By this time next year we’ll be miwyonaires, Rodney.

I gave C the choice of what I’d bake this weekend. The options were millionaire shortbread, lemon & blueberry biscotti, iced biscuits, or ice cream cone cupcakes. After some consideration he opted for the shortbread.

I’ve never actually made millionaire shortbread before. I’ve made shortbread, I’ve made caramel and I’ve made chocolate ganache as part of other recipes, but never put them all together. Its all relatively easy but I get impatient with waiting for things to cool down before doing the next stage.

That’s the good thing about baking though. It forces you to slow down. Everything about life tends to be full on and at hyper speed. I listen to podcasts at 1.5 speed, I drive to work because its quicker, I’m a fast eater and have always finished first, once I’m up and dressed in the morning, I need to get on with things, I hate sitting around waiting. Weeks are rushing by and we don’t often get to slow down.

We had hoped to go out for a walk on Saturday but just as we’d decided where to go it came over all dark and drizzly so we decided to stay in instead. Then of course the sun came out. That got me a bit aggy because now what was I going to do with the rest of the day?

Well, instead of rushing about feeling like I had to do something, I sat and read a book. In fact I also ordered 3 new books on a subject that I wouldn’t normally go for but have decided to widen my horizon and try something different.

I waited for the shortbread to cool, then I waited for the caramel to set, then I waited for the chocolate to harden. Then I scoffed some, whilst reading my book.

“Slow down and enjoy life. Its not only the scenery you miss by going too fast – you also miss the sense of where you are going and why” – Eddie Cantor

Something simple for the weekend

The weekly bake continues. This time with a chocolate orange marble cake. It was going to be just chocolate and vanilla marble but something inside me can’t resist chocolate orange flavour.

I used #foodieflavours orange flavouring in the cake batter. Then decided to top it with melted chocolate orange buttons.

I’m missing out on Cake International this year as its been cancelled so my shopping list, that included getting some different #foodieflavours flavourings has also been cancelled. Their flavourings are brilliant. You only need a few drops as they are quite intense. And they have a really large range too.

Chocolate tends to go well with many different flavours though. I quite like raspberry chocolate too.

Looking ahead to next weeks bake, I’ll have the choice. I could either do one of the outstanding BakedIn boxes. I have millionaire shortbread or lemon & blueberry biscotti to make. Or I could do the next magazine bakes of either heart shaped cookies, with the dreaded royal icing again, or ice cream cone cupcakes.

Decisions, decisions 🤔

In anticipation

A couple of christmasses ago I was given a 3 month subscription to BakedIn, a baking club where they send you dry ingredients and the recipe card for a different bake each month. I was suitably impressed so I extended it.

Every month you get sent an email just before they post the boxes out, telling you what fresh ingredients you’ll need, but they don’t tell you what the recipe is. The anticipation is trying to guess what’s going to be in the box. The social media groups are abuzz with guesses as to what it might be. There is an embargo for a couple of days to stop anyone posting photos or comments to give everyone a chance to recieve their box. Then there’s usually a photo competition for those who get their bakes done quickly and the winner is sent some other BakedIn goodies.

I’ve never actually made a bake in the same month that it was sent. For a while I was considerably far behind, but since I changed my working hours it meant that I could catch up a bit. I now just about get it down by the end of the following month.

There have been a couple of bakes that we’ve not liked so much but that’s not because of the bake itself, more that we don’t like the some of the ingredients. For example the bakewell tart I had all to myself because C doesn’t like almonds, but then he’s had a different one to himself because I didn’t like it. There has only been one that I haven’t made at all because neither of us would like it, so I’m waiting for a time when I can make it for someone else.

This month, the email said we needed to get a lemon, some butter and eggs. I like lemon flavoured things so I’m sure we’ll like this one. And I still have last months millionaire shortbread to do.

I await my delivery 😋

Therapeutic baking

Spent the day on a cake course learning how to make cakcicles and heart gems.

I’ve been to several courses run by this person. It’s always a great experience. She had been very thorough with regard to Covid precautions so I felt reassured that there was nothing to worry about there.

The classes are always informative, friendly and relaxed. For me, attending these courses gives me some me time, some space and time to focus on something else. And the great thing is you get cake at the end of it. What’s not to love?

