Sunshine Cake - 1896

 This cake was definitely sunny.  It's a sponge cake and was only a little fussy to make.  It was well worth the effort and the eggs though.  It was pretty and tasty! It's definitely a party cake or when you need something to impress!   It was from the 1896 edition of the Boston Cooking School Cook Book, by Fannie Farmer.  

I followed the recipe pretty closely.   The only thing I deviated with was that I added the sugar  slowly, in several additions once the egg whites were half beaten, since I was using an electric stand mixer.    I sifted the flour with my sieve first, and spoon the flour into my measuring cup.  Then I resifted the 1 cup of flour with the cream of tarter to evenly distribute it.  

Things to know -

This was much easier to make than it seems.   Just remember to be gentle with folding in the flour and check the bottom of the bowl so that all the flour gets folded in evenly.    I would have sifted the flour in, but managed to stick the sieve in the sink, so it was wet.  

An angel food cake pan has a tube in the centre so heat circulates and bakes cake from both the outside and the inside at the same time.  If you don't have one, then I think that maybe a not too complicated bundt pan would work.   Just remember to not grease the pan so that the batter can cling to the sides while rising during baking.   

Remember to cool the cake upside down.   My pan has little legs on it for this but before I had it, I just set it on something to keep it off the ground.   This keeps the cake light and fluffy as it cool settle and get a little heavy otherwise.

Moderate oven is 350 °F.   The suggested time was pretty accurate.   The cake should be nicely risen,  puffy and bounce back when gently touched.   

I will make this again but I'll drizzle it with a simple glaze of icing sugar, a few drops of water and either lemon juice or vanilla.  I think it would just add that little bit extra fanciness.

Weaving and cooking adventures

 I had a huge post all planned out about cooking on the Happy Thoughts Range, or wood cookstove that I was using at Westfield.   It was Thanksgiving Day, and due to the local fair also being held, it's usually fairly quiet that day in the village.  I brought a number of pumpkin based historical recipes to cook and thought I'd have a ton of time to take photos.  However, everyone seemed to show up.  It was crazy busy, with really nice, interested and friendly people.  It was a great day, but so busy that I had no time to take photos, or to even get all of what I planned cooked.   Next day there is the Pumpkin Festival and it's a ticketed event, so people will be streaming in all day, but not all at once, which should be easier to deal with. 

I did however get the tea towels off the rigid heddle loom a couple of days ago.    There was more shrinkage than I expected with a sett of 20.  They are definitely soft and drapey, due to the fact that I couldn't get PPI for the weft tight enough.   But they are are much closer to the towels I weave on the floor loom or table loom than I'd expected.   Using two heddles, was a tad slower, but once you got the rhythm and order of the heddles, it wove up quickly enough to be satisfying.  After wet finishing they are 16" x 27".  Once hemmed they'll be 16" x 25.  Smaller but acceptable for a tea towel.

On the Rigid Heddle loom now is a wool scarf, with a hand painted yarn for the warp.    Next time I think I'd make it a longer skein to paint, so I could get longer colour changes, to make it more like a serendipitous plaid.    It's pretty enough, although they are not my favourite of colours.   I'm trying to hunt down the photo of the painted skein.  I must have take a picture of it, but I can't remember when I dyed this.   It was beautiful in the skein though.  It was a large skein, Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool, which comes in a 227g (8oz) skein and is 100% wool.  It's lovely to work with on the Rigid Heddle loom and dyes like a dream.

We had family Thanksgiving yesterday.   I was tasked with bringing turkey and apple pie.  I changed the apple pie to a pecan and a lemon pie because my son's girlfriend is allergic to apples.  However, it turns out it was only raw apples and the thing she's allergic to is destroyed by heat, so apple pie would have been fine.   This is a tiny pie I made for testing, with the leftover pastry and filling from the pecan pie.   I used maple syrup instead of corn syrup for the filling and it was sublime.  Expensive, but soo delicious.   The pecans alone, for the 2 cups that I needed cost over $10.  Definitely a special occasion pie!  The lemon pie was just a slightly adjusted old fashioned lemon meringue pie recipe but without the meringue, since that wouldn't hold or travel well and I'd made the pies the day before.   I added a bit more lemon zest and a bit more lemon juice for a slightly more tart pie, which people slathered with whipped cream since my daughter had whipped up a vast amount for the 3 pies which appeared on the table.   I tried the vegan pumpkin pie, which tasted fine, but had the texture that felt more like it was under cooked.  I'd have added a bit of cornstarch or something to make it less like an almost raw pudding texture.  It was a commercial pie and the crust was inedible: soggy and tough.  My guys are spoiled with good pies :)

Small projects

A small group of us run an SCA arts and science event every May, with the whole May long weekend full of different classes.  This year of course, with the pandemic social distancing rules in place, we've had to cancel it.  We decided to make it a virtual event.  We'll see how it works out.   It's been a huge amount of computer work though, and some days it feels like I've done nothing else but sit in front of the monitor.

