The Pink Cupcake illustration by Patricia Shea and a recipe for Bishop's Cake!!

The original cupcake baked, iced 15 times and photographed by yours truly!

My iconic Pink Cupcake illustration - so glad I created this little treasure :)


 I baked the cupcake....Bishops poundcake from the original Silver Palate, nice and moist and dense, then I iced the cupcake, about 15 times to get the perfect swirl, with regular old buttercream icing made of Amish butter (always salted for me) and confectioner's/icing sugar with a little bit of beetroot powder from the Belfast Food Co-op...the taste of red dye #5 leaves a horrid taste in my mouth so I tried this and sadly wasn't that impressed....hey, but I tried!! THEN I photographed the cupcake, as above, then I added a cherry via Photoshop, then I ate the cake and it's companions, then..................
...I illustrated the cupcake and now I feel that Pattern Patisserie is finally christened with true illustration and cake combined!!! Hooray!!

This illustration in it's many incarnations is also available in my Society6 shop  as large prints, stretched canvases, framed prints, iPhone cases, iPad cases and pillows, my European Envelop shop on oven gloves, aprons, placements, totes and more, my Spoonflower shop on fabric, wallpaper, decals and wrapping paper, my Etsy shop on archival posters and stickers, my Greeting Card Universe shop for, you guessed it, greetings cards - you can have them printed at a local Target and pick up the same day avoiding shipping costs, there are some items also at my Zazzle shop and 
 lots of items at my CafePress shop always :)

 Here I am illustrating the lettering for the Valentine's 'edition'. I am planning on doing a series of these bake, photograph, eat, illustrate dessert paintings...do you have any suggestions?

and here are a few items from my CafePress shop:

Awwwww...Freshly Baked Pink Cupcake Baby Gown HERE

Durable Cotton Tote Bag HERE

Pink Cupcake Samsung Galaxy Note 2 HERE

Pink Cupcake Jim Jams HERE

Pink Cupcake Cocktail accoutrements: shaker, wine cooler, small cocktail plates, napkins, trays HERE

 Now I must go and maybe make some more cupcakes as I am drooling looking at these pictures......Happy Cupcakeing to you all!!!

BISHOP'S CAKE RECIPE..simple and delicious!!

INGREDIENTS:

8 oz (2 sticks) butter, I always use salted but I know a lot of people use sweet...your choice

2 cups granulated sugar

2 cups unbleached flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (essence)

5 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350F and have your cupcake cases ready to go...

2. Cream butter and sugar together 'til fluffy and light

3. Sift flour and fold in to butter mix gently and just enough to blend

4. Add vanilla and blend, then add eggs one by one and mix well but gently after each addition

5. Fill cupcake cases 2/3 full and bake 'til a skewer comes out clean. Check after 25 minutes....for the full size cake the time is 1 hour and 15 minutes so for the cupcakes you need to guesstimate as they'll vary with the size of cupcake you are making.

6. I iced mine with plain old buttercream but you can go any way you want!!!

Please consider joining me at Facebook for updates on my artwork, new products, British 'pudding'(dessert) recipes and pictures of beautiful Maine, here's a link to my Patricia Shea Designs page - thanks!!!

PatriciaSheaDesigns

Winter Images from Maine

Frozen apples with little caps of snow
A whole tree of colourful frozen apples looks so nice against the frigid white landscape...I didn't know the apples stayed on and froze 'til I moved to Maine

Berries with caps look nice too...these are the ones I used
in the ice wreath below

I made this ice wreath in a bundt pan...which my lovely friend Brenda recently gave to me....I put dried pee-gee hydrangea sprays and the berries from above in the pan and then covered them with water and left it outside to freeze...heaven knows it colder outside than I can ever get our fridge freezer to be. It is surprising how even when the temps are frigid the wreath still melted and whicked away from sublimation.

It is now but a memory!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! A trifle, I say, for 2009!

Lady fingers.... this was my first attempt at making them and they came out a little thin but they tasted great...crisp, light and so Ladyfingery!

Here are the Ladyfingers broken up in the assigned trifle bowl ready to be 'dressed' with chopped crystallized ginger, unfrozen organic cherries, a squeeze of lemon and 'jelly' made from concentrated cheery, or even cherry, juice thickened with 'Natural Desserts' all natural unflavoured jel dessert instead of animal gelatin, as is usual, so our trifle is vegetarian.

The finished trifle...a layer of jelly and fruit and cake, a layer of homemade creme patisserie (pastry cream/custard that 'sets' when cold) and a layer of whipped cream with a little sugar and crystallized ginger scattered in a random but considered fashion. Ta Dah!!! Delicious!!!

