Treacle Tart for a Mizzlin' Day!!

Yes friends, it's already the time of the year when Mainah's thoughts turn to wood....and wood piles....and wood stoves....and flues.... and MOVING wood!! I did my first wood haul this week into the front porch area where we spend our summer days...safe from the mosquitoes, shielded from the sun by a grape vine and smelling the delicious smells of a Maine summer. But no more...the evenings are drawing in, the wind is chill and today it's raining and drizzling and mizzlin' and misty...just the sort of day one needs to eat ones unfair share of Treacle Tart!!

And LO I hear you ask...why is there a can of Golden Syrup for this tart named "TREACLE" (Brit word for molasses)...well believe it or not I just thought of that question myself for the very first time...there seems to be no treacle in this tart...but YES there is - golden syrup is also known as, and no I did not know this, light treacle or light molasses...and thus the mystery is solved and we can get on with baking this tooth achingly sweet cold day treat!!

Piecrust...Pate Brisee by Martha
Pre-heat oven to 400F

1 1/4 cups/5ozs of white flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 stick (4ozs) butter I always use salted, VERY cold
1/8 to 1/4 cup ice cold water
METHOD:
1. Sift the flour
2. Grate the butter into the flour.
3. Gently work butter into flour until it resembles coarse meal.
4. Add some of the water and test to see if it comes together, if not keep adding water until the dough will squush into a non-sticky ball.
5. Put into the fridge to rest for at least one hour.
6. Take the pastry out of the fridge, allow to warm a very little, roll out nice and thin, then line an 8" tart pie...preferably with a removable base. Put back in the fridge for about another 20 minutes til nice and cold...the colder the better...I have found the colder it is before baking the less the pie shell will shrink in cooking.
7. Line the pie shell with parchment paper and fill with beans and blind bake for about 20 minutes, then remove the paper and beans and bake for about another 15 minutes so shell is somewhat cooked before you put the liquid filling in. Helps the shell stay crisper once the golden syrup mixture goes in.

THE Filling:...oh so simple....just like me!!
Reduce your oven to 190C/375F

1 can (454g) of Tate and Lyle's Golden Syrup....
a real treat if you haven't tried it before, sort of a buttery tasting sugar syrup you can use on and in all manner of delicious desserts
110g/ 4oz/ 1 cup white breadcrumbs preferably from day old bread
The finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon (preferably organic)
OR: 1 large apple grated...the apples you see above are windfalls from the back of our house...best we've had in years!!
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger.

1. Mix all the above ingredients together with either the lemon or the apple...I tried both separately...of course the lemon was tangier and the apple one was more complex but both were very good, depends on whether you like a bit of tart with your sweet.
2. Pour the mix into the pre-baked tart shell and pop into your nice and cozy oven.
3. Bake for about 20-25 minutes until the pastry is nicely browned and the surface of the 'treacle' is ever so slightly browned...if you over cook this pie it will turn chewy and tough and I suspect you don't want that!!

Here is great link to a US/UK conversion blog page by Graham Ettridge...very useful for those of us with very old English cookbooks!!
and here's your lovely Treacle Tart...should be served warm with lashings of clotted cream, heavy(double) cream, vanilla ice cream or even pouring custard...or ALL OF THEM!!!! YEA!!!

I couldn't resist another picture of the fabulous leaves against a clear Fall/Autumn sky...this was a couple of days ago before the rain set in.
Happy Baking!!!

A Gallimaufry of Autumn's Deliciousness in Maine

Autumn really is the most photogenic of seasons...I just can't stop taking pictures in Fall, especially here in beautiful Maine. The colours are delicious and luscious and so inviting, and the season itself makes me feel cozy and warm, looking forward to crackling log fires, toast with lashings of melted butter and steamed puddings galore!!
Above is Nepeta....the flowers turn a lovely pink and purple, and those colours against the green and yellow - isn't this a textile print waiting to be designed??