I spun up 100 g of grey ramie.   It's nice yarn.  It was nice to spin, although sometimes it seemed I was wearing it as much as I was spinning it.  It's very fine and clingy, especially since the weather has turned cold again and the humidity is low.

I made homemade egg noodles for dinner the other day.  .  I haven't done that in a very long time.  They are easy to make and fun to slurp.  I made stew for supper and didn't want to make biscuits, and we were out of bread.  The guys had been moving the woodpile, so I thought they'd like a hearty dinner.

The lemon tree is flowering.  The tree is loaded with flowers.  Every day I check out to see which ones have newly opened.  I've been helping Mother Nature by taking a cotton swap and rolling it in the pollen tipped bits (stamens?) and daubbing it on the central spikey thing (stigma?).   I've done this in the past.  It usually results in fruit setting.   Often the tree blooms in the summer, and the bees do the job for me.   I do like being able to pick a lemon and use it, so helping it along is okay.

I'm finishing up spinning the brown cotton.   I'm pretty sure it's the last of the good coloured cotton sliver that I have. I will miss it.  It's something I'd have to order in from either the west or the U.S. since I haven't been able to find a supplier locally or in central Canada at any rate.

I'm dressing the loom.  It's a fussy colour pattern gamp.   I was going to put it on hold, and do waffle weave tea towels, but nope, I decided to do the projects I'd listed in order.   I'm sort of regretting it now.   It's going to be fussy to thread the heddles.  I'm now thinking they'll be fussy to weave.   Since I've seen the finished project, I know they the pattern makes for spectacular towels though.

The only thing about small projects is that it doesn't feel like I've accomplished a lot.  I still haven't started on my new dresses for Westfield, nor a new medieval gown, that I've been promising myself.

A busy weekend and a full pantry

I'd planned to go to a local SCA demo called Middle Ages on the Green and life decided to intervene.   First, the menfolk decided to start shingling the garage.   I wasn't 100% comfortable about going off to play while they were slaving away on the roof and having to cook their own supper, but I thought I could toss something in the crock pot for them, or make sure I was home early enough to solve that problem.


 Then 50 lbs of tomatoes dropped into my lap on Friday.  I knew that my play day on Saturday was to be put on hold.   After running around doing errands in the morning, I spent the afternoon and part of the evening, canning.   That was blanching, chopping, heating, crushing, bottling and hot water processing all those tomatoes for hours and hours.   Thirty seven jars later, I considered that I didn't think I did quite so many tomatoes last year.    We'll be eating tomatoes all winter!

I also had some blue prune plums, the kind with the yellow flesh and dark purple skins.   I turned them into jam as they all ripened exactly at once.   I wish I had a photo of the before and after of this jam.  The before was this ugly yellow mush with dark flecks.   As it came to a boil though, the dark flecks of the peel, started to dissolve and the plum jam ended up a beautiful dark ruby red/purple colour.  Sooooo very pretty and incredibly tasty too.

I was at Westfield again today.  I was in the Misener house, which has an awesome wood cook stove.   I was going to make gooseberry jam but after all that canning, I was plumb tired of processing.  Instead, I dug up some carrots and beets from the Lockhart garden and tossed them in a pan with a piece of beef and some potatoes.  I brought them home for dinner so that the hardworking shingling menfolk had supper, but I still got to get out and play.   Those freshly dug carrots and beets were so delicious!  It was crazy busy today at the village though, with lots of interesting people out.  The day just flew by. 

Madeleines

I'm not a huge fan of most single purpose kitchen tools.  I mean, it is easier to separate an egg just using the egg shells, or by pouring the egg in your palm and letting the white slide through your fingers, than using one of those egg separating devices, and a knife really does a decent job of cutting up an apple instead of needing one of those round apple slicing tools.   They take up space and generally they get used rarely to never. 

Sometime before Christmas, I must have come across a 19th c recipe for Madeleines.  It sort of stuck in my mind as I'd never seen a Madeleine pan in any shop I had ever been in.   A Madeleine pan is really a single purpose piece of bakeware, and not a small one you can hide in a drawer.   This one has 18 decent sized shell shapes and it is as large a a cookie sheet or a big muffin pan.   Anyway, I was looking for a particular mug for a present and this outlet store had Madeleine pans of all things.   I popped back in last week and they still had them, for $8.    I couldn't resist bringing it home with me.  

