Easter Baking...

 I really should not allow any programme from the British Bake Off stable to be shown in our house.  It always results in lots of lip smacking and subtle and not so subtle hints that I should be making some of that...  Last week was the Easter special, and even I was tempted by a couple of the recipes.  Perhaps if I had known just how long they took I would not have bothered!  The hot cross buns - don't they look delicious? - took about five hours in total.  Three sessions of proving for an hour each time, interspersed with kneading, adding fruit, kneading some more, cutting and shaping.  Yes they are indeed delicious, but were they worth the effort?  The jury is still out on that one...

The Simnel cake - quicker to mix, but two hours in the oven.  Quick trip round the garden to pick primroses and violets for some ham-fisted crystallization.  We don't know what this one tastes like yet - it can sit and look pretty for a couple of days!

So I feel very virtuous but also that I could have spent yesterday afternoon a little more productively!

Have a Happy Easter!

Rhapsody in Blue...

You know how it feels when a book you have been enjoying so much reaches the last page?  That's how I felt when putting the final touches to this watercolour - it had been such fun to do I didn't want it to end!

This is based on a reference photo we took at Fleet Pond - there are always a couple of cob swans posturing and beating up the other swans, and they always power through the water, wings akimbo, creating quite a wake.

I've used  very limited palette for this, just a couple of blues, a green and a brown, with a touch of orange for the beak.  Sometimes less is more.

Happy Easter by the way - my Simnel cake this year is a bit gooey as I thought it was a good idea to soak the fruit in tea first. No it wasn't.  However, it tastes delicious!

Happy Easter!

Stacie and I made a Simnel Cake...that's just a fancy name for a fruit cake with marzipan on the top!  It was fun to cook together though, and later I had a chance to play with my cook's blowtorch in order to toast the marzipan. 

Look at all that chocolate!  Luckily, with my other half working in Belgium (the land of chocolate...) we have some fancy Easter eggs at sensible prices.  Thank you too to Aldi for their sweet little replica gold bunnies for 99p as opposed to a certain other company charging over £4 per rabbit.....

Looks like I shall be spending Easter working, with deadlines looming I can't afford to take time off.  Painting isn't work though, I'd happily do that any time.

Have a Happy Easter whatever you are doing and go easy on the choccy!