There were only 2 students, the third had cancelled last minute. Everything was prepped, weighed out and tools ready. Nothing rushed. Colouring and sprinkles options chosen. Chocolate tempered, moulds filled, chilled and decorated. Plenty of time to chat and get to know yhe other student.

Thoroughly enjoyed my bit of me time. Even the hour long drive there and back.

Comfort Food

The weather has taken quite a turn, its wetter, windy and cooler. I have retrieved some of my autumn/winter clothes from the depths of the wardrobe and vacuum packed some of the summer clothes away for storage.

I do love winter food. I’m not a great salad eater and I don’t like fruit of any kind in any format so summer eating does get a bit tedious. But now we’re heading for warm, comfort eating. Stews, soups and stodge. Sunday lunch provided the first chance to indulge in custard. Slathered all over a hot chocolate pudding 😋

This weeks food menus include hunters chicken, cajun pork, Thai Red beef curry, parmesan crusted chicken with combinations of rice or potatoes or butternut squash and accompanying vegetables.

After this coming week I’ll start making soups to take to work for lunches instead of cold meats and ryvita. The benefits of having a soup maker means you can just shove all the ingredients in and 20 minutes later you have either chunky or smooth soup depending which setting you used. That, together with C’s homemade multigrain bread would be rather lush.

I’m still going to have to be careful about what I eat though. I’ve lost 2lb this week by really sticking to plan (except for the wine) so I don’t want to undo all that effort but so long as I stick to the SW philosophy I won’t go too far wrong.

I love this time of year for food.

Optimistic October

Every month I download a copy of the Action for Happiness Calendar. I don’t always do what it suggests but sometimes things are relevant or a good reminder to do something positive. As today is the 1st October, todays new month starts with writing down your most important goals for this month.

OK, where to start….

1. Get new job description – I am aware that a secondment opportunity is in the offing and its something that appeals to me. I know that the JD is being authorised, so the job should be being advertised soon. Need to sharpen up my Expression of Interest notes.

2. Find more ways to spend quality time with C and R – there has been an awful lot of things going on at the moment with work, ringing meetings, talks etc that sometimes it feels that C and I don’t spend any real time being together. Getting to see R now is more difficult too as her working patterns have changed so her days off no longer coincide with mine. I need to give some priority to finding things that we can do together that mean we spend actual time with each other to the exclusion of it being perfunctory, like putting in a new front door. Sure, we will spend time together to do that but it’s a job that needs doing, not something that is necessarily spending quality time together.

3. Focus on some PR activities – as you know I’m the PRO for both my local #bellringing association and the Central Council of Church Bellringers and we need to get some more good news out in the public domain.

4. Bake – I want to carry on with the weekly baking challenge of making something from the collection of magazines that I’ve accumulated.

5. Lose weight – probably counter intuitive given #4, but I really must put more effort into this area instead of just playing at it. My overall health will thank me for it.

There are probably many more smaller ticket things to focus on too, but by spending more time on each of these bigger areas, my whole wellbeing should be much improved and I will feel more resilient and ready to tackle most things.

Fundraising Baking

My team are holding a socially distanced MacMillan coffee morning on Monday to raise funds. We do this every year in memory of a colleague who died a few years ago. I’ve done my bit by baking some chocolate and lemon cupcakes.

Its going to be a little strange holding the event this year, when we can’t gather all together. The team is split across two shifts in order to maintain social distancing. That means we’ll get to do it twice though. A coffee morning and a coffee afternoon. We usually hold a raffle as well to augment our fundraising.

For all the cake scoffing and prize winning of course the point is to raise funds to help support MacMillan cancer support. Lets hope we can raise a good amount.

His ‘n’ hers

So the weekly baking magazine fest continues. This week it was decorated chocolate cookies. The magazine always has a freebie stuck to the front and this weeks was plastic lettering cutters.

Mr was making bread at yhe same time so oven space had to be negotiated. His bread needed to prove and then bake at a higher temperature than my cookies need. Precision planning mode kicked in. He could prove his bread whilst I made the cookie dough. He could then bake his bread whilst my dough rested in the fridge. Then he could bake his bread whilst I roll and cut my dough, then turn the oven down to bake my cookies.

