300th post Window star giveaway: winner!

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway to celebrate my 300th post - your comments were so lovely, I was very touched!

The winner of the window star is Nocton4 - congratulations!

Send me an email with your details (to homebakedonline at gmail dot com) and I'll pop the star in the post for you.

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I'm hoping to see you all back here tomorrow for the launch of the Home Baked Challenge for March! I think the theme is going to be super fun and I know a lot of people who read here could do with a fun project to get stuck into after an especially challenging week.

Allotment Update

It's been quite a long time since I've written here about what's going on at the allotment so I thought I'd do a little update today.

We have been struggling to get up to the allotment plot in the last few months because to get there, we have the choice of walking up a steep hill or an even steeper hill and with all the ice and snow it hasn't really been possible (and I'll admit we've been a bit too comfortable at home in the warmth!). This has sealed our decision about keeping chickens - if we can't reliably get up there in all weathers then keeping chickens is not practical. I am a bit disappointed but Cameron is afraid of chickens so is rather glad! We can still get lovely fresh eggs from other allotment holders though, so that's good.

Last week was the first time we managed to get up to the allotment this year and our neglectful approach seems to have worked in our favour as a lot of the ground has self-mulched with debris from the trees and the harsh Winter weather seems to have kept the weeds at bay. We were half expecting to find that the weeds had grown back to the silly height that we originally found them but were pleasantly surprised to find that wasn't the case.

Here is the allotment when we got it late last Spring on day 1

And here is the allotment this week

It looks quite messy, but a world away from where we began. If we keep on top of it now, the bulk of the donkey work of clearing should be over.

We spent a lovely morning at the allotment surveying the land as it is now, identifying what is what and doing some clearing.

We found a big strawberry patch - I had thought there were only a few, but there were quite a lot and thriving despite the cold weather.

We lit our first fire, in my new fire bin/incinerator that I received for my birthday, which was great motivation to keep working. We came home stinking of wood smoke and covered in mud but with great big smiles and rosy cheeks!

While we've been away, someone (I'm assuming the town council maintenance) has reinforced our fence and also made our lock more secure. The grass outside our gate has been kept short too.

Jobs on the go at the moment:

• A LOT more clearing and burning
• Dig the compost from the compost bin into Cameron's plot
• Fix compost bin and start composting
• Soil test - we did a home made soil test and will get the results in a couple of days
• Chitting potatoes
• Purchasing seeds (so late!)
• Plant new fruit bushes
• Organise building of raised beds

The winner of the Home Baked Challenge February is...

Thanks so much to everyone who joined in and/or helped spread the word about the February Home Baked Challenge. The entries are all really great and judging was difficult this month!

The winning entry is Tech's two parted Roast followed by heart shaped jelly with beetroot brownie hearts, complete with a wobbly beating heart video!

Tech's entry was extremely closely followed by Teen Baker's Moroccan orange and rosewater cupcakes with violet icing and Custardy tarty hearts with fresh strawberries from Kara and Angel. Well done to you all!

The prize this month is a heart shaped cookie cutter with middle cutter part to make window cookies, a wooden spoon, one of my Autumn postcards and of course the Home Baked Challenge winner's blog badge!

Tech - drop me an email with your address, and I'll get it posted out to you soon.

Thanks once again to English Mum for being our guest judge in February.

I am really excited about the theme idea for March which I will announce on Monday - I hope you'll be joining in!

300th post giveaway!

I noticed by chance the other day that this is my 300th blog post (give or take as a few have been deleted along the way for being too ranty or personal). 300 posts is quite exciting isn't it? I'm very surprised I have kept the blog going so long and very grateful that you visit here and read, comment, share and support the blog. To celebrate, I thought I'd have a little giveaway!

If you would like the chance to win one of my handmade window stars, very similar to the one in the photograph above, then leave a comment in this post and on Sunday a winner will be picked at random to win!