A perfect Pee Gee Hydrangea bloom...this year my Pee Gee is so laden with big, pendulous blossoms it is drooping to the ground....we will have some monumental bouquets this winter of the blooms which dry out to a lovely taupe and last seemingly forever.The apple trees bounty which will feed many a hungry deer and
turkey once the snow begins to fly.

A brave and tired Monarch...I have seen a few around whose wings are torn and broken but still they flit and fly around and about and look as beautiful as ever.

I don't even know what berries these are -I used them for a frozen ice wreath a couple of years and plan to do the same again this winter. Does anyone know what they are??

Another Monarch amidst the glowing goldenrod

...and a milkweed pod that has finally burst open...doesn't it look like a pine cone...
so neat and orderly..

Now here's a perfect Monarch, in more ways than one...before I found this particular butterfly I was running around the fields like a scalded hen and every time I was just about to get the perfect photograph the little rascal flew away...this good Monarch just sat and wafted his wings and allowed me to photograph as much as I wanted!! Thank you!!

Don't you love his polka dot body...I am assuming these are males but don't know for sure - they may be females for all my scientific knowledge on the subject...I do know there is a way to know but it escapes me right now. Sorry Monarch!!

and finally the surest sign of Fall...the Michaelmas Daisy or New England aster...this picture has not been enhanced in any way...I just cropped it a little but the colour is true to life right outside my window.

Michaelmas Day, September 29th, is the forgotten quarter-day. In medieval times the four quarter days were important, namely: Christmas, Lady Day, Midsummer Day and Michaelmas. It marks the end of the harvest, thus Michaelmas had special significance for agricultural societies in northern latitudes. Does this mean the aster is blooming early this year as so many other plants have done?

Romantic Rose Geranium - pie and lemonade!!! OOh la la!!

I have always loved and relished the thought of using flowers in baking and desserts in general...how romantic and exotic and now FINALLY I have made something, actually two things, with Rose Geranium...I love the smell, I was a little leary of the 'geranium' part which can be soapy if you over do it but Rose Geranium...doesn't it just sound divine!!

Rose Geranium Buttermilk Pie

Of course I had to use Kate's Real Buttermilk in my pie, what else is there??!!

THE RECIPE:

Piecrust...Pate Brisee by Martha
Pre-heat oven to 400F

1 1/4 cups/5ozs of white flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1 stick (4ozs) butter I always use salted, VERY cold

1/8 to 1/4 cup ice cold water

METHOD:
 
1. Sift the flour

2. Grate the butter into the flour.

3. Gently work butter into flour until it resembles coarse meal.

4. Add some of the water and test to see if it comes together, if not keep adding water until the dough will squush into a non-sticky ball.

5. Put into the fridge to rest for at least one hour.

6. Take the pastry out of the fridge, allow to warm a very little, roll out nice and thin, then line an 8" tart pie...preferably with a removable base. Put back in the fridge for about another 20 minutes til nice and cold...the colder the better...I have found the colder it is before baking the less the pie shell will shrink in cooking. 
 
7. Line the pie shell with parchment paper and fill with beans and blind bake for about 20 minutes, then remove the paper and beans and bake for about another 15 minutes so shell is somewhat cooked before you put the liquid filling in. Helps the shell stay crisper once the buttermilk filling has been added.


FOR THE FILLING:

2 medium sized pesticide free Rose Geranium leaves

1 cup/7ozs of sugar

1/8 cup/ 1 tablespoon of softened butter

3 large eggs

1 cup/4fluid ozs Kate's Buttermilk (if you can find it) goodly pinch of freshly grated nutmeg


1. Pulse sugar and rose geranium leaves in a blender or food processor 'til the leaves are minced fine.

2. Transfer to a bowl and cream in the softened butter.

3. Add the eggs one by one and blend well.

4. Add the buttermilk and the nutmeg.

5. Pour the delightful mixture into the mostly pre baked shell and cook at 350F for about 50 minutes or until the centre of the buttermilk custard is still only slightly wobbly...you don't want to cook it too long and the centre be really set as the pie will still be cooking even after you take it out of the oven.

Allow to cool, before eating.

