Linzer cookies

My first festive post of 2020! Hopefully I'll manage more but I'll see how things go. This year I was determined to try a couple of new recipes for baked Christmas gifts instead of defaulting to my usual assortment of shortbread, fudge/tablet and gingerbread biscuits.

First up are these linzer cookies, which are basically festive jammy dodger biscuits. I've had this recipe bookmarked from Katiecakes blog for a while so I'm pleased to have finally tried it. Her bakes and photography are always lovely.

These biscuits were fun to make. The dough didn't need chilling which meant they weren't too faffy to prepare either. My only alteration, if you can call it that, was rolling my dough out to 1/4" thick. The recipe says 3/8" but I felt 1/4" was thick enough considering two biscuits get stuck together. I used a 2.5" diameter round cutter and got 22 completed sandwich biscuits in total from the dough. I also used up almost an entire jar of strawberry jam to fill them.

Not much else to report other than they looked very pretty and made lovely gifts to drop off at relatives' doors this week. Vanilla biscuits with jam are always a crowd pleaser. I also have Katiecakes' chocolate and dulce de leche linzer cookies bookmarked so hopefully I'll try them sometime too.

Wishing you all (if anyone still reads) a Merry Christmas and if you don't celebrate Christmas, I hope you have a lovely Friday.

making, mending, baking, reflecting

It's that time of year again.... when I feel the need to blog about all those forgotten bits and bobs from this year and panic that it has to be done before 31st December otherwise THE WORLD WILL IMPLODE.

Or something to that extent.

It's also the time of year where I bake perverted gingerbread santas, boobie angels and questionably festive dinosaurs.

 And a new addition this year... moustaches!

2018 has been full on, but pretty positive for me. I bought a little house (all by myself), have been renovating said house (complete gut job - nearly finished), turned 30 (I guess this means I'm grown up?) and started learning ballet (hard work but amazing and making me feel so much healthier.) Sadly that means my baking and sewing have taken a nose dive but I know they'll come back when I have the time. 

I've only sewn one item this year besides my wedding guest outfit in February. ONE. And that was a rainbow stripe Tilly and the Buttons Agnes top.

Although I initially really liked it at the time (in April) I haven't reached for it since. I think it was because it felt slightly too big, mostly because the jersey has a higher stretch percentage and I didn't account for that when I was sewing. Looking at this photo though (which I took the other day) it looks and feels fine, so who knows why I haven't worn it, other than I've spent most of the year wearing old crap for house-renovating instead of nice things.

 The top looks great with my festive pyjama bottoms! 😀

Last month, in a bid to get back into sewing I tackled my dreaded mending and alteration pile. It allowed me to reacquaint myself with my machine and complete manageable, bite-sized projects as I didn't have the headspace to create items from scratch or deal with multiple pattern alterations.

I started with altering the sleeves and neckline of a tunic dress for my Mum, (which she loved) then I did a few simple, rewarding tasks: sewing up a hole in my mustard tights (which I had set aside at least two years ago), replacing a missing button from a favourite coat and dyeing a faded and unloved pair of black jeans (set aside over 5 years ago!) a much nicer, more wearable shade of plum.

Spurred on by my small mending successes, I moved onto more exciting alterations. My first was turning a rarely worn pair of handmade tights into funky exercise/yoga leggings by chopping off the feet and sewing on cuffs. As much as I flipping loved the look of the tights and their cool construction, I found I never reached for them as I didn't like the feeling of the lycra fabric over my feet. These will definitely receive more wear as leggings. Stretches are much more exciting to do with jazzy looking legs.

My last project was a complete refashion: turning a rarely worn circle skirt into a pair of cute dance shorts! As cute as the circle skirt was, I never felt it was a flattering shape on me so it only got worn a handful of times. The fabric will see far more wear as a pair of cute shorts for my dance classes. I like that I'll be dancing (well, moving around in a vaguely coordinated manner) with my butt covered in macarons.

To make the shorts I traced around the upper portion of a pair of shop-bought leggings to make pattern pieces and cut out a new waistband. Luckily everything easily fitted within the skirt fabric. The only thing that I found difficult was finding a suitable way to hem the legs as a standard zig zag did not provide enough stretch for my enormous, muscular?, thighs. In the end I used a fancy stretch stitch setting on my sewing machine which worked great.

All in all, a pretty successful month of mending!