I haven't looked for the period Madeleine recipe, but I did adapt a modern one to be gluten and dairy free. Oh MY GOODNESS!   This is a single use pan that deserves space in my cupboard.  Yes, I could use a little mini-muffin pan.  I already have one of those that sits rarely used, but the little shell shaped Madeleines are so pretty and so very delicious! 

 Madeleines
 (dairy/gluten free)

1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup white rice flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour/starch
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
pinch salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
3-4 tbsn vegan margarine 

melt the margarine.   In a bowl, mix the flours, starch, xanthan gum and salt, stirring well to completely blend them together.   In a separate bowl (I used a stand blender) beat the eggs until thick and light.  Add the sugar and vanilla to the eggs and keep beating until well blended.    Turn the mixer off, add the dry ingredients to the wet and then the melted margarine.  Mix until all the dry ingredients are fully incorporated.    Pour the batter into a ziplock bag, squeeze out the air and set in the fridge for an hour or so.     Oil and flour the pan (I used tapioca starch and that really didn't work all that well)   Preheat the oven to 375° F.     After the batter has set for an hour, cut the corner off the ziplock bag and pipe it into the Madeleine pan.  This really limits the mess but you could use a spoon or a reuseable piping bag as well.   This recipe filled all 18 shells with little leftover.   Bake for about 8 - 10 minutes until the cakes are browned and spring back when touched gently.   Let cool for a few minutes in the pan and then turn out on a rack to finish cooling.  When cold,  dust with icing sugar or you could dip half in chocolate, however taste testers decided that the chocolate was overkill and these were plenty good enough without.

  These are a little too brown but ohhh, they are so delicious.

Raspberry Jelly and Tattler Lids

It's just a bit early yet for raspberries here.  You can see them starting to form on the plants, but mine won't be ripe yet for another week or two.  I did have a bunch of raspberries left from last year in the freezer, which desperately needed to be used.  I put the frozen blocks of berries in a large saucepan, with just a little water, set it on the stove and turned it on very low.   A while later, the fruit was defrosting and the juice was starting to be released from the mushy raspberries.    I had looked for a period 19th century raspberry jelly recipe, but they seem to all require currants, which were not ripe yet.  After a bit of research which suggested raspberries are fairly low in pectin, I used a commercial pectin and the packet recipe.  I always use the liquid pectin if I'm using it, as it seems to set up better than the dry crystal stuff.

 I needed a new canning jar rack or a canner for smaller jars.  The jar rack I had, had wires spaced to far apart to support smaller jars.  I was tired of makeshift methods of keeping the small jars from touching the bottom of the pot, so I headed out to the hardware/department store to see what I could find.  I found a rack which would suit my purposes and was much less than a new canner would be.  What I also found were some packets of Tattler reuseable canning lids.  

I've read about these but never found them locally.  I didn't want to mail order these from the U.S., just for an experiment.  But, here they were, right in front of me at the store.   They were expensive.   The rings which hold the lids down are re-useable and until they get rusty, they don't need to be replaced.  The metal lids though, need to be replaced every year.   The ones I just bought before I found these, cost $2.88 for a dozen.  These plastic lids with rubber rings cost $9.99.  That is pretty steep for a product which seems to have mixed reviews, and a fair learning curve to get to work properly.  However, the re-useable nature of the item and the advertised BPA free made me want to try them.   I used two of the lids on the larger jars, since those are the ones I can guarantee I'll keep for home use.  The small jars may or may not end up as gifts, but I didn't want to give away the expensive experimental lids, just in case.


I had no issues getting the two lids to seal.   It will take over 3 years for them to start paying for themselves though and by then I imagine I'd have to start replacing the rubber rings.  So for a preparedness aspect (you know, for when the zombies eat the electrical grid and nobody makes metal canning lids anymore) and the less product in the landfill, they are an enticing product.  For the immediate financial outlay, I'm not so sure.  Plus living where we do, I may never be able to find them again, or replacement parts in the future, which would make them very expensive.

Will I use them?  Yes, sometimes but until I know that I can purchase them regularly locally, it will have to be the very once in a while extravagant purchase.   Besides, they are hard to label.  I can't just write on them with a Sharpie, like I do the metal lids... and they're a tad on the ugly side, but that may just be because I am not used to the look yet.   You know though, if a case fell off a truck and landed at my feet, I'd use them for sure because the possibilities for environmental benefits would work for me, even if the economics don't.

