Wednesday 25 December 2019

Christmas Wishes



Peaceful wishes for Christmas to all my cyber friends.


Christmas baking - the Bûche de Noël for dessert on Christmas Eve, and a brioche for breakfast on Christmas morning. At the time of writing this, we haven't yet had the brioche, but I took the advice of a workmate to try using some Italian 00 flour (he'd just been using some for traditional soft bread-rolls from the part of the country he comes from), and it certainly rose beautifully and feels lovely and light.

I tried to make the Bûche a little less rich than last year when I used ganache and a cooked buttercream - and judging by C's verdict after eating the trimmings off the ends, I succeeded. I'm still using my mother's original recipe, which actually I think is  American and not French at all, as it comes from The Gold Cook Book by Louis P. De Gouy, who was the chef at the Waldorf Astoria for 30 years. It's my brother who has the book, but I have the recipe on an index card, and so far I've managed not to lose it. I guess, actually, since De Gouy's father was the "Esquire of Cuisine" in the royal courts in Belgium and Austria, it could have European roots.

I added four peacocks to the flock of birds adorning my tree this year - when I saw them in TK Maxx back in November I couldn't resist them; one has taken up a perch for the evening on the log. I appear to have lost the little sprig of holly I made for it a couple of years ago using an Impression Obsession die, so this time I cut a couple of sprays of ivy from Yupo, reckoning that it wouldn't get soggy even in contact with the cake.



The brioche recipe is from Stephen Harris in The Telegraph. We won't be having raspberry compote with ours, I bought some nice jam in a fine-food store.

Sunday 1 December 2019

November Favourites

November was a pretty busy month, but I have a few cards I really liked to show at the end of it.
And one photo I took in the middle of the month, meant to upload and never got round to it - a lovely burst of autumn colour. We had a lot of dull grey days and a lot of rain, but when the sun did shine, the colours were beautiful.



This one was inspired by a shop window display in a florist's near work which I saw last year.


 And this one came about because I had been using bubblewrap with Brusho powders the week before, and a bit of the leftover piece made me think that in black, it would work well to echo the keys on this old typewriter. Sometimes I regret not keeping one of the ones I used to have, but then I remember how much effort it took to strike each key - especially the ones calling for the little fingers - and I am glad that modern keyboards are so much easier.







The header photo was taken in the park on a December day in 2017, I couldn't find any suitable photos in my files from last year.