One Day Like This

Yesterday morning, our walk took us high up onto a hilltop. We lingered for a while at the place Cameron named "Top of the World" many years ago. Cameron was playing in the snow, watching the birds and running around with his arms wide, mimicking their elegant flight. I soaked in the beautiful sunshine and admired the view. I took in a deep breath and as I exhaled, the opening strings of this song popped into my head. It was a perfect moment to take a fresh breath of air, deep into my lungs and do a little stock-take in my head about what's making me "tick" right now.

I'm enjoying that Winter is lingering - despite everyone I talk to commenting on how they're sick of it.

I'm enjoying that Winter, here, has been largely snow and sunshine rather than grey and miserable.

I'm enjoying forcing Spring bulbs in the kitchen to remind me that something good will replace our comfortable state of hibernation.

I'm enjoying inspirational books that gently encourage me to explore beyond my self-imposed boundaries.

I'm enjoying Cameron's enthusiasm for his subject of choice and his unending energy in pursuit of knowledge about it.

I'm enjoying writing here and interacting with you all.

I'm enjoying the lovely community I have found on Twitter.

I'm enjoying crafting with wool again and my increased confidence with it.

I'm enjoying taking hot baths with classic Glenn Miller big band music in the background.

I'm enjoying an alternative outlook to my default setting of all or nothing.

A New Kitchen Table!

Anyone following me on twitter will already know that something very exciting happened on Friday. I had a couple of hours to myself and popped into my favourite antique shop, after running some errands, and found a kitchen table for an extremely good price. The shop charged me £10 delivery and delivered within three hours - how's that for service?!

I had been after a new kitchen table for a really long time, something solid as our previous table was a second hand double drop leaf one and was very wobbly which often made it quite difficult to do anything crafty at the table with more than one person.

The new table is fantastic. I love that it's in good enough condition to keep it bare rather than having a tablecloth. One of my aims for our home is to have more natural materials in our surroundings and the exposed wood of a good solid table fits in with that.

I don't mind admitting that I spent a good portion of the weekend admiring the new table and finding excuses to be around it! I prepared cinnamon buns on Saturday, to rise overnight, so that we could have a laid back, crafty brunch on Sunday morning. It turned out to be a heavenly mix of good food (and food smells - fresh coffee and cinnamon buns!), conversation, crafts and giggling!

(I love that I keep capturing reflections of my window stars by accident - look in the coffee cup!)

Oh yes, I can see myself spending many hours at this table - eating, crafting, cooking, entertaining, planning, writing - I'm inspired by the possibilities.

Now to find some chairs to match...

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The Home Baked Challenge for February is now closed for entries. Check out the gorgeous submissions in the flickr group including our first video entry!

The winner will be announced here on Thursday!

Home Baked Bagels

The perfect thing to go with your homemade cream cheese? Home baked bagels, of course!

I have a bit of a confession - until very recently, I could never understand what all the fuss was about with bagels. My thoughts were along the lines of - Why does it have a hole in it? Why do you have to boil them before baking - isn't that a bit poncy and fiddly? What's wrong with a nice crusty bread roll? Then we ate bagels at a cafe on a day trip last year, because we got there late and they didn't have much else, and we really enjoyed them.

Recently I stumbled across a recipe for bagels whilst browsing through Baking Bread with Children (great book - I really recommend it) and decided to give it a go. I made the dough the night before, so as to cut down on the amount of faff (I ought to repeat that Elizabeth David quote a bit more often!) and did the rest the next morning.

I am having to eat my own words, because I am not exaggerating when I say that these bagels are so amazingly delicious and the texture is fantastic! If you enjoy bought bagels then wait until you've tried extremely freshly baked ones - lunchtime will never be the same again!

I've taken to making these often - I'm going to see how they fare in the freezer next time as they are a little bit of a faff to make - worth it - but a bit of a faff.