THE RECIPE FOR A CHERRY AND GINGER TRIFLE
(READ THROUGH THE RECIPE FIRST BECAUSE SOME OF IT NEEDS TO BE DONE IN A SPECIFIC ORDER!!)

Ladyfingers from 'The Martha Stewart Cookbook' Makes about 36...you need extra to eat, of course, other than those you are putting in the trifle......

INGREDIENTS:

3 eggs seperated

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

pinch of salt

2/3 cup sifted cake flour (or 2/3 cup regualr flour minus 1 tablespoon if you don't have cake flour...I never do!)

confectioner's/icing sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 300F and line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Fit a pastry bag with a plain tip.

1. Beat egg yolks with 1/2 cup of sugar until mixture is thick, pale yellow and forms a trail on the surface of the egg mixture when the whisk is lifted out.

2. In a seperate bowl whisk the egg whites with the remaining tablespoon of sugar and pinch of salt until stiff but not dry.

3. Fold the egg whites ever so gently into the yolk mixture alternating with the sifted flour...be careful not to overmix...fold until all flour and whites are just incorporated. The batter must remain as light and fluffy as possible.

4. Spoon the batter into the pastry bag and pipe onto parchment in lengths of 4" x 1 1/2" wide.

5. Using a fine sieve dust the fingers thickly with confectioners/icing sugar.

6. Bake for about 20 minutes, they are done when they are slightly beige in colour and firm but tender.

7. Cool on wire racks before using in the trifle.

THE CUSTARD

FINALLY, I have found a pastry cream that actually sets when cold, I tried about 3 other recipes that SAID the custard would set when cold but they didn't...this one WORKS!!!, and really well but you have to be vigilant!

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup of milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon of sugar

1 whole egg

2 egg yolks

1 tablespoon of regular flour

1 tablespoon of cornstarch (cornflour for the Brits)

1. Combine the milk, vanilla and 1/4 cup of sugar in a pan and heat until the sugar dissolves.

2. In a bowl beat the egg and extra yolks with the remaining sugar until thick.

3. Sprinkle the flour and cornstarch into yolk mixture and beat until well mixed and smooth.

4. Beat half the hot milk into the yolk mix until combined and smooth.

5. Then pour this into the remaining hot mixture in the pan.

6. HERE IS THE VIGILANT PART, keep your eyeballs peeled and whisk moving like the clappers!!! Bring the custard to a quick boil, whisking, whisking, whisking and as soon as it thickens..., take off the heat and whisk until it starts to cool....put pan in a bowl of cold water and continue to whisk until cold...you don't have to do it non-stop, but pretty often to prevent a skin from forming....when I was little if there was a skin on the custard it made me gag, so don't go there!!!

THE JELLY PART

Now here is the confusing part...to a Brit jelly means Jello not jam. I decided to use a vegetarian jelling agent and found a great one at the local Food Co-op by 'Natural Desserts'...it works really well and FAST....starts to set-up whilst it is still hot so beware of that as you go along. I used one packet and set one US pint of 'jelly' with it ie 16 fl oz not 20 fl oz for a British pint...so I took about 10 fl oz of concentrated cherry juice and added 6 oz water to make up the liquid...I made the juice stronger than the instructions said for more flavour in the jelly......but don't make the jelly YET....read the rest of the recipe to know what to do in what order.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER IN ORDER.

1. Make the Ladyfingers, let them cool and break them up into the bottom of the chosen GLASS trifle bowl...you want to be able to appreciate the layers.

2. Make the custard and let it cool without letting it get a skin...YUCK!!!

3. Assemble the unfrozen cherries, as many as you like, and chop the crystallized ginger, and sprinkle with a little lemon juice for ZING, and scatter them over the Ladyfingers.

4. NOW make the jelly, whisk a little til cool and starting to thicken and then pour over the Ladyfingers, cherries and ginger.

5. Let the jelly set.

6. Spoon the custard over the jelly bit.

7. Whip lashings of cream...the best you can find, preferably from Jersey cows and either 'dollop' over the custard or pipe as I did.

8. Garnish with more chopped crystallized ginger.

CONSUME!!!!

The combination of jelly, fruit, custard and whipped cream is divine and sublime if done well, when I was growing up in Manchester, England Mum made trifles from a packet and they were pretty grim but not this one...it is subtle and cloud like and not horribly sweet...you can make any flavour combination of fruit and jelly(o) you like...be inventive....some people do raspberry jelly and bananas, strawberries and strawberry jelly(o)....some people like to sprinkle cream sherry on the Ladyfingers before you put on the fruit and jelly(o)....some people use jam instead of jelly(o). Let me know what you come up with...I just liked the idea of cherry and ginger, and there you have it!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! HAPPY NEW YEAR! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Yule logs...fake and real!