Strawberry jam, 1832 style

The Cooks Own Book from 1832 is set up a little differently than many cookery books.  It has an alphabetical listing of different dishes and ingredients, with the recipes after each heading.  Thus the  section on Jam, starts with Jam, Apricot, goes trough a variety of fruits ending with Jam, White or Red Currant.  The Jelly listings start with a plain jelly, which is wine based ending with Jelly, Strawberry with everything from Rum Jelly to Calf's Feet jelly in between.  It seemed like a good time to try the strawberry jam recipe since I had some strawberries which needed to be used up.

I'd love to know where all my  250 ml or 1 cup jelly jars go every winter.  I could find only 5 jars and only 1 of the 125 ml jars too!   There should be more of those but nope, they've probably gone off to party with my iPod, which is also currently in hiding.    However, I was pretty sure I had enough for the quantity of berries I had in the fridge and besides, jams need to be made in small amounts as well.

Strawberries an sugar just starting to mix together.

I weighed out my berries and I had 2 pounds of them - well, 900.6 grams.   The recipe calls for equal parts of sugar and fruit, so I weighed out 2 pounds of sugar, which was just under 4 1/2 cups.   When I mixed the two together, the strawberries quickly started become juicy.  I changed up the recipe a little bit, by adding the juice of one lemon.   While the recipe calls for more juice of strawberries, I didn't have any but some of the berries were a bit on the very ripe side and some were imported, rather than Ontario berries.  Those just don't work the same way for me when I use them to make jam, so I don't normally but I didn't want these to go to waste.  Higher acid levels will help the pectin set and help cut the sweetness a bit.

Syrup is starting to become more transparent as sugar dissolves.

Once the sugar started dissolving properly, I turned the heat on under my big jam pot and  kept it on low, stirring constantly, until the sugar completely dissolved.  Then I turned up the heat a bit more in increments, until I was someplace between medium and high heat and my jam was starting to boil.  

 DO NOT STOP STIRRING!   'cause if you do, the jam will burn.  I stirred for about 15 minutes when a candy thermometer said it was at 220° F.   This is supposed to be the temperature at which jelly will set.   I pulled it off the stove, skimmed the foam off the top of it and ladled it into jars, wiped the rims and popped the sealer lids and rings on.

Then I went to put them in the water bath and realized that the canner was still under the kitchen table and it sure wasn't full of hot water, waiting for me.   Luckily that is a mistake that I will only make once a year and there are only a few jars of jam to worry about.

The jam is tasty but it didn't quite set as much as I'd like.   Next time, a bit longer of a boil.   The aim is to get it to 66% sugar content which should be 220° F.   Perhaps my thermometer needs to be recalibrated.   Interestingly, the 1 : 1 ratio of fruit to sugar still seems to be an accepted standard for regular jam making today.

In a bit of a pickle

One day last week, I went out early to feed the chooks and realized things had changed.  The light was different.  It was more subdued and the deep summer early morning brightness was gone.  The breeze had changed and instead of that sultry southern warm wind, it was a cool north westerly coming through.  Later in the day, no matter how hard that sun shone, it didn't have that intensity that it seemed to have just a few days before.  That night, the tree frogs were deafening in their near unison chanting.  A couple of days ago, I headed out early and there was a flock of geese laying over in a field of golden winter wheat stubble.  The small stream had an eerie feel with the steam rising off of it.   Yep, it's feeling a lot like fall, sigh, and I'm so not ready for it.

The plane socks are finally done.  They've been sitting around almost there for a couple of weeks, with the second sock just needing the toe to be grafted.  Yesterday I sat down and bit the bullet, and grafted that silly thing together, tucked in the ends and voila!, another pair of socks for the impending winter.

Despite the weather, the cucumbers have given us a decent yield.  So many in fact that I wasn't able to keep up with them for just lunches, snacks and salads.   What to do with lots of cucumbers?  Make pickles of course!  The first batch was garlic dills.  Garlic dill pickles tend to disappear pretty quickly, especially when the boys come home for a visit.  I decided to try chunks this time instead of slicing up the cucumbers into spears.   These have to sit at least a week before eating.


Then I came across a recipe for sweet bread and butter pickles which looked delicious and simple.  So I made up a batch of those as well.   Luckily these only take 48 hours before one can sneak a taste.

The only thing about making pickles is of course the timing.  I never seem to make them in the beginning of the summer.  Combined with canning tomatoes, they are like an exclamation point to the end of summer preserving activities.  

