Prune, Ginger and Lemon Teacake and a new pink design at Society6

Ahhhh - lovely, delicious, delightful Prune, Ginger and Lemon Teacake - what a wholesome and satisfying treat on a cosy autumn day. The poor beleaguered fruit known as 'prune' is a star in this tangy, spicy sweet, fruit cake - I love prunes and always wonder why they have such a bad reputation - maybe 'they' are on to something by trying to change the name to dried plums?

If you are a fan of light fruit cakes then get thee to the kitchen pronto, and best to have all your ingredients at room temp!

This recipe is for my usual 6 inch cake - you can double for a 9" pan but will have to bake longer and check more often for 'doneness'

First you must start by soaking your prunes in good strong tea - I use Earl Grey for that extra lovely, flowery bergamot flavour - but use whichever tea you like.

5 ounces of prunes chopped into 1/2 inch chunks - don't chop too fine or they will turn to mush in the hot tea.

4 fluid ounces strong tea 

1. Put the two together in a small saucepan and heat through 'til almost bubbling for a few minutes - maybe three - then allow to cool completely

Pre heat the oven to 350F, butter and line with parchment paper a small, tall 6" diameter baking pan lightly rebutter the parchment after lining the pan. 

INGREDIENTS:

5oz white flour/ 1 1/4 cups with 1/2 teaspoon baking soda whisked in 

2oz/ 1/2 stick salted butter

I always use salted but you can use unsalted if you prefer

3oz chopped crystallized ginger

2 tablespoons freshly grated ginger

2 tablespoons freshly chopped lemon zest - chopped works better in this recipe better than grated - the slight tooth gives an added dimension

4 oz / slightly mounded half cup sugar

1 egg lightly beaten

1. Cream butter and sugar 'til light and fluffy .

2. Add egg in three goes and beat each time to incorporate fully.

3. Fold flour and baking soda in in two goes until well blended and smooth.

4. Fold in the prunes with tea, blend, fold in the lemon zest and two gingers and blend.

5. Dollop the thick batter into your prepared pan and smooth over.

6. Pop into the pre heated oven and bake for 45 mins, then add a parchment or foil hat over the cake to stop it from burning and bake for another 30 mins checking at 15 mins for doneness with a toothpick which should come out of the cake clean after being deftly plunged into the centre of the cake. When the toothpick comes out clean your cake is done.

Mine did sink a little in the middle after it came out of the oven but it was fine - not sticky in the middle at all.

Allow the cake to cool for about 15 mins before removing from the pan to a cooling rack - allow to cool completely before eating.

This is definitely one of those improves with age cakes so if you can wait til the second day the flavours will have married to a point of complete perfection.

Get the kettle on!!!

If you are interested in the watercolour blue and white gingham fabric pictured above you can find it in my Spoonflower shop HERE
and the Homespun Patchwork design - in fabric, wallpaper and wrapping paper too, is available HERE

Usually I flip flop my posts between design and recipes but this time I am combining the two.

My latest design to be added to my print on demand online Society6 shop, I give you Country Days Patchwork on Pink - if you know my work you know how much I love the colour pink :)

To this design in my Society6 shop HERE

I don't know why I love painting patchwork designs in watercolour but I do, there's something very satisfying about it for me. I originally created the motifs in this design for a competition at Spoonflower - here is a LINK to that design in a different format.

And here is my new design on various items in my shop with links below to the individual product:

To the iPhone (including iPhone6) and Samsung Galaxy cases click HERE

To the Country Days on Pink mug HERE

To the shower curtain HERE

To the Country Days Patchwork on Pink tote bag HERE

I hope you are having a wonderful Fall/Autumn thus far - we have had some glorious days in Maine and I do hope they continue for a while longer. If you bake my cake please feel free to be in touch and let me know how it came out - you can post pics of such on my Facebook page HERE

Never miss another post - not that I post that often - by following me at Bloglovin - click the button below and receive all my new posts to your inbox - thanks!!