This year in the online sewing community I've noticed that there has been a lot of chat about sustainability: not over-buying fabric, buying ethically, using up or recycling scraps, altering, mending or refashioning existing items, not replacing fast fashion with fast sewing etc. It has been an interesting topic to ponder, especially since I've spent the majority of the year away from my sewing machine.

It's great to see these topics being discussed, however I do find it odd that it's perhaps being presented as a new way of thinking, or dare I say another trend/fad, when a lot of it is surely common practise in the first place? It is to me anyway. I've always tried to look after my clothes and mend items if possible (to the extent that some pieces in my wardrobe are 10-15 years old and still going strong), donate what I don't need or use and work hard on sewing items which will become well worn and loved in my wardrobe and not thrown out after 2 wears. Admittedly, the whole discussion of sustainability has made me think even harder about my choices, which is never a bad thing.

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this sewing related naval gazing, but I thought I'd throw my thoughts out there for what it's worth. The only conclusion I can draw from it all is that I'm not comfortable with sewing for the sake of sewing and ending up with a ridiculously large collection of clothing when I already own more than enough clothes. However I do want to continue sewing as it's nice to have new things from time to time, especially when they're unique and tailored to me.

Unlike my sewing, my knitting output has remained fairly strong this year, mostly because it's something I can do whilst crashed out on the sofa. Since my last update in the summer I've knitted another pair of socks.....

...and I've loved wearing them. All my handknitted socks have received a lot of love this year. They're perfect for padding about the house in the evenings or making my toes extra cosy in my winter boots.

These socks, pictured above, were my first foray into knitting the magic loop method with circular needles. Although I like how portable it is (you don't have to worry about stitches falling off needles) and how much easier it is to try projects on mid progress, I'm still not convinced I like it more than working on dpns. There's something about shoving stitches back and forth along the needles which irks me. I'm going to continue using both methods though as it's fun to mix things up.

I've also knitted four hats this month! Three as Christmas presents and one for myself. 

A stripey ribbed hat for my eldest brother. It killed me not being able to put a jazzy pom pom on top but I know he wouldn't wear it if it had one. As much as all that 2x2 ribbing felt endlessly boring it did produce a lovely, comfy hat. I also learned how to knit jogless stripes with this hat.

Then I knitted hats for my other brother and his wife. They both like and suit wearing burgandy so I thought I'd make them not-quite-matchy-matchy, cute couple hats. The hat on the left is Miki by Atelier M on Ravelry (free pattern) with sparkly thread added to the pom pom for a bit of girly glamour and the hat on the right is the Close Cables Hat by Anna and Heidi Pickles on Ravelry (no longer free, sadly.) I added burnt orange yarn to the pom pom for a fun, speckled effect.

Lastly, my own festive hat! I'm not sure what prompted me to need a festive hat but the idea hit me one evening and I couldn't shake it off. I roughly made it up as I went along, following a chart for the star motif. It took a few attempts to figure out the decreases for the crown as it needed to come in quite sharp after the motif. It's quite gathered at the top as I still had a lot of stitches on the needles, but the hat is fairly slouchy so I think the soft gathers suit the style. My favourite thing though is the tassle. I've been desperate to knit myself a tassle hat ever since I knit that toddler hat at the beginning of the year!

And that's me signing out for 2018. Thanks for reading and continuing to follow my creative ventures. Wishing you all the best for 2019. See you on the other side!

festive makes and bakes

I'm squeezing in one last blog post this year - my festive makes and bakes.

Personally, it isn't Christmas without pervy gingerbread Santas and boobie angel. And dinosaurs. It has been a tradition of mine for quite a few years now and they always go down a treat. I made these for a Christmas party and they caused an absolute sensation. I have never seen so many grown adults get so excited about a tray of biscuits. It was hilarious to witness.

I acquired two new biscuit cutters this year for a bit of variety - a Santa and reindeer. The Santas in particular looked really fancy once decorated but man were they labour intensive to do. I'm glad I only had a handful of them to decorate, otherwise I'd be sitting there icing for days!

In addition to gingerbread biscuits I made an industrial supply of shortbread and tablet to give as presents to family. (I have a lot of family!) The amount of sugar and butter I went through was positively obscene.

Sadly all my baking ground to a halt after the shortbread and tablet marathon as I caught a nasty cold. I just managed to make a trifle for Christmas day but didn't manage to bake anything new which was a shame.