All sounds feasible. Until he gets side tracked by writing a report and doesn’t put his bread in the oven. My dough is still sitting in the fridge and getting harder. When he does put the bread in, my dough is almost too hard to roll out so I have to knead it more to warm it up enough to roll out. Then I cut out the cookies and put them back in the fridge to wait while his bread finishes and the oven temperature cools down enough for my bake.

Eventually get my first batch in the oven but they only take 10 minutes and his bread is on the cooling rack. Fighting for space on the cooker top to put the hot trays.

Then I start rolling out some fondant icing for the decorations and cutting out the shapes. They take up more space. Then I start using the plastic lettering cutters to cut out enough of our initials to go on each cookie. More space needed. Then the second batch need to come out of the oven. I now have decoration bits precariously balanced on the edge of the sink.

Fortunately the cookies cool down pretty quickly so I can start applying the decoration and our initials. We have 19 cookies each. There will be no secret cheating and snuffling of cookies.

Tested one with a cuppa before boxing the rest up. Just to be sure 😋

Disappointment of Cancellation

Gutted to have recieved this email yesterday. I had booked tickets for this event several months ago for step-daughter #1 and I to attend, and even splashed out on VIP tickets to get faster entry, drinks and snacks and a place to sit down and rest our feet. It involves staying at theirs for the weekend, a day of all things cakey, which we both enjoy and lots of shopping, whilst the boys fix a shed or something, lots of good eating, drinking and company.

SD#1 and I were only messaging each other the other day about how we hoped that it wouldn’t get cancelled and were pleased to read about all the precautions they had in place.

Whilst for me and SD#1 it means no fun day out for us, I can’t imagine how the exhibitors, professionals, organisers and competitors must be feeling. So much lost revenue for everyone again. Those competitors who had probably already started work on some of the entries, wasted.

At first I thought about the disappointment of not going to the event this year. They have said that tickets would be automatically carried over to 2021, but then I realised that it could also mean no weekend away and visit with SD#1 at all. Who knows what the rules of meeting up with, staying with or even distanced interaction is going to be come early November.

Hublet and I were planning on taking a few days to journey up and have our first night away from home since the pandemic started. Will need to discuss it with hublet and SD#1 to decide whether we go up there at all now. This makes me feel sad for hublet who won’t have seen his eldest face to face this year at all if that’s the case.

Weighing in on Mindful eating

A number of years ago I joined Weight Watchers to try to lose weight before step-daughter #1’s wedding. Through diligence, planning, counting and going to a pop up class at work, with some colleagues, I managed to lose nearly 4 stones. I got down to a size 10, something I hadn’t been for very, very, very many years, and some would say was possibly too much. Once the wedding was over though I had no goal to aim for, so my love of food started slipping. I didn’t plan so much, I didn’t count so much, and gradually all of that weight I’d lost, and then some, crept back on.

A couple of years ago my boss and I decided to start Slimming World instead, but neither of us could attend a class in the evening due to other commitments, so we just used the app. Things started off OK and I lost a few pound here and there. I even got to my half stone loss award. So far so good. But there wasn’t anything driving the need to lose weight, other than the fact that I was heavier than I should have neen according to my BMI. The trouble is, I like food. And beer. And wine. Although I should say that I don’t drink regularly or in large quantities. Usually one pint and I’m done. So the weight has just been bobbing along the same line, give or take a pound or two here and there.

For me, the most significant issue has been lack of tangible reason for REALLY putting some effort in to losing weight. We eat well, and varied diet. Only problem is I don’t like fruit, of any description in any form. We do follow SW recipes, but we do indulge in treats and nibbles and naughty but nice food. Life’s too short, right?

There’s lots of empirical evidence that suggests that being on the heavier side increases your risk of heart disease, diabetes and so on. And now they’re linking obesity to a higher risk of contracting Covid-19. I don’t get easily swayed by things like that, there’s always some bandwagon to jump on. One week it’s don’t eat chocolate, the next they’re telling you that dark chocolate is good for you, in small quantities. And many other examples.

I think that if you want to diet, or exercise, or whatever, you should only be doing it for yourself and not to impress anyone else or jump on some gimmicky bandwagon.

I do want to lose a bit of weight but I’m not going to give up everything I enjoy about food and drink, to fit some stereotype of femininity or social construct. I will put a bit more effort back into counting and planning and if I lose a few pounds, hurrah.