This is the scene outside right now...winter has arrived with a vengeance and we here in Maine are girding ourselves for quite the snowstorm.....up to 18 inches are expected by tomorrow morning so we are not dreaming of a white Christmas, we are indeed, going to be living it! Grab your snow shovels and get the kettle on!!
Now...on to the Yule Log/Buche de Noel...here is a pic of the meringue mushrooms in their seperate parts and 'glued' together with melted chocolate...I have to be honest with you...I am very pleased with how these little darlings turned out...James said they look like the animated mushrooms in 'Fantasia' which I am taking as quite the compliment.

Ta dah!!! My first Yule Log in all it's glory...the genoise didn't turn out as thick as I hoped but I am very happy with the finished results.


THE RECIPE

Firstly you need to make those cute little meringues!

Ingredients:

2 egg whites

4oz fine sugar

1/2 teaspoon white vinegar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Make sure your egg whites are at room temperature to ensure the greatest volume when you whip and do not attempt to make meringues on a wet/humid day...they won't work at all or will be a disappointment!

1. Beat the egg whites until stiff

2. Gradually beat in the sugar

3. Mix vinegar and vanilla extract together and fold in to egg whites

4. Using a large plain tip pipe the meringue mixture into small rounds and small upright tubes...see pic above for shapes. You will probably get little peaks on both...you can smooth these out with a WET finger....if you don't wet your finger all you will do is drag the meringue around.

5. My recipe then says to cook the meringues in a 250 degree oven for 1 hour which will give you adequate meringues with chewy centres...more like a French macaroon....but I prefer a meringue that is like ceramic so I bake in a 175 degree, if your oven will go that low, for about 4 hours and then I turn off the oven and leave the meringues in there for about 5 hours...the meringues will be dry and crisp and beautiful.

6. Melt the chocolate you are going to use for the buttercream in a pan over boiling water and use to 'glue' the meringue tops to their stalks.

7. Stand back and admire your incredibly cute work....they are irresistible aren't they?

NOW FOR THE CAKE PART: Chocolate Genoise, adapted from 'The Christmas Cook book' by Marilyn Bright with lovely illustrations by Bridget Flinn

Ingredients:

3 eggs

1 extra egg white (whipped to stiff)

scant 1/2 cup superfine sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa

1. Grease and line with buttered parchment paper an 8 x 12 inch jelly roll pan

2. Whisk the 3 whole eggs and sugar in the top of a double boiler until the mixture is pale and thick and leaves a definite trail when you lift the whisk out. DO NOT stop whisking at any point for fear of curdling the mixture and ending up with scrambled eggs!

3. Remove from the heat.

4. Sift the flour and cocoa together and gently fold into the egg mixture.

5. Fold in the whicked, or whisked!, extra egg white.

6. Pour into the prepared jelly roll pan and smooth evenly with a spatula...I didn't and the cake baked unevenly...it didn't seek it's own level as other cake batters do...how very rude of it and lazy!!

7. Bake at 425 for about 10 minutes...until the cake feels firm to the touch.

8. Carefully flip over onto a wire rack and flip again onto a flat surface, trim any uneven or crusty edges and roll up with the parchment still on it....allow to cool completely.

9. Whilst cooling whip 1/2 cup of heavy/double cream with a few tablespoons of sugar to taste and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.

10. Unroll the cake/genoise, peel off the parchment,which probably involves another flip....spread with the whipped cream and reroll.

THE CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM

I like really simple buttercream...no mucking around with melting butter and whipping egg whites etc...AND I like to use salted butter to give that nice counterpoint tang that is so popular with caramels right now...I always use salted butter when I bake which I have recently found out is a very European thing to do, I just thought it was because I like the tang of salt with sweet. ANYWAYS...

Ingredients:

4oz softened butter

an inordinate amount of confectioners/icing sugar...I just keep adding until it tastes the way I like....

2oz melted semi-sweet chocolate...again I do this by eyeball and tastebud so you may want more or less.....and cooled so it won't melt the butter.

1. Beat the butter..

2. Add sifted sugar to taste.....

3. Add melted chocolate to taste.

Assemble your YULE LOG/BUCHE DE NOEL

1. Cover the rolled Yule Log with chocolate buttercream...I don't cover then ends as I like to see the cake and cream...but you can do otherwise of course! When covered to your satisfaction pull the tines of a fork lenghtwise along the buttercream and wiggle as you go to make the buttercream look like the bark of a log!!! Very easy and very effective I might say!

2. Add the ridiculously cute meringues anyway you like....see my picture above.

You will get great praise for this dessert so happy baking!!!

Now for some info on real Yule Logs......WOW!, is it snowing here...it wasn't supposed to start 'til midnight but we already have about 2" accumulated and it's only 4pm!!!