I'd love it if you'd vote for my design at Spoonflower

I haven't entered a competition over at Spoonflower for quite some time - it's not that I haven't wanted to but none of the recent competition subjects have intrigued me or been appropriate for my style. So I was glad when they announced a competition for "Farmers Market" because my "Created by Mother Nature" fabric was designed to celebrate the wondrous bounty of Mother Nature and the hard work of your local farmer, and by default the amazing Farmers Market that dot this land and supply us with all their wonderful fruit and veg.

Please click HERE to go to the voting page - you do have to go through the 19 pages, you can only vote once per computer and I can't tell you which page my design is on as they have a shuffle programme so it's different for each new person to the site.

MANY THANKS in advance for your vote, I really appreciate it!!

This design, which was originally created in watercolour on paper, is also available on many different items, including those seen below, in my CafePress shop HERE

Surely you'll need this apron when you are cooking all your local fresh veggies!

...and you'll need this tote to tote all your fruit and veg homewards!

...and you'll need this 't' whilst your shopping at the Farmers Market to declare to the farmers how much you appreciate their work

...and you'll need this iPad case for when you're looking up recipes for all the fruit and veg you've acquired

 Large art posters and other sundry, wondrous items adorned with this design are also available at my Society6 shop HERE

Thanks so much for voting and off to the Farmers Market with you - it is the weekend!!

Vote HERE please :)

I now have wrapping paper available at my Spoonflower shop!

I am so thrilled to announce that a few days ago Spoonflower revealed that they have added wrapping paper to their roster of print on demand items and after having adjusted all my designs over there accordingly now I can offer my work as wrapping paper too - yea!!!!

Here's a little sampling of my designs in repeat - as you can see they are quite varied in style - some days I like to create illustration style designs, some days I'm happy to do geometrics both of which are fun and challenging for me to create. If you ever see a design of mine that isn't being offered over at Spoonflower but you are interested in it as either fabric, wallpaper, decals or wrapping paper please just drop me a line via the "Be in touch" heading above.

"Blue Rhapsody"

"Pink Rolling Star Quilt"

 

"Europa"

"Just Call Me Cupcake"

There's a clever little button on the giftwrap page of each design which when you click it gives you the design to scale on a package thus:

"Country Days Zig Zag"

Here is a link to my SPOONFLOWER SHOP

I recently added a listing and links to all of my online shops to this blog - look above and click on My Online Stores to view my online arcade :)

Thanks for stopping by - see you soon - Patricia

I have joined the legions of people Keeping Calm!

Do you know the story of Keep Calm and Carry On? Here is a charming video all about it:

and now that I've done such a British thing as an illustration of a cuppa with a biccie on the side ready for dunking (part of the logo I created for Carrington Lane Bakery's Etsy shop - Anne the baker did in fact bake that exact Milano I used for the illustration) why aren't I joining the legions who also are keeping calm and not necessarily carrying on but perhaps having themselves a nice hot cuppa and putting their feet up for a bit?

So here's the poster on a nice calm blue background and a poppy red frame from my Society6 shop - the design is also available on iPod 4 (and other generations) cases:

as well as iPhone cases and laptop skins - and hoodies:

plus t - shirts - and greetings cards:

and here's a pink version at my Etsy Shop

....and pink and aqua versions on a few different items at my CafePress shop:

This week I also approved a printed swatch of the teacup and biccie for a textile repeat in my 

Spoonflower shop . Here is the artwork - 

 

and a picture of the first and second swatches of the print - on the left is the approved swatch on the right the first go around - as you can see the red came out quite orange first time - reds are hard to do in print and harder still is the fact that the colour looks right on your screen/monitor - different when you print - different on other people's screens and their printers and yet again very different on the type of textile printer Spoonflower uses. So I adjusted my file in what I thought was the right direction and yea! it turned out to be so and now it is available for sale HERE

Off for a cuppa!

