Monday 26 November 2012

There has been so much going on since my last blog that I barely know where to start!

Well Saturday last I did my very first Craft Fair selling my homemade jams/marmalades/lemon curd and cookies. It was a fantastic day and a complete success, one of my good friends Violet and Green shared a table with me selling the most gorgeous homemade bobby pins, brooches & cards. You should hop over and take a look!





The gorgeous bunting was made by another of my good friends who is resisting the social network self promotion. She also makes beautiful brooches from crochet (I bought one, nearly wrestled someone to the floor who showed an interest in what I had pegged as MINE! lol )

I am busy crafting for Christmas orders, head over to Tatty Bogle Makes and Bakes to see what I have been up to, today it has been Advent Biscuits for the Tree, they could be that Christmas Eve treat for everyone or leave one out for Father Christmas when he visits :)




We have also had our Annual trip to Hamleys but the surprise this year was my Husband arrange a chauffeur driven car to take us there!! We of course had a fantastic time and the children wanted everything in sight, again. Afterwards we went a walking and managed to stumble upon a Choccywoccydoodah shop, what a pleasure that was. The cakes seen in the flesh are breathtaking....




But by far the most amazing thing is my brand new cooker, take a look at this beauty.....




Unbelievably lucky? Yes, yes I am!!!

There is so much more I could mention but I won't! If you see anything you fancy over at Tatty Bogle Makes and Bakes let me know, I send by post and accept PayPal as my main payment method.

Toodle pip for now.......




Friday 9 November 2012

Homemade Lemon Curd




For a long time I have avoided making Lemon Curd as I remember for years hearing 'it's really tricky to make' and so I have never tried. Until now.......

In my opinion the wonders of the Internet makes a lot of what we want to learn and create so much easier and having Blog's such as this to share our experiences and successes helps us avoid some of those cooking nightmare's and dispell old myths!!

After reading many a recipe I finally decided to use one from All recipes which was very quick and straight forward. My first attempt at this was a bit of a disaster but then I will decide to have a conversation on the phone whilst trying a new recipe and ended up practically frying the eggs. We live and learn!!

Ingredients:

180 ml of fresh Lemon Juice (About 4 Lemons)
1 tbsp of Lemon Zest
175g Sugar
125g Unsalted Butter, Cubed
3 Eggs



Combine all of the above ingredients in a large pan and cook on a medium to low heat until thick enough to leave indents from a wisk, I took caution so as not to cook the mixture too quickly so roughly it will take 10 mins. Pour into your sterilsed jars and seal! The yeild from this should be approx 300ml of Lemon Curd, 2 small jars.



And that's it, I have made a very lemony tart curd that is delicious and it took less than half an hour!


Give it a go, you'll be surprised! Thanks for popping over for a read :)

Friday 2 November 2012

Home-made Blueberry Jam!


So, after making my Madarin Marmalade and so far had a thumbs up from eveyone who has tried it, I decided whilst wandering around the supermarket that I would give Jam another go, so I picked up some Blueberries a bag of sugar and some rather nice preservative jars.

 
 
Having spent many hours reading up how to make the perfect jam of every differing flavour I decided to just throw myself into the deep end and try to create a jam using some of the information stored in the old grey matter!
 
 
As most fruits have plenty of their own natural juice you hardly need any additional fluid if any. Some may need only a splash of lemon juice (fresh or bottled) just to reduce the sweetness and some will need water for the reduction or a mixture of both.This really is a matter of personal taste.
 
So my recipe consisted of the following:
 
 
400g/ 14oz Blueberries
225g/ 8 1/2oz Granulated Sugar
40ml/ Apprx 4 1/2 tbsp Water
5ml/ 1 tsp of Lemon Juice
 
 

 
Place the Blueberries into a pan and add the fluid. Gently bring up to a boil, once boiling reduce the heat to a simmer for 10 to 15 minutes being sure to stir several times.
 
Remove from the heat gently press any whole blueberries with the back of your spoon.
 
 
 
 
Return to the heat, add the sugar and stir until dissolved completely then bring the heat back up to boiling. I boiled mine for a further 8 minutes continuing to stir several times so the mixture didn't 'catch' at the bottom of the pan.
 
 Remove from the heat and pour into your prepared jam jars, seal and leave to cool.
 
I have checked mine since cooling and am pleased that is has thickened really well with just a small amount of juice around the side and is of a medium sweetness.....glorious!!
 
 

 
 
Why not try this simple jammy biscuit recipe and change the strawberry jam for this blueberry one. A firm favourite if you have small people at home!!
 
Thanks for reading and good luck!!