The celebration of the Yule Log began in pre-Christian times as a counterpart to the midsummer celebrations those crazy guys held way back then. The fire festival they began so long ago has developed into the burning of the Yule Log either for the modest 24 hours of Christmas Day or more ambitiously the whole twelve days of Christmas from Christmas Eve to January 6th. You are supposed to kindle to the new Yule Log with a piece saved from the log the year before. In years gone by people choose their log from those fallen on their land and the log was brought into the dwelling with great ceremony...we are talking here about castles and grand houses that had hearths the size of a modest family home nowadays. The ashes of the log are scattered over the land to promote feritilty in the crops the following year and a piece of the charred wood is to be kept under the bed to protect the house from thunder and lightning. Oak is the traditional wood for a Yule Log...here is a poem, whose origin I could not determine, that tells the properties of all manner of wood.....

LOGS TO BURN

Oak logs will warm you well,

If they're old and dry.

Larch logs of pine wood smell,

But the sparks will fly,

Beech logs for Christmas Time,

Yew logs heat well,

Scotch logs it is a crime,

For any one to sell,

Birch logs will burn too fast,

Chestnut scarce at all,

Hawthorn logs are good to last,

If you cut them in the fall,

Holly logs will burn like wax,

You should burn them green,

Elm logs like smouldering wax,

No flames to be seen,

Pear logs and apple logs,

They will scent your room,

Cherry logs across the dogs,

Smell like flowers in bloom,

But ash logs all smooth and grey,

Burn them green or old,

Buy up all that come your way,

They are worth their weight in gold.

I can indeed attest to this about ash logs now that I have been using a good old wood burning stove to heat the house these last nine years...I have also discovered I am allergic to oak, love the smell of birch bark and love ash because it does burn when green and puts off amazing heat.

Happy baking and burning...Patricia

"Story of the Yellow Emperor" by James Strickland

James created this box as a touchstone for the myth of the Yellow Emperor, Huang Di, patron of Taoism, inventor of the principles of Chinese medicine and possesor of many gifts of wisdom and knowledge. He reigned from 2497 BC to 2398 BC. The box is made with the chinese cedarwood salvaged from an antique tea caddy, it is gilded with 24k gold leaf, lined with Japanese patterned washi paper and is filled two hand lettered packets of Omani frankincense and Yemeni myrrh.

It looks so lovely in the mellow glow of candlelight and reminds me of the movie "Lost Horizon" which I used to watch again and again with my Mum when I was little. The thought of a mystical city in the Himalayas fascinated me and this sculptural box looks like the city in my mind, I hope my photographs do it justice!

Christmas Pudding or Plum Pudding?

The ingredients...minus the egg I forgot!

Look at the apples, they are Black Oxfords grown

in Paris, Maine...they are beautiful!

The 'pud' mixed and ready to rest overnight,

apparently this helps with the lightness

of the pudding and helps marry

the flavours!

The 'puds' ready to be steamed with their

little discs of buttered paper and aluminium foil covers...

So forgive me the lateness of this posting.....I should have done this a week ago so all you wooden spoon and pudding basin wielding Anglophiles could have made your Christmas Puds on Stir-Up Sunday, the traditional day for making one's puddings but, alas, Thankies got in the way and here I am making my puddings late...although the one I have chosen for you doesn't need too much time to mature, it is quite grown up already....By the way the reason it is also called a PLUM pudding, even though it has no plums (!!!!) is because in Elizabethan times imported plums were held in such high esteem that the word plum came to be used in reference to other dried fruits......I use it myself to mean something is great as in "What a plum spot thou hast given to my Plum Pudding on your delightful Christmas prandial table!!!"...and other such comments!

I have chosen a vegetarian pud as I read something on David Lebovitz's blog that has put me off kidney suet for perhaps the rest of my life.

...and away we go....."Gourmet Christmas Pudding" from Rose Elliot's Gourmet Vegetarian Cooking with slight variations by me

INGREDIENTS: (If you need conversions from weights to cups please check out Sue Pallett's website..the link is listed in my blogroll, Thanks!)

8oz fine wholewheat crumbs (about five slices of good bread, I crumbed it in a coffee grinder with excellent results)

4oz butter

4oz whole wheat flour (I only had white and it worked fine)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1 teaspoon cardamom (my change, the recipe called for 2 teaspoons mixed spice but I like cardamom, especially with the lemon in the recipe)

1 teaspoon nutmeg (again my addition 'cos I like nutmeg)

2oz fine brown sugar

4oz sultanas (golden raisins)

4oz raisins

4oz currants

2oz candied peel chopped

2oz crystallized ginger chopped

grated rind of one lemon (organic if you can)

grated rind of one orange (ditto)

2oz flaked almonds (I toasted these quite dark as I like that nutty flavour)...honestly though I think you can leave them out as I don't remember almonds in the puds from my childhood

1 egg

1 tablespoon orange juice

2 tablespoons lemon juice (I added an extra tablespoon of lemon 'cos I like the tang of it against the dried fruit)

4 tablespoons brandy...I used port because it is all we had...bet you can use whiskey too - or 4 tablespoons of apple juice/cider/pomegranate juice/orange juice - your choice if you don't want to use alcohol.