More from Mrs. Beeton's Guild to Household Management

The last time I was working at the Bake Oven, I couldn't decide what I wanted to bake.  There are always fixings for soda bread on site, so that is a no brainer.  I'd just picked up a 10 kg bag of flour, so I knew I would also make a yeast bread.   I also had several logs of gingerbread cookie dough still in the freezer, so I knew I'd drag those out as well.  Even a half recipe makes a lot of cookies!    I'd been thumbing and flipping through various early 19th century cook books and had decided that I also wanted to make a cake.   Last time worked so well, by prepping everything ahead of time, so I knew it could be done.  I'd narrowed it down to several recipes, of which several were eliminated due to things like needing 10 eggs and I only had 6 since 2 or 3 of the hens are laying anyplace but where I can find the eggs.   I ended up going with Mrs.  Beeton's Guide to Household Management simply because I have a hard copy facsimile of the first edition of the book, which I can use like a regular cook book.

This is what is left of Mrs.  Beeton's Good Plum Cake recipe.  The use of the work plum in Victorian recipes doesn't actually refer to the fruit we know as plums or prunes today.  Instead it referred to sweet bits of fruit, often currants and raisins.   

This recipe uses only 1/2 cup of butter and has no eggs.  It's a very white cake and was super cumbly until the day after baking.  It's flavoured with currants and candied lemon peel.   It was pretty darned delicious although I'm not sure if it was quite as good as the previous Useful Cake that I baked the last time.

I also baked Mrs. Beeton's recipe for Heavy Gingerbread.  This recipe made 2 8 inch cakes.  It makes a very dense cake.  The flavour is quite strong which goes with the textue.  While I enjoyed it on it's own, it would be perfect with a good cup of tea.   Served with some ice cream, whipped cream or maybe even some Creme Anglais, it would be a stunning and elegant dessert.

Sourdough Bread

About a week and a half ago, I mixed equal parts by volume of Kamut stone ground flour and water.  I put them in a jar, tied a piece of linen over the top and set the jar on the counter.  Each day since then, I've added some flour and water to the mixture, sometimes taking some out so that the volume of dough doesn't get too large.   This is the basic method of making a sourdough starter.  You can purchase dried starter or just hopefully capture the wild yeasts on the flour and in the air.   I like to start with a whole grain  flour as it's more likely to have good yeasts on it.  Then I switch to whatever I have on hand.

Despite my kitchen being on the cool side, small bubbles started appearing on day 3.   Sunday was a spring teaser day and my bubbling starter also decided to finally start to grow in volume.   Monday afternoon, after feeding the starter, I scooped a few spoonfuls into a bowl.  This was a very unscientific measurement but I'm guessing there was maybe half a cup or so.  There are all sorts of sourdough bread recipes which call for exact amounts, from 1 tablespoon, to 3 1/2 cups of starter.  I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter.  Less starter may mean more rising time than using a whole lot of starter.  Anyway, with my few slops of starter into a bowl, I added sort of 3 cups of flour and stirred in enough water to make a rather wet dough or sponge.  I covered the bowl and set it aside.   This morning, the sponge was doubled in size and full of wonderful bubbles.  

I added another two cups of flour, a bit of salt and a bit of sugar.  I kneaded it until became more doughlike.  Because of the long risings, gluten will develop without a lot of kneading, so when I was satisfied, I dumped the dough into an oiled bowl, covered it and set it by the woodstove for a second rising.  It was almost doubled in size 3 hours later, so I gently cut the dough into two pieces and shaped it into round loaves.  I didn't want to deflate the dough too much in handling it.  I preheated the oven and when it came to temperature, I put the bread in to bake.   I've no idea how long I baked it as I just waited until it had a good colour and then put my trusty little baking thermometer in to check the internal temp.  The first check was not done, but the second one was 195°F.  Now the bread could come out of the oven to cool.


It has a lovely chewy but crisp crust, a nice crumb and because I added a touch of sugar, it's not quite as sour which will please the rest of the bread eaters around here.

Oat Bread

 This is a fine grained oat bread, which is easy to make and quite delicious.

 6 cups all purpose flour

2 cups large flake oatmeal

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup plus 1 tbsn honey

2  tsp yeast or one packet – regular rising yeast

2 tbsn plus 2 tsp vegetable oil

2 1/2 cups water – more or less

Proof yeast in small bowl with 1 tbsn honey and about 1/2 cup warm water. If the yeast is active, it should be bubbly and ready to use in about 10 minutes. Meantime, mix flour, oats, salt in a bowl. Make a well in the middle and add the honey and 1/4 cup oil. When yeast is ready, add yeast and 1 cup warm water. Start mixing, adding second cup of water. Slowly add the last 1/2 cup of water while mixing. The flour mixture will pull together to make a dough, kneading until smooth and elastic.