Now onto the makes! I knitted a couple of small, silly presents and first up is this snazzy penguin. I found him a bit fiddly to put together but the end result was worth it as he looks so cute and cosy in his big jumper.

The pattern came from a book I received last Christmas called "Mini Knitted Christmas" by Sue Stratford. It has loads of funny, little festive projects which kept my Mum and me occupied through most of December. It's hard to beat a bit of knitting whilst watching terrible Christmas films about incomplete women who need a boyfriend for Christmas or vice versa. And everybody is either called Holly, Chris or Nick. It's Christmas film law.

I also knitted a gingerbread couple from the same book. They're so hilariously odd yet adorable. I photographed them against my gingerbread man dress as I couldn't resist being a matchy dork.

My last piece of random knitting was this ginger cat. The pattern is called "Beans" and is a free Ravelry download by Linda Dawkins. It only dawned on me afterwards that the cat looks more Baked Beans coloured than ginger which made me laugh. Either way, it's a cute cat and I learned how to knit an i-cord.

And last up is a sewn present. For the first time ever I was completely stumped on what to get my Mum for Christmas, so after a bit of discussion I agreed to sew her a new apron. She picked out the fabrics (spotty and gingham heavy cottons) and told me what kind of style she liked and I drafted something suitable.

I tried my absolute best to sew and finish to the best of my capabilities and I'm really pleased with how the apron turned out. My Mum is delighted with it too which is the main thing. She loves all the handy pockets, the broad straps and that the whole thing matches her kitchen perfectly.

And that's it from me this year. I intended to do a big round up of all my makes and bakes from this year but I'm afraid I've run out of steam. I'll probably do one in the new year though as I've enjoyed doing them in previous years. In the meantime, I wish you all a happy and creative 2017! x

2015 round up

Here we are again, at the end of December, somehow?! 2015 has been a difficult year for me personally, but it has ended much more positively than it started so things are generally on the up.

Blogging-wise I've had a pretty good year, probably because it was a welcome distraction from anything unpleasant going on in "real" life. I've continued to bake regularly, mostly cakes, but that's hardly surprising considering my blog title. I really, really  like baking and eating cake.

a collage of most of my bakes from 2015

I haven't gone to the effort to see which bake was most popular this year, but I'd say my personal favourites were the raspberry trifle cupcakes (soooooo good) and  3D gingerbread dinosaurs as they were great fun to put together. I definitely need to use those biscuit cutter again.

My biggest revelation this year has been knitting. What casually started as one turquoise hat quickly snowballed into a full blown hobby. Knitting appears to have the ability to unwind and calm my brain which is great for a naturally anxious person. I genuinely think it saved my sanity this year. It can be bloody frustrating as I'm still a beginner and make loads of mistakes, but on the whole it seems to restore a sense of balance in me. I'm really excited about knitting more next year and already have projects lined up.

 I also crocheted something for the first time in a few years (the pineapple garland) which was fun!

My new found love for knitting sadly slowed down my sewing production, especially in the latter half of the year when I became obsessed with finishing my yellow agatha cardigan (which I am still stupidly proud of) but I'm really happy with what I managed to produce. Although I still haven't figured out my fitting issues I definitely feel a little more knowledgeable than this time last year. I'm also delighted that I took the plunge to sew with stretch fabric this year. My green coco dress is probably my most worn handmade item as it's just so comfortable, like stealth pyjamas, so I should definitely make more knit/jersey pieces.

And to round off the year I'd like to introduce my new partner in crime: an Elna sewing machine!

It was a complete surprise to receive an Elna for Christmas, although admittedly a new machine has been on my radar since my 11 year old Singer ran into problems and needed fixing last December. Although the sewing machine man fixed her he warned me it probably wouldn't be long term. He thought it was quite likely she'd fully conk out on me soon. Somewhat amazingly she has continued to work well this year, but I was aware I'd need to consider a new machine soon. Enter Elna!

Elna is a good bit fancier than old Sally the Singer and a lot quieter. She even has an automatic buttonhole foot and function! I don't know much about Elna machines other than they're Swiss designed with Janome parts. I like Swiss stuff - cheese, Toblerone, Roger Federer - so we should get along fine.

So, new year's resolutions... make something which requires multiple buttonholes? Give Elna the sewing machine a name? Learn to knit cables? Bake more things which aren't cake? Roll on, 2016!

festive bakes

It's that time of year again... when I become so disorganised that I lump all of my festive baking into one blog post on Christmas Eve. YAY!

