Lemon Curd

There's nothing like home made lemon curd, shop bought just doesn't come near to it in my opinion. This recipe makes a lovely curd that is very smooth in texture yet sharp with the tang of lemon. You can use limes or oranges if you prefer, which I sometimes do. I like lemon & lime curd best. It's not at all complicated, a very simple recipe that uses just 4 ingredients.
My recipe is from an old Woman's Institute Cookery Book. The eggs and lemon juice are measured by equal volumes ~ you will get a good set and to make it even easier it's cooked in the microwave.

Lemon Curd:

You will need 2-3 small to medium size sterilised jars with lids.

100g unsalted butter
350g caster sugar
finely grated rind of 3 lemons
150 ml lemon juice
150 ml beaten eggs

Put the sugar, butter, lemon juice and rind in a large jug or bowl that will fit in your microwave.

Cook on full power for 2 - 3 minutes until the sugar is dissolved and the butter has melted.

Slowly add the beaten eggs to the mixture whilst constantly whisking. Continue cooking in the microwave on full power for 1 minute bursts, reducing to 30 second bursts as the mixture starts to thicken, whisking in between. It doesn't take long so keep your eye on it. Cook until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a large jug, this is important as it removes all the bits of rind and any specks of cooked egg.

Carefully pour the hot curd into the warm sterile jars and put the lids on immediately. As it cools it will thicken more. The curd will keep in the fridge, unopened, for 4 weeks. Once a jar is opened use within a week, that's why I try to use smaller jars when making this.

Once the curd is set, and using a doughnut filling piping nozzle - pipe it into some freshly baked lemon sour cream muffins.

Another Finished Hat!

Well I'm quite enjoying this hat knitting run that I seem to be on now the weather is cooling down. I think it's because I just don't feel like starting a big project although I have quite a few sweaters queued up waiting to be knitted. Here's my second cabled slouch hat off the needles:

I made this one longer by doing 2 repeats of the cable pattern.
The yarn is Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Mink Heather, it took just under 100g.











Once the hat was finished I cast on for this scarf:

I've knit this pattern before, it's called Hypernova.
The yarn is Noro King which is a 4 ply/fingering weight yarn. I have 2 skeins and have been thinking about what to make with it for a long time.

Cabled Knitted Hat

I have a finished project to show you:

The hat was inspired by another knitting pattern I saw.

The yarn is Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Sport Weight, colour is Dove Heather. 

I had 1 1/2 Balls (75g) and managed to squeeze this neat little hat out of it. It's basically knitted in a 3x3 rib with a 18 stitch forward & back cross over cables. I need to soak and block it.

I have 2 more balls of the same yarn in Mink Heather, this will be another similar hat but a bit more slouchy.

Mocha Cupcakes

Chocolate and coffee what a great combination! These are for the Guild Area open day tomorrow.

I think there's nothing worse than getting one of those delicious looking, expensive, fancy decorated cupcakes and realising you can't eat it because it's basically 50% bland tasteless packet mix cake and 50% over-sugary buttercream.

Another thing that irks me is how you decide to bake some at home, follow a recipe to the t and end up with far less cakes than the recipe states but enough buttercream to frost 10 dozen cupcakes.

Well it's not going to happen here because this is one of my tried and trusted recipes, you will get perfect results with this and just enough buttercream frosting to cover 16-18 cupcakes, (unless you like it piled sky high then I would suggest you double it!)

These sweet little cupcakes are delicious, the cake part is nice and moist, very chocolatey with a background hit of coffee. The buttercream frosting is sweet, as buttercream always is, but this has a good depth of coffee flavour which cuts the sweetness nicely. They are easily decorated with cadbury's flake, as in the picture, but I have also just dusted these lightly with cocoa when I haven't had any flake chocolate.

For the Cupcakes:
1/2 cup hot freshly brewed strong coffee
11/2 teaspoons instant espresso or regular coffee
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract/essence
1 1/3 cups standard flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
100g soft butter
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1/2 cup light brown soft sugar
1 egg

For the Buttercream:
100g soft butter
2 cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract/essence
2 teaspoons instant coffee powder dissolved in 2 teaspoons hot water

The recipe makes 16 - 18 cakes, you will need a muffin tin/patty tin and paper liners. Pre heat the oven to 170 degrees c.