Here's the recipe I used, from Baking Bread with Children

Bagels (makes 12)

500g strong white bread flour

15ml natural sugar or honey

10ml sea salt

10ml dried yeast (not 'quick acting')

300ml warm water

1 egg white

30ml sesame or poppy seeds to sprinkle on top

1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water with sugar/honey. Let the liquid rest in a warm place for 10 minutes, until it is bubbly and smells yeasty.

2. Mix in salt and slowly add the flour until the dough comes together in a blob. It should still be soft and slightly sticky to the touch.

3. Sprinkle some flour onto a clean work surface and knead with vigour for 10 minutes.

4. Grease a large bowl with vegetable oil. Place the dough in the bowl and cover with a damp tea towel.

5. Let it rise until double in volume, about 1 and a half to 2 hours.

6. After the first rising, cut into 12 pieces and shape dough into 12 small balls.

7. Poke your thumb through the centre of the balls and stretch them to create rings. Let rise on a greased sheet for 20 minutes in a warm place.

8. In a 2 litre saucepan, bring water to a gentle boil. Add 30g sugar to water. Boiling gives bagels their characteristic chewy crust.

9. Boil bagels 2 or 3 at a time for 30 seconds on each side and then drain them on a towel. If bagels do not float on the surface of the water, then they need to rise for a bit longer before boiling.

10. Place bagels on baking sheet with corn meal or semolina flour to keep them from sticking. Brush bagels with egg white diluted with 15ml water to make the tops shiny. You can sprinkle bagels with sesame seeds, poppy seeds or coarse salt if desired.

11. Bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

12. Let cool, slice in half and serve.

Typing this out, I've just realised I didn't omit the egg yolk which made mine a bit crunchier on the outside - if you like crunchy, give it a go!

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Just another gentle reminder that the deadline for the February Home Baked Challenge is this Sunday at midnight. There are some gorgeous entries in the flickr group already - don't forget to add yours!

Homemade Yoghurt and Cream Cheese

I've been making my own yoghurt for 3 years now. My Mum bought me this great yoghurt maker and it's had a lot of use as we go through a lot of yoghurt! It's super easy to make - you just need a tablespoon of plain, live yoghurt and some milk to start off with (after your first batch you can use a tablespoon of your own yoghurt to start it off).

Depending on what kind of milk you use (and you can use pretty much any kind of plain milk - cow, goat, soya, almond, oat, even breast milk if the fancy takes you) you may need to boil it first and let it cool before putting it in the yoghurt maker. Then you leave it for around 8 hours and you have homemade yoghurt!

Recently we switched to non-homogenised milk and it makes a really nice, thick and creamy yoghurt.

Last week I did something for the first time - I turned my homemade yoghurt into cream cheese - and it was so simple, I can't believe I hadn't done it sooner!

I used the instructions from Nourishing Traditions. In simple terms, it's just straining the whey out of the yoghurt.

I used a clean tea-towel (not washed with fabric softener), lined a sieve (the instructions said a colander but mine was a funny fit) with it, placed it over a bowl and poured in the yoghurt. Then when it had stopped dripping I hung the tea-towel over the handle of my preserving pot (you could use a hook or a cupboard handle instead) with the bowl still underneath to catch the whey and left it overnight. Et voila! - cream cheese!

I was really surprised to find that it didn't need anything adding, not even salt. We ate the first batch plain and then the second time we decided to add some garlic and chives.

So simple and easy, completely homemade with no additives, stabilisers or other nasties and really superior to any cream cheese I've bought from the supermarket AND it has a longer shelf life - kept covered, in the fridge the cream cheese will last up to a month and the whey will keep in the same conditions for about 6 months.

Also - no waste products - DON'T THROW YOUR WHEY AWAY!! It contains a lot of minerals. According to quotes in Nourishing Traditions, taking whey can treat a multitude of ills like digestion problems and even combats back and other muscle and ligament aches to keep you younger for longer! You can also preserve foods using whey, I'm going to look into that a little bit more before trying it out.


Cool huh?! Tune in tomorrow and I'll post about another new thing that I tried that has, along with the cream cheese, revolutionised our lunchtimes!