Oil large bowl with remaining 2 tsp oil. Place dough in oiled bowl, rolling it around until the entire surface of the dough is lightly covered in oil. Cover with plastic wrap, foil, parchment etc and let dough rise in a warm place, for approximately 2 hours or until doubled.

Punch dough down to remove large air bubbles, shape into 2 loaves and place in oiled pans. Allow to rise until almost doubled. Bake in a preheated oven at 350° for 35 - 40 minutes or until the loaves are nicely browned, hollow sounding when tapped on the bottom.   A  cooking thermometer should read about 94 °C or 200° F

You can easily switch out 2 or 3 cups of all purpose flour for whole wheat.  You might need to add a little more or less water though, depending on the humidity and absorption of the flour.   Same with additions like raisins.  You can add a cup or so to the dry ingredients, being aware once again that you might need to add a few more drops of water.

Bread is pretty flexible, at least this recipe is.   If it is too dry, knead in a tablespoon or two of water.  If it's too wet, knead in a tablespoon or two of flour. 

By the way, it's scaled to fit a 5 quart Kitchen Aid bowl - you know, just in case you have one and wish to use it.   It seems that two loaves like this fit nicely and I no longer need to make 6 or more loaves at a time.

I highly recommend the cooking thermometer.  Sometimes bread can look done before it is.  Just tip the bread over and pop the thermometer part way in the middle.  If it's not done, put it back in the oven for a few minutes.  If it is internally done but not browned nicely, put it back in anyway as it won't do it any harm to cook it a little more.

And yes, I know that 1 packet of yeast is slightly more than 2 tsp yeast.  Believe me, it won't make a difference.  

Crossed off the To Do List!

Yesterday was my son's birthday.  Instead of a cake, he asked for an apple pie.  It was yummy.  He also wanted chicken pot pie for dinner so it was a pie sort of day.

I've been itching to put another pair of socks on the needles.  However, I decided my foray into multiple sock projects hadn't been horribly successful.  While I finally finished up the socks I started  while on holidays, I still had the colourwork socks on the needles.   So I dug out that project bag and started knitting.   Being sidelined with a horrible cold helped enormously.   I was at the round and round part of knitting the foot and couldn't believe how much I accomplished while not realizing it.  Yesterday the last toe had been grafted and they are now crossed off the to do list.

The double Irish Chain quilt is done!   It would have been finished yesterday but my last filled bobbin was empty.  I know, I could have filled the bobbin and finished the binding then.  I was tired and decided it would be better to wait a day than risk making a mistake.   In the end, it took less than half an hour this afternoon to finish it off.  I should give it a quick rinse to get the basting spray and chalk lines removed.   It will need a good once or twice over with the cat hair removing brush as well!  Then it can be wrapped up and ready to become a gift! 

Next on the list is a quilt top I made several years ago and set aside for my daughter.  I gave it to her when she got married but still haven't gotten it quilted.   Hopefully, I'll get this one done before Christmas as well.  Of course I had the backing all ready to go years ago, and do you think I could find it?  Nope!  I've several different bins marked fabric.  I'm betting it's in the one one the bottom which I couldn't get to.  Today I purchased new backing fabric and will wash it up this weekend.   It's prettier that the old backing, which was simply plain black broadcloth.  This one is purple clouds and stars.  I love this pattern and wish I could remember how I made those wonky Log Cabin squares!

Phew!

What a week it was!   Last week I had to do the shopping and final prep for the Crown Tourney feast on Saturday.   I baked on Sunday and Wednesday.  I shopped on Thursday, which took trips to two grocery stores and a trip into a nearby city to pick up items stored in a friends freezer and a whole slew of crockpots, roasting pans etc.  Friday I cooked all day.. bread, meringue cookies and 9 pies.  Saturday there were 5 of us in the kitchen and we produced a good meal, with some cool plating effects... and I forgot my camera, sigh.  A friend sent me this rather fuzzy photo of the sausage cattails.  I was happy they worked out so well.

In my spare time, I've done a bit of spinning.   Generic domestic grey sheep sliver.  Pretty enough unspun, but gorgeous when spun up.  It is fairly easy to spin as well.   I'm not sure what I am gong to do with it, so I'm spinning and plying it in a suitable weight for weaving or knitting.    

