired by the wonderfully colourful hooky creations over at Attic24 - I found this lovely pattern in my Vintage Knits for Modern Babies book. It is taking me a while to do and I don't think it will be ready for Baby Plum's imminent arrival! But I will keep at it!

I have recently joined the Ravelry online knitting community! It is brilliant ... so much info about yarns and patterns! And I have found a couple of local knitting groups which I will pop along too once Baby Plum is able to get out and about! You can find me over there (username is purko).

Another baby cardie!

I have finally finished off another baby cardie which I started back in April! This one has come up a little larger than the pink one I knitted, so I am hoping that it will see Baby Plum into the winter (she will be the cosiest baby around with all her cardies!!)

Bunnies!

Here are my six "Nana's Bunnies" made from 'Vintage Knits For Modern Babies' book ....

What do you think? Do they look like Miffy or Hitler?

Tomorrow I will be sewing them onto yellow ribbon (purchased on Sunday at my new local Hobbycraft!!) and stringing them across the cot ... when the baby is here and the cot is built!

A Wedding Patchwork Quilt

Between 1995 and 1998 I went to the University of Wales in Lampeter. I loved the place from the first moment I got there. Lampeter is a small town in mid mid Wales ... there is no train station, very few buses, hardly any shops and 45 minutes to the nearest towns (Carmarthen to the south and Aberystwyth to the north). I met Mr Plum here!

In between studying and indie nights at the union bar, I was also a member of lots of different societies ... and met lots of very interesting people. I have lost touch with most of them - but with the advent of Facebook (I don't have my own profile but hijack Mr Plum's!) I have got back in touch with some of those I had lost touch with.

One of those friends is getting married next Beltane (a pagan handfasting on 1st May 2011) and started up a group on Facebook called the Wedding Patchwork Quilt. While she had been researching traditional wedding customs, she was drawn to the idea of a Wedding Quilt. Possibly originally an American idea from the time of the Pioneers, it involves a community of women coming together to create a patchwork quilt for the engaged couple. She really liked the idea of people getting together, sharing time, skills, stories, scraps and creating a beautiful object in the process. She invited us to join in with her own (almost virtual) community and be involved in her project to create a ‘Wedding Quilt’. As she still lives in Wales, I have made a patch for her and will be popping it in the post. I hope that she likes it!

One of the stipulations was that we design the patch with the couple in mind and that we enclose a description with the patch detailing why we have made it that way so that she will be able to remember who sent each square.

Here is a picture of the quilt so far (shamelessly pinched from Facebook!)

Here is the patch I have made ....

It didn't photograph very well, but I have depicted a hill which sits behind Lampeter and is called "Magic Mountain" by the students. Some said that it was called this because of a convergence of ley lines on the hill ... others said that it was because of the mushrooms which grew on it. I never went up the hill as I was too scared of being shot by the farmer. Mr Plum says that he went up there though! Unfortunately I don't have any digital pictures of Magic Mountain so can't show you what the hill actually looks like.

I hope that the happy couple will like it!

Breakfast Muffins

I woke up this morning with the urge to make Breakfast Muffins ... I'm not a huge sweet muffin fan (unless they form part of the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet at The Hotel Metro in New York!!) - but I am partial to a bran muffin, or the lovely savoury muffins in Starbucks! YUM!

So, having to get up early (well, earlier than normal - recent days have seen my staying in bed until the end of Woman's Hour!) for my 38 week midwife appointment - I had a quick look on the Internet for a breakfast muffin recipe .... I found one that looks rather nice here and picked up the few extra ingredients that I didn't have in the cupboard. I'm hoping that this recipe will live up to expectations as it has already found it's way into my own recipe book!

My 38 week appointment went very well .... all checks and tests were fine and Baby Plum is 3/5 engaged! My next appointment is booked in for 11 August ... two days after my due date to book me in for an induction, if it is needed. Mr Plum was instructed to let the midwife know if the appointment is no longer needed.

Mr Plum is convinced that Baby Plum will arrive on Friday when he is oop North with work. I don't think she will be making an appearance this side of my due date, although I was concerned that the full moon may have had an impact on her! One of the girls from the antenatal classes was told by her midwife that as she was due on the 1st August, she should be aware of this week's full moon which could mean that she would go into labour two days either side! Apparently many hospitals have extra midwives on during a full moon as there is usually an increased number of babies being born! Well ... I am meeting her for coffee on Friday - so no baby has appeared yet!

Anyway, I do believe that it is time for a cup of tea and a Yorkshire Tea biscuit before I head out into the garden to give my tomatoes some TLC.

I hope that you are all having great Wednesdays!!

Week 38 is here and a treasure chest of baby goodies!

My parents came to visit this weekend and brought with them this massive box of baby goodies which had been sent down by my relatives in Liverpool.

I couldn't believe how big the box was ....

It was packed full of beautiful knitted bits (which put everything I have done to shame!!) which had been put together by my Aunt, her friend and my cousin ...

Look at all these lovely blankets ....

And cute little cardies ....

Not only did they send down the knitting ... but also cute little outfits and lots of Johnson's baby stuff ... so kind of them!

Well ... week 38 is here! I don't really have anything planned for the next couple of weeks ... just waiting I suppose! I've still got some baby clothes to wash, and a few crafty projects to complete ... and am just about to go for a swim. I can't believe how quickly these last few months have gone!