10 fluid oz brown ale...or you can substitute apple juice/cider

Phew, I'm exhausted with typing already....the rest is easy though!!

Put everything dry into a nice big mixing bowl and mix well. Whisk the egg with orange and lemon juices, add brandy (port or whiskey) and finally brown ale, add the liquids to the dry bits and stir very well. Cover well and leave in a cool place, but not the fridge, for a few hours or overnight to help lighten the pudding. When you are ready to steam, spoon the mixture into greased pudding basins...one large one (2 and a half pint size) or a variety of small ones to give as gifts, put a circle of buttered paper on the top of each pud and then cover tightly with aluminium foil and put into a double steamer basket so the basins are not touching the water and steam the little darlings for about 3 hours, make sure you keep checking the water isn't getting too low.

Take puds out and let cool, then store away in a covered container til Christmas Day (again not the fridge) when you will retrieve them from their resting and maturing place and you steam them ,YES AGAIN, for about another three hours. You will end up with a delicious fruity, moist pudding which you decant from their basins, serve hot and slather in brandy butter which is a simple combination of butter (12 tbsps), brown sugar (1/4 cup) and 6 tablespoons of brandy...cream butter and sugar together until light, beat in brandy a little at a time...very simple, a little crunchy and oh so delicious on a Christmas Pud.....you can also do the traditonal lighting of the Pud by pouring a couple of tablespoons of brandy over the top of the pud and lighting it with a match...it burns off quite quickly and looks beautiful. Happy steaming!!

Banoffee Pie - banana, dulche de leche and cream...you're going to love me for this one!!

(Don't know why my pictures are in the wrong order...but they should be reversed....!!)

Yes indeed you are going to think I am the Bees Knees when you make this deceptively simple little pie...it is heavenly! It is crunchy, if you choose a good thin crust, luscious, creamy, very sweet without being cloying...oh what joy! Apparently it was 'invented' in the early 70's at The Hungry Monk in England and has since become one of the favourite desserts of Blighty, my goodness it was even mentioned in my favourite movie "Love actually", which by the way I watch every year near Christmas time...but that's by the by....here we go....

BANOFFEE TOFFEE PIE!!!!!!! 
INGREDIENTS:
 2 cups of canned sweetened condensed milk 

1 9" frozen pie crust...I would normally make the pie crust but in this instance I have found an EXCELLENT pie crust by Maple Lane Bakery which is organic, vegan, unbleached white flour and VERY good...I cook it 'blind' (cautionary note here...do NOT used unpopped corn for this purpose....I did once and guess what happened!!!) and for longer than they say so it is really golden and crisp.

3 nicely ripe bananas...not starchy ones....err on the side of too ripe rather than underripe!

1 1/2 cups chilled heavy/double cream...preferably organic as I have found this doesn't 'weep' after whipping and sitting around for a while, although I have to tell you if this pie does sit around for a while someone's taste buds are dead!

1 tablespoon light brown sugar 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

...and off we go..


METHOD:
1. Pre heat oven to 425F

2. Pour condensed milk into a pie plate and stir in a generous pinch of salt

3. Cover pie plate with foil and fold tightly around the rim. Put pie plate into a roasting pan 'bain marie' (water bath) and add enough boiling water to come halfway up the pie plate. Bake and check on the water occasionally to make sure it hasn't all evaporated, replenish as necessary. Cook until the milk has become a delicious golden caramel colour and has thickened considerably, which may take up to 2 hours...I like mine slightly runny and not quite so dark so it may take less time to get to that stage...see pic above...and can now be technically called dulche de leche, remove from the oven and let cool before popping in the fridge for a while to really cool. I prefer this method to the boil in the ca one as you can check the progress and take the dulche de leche out at the point where you like it to be.

4.Whip the cream with the brown sugar and vanilla....

5. Pour condensed milk caramel into precooked pie crust.....slice bananas all over the top...cover all with whipped cream....make sure bananas are completely covered or they'll turn brown very quickly, the cream will insulate them for a while...although it will be gone so quickly they won't have the chance anyways!!! 

Off you go, go now, trust me you will LOVE this charming little pie....don't assemble the pie until just before you want it devoured so the crust doesn't get a chance to go soggy!!! 