It's going to be suitable for woven scarves, shawls or knitted hats and mitts.  There is only a pound of sliver, so while I'd contemplated leaving the singles for weaving, there wouldn't be enough of it for a useful amount of yardage.  Plied there won't be enough for a useful sweater either, not that I've actually knit a sweater in a very long time.    Next time I order, I'll make sure I get enough  for a larger project because I'm so happy with the quality.

I had the sewing machine going as well.  I made this cute little project bag with some leftover fabric.   It has a nice big pocket inside.  It still needs a drawstring cord though.  I've nothing suitable on hand.   Crappy lighting and no way to show the size without more work than I'm willing to do right now.   It's big enough to hold several skeins of yarn, needles and a pattern, or other small to medium size project.  While I love the size and shape, I'll likely make this a gift bag as it's not quite my favourite fall in love with fabric.

A Fun and Fabulous Weekend - Icelandic Althing

Spit with clay, copper, rivet pots and fry pan.

This weekend we were reenactment camping.   The weather was on the cool side, which meant lots of blankets and a good reason to wear the wool tunics we make.   It was an early Norse themed event and the second reenactment group I play with, camped together to do some awesome period playing.   

We had two cooking fires going.  One spit held pots with peppered apples, hot cider, veggies, water, stew and sausages.  The other started off with a dye pot and a pan for flat breads but ended up with a huge roast beef, which was our dinner.

Cooking flatbreads, while watching the beef.

The owners of the property had hoped to get a permanent outdoor cob oven built (which we were going to get to play with), but real life intervened and they weren't able to get it built.    What they did do, was cobble together some wonderful supplies for us to make a temporary oven to try out.  We piled up cinder blocks, put on two kiln shelves and made a little enclosure of soft fire brick.   We were pretty certain that it would hold enough heat to bake bread, despite a couple of people who were sure it wouldn't work.   My small pottery kiln uses fire brick to insulate the kiln, keeping the heat fairly well contained and allows it to cool down slowly. 

Experimental temporary bread oven

We built a fire in it and kept it going for a little over 4 hours, until the fire brick was quite warm to the touch.   We scraped out the fire, did a quick clean out of the ash and promptly popped in a loaf of bread dough, totally forgetting that we needed to let the oven soak, or sit closed for a few minutes to allow the temperature to even out.   Our first loaf, was burnt on the outside, but cooked on the inside.   It was pretty amazing how quickly people decided to check it out and ripping off the burnt edges, devoured the yummy insides.    We were able to cook 3 more loaves of bread after that, with each loaf taking a few minutes longer than the previous loaf simply because of heat loss due to opening the door and of course because there wasn't enough extra insulation to hold in the heat for a long time.

Bread from the oven and the charred remains of the first loaf

We were thrilled with the results and thankful that the event organizers had gone to the extra effort of getting us the materials to play with. We were over the top with excitement after getting the first useable loaf from the oven.  That we got 3 delicious loaves was beyond expectations.  How cool was it that the event organizers facilitated such a fantastic experience for us on a great day?  Our group was collectively overwhelmed and over the top with excitement.

Cookies

After many years of admiring both reproduction and modern cookie moulds, I finally broke down and bought 2.  They are generally used for Springerle and Gingerbread cookies.  I purchased a reproduction 16th century mould of a spinner, spinning flax on a drop spindle and one which might be dated a bit earlier of two musicians, one with a lute and the other with a harp.  They are beautiful carvings, with many details.

I'd ordered the moulds about two weeks ago and they finally arrived on Friday.  I'd hoped there would be time to bake off a batch in time to use at a small dinner party I hosted on Sunday evening.  Unfortunately our coolish, dry weather turned unseasonably hot and very muggy, with rain.  Since the cookies need to partially dry before baking, it meant that it was a 48 hour drying time.    I had the hartshorn which is ammonium carbonate, for the rising agent but didn't have an anise oil, which is the traditional flavouring.  I used lemon extract as I had some on hand.  I don't think I added enough as there is little to no lemon flavour.     The recipe says the cookies need to age several weeks before using, and it will make a dense, cake-like cookie.  They weren't bad fresh from the oven, although they do seem to be made to drink with a cup of tea or cocoa!  I shall be experimenting more in the following weeks.   The one thing I know for sure is that I'd love to have a few more cookie moulds! 

No photo of the baked cookie as the pure white cookie cookie just didn't photography well in the dismal grey light of today, and I've just not got time to rig up some sort of light box/diffuser thingy and play around with it.   They are pretty though!  I'm also on the lookout for large size cookie/biscuit cutters to keep the edges from looking so ragged.   My knife skills are obviously not quite so adept when put to cutting out large circles.