Pancake Day

Did you make pancakes yesterday? Whenever pancake day comes around we always enjoy making and eating them and vow to make them more often and then rarely follow through with it!

I saw all kinds of pancake batter recipes yesterday evening when peeking at a few blogs. I like to keep things simple, so I use the pouring batter recipe from the trusty Be-ro recipe book (100g flour, 1 egg, pinch of salt, half a pint of milk).

I only really have one pancake flipping success tip, which is to use a very hot pan and not very much oil/butter. Cameron was extremely pleased to find that I had not lost my pancake flipping mojo! I always keep a cold pan ready beside me when we are pancake making so he can have a go at flipping without having to worry about the hot pan.

We like our pancakes to be medium thickness. Not as thick as american pancakes, thick crepe-like pancakes.

This year we decided to do banana and chocolate sauce pancakes. I made the chocolate sauce using this recipe, but with different milk. It was all really nice and simple - chopped bananas, drizzled with chocolate sauce and wrapped up into a roll with more chocolate sauce drizzled on top!

I'm totally out of ideas for next time - what did you have in your pancakes this year?

Lover's Chocolate Orange Pudding, for Sharing

My interpretation of Love for the Home Baked Challenge is Lover's Chocolate Orange Pudding, for sharing.

It's a tofu chocolate pudding that I based on this recipe and added some crunchy chocolate topping bits and silver heart shaped chocolate dragees.

There are some great entries already in the Home Baked Challenge flickr group. You still have time to enter if you haven't uploaded yours yet - the deadline is this Sunday, the 21st February.

Full details of the February challenge are here.

Scenes from our weekend

Things I'm enjoying right now...

Crafting a little valentines tree

Woven paper hearts (instructions in All Year Round)

Keeping old recipes interesting with novelty designs


Freshly baked bread


Surprise gifts, bought from my amazon wish list! (You know who you are - Thank you so much - I adore it!!)

What are you enjoying right now?

The Great Cupcake Challenge - Valentines

English Mum, our guest judge for the February Home Baked Challenge, is holding The Great Cupcake Challenge with a Valentines theme. I decided to have a go, seeing as we hardly ever make cupcakes anymore.


I wanted to have a go at red velvet cake, as it seems to be trending - I keep hearing about it recently which is odd, because before that I had only really heard of it from that wedding scene in Steel Magnolias where someone makes an armadillo shaped red velvet cake!

I topped them off with some vanilla butter cream icing (discovering that piping is not a skill in my repertoire!), lilac chocolate dragees and pearly rainbow sprinkles - fun!

There is still time to join in with The Great Cupcake Challenge and you could combine your entries for that and the Home Baked Challenge.

Rusks Take Two

I first made home baked rusks at the beginning of Autumn whilst pondering over breakfast ideas. They were delicious and very popular with Cameron but I wanted to try and make the recipe a bit more wholesome. Since then I've tried re-working the recipe a few ways, some worked, some did not! This is the best compromise I've come up with.

I use an electric hand mixer to make the dough but you can do it by hand too.

Recipe adapted from 'Sue's Rusks' in Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros

Makes about 25.

125g butter

200g plain flour

175g wholemeal flour

200g caster sugar

Large teaspoon baking powder

200ml milk

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Mix flour and butter. Add sugar and baking powder and mix in vinegar, and then (gradually) the milk until you have a smooth soft dough.

Grease a swiss roll tin (or any baking tray with sides) and flour it too.

Roughly divide dough into 3 and make each piece into a sausage shape, the length of your baking tray. Place them on the tray equally spaced (they will spread).

Bake at 180C for about 40 minutes or until the tops are golden and crusty.
Leave to cool slightly. Reduce heat of oven to 150C.

Cut them into (approximately) 3cm wide pieces and lay them on their sides, on a baking tray (you can usually use the same one).
Bake again for about 20 minutes on each side, to dry out. They should not be too toasted, but crumbly and firm.