Personally, I find it just isn't Christmas without gingerbread boobie angels and saucy santas. This year I made sure I scheduled in the time to make them as I didn't manage to make any last year and it just felt plain wrong. Their little faces fill me with so much joy! I baked a batch of these to take in to my local music group's Christmas party and they went down an absolute storm.

I also baked a batch of mankini-clad gingerbread men and some questionably styled Tory hipster gentlemen as part of an in joke for some friends. This is probably the height of my piping decoration skills.

The amount of sugar and butter I've gone through in the last couple of weeks is obscene! I can't remember how many bags of sugar were emptied for all the tablet I made but I definitely used up at least 6 packs of butter for shortbread. I have a large extended family so large quantities of foodie presents are needed to take around when visiting relatives over the festive period.

It's always worth the mammoth effort though as I love seeing everything all packaged up with my childish funky handmade labels.

As I had leftover cranberries from my cranberry orange muffins I decided to try the cranberry, apple and cinnamon cake from Hannah's blog, Honey & Dough. I more or less followed the recipe, substituting caster sugar for soft light brown sugar, a cooking apple instead of a granny smith, and added 1/2tsp of vanilla bean paste to the batter. I also mixed some whole cranberries into the batter as well as scattering on top. My cake took twice the length of time to bake, probably due to the amount of fruit I put in, about an hour.

I baked this as a pudding to take to a friend's house last weekend and it was so well received that my friend asked for the recipe and she bought the ingredients the following day so she could make one. Then I decided to bake another too! Needless to say, it's a very tasty cake.

And finally, I baked a couple of ginger syrup bundts. They're full of flavour, keep pretty well and the recipe is nice and simple... unless you're baking whilst really tired and forget to add an ingredient. Yup, I forgot to add baking powder to one of them. Oops! So I got to keep a flatter bundt for myself.

I've been meaning to make mincemeat pies as well but I think I've reached my limit. After baking most evenings for the last two weeks I must admit to feeling rather pooped. You never know though, I might muster up some energy to make some closer to new year.

But for now I'm probably going to put my feet up, drink a lot of tea and wish everybody a very merry Christmas!

Trying to photograph the tree? Ok, I'll sit here then.
Cheers, Bob.

knitted: festive creatures

Hot on the heels of casting off my yellow Agatha cardigan I started some Christmas knitting. Mum stumbled across free festive patterns online and immediately printed them out as she thought we could have some fun knitting these in the evenings. A couple have been given away as Christmas presents but ultimately I made them for myself, hehe.

I learnt a couple of new techniques such as carrying a second yarn across a row. I got in a complete tangle with my wool at first but eventually figured out what (not) to do. As my wool was thinner than recommended the second yarn is visible through the knitting, on the robin especially, despite sizing down my needles. I don't think it spoils their overall charm though. They look ridiculously cute at this scale. It was well worth all the fiddly-ness.

My Mum had to go one stage better than me though and put fair isle patterns on her little Christmas stockings, without referring to any charts. She's one of those annoyingly talented individuals who doesn't knit very often, once every so many years, but still remembers how to do everything when she picks it up again. Myself on the other hand... brain like a sieve.

I'm hoping to get back to some sewing now that my knitting frenzy is starting to wind down. My poor Pauline Alice Turia Dungarees toile has been sitting in a crumpled heap on my sewing table for well over a month. That'll be my first creative project in the new year, although I do have a massive urge to knit a cable hat with a pom pom!

cranberry and orange muffins/cupcakes

Festive baking is now in full swing around here. I think I've baked something every evening since last Friday! The Christmas tree was also put up this week and I decorated it today whilst half watching a fantastically awful Hulk Hogan Christmas film on tv. Can't get much better than that really!

First up with the festive baking are these cranberry and orange muffins which I decided to bake as cupcakes as I really wanted to use my festive cupcake cases from last year. They have really cute patterned bases.

I came across fresh cranberries in the supermarket last week and absolutely had to buy them. I've never seen fresh cranberries to buy before so was pretty excited and immediately started searching for festive cranberry based recipes online. There were a few serious contenders but after a quick family poll these cranberry orange muffins from Sally's Baking Addiction won.