The pie is a curious pale green, celery like colour and does honestly look more like a quiche...but it certainly doesn't taste that way!! It is really delicate, evanescent and curious but lovely!!

Then...I had to make Rose Geranium Lemonade...beware I like my lemonade TART!!

Unlike in the picture above...don't keep the rose geranium leaf in the lemonade as it will end up being too geraniumy...I just did this for the looks and the photograph...how very shallow of me!!

THE RECIPE:

Put 1 cup sugar (7ozs) and 1 cup water (4 fluid ozs) and juice of three lemons in a heavy bottomed pan and boil together for about 5 minutes to make simple syrup.

Add 2 1/2 (10 fl. ozs) cups cold water, the juice of three more lemons and three rose geranium leaves and 'muddle' for about 10 minutes...then remove the leaves beofre they become soapy..
Ta Dah!!!...the lemonade smells lovely and has a very delicate flavour you may not recognize or have tasted before.

Below is a picture of some of Autumns' early bounty here in Maine...Pee Gee Hydrangea blossoms, Chinese Lanterns from the roadside and Concord Grapes from our back yard!!!
The beautiful vase is from my friend David Jacobson...hand blown and so very elegant.
Happy nearly Fall!!!

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Lavender and Lovage

More illustrated logos by Yours Truly.

I love type and I love illustration so what better way to combine the two than in full colour illustrated logos. When I first left school I took a year off and decided to work in a commercial art studio before heading off to art college. I spent almost the whole year laying out Letraset and learning about the spacing, leading and kerning of many different typefaces. Thus my love for type began, although I have to admit the Letrasetting was amazingly time consuming and laborious compared to the ease with which one sets type today...still I enjoyed the challenge!!

Pictured here are three logos I was commissioned to create by different businesses and a sketch of the first draft of one of those logos. As you can see “Ambiance” started off quite differently than it ended but the seed of the idea, the typeface, remained. The concept was embellished with English Ivy and a more formal, decorative flourish.

The "Harmony" logo above was designed for a company in California who wanted to depict a combination of the Monarch butterfly and the California Poppy, both of which are indigenous to that companies geographic area, along with the name of the store "Harmony" in an elegantly flowing script.

“Panache” was designed for a store in the Temecula wine region of California.

“Created by Mother Nature” isn’t a logo per se but has the feel of one. I had so much fun with the type on this one, changing fonts and fading the colour from top to bottom. I added the type about 5 years after I had created the central motif and was pleased with the results. This design is now featured in my Cafe Press store and part of the profits from it are donated to Maine Farmland Trust whose offices are in downtown Belfast.

All of my logos are created with watercolour paints and my beloved Winsor Newton Series 7 brushes or colour pencils on watercolour blocks by Aquarelle. The type is hand drawn with design flourishes added to create a uniquely decorative word. The only time I use a computer is to scan the image, create digital files of the artwork, change any small imperfections and resize the logos to fit their end need.

I am looking forward to designing more logos in the future and hope I am lucky enough to be commissioned to create delicious ones like that in the post two back for The Sugar Shack Cupcakery. I love the look of desserts and enjoy making and EATING them too.

If you are a small business owner interested in having a logo designed for your business please feel free to get in touch (you can click on 'e-mail' under my profile pic when you click on View Profile above in the right hand column) and ask me about my concept for marketing on a small budget!!

WHY have I never made Summer Pudding before???????

Pray tell...what is this lurid image I see before me? Why it is a Summer Pudding...a deceptively, almost cheekily simple dessert from the Isle of Blighty!! WHY have I never made it before...because I have always thought it is too simple to be truly good...was I right..NO I WASN'T...it is SSSOOOOOOOOO good, it so transcends the sum of it's parts, it is sublime and anyone can make it...really anyone!!

All you need is some good soft, summer fruits...I used just blackberries and raspberries but if you are lucky enough to have on hand red, white and/or blackcurrants, strawberries, loganberries, cherries or blueberries you can use any combination of two or three or all of them...