This is my way of saying 'Happy Thanksgiving'

Trick or treacle toffee?

Here is a recipe for the Brit delight, Treacle Toffee, which could in the US be called molasses toffee, but as I love the word treacle so much then treacle it will remain...the word treacle sounds like the sound treacle makes when you stick a spoon in a jar of it and then pull the spoon out....that's a treacle sound! 

Treacle toffee is well known in Blighty for Bonfire/Guy Fawkes night which is coming up soon on November 5th...so make it for Hallowe'en (or All Hallow's Eve or Samhain or...) or next Wednesday! I am not a big fan of treacle/molasses generally, it reminds me of licorice which makes my face crinkle, but there's something about treacle toffee that I really like and I can't quite say what it is, probably the addition of butter, what isn't improved by THAT!!! In Britain I think the best treacle toffee is made by Thornton's , where they have huge trays of it with little hammers to break it up ready for your edification. (Thornton's also do a bazzin' Apricot Parfait...dark chocolate with apricot cream and crystallized-apricot-bits centres!! YUMMY!!!)

I have taken my recipe from the book you see above, 'Farmhouse Kitchen II' which is a treasure trove of good old fashioned British stick-to-your-ribs recipes, I can ALWAYS find something in there I want to make but I do have to admit this recipe is not going to be an exact one as either I don't have the candy-making thing down or my candy thermometer is totally out of whack...regardless here we go with an imprecise recipe!!

INGREDIENTS:

8oz (in weight) molasses/treacle

8oz brown sugar (I'm sure you can use white if that is all you have!)

2oz butter

2 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar...does anyone know what the vinegar does?...I've used it in recipes for meringues and I don't know what it's purpose is....

I added a 1/2 teaspoon salt for that nice counterpoint and...
 

1 teaspoon vanilla essence/extract

1.Lump all the ingredients into a heavy bottomed stainless steel saucepan and gradually warm it up to a slow boil, continue boiling gently for about 10 minutes and stir occasionally to prevent sticking and a truly grim burning smell.

2. Raise the heat slowly until a rolling boil is achieved...now here comes the imprecision...the recipe book said to take the temp to 284F but no way was my black sludge getting that hot, I KNOW it would have burnt so I watched the boiling until I could see that mixture getting thicker, stirring all the while to prevent sticking, and occasionally I dripped some of the liquid on a cool surface, in my case the stove top, and when it cooled quickly and could be picked up cleanly from the surface and squashed between my figures without sticking to them and feeling like some warm candle wax I, yes I, decided to take the sludge off the boil, stirred and cooled it til the bubbles subsided then poured it into a VERY well buttered 9" square metal container, at it's hottest the sludge reached about 225f on MY candy thermometer but don't go by that!!

3. Let the candy/sweets cool 'til the surface was setting and then pulled a sharp knife across the surface to mark it for breaking when the toffee was completely set.

When cold I removed said Treacle Toffee from the container and broke, somewhat unevenly I might add, along the marked lines and then wrapped some in small rectangles of unbleached greaseproof paper ready for the hoards of children who will not show at our house tomorrow evening because we live at the end of a quiet road where no-one ever comes!!! Maybe I'll take some into town tomorrow for the progeny of my deserving friends...assuming, of course, that it doesn't all get eaten by ghouls in the night!!

Happy Hallowe'en and November 5th all!!!

Cider colours, cider apples, cider press and cider cake!

SO...from top to bottom we have the field across the road from my house in all it's burnished cider and marmalade colours, apples on the knarled old tree in the back yard, a cider press courtesy of Farmer's Fare, a roasting apple on a stick and cider cake...a quiet, humble little thing...subtle and demure. James and I went down to Rockport to see apples being ground into pulp which was then mercilessly squeezed in the cider press and the resulting delicious nectar was drunk with great relish. I came home and looked in my trusty old cookbooks and found a recipe for Cider Cake in "Traditional Irish Food"...in Gaelic the cake is Ciste ceirlise. I promptly made the cake and here is the recipe...with my own added twist, a play on Britain's favourite Sticky Toffee Pudding.

CIDER CAKE: (I should note here for the Brits reading cider in the U.S. means freshly pressed UNalcoholic apple juice, for the Americans when the Brits and Irish say cider they mean HARD cider...I decided to be contrary to both and I used frozen concentrated apple juice in the cake for extra flavour)
INGREDIENTS:

8oz unbleached flour

pinch of salt

goodly pinch of freshly ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

4oz butter ( I always use salted butter but you may use unsalted if you so desire!)