Spinner cookie before baking

Fibre and Food

I totally understand why some weavers like to work with thick threads.   I've been waffling for weeks about what project to put on the loom.  There are a number of projects which I've got planned, but I hadn't queued them up.   This meant that the couple of rather emotional things which happened this summer, got in the way of me actually choosing a first project.  Finally I grabbed the easiest project of the lot.   I had picked up some Bamboo Silk blends from the Spinrite outlet a while ago.. maybe last fall?  Yeah, it's been a while.  There were only a couple of packages of it, 6 balls in each package, but they only had a beige colour.  I grabbed a package anyway, despite my rather unispired view of the colour.   (They had 6 balls of Angora/Bamboo blend too which I snagged).    I thought I might get around to dyeing it, but didn't.   The yarn is much thicker than I normally use.  I like weaving with finer yarns and worried about the thickness. 

When I just ignored my worries and worked out the details, I realized that I had about enough for 3 scarves, if I managed my sett properly.  The Fanny loom has a nice shed and I find that it tends to be far easier to do more picks per inch than I want.    My ancient Artisat is perpetually less picks per inch no matter what tension I have the warp or how hard I beat that darned thing. 

Broken Twill -Bamboo Silk Blend

In the end, I'm happy that I didn't dye the yarn.  The very neutral scarves mean they will go with anything and therefore suitable as gifts.  The bamboo silk blend is so soft that it's like weaving a hug.  Of course I've no idea how it will stand up to the wear of everyday use, not if it will even wet finish to something I'll like.   I really didn't have enough yarn to sample much.  I figured that at least I'm back weaving..
And the part about understanding why some weavers like to weave with thick yarns?  It took me a few minutes to wind the warp and a couple of hours more to thread the heddles, reed, wind on, balance the tension, wind the bobbins and start weaving.   My normal routine for tea towels, shawls and yardage often takes several days.

This afternoon I made a batch of Raspberry jam... the recipe was supposed to yield 8 cups.  I got only 5.5, but it's pretty awesome tasting raspberry jam.   I've more berries so will whip some more up later.   The jam really is that deep, dark ruby red colour!  It's beautiful.

  I was out grabbing a few forgotten groceries and found myself staring at a bag of whole wheat bread flour.    After all, with fresh raspberry jam, one really does need fresh bread!   I peeked at it while rising.  It's got a little bit more to go before I punch it down and shape it into loaves.

The Best of Intentions

Mine that is!  I had intended that this weekend should be a fibre weekend.  I was going to do a sample rinsing of the solar dye vats.  I was going to wind a warp and at least start dressing the loom.   I was going to ply all the partial bobbins left over from the Stanley Cup spinning project.   I also wanted to redraft my husbands doublet pattern and get it started and had been musing about a new late period kirtle for myself. 

Instead, on Saturday, we picked up a half bushel of green beans, a half bushel of peaches and a half bushel of plum tomatoes.  The beans went into the freezer that night.  Sunday morning I made peach jam.  I was pretty disappointed that most of the peaches were rotting from the inside out.  I got one batch of jam from the 1/2 bushel and that was only because I had 3 peaches ripe on the counter to add!   Then we popped out to do a bit of antiquing.  At one antique mall,  lots of small booths housed in a large building, I found a beautiful butter mould.   I rather like butter moulds.  It was a good price but I neither brought it with me while I looked nor remembered which booth I saw it in, so it didn't come home with me.   I usually look for antique weaving and spinning tools but there were none to be had that day.

 On the way home, we stopped for canning jars and a jar lifter.   Normally I just freeze the tomatoes, either with or without their skins.  However, with the chooks in the freezer, the freezer is starting to fill.  Add to that the time it takes for frozen tomatoes to thaw, even in the saucepan, I decided to drag out the water bath canner.   Luckily I bought mainly 500 ml jars, since I'd forgotten how small the canner actually is.  The 1 lt. jars are too tall for it.   There was a pressure canner on sale, which I almost indulged in, but it's not really necessary for tomatoes, nor did I budget for it.   The half bushel of tomatoes gave me 20, 500 ml jars plus about 1.5 - 2 jars left, which I decided was not enough to bother keeping the canner boiling for another 45 minutes.  We'll eat them for dinner instead.

The one sunflower in my garden, planted by birds I'm sure, has a huge sagging head.  These two little extras brightened up the morning today!  Even better is that I saw a honey bee on it.  They've been far and few between this year, so if they are making a comeback, it's an awesome development.

Fibre activities are definitely in the works for this week though!