THE RECIPE:
8ozs raspberries

8ozs blackberries
(or 1lb of the above fruits in whatever combination you are inclined to use them)

4oz / 1/2 cup of sugar

about 4/6 slices of good white bread...something with a bit of backbone not the squushy stuff
THAT'S IT for the ingredients!!...well also some lightly sweetened whipped cream to finish.

1. Combine the fruits and sugar in a heavy pan and bring to a slight boil, stir gently and simmer for a brief minute. Take off the heat.

2 Cut the crusts off the white bread slices and line a medium sized pudding bowl with them...I did this in a rather haphazard manner but if you are somewhat organized you can cut the bread into triangles and apparently that'll make your life easier with the fitting of the curves, leaving no gaps and saving one slice to top the pudding with, as you can see below I ran out of my sliced white loaf and ended up using some baguettes slices but that's a bit naughty!!

3. Spoon half the berries and juice into the lined pudding basin, then add the crusts (not traditional but I didn't want to throw the crusts away and this gave my pudding a little more structure), or a circle torn from one slice of bread to fit in the bowl, and finish with the rest of the berries and juice.

4. Then cover the pudding with the final slices of bread torn to fit...not like mine with baguette slices!!!

5. Now find a saucer or similar...I used the top of a yoghourt container, and place some weight on to the saucer...I put a bottle of cider vinegar in a small flat bottomed bowl, and leave in the fridge overnight to settle.

6. Next day take the weights off and run a knife around the edge of the pudding to loosen it from the bowl...I also ended up dipping the bowl into hot water to help loosen...then invert the bowl onto a plate...good luck with this part!!

7. Dollop oodles of lightly whipped, lightly sugared cream around the screaming magenta pudding and eat to your hearts content...this pudding will not stay around for long so plan on having all the ingredients to hand the next day to make another...that's what I'm going to do!!
 I am thoroughly gobsmacked that this simple dessert is so delicious and could kick myself for never having tried it before...I am a total Summer Pudding convert.

The Sugar Shack Cupcakery Logo!!

About a month ago a lovely lady from Brooklyn New York called Jill London contacted me through Etsy to request a logo for her Cupcake Bakery "The Sugar Shack"...OF COURSE I was only too happy to comply and above you see the finished result...what fun to design and render in colour pencils and shades of my favourite delicious pink...I hope my logo does her cupcakes justice!!

Here I am drawing the logo on my trusty Aquarelle Watercolour Block which keeps the paper nice and tight and smooth.

...during the process I surround myself with other cupcake drawings to refer back and forth to on colours and style and I have on hand photographs of actual cupcakes to reference details of shadow and light.....to be surrounded by cupcakes is delightful...that they weren't edible was hard!!! Jill doesn't have a website yet but when she does I'll put a link here on my blog to it.

Look at this lovely comment Jill left at my Etsy store, thank you Jill, you were a delight to work with too!!
"What an amazing artist! Not only is she talented but she is such a wonderful person. These past few weeks of working with Patricia I feel like we built not only a business relationship but almost a friendship. Her willingness to help me has been a blessing in so many ways. I feel so lucky to have found her right here on etsy! I would recommend her work to the world! Thanks so much for helping make my dream into a reality!
Much Gratitude,
Jill"

As I neared the completion of the drawing I am sad to say my Little Sweet Pea Puppy Bunny passed away quietly and peacefully in her sleep in her favourite spot, what a lucky girl!! She was old and frail and it was her time which makes it all a little easier to bear but we do miss her dreadfully and thank her for the wonderful time she spent with us. As she was a rescue dog we do not know how old she was but we had her with us for 10 good years.
Bye bye Little Friend xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Evangeline enjoys solar cooked rice pudding!! YUM!!

Here is Evangeline, my latest hand made Teddy Bear, enjoying her very first bowl of Rice Pudding made with solar energy...in Maine!! Evangeline likes her Rice Pud the British way - cold with a nice dollop of Cheery, or even Cherry Preserves! Any flavour of jam will do but we only had Cherry today so that's what we had!!

The first most important part of today's recipe is a nice clear sky, very little breeze and preferably high temps to increase the cooking speed.