4oz fine brown sugar

2 eggs beaten because they have misbehaved in some way

1/4 pint cider (I made up this amount with TWICE the concentrate that the directions said on the frozen concentrate conatiner)

TOPPING:

6 tBsps frozen apple juice

2 1/2oz sugar

1 1/2oz butter (again I use salted...I like that salt tang)

2 tBsps fresh cream

1. Mix dry ingredients together well

2. Cream butter and sugar til very light and fluffy

3. Add beaten eggs bit by bit to prevent curdling

4. Fold in half the flour mix

5. Add the extra strength apple juice, if you only have apple juice you could boil it down for extra flavour.

6. Fold in the remaining flour

7. Spoon mix into a greased and floured 7" shallow cake tin and bake at 325F for about 45 minutes. Leave in cake tin for the next bit!!!

8. TOPPING: Melt brown sugar, butter, cream and frozen apple juice together in a pan....let bubble gently for about 5 minutes until mixture thickens.

9. Light broiler (grill)...pour topping deliciousness over the cake still in the pan and broil until bubbling but NOT burnt, when the cake cools it has a nice crisp top with apple 'goo' round the edges

10. Let cake cool before eating...this cake keeps well, more so if you make it with hard cider which you are welcome to do!!

From THOMAS HARDY'S "THE WOODLANDERS" published 1887

" An apple-mill and press had been erected on the spot, to which some men were bringing fruit from divers points in mawn-baskets (deep, round, coverless two handled wicker baskets) while others were grinding them, and others wringing down the pomace, whose sweet juice gushed forth into tubs and pails......The outskirts of the town were just now abounding with apple-gatherings. They stood in the yards in carts, baskets and loose heaps; and the blue stagnant air of autumn which hung over everything was heavy with a sweet cidery smell. Cakes of pomace (the solid remains of the pressing) lay against the walls in the yellow sun, where they were drying to be used as fuel"

I LOVE the idea of using the pomace as fuel...I bet that would smell good burning in a wood stove!!!

Belfast Maine 4th Annual Poetry and Art Festival!!

BEGUINAGE REVISITED

by Janet Shea

It is a thirteenth-century beguinage,
a community of holy women--mothers, aunts,
ancestral sisters--tending the sick.
Mary of Oignies, Juliana, Marguerite
shuttle trays of soft food, medicinal tea,
warm milk to the many suffering
souls to be cared for: Old women, children
on cots, restless babies in cribs.

.

Every so often a sister stops to rest, leans

against the banister or door jamb. Mary

of Oignies, weakened by the marks of stigmata,

wipes the back of her hand across her forehead,

swipes a bleeding palm down the sides of her apron.

.

Local friars, arrayed in hooded burlap,

sit on the porch with neighborhood

men in plaid shirts, caps swinging between their knees

all awaiting instructions from the women. The men

were summoned to ward off encroaching disaster,

invasion, a possible flood. Already their boots

are slick with mud. Already the wind howls, rain

pelts the roof, fir trees like old bones creak

in the woods out back.

.

Bonded in time and place, tired of waiting,

the men convene in the cellar. They hammer,

check beams and joists, sandbag the foundation, trace

strategic escape routes on a torn and crinkled

map, vigilant for marauders, heretics, petty thieves.

.

Later, in my grandmother's Victorian, a labyrinth

of hallways and stairs, sisters . . . Patricia,

Virginia, Mary Louise . . . gather at Grammy's

oak table for supper. Overhead, mothers and aunts,

in rooms pungent with the aroma of lavender

and oil-of-wintergreen, settle in bed, side

rails secured, night lights aglow, the Sacred

Heart of Jesus, consoling on the wall. Nearby

children and babies breathe easy, exhaling

in sleep a fragrance of warm milk and honey.

The winds out back coo like a covey of doves,

the rain a soft patter on glass.

.

After supper the eldest cousin retreats

to the pantry, a sudden tumble of disarray.

She puzzles among the monochromatic cache

of mother vessels, dried up and cracked,

chooses a familiar blue bowl, its vanilla

rim chipped, and fills it with pudding.

.

"I enter the circle of holy ones,"

she whispers, returning to the table,

the ancient vessel steady in her hands.

Sisters and cousins, we welcome her with song,

remember in silence the women before us.

.

We tell stories, pass the bowl of abundance,

feast in the mounds of meringue.

White peaks

whipped firm,

but not stiff.

Above is a poem by my good and delicious friend, Janet Shea, (not a rellie!) which I illustrated with the painting you see at the top of this posting. I decided to make the painting into a shrine to the Sacred Everyday (Sacra Quotidianus) and took some pictorial elements from Janet lovely poem to celebrate this concept. Janet and I decided to call ourselves 'The Two Sheas' and I was so proud to have the painting hung in a gallery here in Belfast with Janet reading the poem aloud to a breathless audience....that was for the very first Belfast Poetry and Art Festival in 2005. With the tireless efforts of Elizabeth Garber, our first Poet Laureate in Belfast and a wordsmith whose poems have been featured not once but thrice on the Garrison Keillor early morning radio spot on NPR, along with the efforts of many other local poets and artists this Festival is now in it's fourth season...do check out the website (see info in righthand column and click there to link to their site) for a listing of venues where this year's poetry will be read and art seen.