When cooled, store in closed container or paper bag and they should keep for around 5 days.

As it turned out, Cameron wasn't all too bothered about warm breakfasts, but these rusks have become a part of our bedtime story routine with a cup of warm milk with honey and cinnamon.

Candlemas/Valentines Candle Making

Last week we made candles for Candlemas. This is the first time I've braved candle making with hot wax with Cameron. I've been so nervous about hot wax accidents in the past, but this year I felt more confident about it - a mix of experience with a wide range of activities and the fact that Cameron is that bit older and can be more aware of danger now, I think.

We used the method in All Year Round, using oiled cookie cutters for molds and it mostly worked out very well (remember to hold the cutters down quite hard if you're trying this without instructions)!

We decided to make some valentines candles. We used heart shaped cutters, half of a little red wax crayon to colour the wax and a few drops of vanilla scent that came in a candle making kit I got for my birthday back in October (I assume you could substitute this with essential oils).
We melted the wax in a jam jar, in a pan of hot water on the stove.
Also from the kit were a glass candle pot and some prepared wicks so we didn't have to faff around with dipping them first - that gives us something new to try next time.


I was so pleased this went well, I have so much more confidence with using the hot wax now so will definitely be trying more candle-making out soon.

Marbling Pretty Postcards

I used to love using the paper marbling technique as a child. I put it on my list of 101 things for myself as much as wanting to introduce Cameron to it.

My original plan was to make writing paper but we ended up using some plain white postcards because we tend to write more postcards than long letters and we already had some in the house.

Cameron has some sensory issues around using paints so this activity was really great in that he didn't have to get his hands in it much, and the results are quick. Also, he could wash his hands in between postcards to minimize any texture he didn't like.

Marbling inks are quite widely available. None of our local art or toy shops had them, but they don't tend to have much of what we want locally lately so we bought these ones, discounted because they were pre-used, on eBay. They look quite expensive on first glance, but you only need a little for the activity, so they would be a good group-share purchase if you're lucky enough to have friends who are interested in trying it out too.

We had a lot of fun with this and the sun even shone through the kitchen window for a while, making the colours and patterns even more beautiful.

I quite fancy the idea of marbling some eggs at Easter but am not entirely sure how we would dry them - that needs some more thought.

One more thing to mention about marbling - wear old clothes/aprons etc. The inks are oil based and will stain - I, unfortunately, found this out the hard way and my lovely Beatrix Potter apron looks rather odd with multi-coloured finger marks all over it! On the plus side, you can use them for marbling on fabric if the fancy takes you.

More info on Paper Marbling here.

Homemade Bubble Tea

An online friend who lives in London was raving about bubble tea a few months ago and us being out in the sticks, we hadn't even heard of it!

I researched a little bit and found a wiki page that seems to say the craze began in Taiwan in 1980 - I'm 30 years behind with the bubble tea craze apparently!

Last week we stumbled across a Chinese supermarket on a day out in York and just by chance, I found packets of pearl tapioca which is what puts the bubbles in bubble tea! I snapped some up and brought it home and started looking for recipes - me being me, I ended up concocting my own version.

I used tinned strawberries with half of the syrup, whizzed in the blender with some milk and a cooled, strong shot of green tea (we used decaf).

I followed the packet instructions for cooking the pearl tapioca and then let it cool before shaking it all together. The syrup from the strawberries made it sweet enough for us but you could add sugar or honey too.

The reviews were mixed. It wasn't my cup of (bubble) tea at all, the texture really didn't work for me, but Cameron loved it!

We bought some rainbow (hello E numbers) pearl tapioca too which I might try making a pudding with instead of more bubble tea. It has a long shelf life though and I'm not in a rush to cook any more of it.

Blog Scone Crazy

I received a couple of emails this week after I posted about our little tea-parties, asking for scone recipes so I thought I'd share a few today.

