Baking Days and Mondays

This weekend just past was the Queen's Birthday weekend here in Australia. The Queen's birthday is actually in April, but we take a day in June to acknowledge it. Go figure.

The weather is rather bleak at present - grey days for the most part, rainy and cold - and as any owners of old houses will know, it is in this sort of weather that your house starts to look, well, how can I put it...crap and depressing. And so it is here. Everything is cold and damp! Things that we overlooked in the summer are now very, very obvious in the cold, grey light of a winter's day. So, while my dear husband wrestled with covering the windows in plastic insulation strips, I...baked! Well, the oven keeps things warm, right?

I found the recipe for the Bayou Buttermilk Biscuits in a great book I am reading at the moment - Motif for Murder by Laura Childs. I love a 'cosy mystery' and Laura Child's books are always good fun. And so...here's how you make Bayou Buttermilk Biscuits (great as a side with soup - I think they're a kind of American scone, really).

2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons shortening (I used butter)
1 cup buttermilk

Combine all dry ingredients. Chop in butter until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Add buttermilk and mix to form dough. Roll or pat out to a 1/2 inch thickness on a floured surface. Cut into rounds with a glass or a biscuit cutter. Bake at 400 degrees fahrenheit (200 degrees celsius) until golden. Makes between 12-18 (I got 18!)  

And this happy chappie below is 'Paddington Bear's Favourite Marmalade Cake' from Jane Brocket's Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer. Perfect with tea for toasting Her Maj.

Winter Warmers

Taking my cue from Sefarina's lovely Blog Windleben (http://windleben.blogspot.com.au/), here are a couple of my suggestions for cheering and sustaining you during dreary and bleak weather (two degrees this morning...!)

1. Find something to please the eye - and sit it on the windowsill

After seeing some lovely photos of glass collections online, I have just started to collect coloured glass. I have amber glass in the living room on the windowsill and blue glass in the bedroom. It looks so crisp and pretty with the white winter light coming through it, and makes the bleak weather outside the window a little less dull!

2. Bake - preferably something sweet!

I have recently borrowed Jane Brocket's Vintage Cakes (do you know her blog Yarnstorm? - http://www.yarnstorm.blogs.com/) from our great local library. Happy Days! Easy recipes that really turn out well and, as an added bonus, the house becomes nice and warm from the oven and everything ends up smelling delicious! I highly recommend the Parkin Cake and the Genoa...mmmm...

3. Listen to some good music

Music can change how I feel in a moment. I have recently re-discovered Backworld and their mellow sound is just perfect for the quiet, cool days right now...

Blogtober Day 6 - Gently does it

I have a number of doilies - inherited from my grandma and found on my thrifting travels - and I was delighted with how this gentle, fragile little one worked out when I framed it in an embroidery hoop.

The book cover image is from the Tower Books website and the one below it is from Lark.

I was very happy to find Jane Brocket's The Gentle Art of Knitting in the library this morning. I have followed Jane's blog Yarnstorm (http://yarnstorm.blogs.com/) for some years and I was quick to acquire The Gentle Art of Domesticity when it came out. And look! A number of very nice projects seem to be using garter stitch...hooray!

Image from http://makingooduse.typepad.co.uk

And with Paul McCartney in the news this week - I have never been a great fan of the Beatles but I do love this song, "Across the Universe" - so gentle, so whimsical.