The two Angel pictures are from the Belfast Graveyard and I thought they were appropriate to combine with this particular posting. For info on Beguinage click on the title of the poem.

Thank you Janet, you little sweetpea!!!

Welsh cakes...again, not cakes....so what are they??

To be honest they are the stuff of legend...honeeest...they are the 'cakes' King Alfred burned, silly man!!!...actually I burned a couple myself so maybe he wasn't so silly!!! They are cakes in the same way a pancake is a cake, to me they taste like fried cookies (biscuits to the Brits reading)...they are sweet and cakey, simple and filling. I can eat them hot with or without butter and find them just as delicious cold when they really do have the sense of cookie about them.

The recipe I used is from an old copy of British Country Living and it has served me very well over the years...it's a great way to start your Thankies Day.

INGREDIENTS:
 

8oz unbleached white flour
 

pinch of salt
 

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg ( I like just nutmeg, a highly underappreciated little spice, but traditionally one would do 1/2 tsp of mixed spice (?), is that allspice? and 1/2 teaspoon of mace)
 

4oz cold grated butter, makes it easier to blend into the flour (again in the recipe it asks for 2oz butter and 2oz of white fat but I don't have any lard and don't like hydrogenated fats...so I went for 4oz butter and they were just fine!)
 

3oz sugar...I use fine brown sugar because I like the flavour of brown but you can use white and King Alfred probably used white sugar...or did he...does anyone know what colour the sugar would have been then...maybe they didn't have white sugar in the 14Century...or whenever he lived, I am making an uneducated guess here!)
 

3oz dried currants
 

1 egg beaten...oops I left this out of the ingredients photo, with a tsp of vanilla extract stirred in

Approx. 1 tablespoon of milk.
 

THE PROCESS:
 

1. Sift flour, salt and spices together in a bowl.
 

2. Rub the grated butter in until it resembles breadcrumbs.
 

3. Stir in the sugar and dried fruit.
 

4. Add the beaten egg with a fork.. and just enough of the milk to form a soft dough...it should be a bit sticky.
 

5. Roll out the dough to 1/4" thickness and cut into rounds, or simple shapes. I got too clever for my clogs and used a star cutter and what with the currants they don't keep their shape well, although I still think they look nicely rustic. You may if you so desire omit the currants as I know so may people out there have fear of dried fruit pertaining to nightmare fruit cakes!...I think the recipe should come out just as well and then you can be more fancy with your cutters!
 

6. Heat up your frying pan, preferably a cast iron one, or griddle if you have one to medium heat. Grease with a little butter...remember they have a lot of butter already in them, and try ONE Welsh Cake to get the feel of the pan and heat, just like you would do with a pancake....the first one of which you usually throw away until your get your hand and the pan 'in'...if you know what I mean.
 

7. Cook the Welsh Cakes in small batches...don't crowd the pan, you want to make it easy to turn them over, and cook a few minutes each side until nicely browned but still soft in the middle.
 

8. Get them out of the pan, cut in half horizontally and put a nice pat of butter in there if you so desire. Maple syrup would be a nice addition if you want to gild the lily and do actually make them for Thankies.
 

9. Repeat process multiple times because once you start eating these little treasures, chances are you won't be able to stop.
 

Off you pop and warm up that big lumbering cast iron frying pan!!! Autumn is just the right time for Welsh Cakes...with, of course, a spot of tea...they do go better with tea than coffee.

More colour...this time from Mother Nature.

As you can see the pictures really speak for themselves! Fall is at full gallop here in Maine and the colours are near peak, I will take more photos as the colour develops and post them here for those of you not lucky enough to see this show in it's true glory. These photos were all taken within half a mile of my house...aren't I lucky!!! In order from top to bottom they are: 'traffic light' maple leaves, Blueberry Hill vista looking towards Blue Hill, a view looking up Blueberry Hill, a field by the house, bees (and their knees) at work on the asters (also known as Michaelmas Daisies...Michaelmas Day being September 29th, oops we missed it, and should properly be named the day of Saint Michael and All Angels, apparently it should be celebrated with a goose for dinner, I assume this means the eating of a goose for dinner and not a goose sitting at the table BUT I DIGRESS........), and lovely pink pee gee hydrangea flowers which will turn pale brown but can be cut and kept all year at that point. Happy Autumn!!