A Tracery of Autumn Leaves

It has been a strange Autumn so far here in Maine. The leaves are still on some of the trees and they are still green, many trees are bereft of their leaves and those leaves didn't really turn much of a colour before falling and THEN on Hallowe'en we had a heavy wet snowstorm so there were fully leaved, green trees covered in snow.

There hasn't been much in the way of red leaves or indeed full trees arrayed in their Fall splendour BUT I have captured some glorious pictures of golden, burnished, coppered, yellow, stained glass, creamy pretty leaves which to me all look like textile design repeats waiting to be created for my Spoonflower store. 

I'll look back on these photographs one blizzardy day this coming winter and be reminded of the glory that is Maine in the Autumn - crisp, clear, bright blue shiny skies, THAT Autumn smell, the crinkle of rustling leaves and the cheeriness of the Fall glow....ahhhhh.

Which picture do you think would work best as an allover textile design?

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Happy Autumn everyone - have a cosy season....Patricia

Apple and Lemon Curd for Great Maine Apple Day

 

As you can see Great Maine Apple Day is coming up pretty sharpish and I have two recipes in store to celebrate this day - today it's Apple and Lemon Curd, a recipe adapted from "Country Harvest - A Celebration of Autumn" by Linda Burgess and Rosamond Richardson - and then Friday I'll post the recipe for Apple Parkin Slice

And so we begin by assembling our small cast of characters, six in all, for the recipe - I collected some windfall apples from our ancient apple trees out the back...they are a bit knarly and lumpy but ended up tasting great in the curd!

THE RECIPE: In weights as that is more reliable (see why here ) and to help you out here is a link to a great conversion site  

1lb of your preferred apples chopped small

5 fl oz water

7oz sugar

2oz butter ( I always use salted - I like that taste in sweet things)

1 teaspoon (more or less according to your taste for it) freshly grated nutmeg

3 egg yolks whisked together

Juice and zest from two lemons (preferably organic when you are using the zest)

1. Put apples and water in a heavy bottomed pan and cook on medium until very soft - this took forever with my windfalls but when I made it with apples from local farmers it went pretty fast.

2. Press the apples through a sieve - you only need to do this if you want it really smooth but I was surprised at the amount of stubborn lumps I got that didn't squush through the sieve - so I would recommend doing this.

3. Return apple squush to pan, add sugar, nutmeg and lemon juice and zest and cook until sugar dissolves.

4. Add a little of the hot apple sauce to the egg yolks and quickly whisk together so eggs don't cook and curdle, then add a little more and do the same - you are tempering the eggs here so as not to end up with scrambled eggs.

5. Add the egg/apple sauce back in to the pan with the remainder of the apples sauce and cook gently until it begins to thicken - keep stirring and do not boil or again you will end up with scrambled egg yuck!! :(

6. Take the sauce of the heat and add the butter bit by bit - stirring and blending between each addition.

7. Allow to cool and do as you will with your lovely Apple and Lemon Curd - apparently this does not keep well so don't plan on bottling and using later - perhaps you'll like this as much as I do and it won't have the chance to stay around. This is also a good reason not to do too large of an amount at once...it needs to be fresh to be good unlike lemon curd which can be bottled and kept.

Happy Curding NOT curdling!

"Created by Mother Nature - Nurtured by Local Farmers" fabric from my Spoonflower shop

And here's the luscious finished curd - tangy, bright and with some tooth - not as smooth as lemon curd but honestly just as good. I used mine in a meringue tart so I could use up the leftover egg whites but also had it on buttered toast - divine!! - and it could easily and charmingly be the filling in a layer cake, or on the top of scones or a side for a roast of some sort - I'm not a meat eater so I'll leave it to your imagination as to which meat it would accompany well - the combination of fruit and meat is big in England so maybe I am remembering tastes of yore from my childhood.

Do let me know how your curd came out!