My very own solar cooker sitting on a chair on the deck at the front of the house. The solar cooker needs to be facing directly towards the sun and in our hemisphere that means turning a little every now again to keep up with the direction.

Here is the rice after having been in the cooker for about 1 hour...for this recipe it doesn't have to be completely cooked at this point.

The finished pud...doesn't this look just like Rice Pudding...even down to the crackly skin, a part I loathed as a child but now enjoy!!!! And look how good it looks below...with a drizzling of local honey.....it is SO GOOD, super creamy I think because it cooked so slowly for so long.....
THE RECIPE...so simple
1 cup white rice...I used basmati long grain because of it's fragrant nature but I think any white rice will do...but I may be wrong
2 cups half and half
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs beaten til smooth...no gruddy lumpy bits please!!
1 tablespoon vanilla essence/extract
A goodly grating of fresh nutmeg
FOR A NORMAL COOKING SITUATION:

1. Place rice in a heavy saucepan with enough water to cover, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook for about 20 minutes (I put mine in the solar oven with lots of water to cover and it took about 1 hour to get to the point you see above in the 4th pic down...fluffy but not completely cooked.
2. Stir the 1/2 & 1/2, sugar, nutmeg and vanilla into the rice and cook over very low heat on the stove top for about another 20-25 minutes, until thick and the rice is very tender.....I left mine in the solar cooker for about another 1 1/2 hours.
3. Add a little of the warm rice to the eggs to help temper them and not scramble them when you add them to the body of the cooked rice.....add a little more and a little more and then stir the egg mixture quickly back into the main rice mix...again being careful not to let the eggs scramble. Place this egg, rice mix into an oven proof bowl and set into a 350F oven for another 30 minutes or so. I did the egg mixing part and then left the solar cooker out for about another 1 hour, the solar oven is certainly not an exact science and times will vary with temperature and wind so you just have to keep checking and eyeballing when you think the recipe is ready at the different stages. Thus the reason why I choose to do Rice Pudding instead of a souffle....but I bet someone somewhere has tried something difficult...let me know if you see something of that nature and I'll do a link to it here on my blog!!!!
4. Leave to cool and then bob in the fridge for a few hours 'til nice and chilly.
This is the best rice pudding I ever made and I didn't use one calorie of energy!! YEA!!!...oh except the fridge part...sorry!!
Happy Cooking with the sun!!


Please click HERE for links to all sorts of wonderful sustainable blogposts from Frugally Sustainable - thanks!!

For more amazing info about solar cookers and cooking follow this LINK

If you are interested in energy producing sculpture
that looks like this:

Energy producing sculpture by James Strickland

....then please consider joining the Facebook page of James Strickland's HELIOCENTRIC SCULPTURE 
and here is his website too:

www.jamesstricklandart.com

Thanks!!

 

Jolly Hollyhocks and Delphiniums!

Am I a lucky girl...from whenst did these pink hollyhocks come??, for indeed I did not plant them but OH! how happy I am they are here. Aren't they the most luscious pink and up close they almost look like they are fashioned from some delightful sugar paste...they are delicately edged in scallops and are almost transparent...I love them and thank the little bird or chipmunk who dropped their seeds.

and below...delphiniums...who knew I liked delphiniums?...certainly not me , just the name put me off as some dry and boring plant one finds in a Victorian drawing room...I think I was thinking of Aspidistras perhaps??? and the good old Gracie Fields song from when I was little, two hundred and fifty years ago, "The Biggest Aspidistra in the World" a riveting ditty that definitely wrote in stone my feelings about said plant!!

LUCKILY I discovered delphiniums a couple of years ago and boy are they beautiful...all of mine are in shades of BLUE and lilac, I'll have a picture of the really blue one next week when they have filled out, they take a nice long time to fill out their flowers and then their flowers stay a long time too....good bang for your floral buck!!

...and here's Mr. Bee doing his job diligently...he's the Bees Knees isn't he?? Ha ha!!

Ha ha indeed, James was just 'droning' on to me about the fact that all bees out gallivanting collecting honey are in fact girls...thanks James!!! Sorry BEE!