Mix the espresso powder into the hot coffee and stir until dissolved. Add the milk and vanilla then set aside.

Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Next cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, add the egg and beat well. Add the flour mixture in three batches, alternating with the coffee/milk mixture. Make sure the mixture is well blended.

Fill the paper cases 2/3 full. Bake the trays for 17 - 20 mins. They are cooked when they look well risen and spring back in the centre when you gently press them.

Cool in the tin for a few minutes then transfer to a wire cooling rack.

While they are cooling make the buttercream:
Whip the butter for 4-5 minutes until it becomes very pale and light, obviously this is much easier using an electric mixer. Then sift in the icing sugar and mix gently to start with, when it has all been incorporated add the vanilla and the coffee and whip/beat it for 2 minutes. It should be soft, light and smooth. Spoon it into a piping bag and decorate your cupcakes however you like. I piped a nice swirl on mine and crumbled some flake chocolate over the tops. The frosting can also be easily spread on with a knife if you prefer not to pipe.

Then came the giant oatmeal cookies, but I'll tell you all about them next time.

Welcome to Oscar...

Oscar has arrived, he's a Blue Agouti English Angora rabbit ~ he's so cuddly and absolutely gorgeous!

Look at all the beautiful soft fibre that he's growing for me to spin. 

Bottled Black Boy Peaches

It's black boy peach season, they are beautiful eaten fresh when perfectly ripe but to be honest I prefer them cooked as I think cooking them takes them to another level. So, out come the preserving jars, pop them in a low oven to sterilise them at 120 degrees.

I make a basic syrup, 1 cup of sugar to 5 cups of water as I don't like them too sweet. Melt the sugar into the water over a low heat then bring to the boil, reduce the heat so there's just a gentle simmer.

While that's happening get on with preparing your peaches. When you have a lot of fruit this can become quite tedious and time consuming. For peaches that I'm going to bottle I have a cunning method: slice the peach in half around it's natural crease and twist apart, leave the skins on, remove the stone (which comes away very easily in this variety). Once you have done a good amount carefully put them into the sugar syrup. Cook for about 3-4 minutes on a low heat (they still need to feel slightly firm, don't overcook them or they will turn to mush). Scoop out the fruit and place it into your sterile jars (the wide necked jars are much easier to fill), the skins will slip off easily as you are doing this if you prefer them skinless. Ladle the hot syrup over the fruit in the jars filling to the brim, then run a knife down the edge of the jars to release any trapped air bubbles. Top up with the liquid to the jar brim again if needed then seal the jars. When they cool wipe them over with a damp cloth to remove any stickiness. Easy peasy.

I made 8 jars of bottled peaches and 2 jars of sauce. The sauce is made by cooking chopped peaches with 50% sugar, so if you have 500g chopped weight of peaches use 250g of sugar and the juice of 1 lemon, cook gently until the sugar dissolves then add 1 cup of water, keep cooking until the fruit is soft. Use a stick blender to puree the mixture then bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and pour carefully into sterile bottles/jars. This is lovely poured over ice cream or greek yoghurt.




Now I'm waiting for the rest of these to fully ripen so I can make jam and chutney:

A Finished Sweater at Last!

I'm feeling very pleased with myself today as finally the lace weight sweater is finished:

Yarn: Malbrigo lace
Colour: Azul Profundo
Pattern: Inspired by ZickZack tunic
Finished sweater weighs 130g (just over 2.5 skeins)
If I were to knit this again I would make the armholes deeper instead of using the measurement on the pattern, it will block a bit larger in that area but I think to be more visually in proportion I should have made the armholes 8" instead of 7" otherwise I'm happy with it ~ it fits perfectly and is beautifully light and warm. It was a lovely easy knit and I did just a regular round neck instead of the cowl neck.




I've also finished all the knitting on my Bean cotton sweater, but just need to seam it together and finish off the neck edging:

Hoping to get this completed over the weekend.














I started knitting another pair of Simple Skyp socks for my hubby:

Yarn is John Q Designer Earth Wear (85% recycled Possum Merino blends & 15% nylon.
Colour is Silver Grey.
Haven't used this particular yarn before, I try to stay away from possum blends as you end up covered in dog like hair when knitting with it. This isn't too bad though.







Then there's this bit of spinning I squeezed in, possibly the best I've ever done:

Corriedale.
'N' ply
white/natural
270mtrs
88 grams