From left to right: crescent moon shapes - wholemeal cheese scones topped with sesame seeds; round shapes - marmalade scones; heart shapes - sultana scones; flower (sort of!) shapes - apricot scones.

As I said in the tea party post, scones are a great store-cupboard baked item because there's no need for yeast or eggs or anything complicated. They're also really cheap to make and the method is so simple that they are a perfect baking project for a beginner to tackle by themselves or for very young children to join in with mixing, rolling and cutting.

All the recipes are based on the plain scone recipe and adapted for variety.

Basic Scones

200g plain flour

50g butter

25g sugar

1 heaped teaspoon baking powder

Milk

Mix the baking powder into the flour and rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and add enough milk (a little at a time) to form a dough. Roll out and cut as desired, placing them on a floured baking tray. Bake in a hot oven for 10-15 minutes.

For fruit scones (including apricot and sultana): add 25-75g dried fruit to the mixture before adding the milk.

For marmalade scones: substitute the sugar with 2 tablespoons marmalade.

For Wholemeal cheese scones: substitute half of the flour with wholemeal flour, omit the sugar and add grated cheese (about 50g) to the mixture before adding milk. You may like to add salt too.

Other variations:

You can make the scones shiny by brushing with egg and milk before baking. A halfway point is to brush with milk - they don't go shiny but they aren't too floury either.

You can add seeds to the mixture and/or sprinkle them on top. Sesame and poppy seeds are particularly good. The seeds will stick better if you have brushed the scones first.

Soup-gate

Have you reached soup-gate yet? You know soup-gate, the point sometime between Christmas and Spring where you absolutely cannot face another bowl of soup! Often following porridge-gate at breakfast if you're anything like us!

We have done quite well at keeping things varied on the soup front this year which has really paid off and we're still at the point where we look forward to a hot, tasty bowl of soup for lunch.

I like that homemade soup ticks so many boxes for me - healthy, easy to make, freezable, limitless varieties, good way to use up leftovers, warms us up on a cold day and is very budget friendly!

And, of course, there are so many ways to dress up soup if, for whatever reason, it looks a bit glum on it's own - grated parmesan, crumbly bacon leftovers, croutons, dumplings etc.

I discovered some rainbow peppercorns at the supermarket after Christmas and they've pretty much been rocking my world, or at least my taste buds anyway! (I never used pepper at all until I became pregnant with Cameron and developed a craving for pepper on just about everything! Since then I've been a huge pepper fan. Bit of useless trivia for you!)

Without a doubt, my favourite soup this Winter as been butternut squash soup, cooked with a touch of cinnamon (and topped with lashings of pepper, of course!).

What's your favourite soup? If we all put our favourites from this season in the comments section we could all keep soup-gate at bay until Spring arrives!

Winter Blues and Origami Flowers

I've mentioned here on the blog before about suffering with the seasonal blues. It can be a real struggle between Christmas and the arrival of Spring for me to get motivated and enthusiastic. If it were up to me, I think I'd just hibernate at home until the end of March!

I have little things that I prepare before this time, to buffer me against the worst of the Winter blues - I make a list of things I'd like to achieve, we develop little rituals like the tea parties, we force Spring bulbs etc.

On walking past the florists shops since the new year, I've been noticing great big bunches of tulips. They're so tempting aren't they? A lovely cheap bunch of tulips calling out your name and telling you how much they'll brighten up your gloomily lit house.
I can't help feeling it's wrong though. We pay a lot of attention to eating seasonally and sourcing locally grown foods so why doesn't it apply to flowers too? I wonder how far those tulips have travelled when they're so out of season.

I couldn't bring myself to buy them in the end but we found another way to brighten our house.


I heard about this cool origami site, via an unschooling email list that I subscribe to and we've been loving trying out lots of different bits of origami.

While we were at it, we made ourselves some kite paper Spring tulips to stick on the window. They're so cheerful, and best of all, they'll last right up until (and beyond) our real tulips sprout!

We really love this and we have plans for a possible whole garden scene after the frost inspired stars retire.