Sally's opening description is spot on - "Buttery and moist, these cranberry orange muffins are heavy on the flavor and bursting with cranberries in each bite." I absolutely loved the tart bursts of cranberry. Despite me loving full on sweetness in bakes I actually really liked that these muffins weren't overly sweet other than the orange icing glaze. They're a good antidote to all the Christmas chocolates, fudge and shortbread and would also make a lovely present for folk who don't like cakes loaded with sugar or icing.

These cupcakes/muffins also smell absolutely amazing. When I opened my cake tin the following morning the most amazing waft of Christmas came out. A heady mix of orange and spice. Lovely!

Introducing Doris (and a general round up of the year)

Apparently I was a very good girl this year as I received a lovely dressform for Christmas.

Dressform Doris is going to be very useful with future sewing projects. I can also try out outfit combinations on her without going through the hassle of trying things on myself. Double bonus!

The wooden sewing box on the table is also new. Dad bought it for my Christmas after we saw it in a charity shop at the beginning of this month. It's similar to one my Granny used to have and as far as I can see it's in perfect condition. I love that my best charity shop finds have been at opposite ends of the year: my Mrs Doyle tea trolley in January and this wooden sewing box in December.

 Completely irrelevant photograph. I just thought my bed looked cosy.

I tend to feel grouchy by the end of December because I never think I've accomplished much but I've actually had a pretty good year (by my low standards anyway.) Not only have I MET RICHARD ARMITAGE but I've also started sewing regularly again. This year I've produced 5 dresses, a skirt and a large quilt.

Although sewing has admittedly taken up a lot of my free time this year I have still been baking. 16 cakes, 4 lots of cupcakes, 3 trays of brownies/blondies, 4 batches of biscuits, 1 set of tarts, multiple batches of tablet, 1 tray of muffins, 1 batch of scones and a tub of ice-cream to be exact. My blueberry and lemon layer cake from June was apparently a massive hit as not only is it my most viewed bake of this year but also of all time. Wowee!

 Damn it I forgot about my mincemeat frangipane tarts and chocolate chip cookies from this month! Oh well, almost remembered everything.

Here's to another creative year folks! I wish you all good health and happiness for 2015. Just in case there are other New-Year-Grouches such as myself reading this, here's a photo of my cat Bob in the inflatable unicorn horn I bought for his Christmas. I defy you not to laugh!

festive bakes

Merry Christmas Eve folks! As usual all my festive baking seems to happen in a last minute rush so I thought I'd group them together in one post like I've done in previous years. (You'd think I'd learn to be more organised!)

First off we have the annual batches of Christmas tablet! My mum drinks so much Douwe Egberts coffee that we have a substantial number of their jars by the end of the year and they're the perfect size for storing tablet. Just add some pretty tape, twirly ribbon and a handmade label and you've got yourself a lovely Christmas present.

Next up is a sticky, spiced apple and syrup bundt which I baked using this recipe from Dollybakes. The only change I made was using golden syrup instead of maple syrup for the glaze. I was so happy that this turned out the tin perfectly, I squealed with delight! Cake release spray is a glorious invention.

These cranberry and white chocolate biscuit/cookies are fast becoming an annual Christmas bake for me. Not only is white chocolate and cranberry a winning combination but these biscuits are quick to throw together which is perfect if you're in a hurry.

Sadly I haven't managed to bake my annual perverted gingerbread santas and boobie angels however I have baked these festive gingerbread cupcakes using a recipe I came across on Sally's Baking Addiction. Mine turned out a lot darker as I used half golden syrup half treacle in place of molasses. I also decided to top mine off with a cinnamon and golden syrup cream cheese icing and edible wafer snowflakes. As with most gingerbreads the flavour improved with age. They certainly packed a spiced, treacle-y punch.

For the first time ever I've baked shortbread! It's one of those bakes which my Granny was so good at making that I never felt I needed to bother. However this year Mum and I were really missing her shortbread so we followed Granny's recipe and they taste exactly like hers. We both thought it felt like getting a big hug. It officially feels like Christmas now that we have some Granny shortbread in the tin.

And lastly I made these chocolate brownie trees which I've seen on both Ros and Kate's blogs recently and couldn't resist baking. I wish I had more time to decorate these nicely but they were a last minute festive treat to take to my friends' house.

So that's what I've managed to bake in the run up to Christmas this year - a mixture of old and new recipes. Are you a traditional Christmas baker or do you like to switch things up and try new recipes every year?

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas! Hope you have a lovely day tomorrow. x