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Sunday 28 June 2015

Baking or Sewing, Try Both

We had some lovely rain last night, in fact it rained right through to around 1:30, just right to take Ben for his walk. I did take him out early but, unlike him, he was not impressed and soon turned and headed for home at a rate of knots.

Once he was dried off and fed I turned to my quilt top, all the rows were sewn and 3 of those were sewn together from last night. I got the rest sewn and pressed quite quickly. The top finishes at 60" by 70", a bit too small for my liking but will make a lovely sized quilt for Kaitlyn. I did think about adding a border or 2 to bring it up to double size but have another 2 scrappy quilts almost at the finish line and I want to press on.


I must have been having an "off kilter" week when I made the blocks, there are several places where the points are out of line but Kaitlyn will not care and I am not going to stress over it. I did unpick and re sew a few blocks, just the ones that were too bad to ignore. I have a lovely floral fabric to back it and I think I will quilt this on my Janome 8200 QC, I have a quilt on the frame and 2 more ready to go. I quite fancy some straight line quilting with the walking foot, and maybe a few of the fancy stitches as well.

Once the top was pressed I had a look out and it was still raining, I could have blitzed the kitchen but instead decided to bake.
There are loads of wild strawberries in the valley and the warm wet conditions means that they are dripping with fruit. These are large for wild berries and very tasty, I spotted a recipe for Gooseberry crumble cake on a couple of blogs and thought that the strawberries would make a nice variation.


I made 2 smaller ones and added a handful of oats to the crumble, they took around 40 minutes to bake and look and smell lush. I will be giving one away and slicing and freezing (most) of the other.




While I had the oven on I made a couple of Banana cakes, I normally use Nigel Slater's recipe but could not remember where it was so dug out Lorraine Pascal's book and used her version. Well that is not quite true, I added Macadamia nuts and dark chocolate instead of the Pecans that she uses. Again they look and smell great, and again I will gift one and slice and freeze one.

I need a tried and tested gluten free cake recipe to make for Maggie, so if any of you have one that you can share I would be most grateful.

I am going to have a rest now, the kitchen is almost to rights and dinner will be something with new potatoes and veg. I just have a batch of Hummus to make, I love that stuff, so may well just have a goodly dollop on my veg.

I have a book to finish reading before I go to the library tomorrow, so it is feet up for an hour.

                         TTFN                                                   Pam

BTW, the quilt blocks were sewn in 2013, I bought the book by Elizabeth Dackson as soon as it was published, so it was more recent than I thought.
                           

17 comments:

  1. You are busy, glad to hear you also have a few breaks are well. The rain was welcome here as well. Now we have a heat wave coming.

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    1. I am looking forward to some real heat, I love it.

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  2. http://www.how2bglutenfree.com/gluten-free-apple-cake.html
    This works really well. Good with or without the apple topping and baked in a bun tin in paper cases.
    Pam

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    1. Thank you so much, I have looked on line but a recommended recipe is always best.

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  3. such lovely fresh colours she will love it if not I have a home for it, I sent you and e-mail did you get it :-)

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    1. Nice try Dawn. I did get it, and acted upon it. Many thanks, I did reply but it probably went to junk.

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  4. Replies
    1. Thank you Mum, I am sure that Kaitlyn will as well.

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  5. Hi Pam, I have never commented on your blog before, but am a regular reader, (ever since the days at Tydd). I am Gluten intolerant and have recently found a book by Hugh F W , Its called. River Cottage light and easy, there is an amazing cake in there that uses Polenta and ground almonds. + an orange and a lemon simmered for an hour then blitzed to pulp. before baking sprinkle blueberries on the top. It is amazing. But..... I use most normal recipes for baking substituting the flour for G F version. The one thing to remember is G F flour needs a teaspoon of baking powder allways.Another tip if you think cake may turn out on the dry side just add natural yogurt around a tablespoon full instead of a drop of milk.
    Hope this helps, keep up the blog, I love all your quilty news , and how little Ben is doing. regards trish

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    1. Hello and thank you Trish, I am probably going to be bad and buy the book. I will try your suggestion and buy some GF flour and I always have natural yogurt around.

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  6. Lovely quilt top!!! It looks really great. So does all of your baking!! xx

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  7. The quilt is so beautiful
    Carolx

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  8. I bet Kaitltn will just adore her quilt x

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