Wait a minute Mr Postman...

Just a very short one tonight, because I can't resist showing you some of the lovely things that have arrived in the post or by courier (aka my lovely parents) this week. There'll be a nice long post on the IMPRINT exhibition from Friday coming up, so watch out for that. Such a brilliant day, full of inspirational art and lovely people, so a huge thank you to everyone. 

 

Until then; the Topshop Dalmation Coat arrived from my parents on tuesday, a complete and fantastic suprise! The film is for more instant snapping with my Polaroid 300, so I now have 50 more potential shots, thank you ebay. And that floral saddle bag was from the gorgeous Tieka at Selective Potential from a Christmas giveaway, perfect for little jaunts when I don't need to take the world and all its books with me. Just waiting for the rain to let up a bit for all of these beauties to be put into action...Hope you all have a lovely week, mine's shaping up to be quite exciting. Also I promise there WILL be more baking related posts soon, Don't know about you but I've missed them!

Mmmmmmm nice warm faux-dalmatian

 

The work of an instant...

Goodness it's been a while. But I've decided to make myself have a breather and accept that Paradise Lost is not going to get read in the next hour or so. So important to take time over these things is it not? I actually had some other present posts lined up, but to stop this blog being too 'Look at my new things!' I'll intersperse them with these pics. I've been meaning to scan these in for a while, they're from a Polaroid 300 (Basically a Fujifilm Instax mini) which my mother won and I promptly adopted. I'm still working out how to guess the light properly, but I still love these shots. And they make rather nice tags for personalised presents, if I do say so myself, which is why I only ended up with four to scan in here...

Christchurch Meadows Oxford on the left, though it was not that dark! And blackberrying on the right in Cheltenham

Also, again if anyone is in the London area THIS FRIDAY then do please come along to the Centre of Possible Studies for the Fabelist IMPRINT festival, it's going to be an incredible day, and hopefully my beautiful camera will be there too, as I've just had 50 more instant film sheets delivered. Waiting is overrated.Have a lovely week everyone..hopefully there'll be a new post soon, I have some very exciting things to share!

Rococo Gardens, from my post here

Scanner cut off the border....also turns out close up doesn't work so well.  A lense is on my wishlist!

Farewell to festivity, byebye to baubles, toodlepip to tinsel...

You'll have to wait for the explanation, I'm afraid I couldn't to share the photo

So, today (or yesterday, depending on where you start counting from) is Twelfth Night, the traditional day on which decorations must come down, and so the official end of Christmas. Sigh. Drawing close to the end of my holidays as well, which means last minute work rush, packing, baking and fare-the-well-ing. But to cling onto the festive period as long as possible, I thought I'd share some of the lovely lovely things I was given (Birthday posts to follow) an idea shamelessly copied from the equally lovely Anna (apologies.) It was such a good holiday, and I'm so grateful, that hopefully you'll allow some self-indulgent sharing of the gorgeousness. Note the several themes that seem to be appearing here, highlighting some of my favourite things; Austen, GBBO, collars, red. And my hunt for the perfect satchel is at last over! Merriment all round! 

Also the new Fabelist Journal 'Imprint' has been released, please do take a look at it, once again some very talented people have produced wonderful things! And if you're in London (or fancy a trip) there's the Imprint Festival on 27th January, come and see what this art community is all about. 

Just in case you can't quite see; The Great British Bake Off book, The Boy who Bakes (year before last's winner Ed's book) a Jane Austen biography and her Juvenalia, bow bag, mittens, collared blouses, SATCHEL, and Topshop pearl collar.Perfection.

There may have been a few tears shed at the beauty of this bag...

Nice little collection of collars i think

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day. ..

 by Edith Lovejoy Pierce (I'm going to confess I do not know much about this lady, apart from that lovely quote and that she was born in Oxford 1904, what a happy coincidence!) 

 Just a short post to say a big HAPPY NEW YEAR! Hope 2012 brings much love, friendship, happiness and success to you all...and if that sounds cheesy, then who cares. It's the New Year. I have been a very poor poster recently, and have a lot of lovely things to share (mostly cake and birthday related, and some gifts I simply have to show you as i'm so pleased with them!) But for now here are some mini firework shots from a friend's gathering last night. It was a quiet event, but ever so much fun. A cup o'kindness to you all...

(plus if anyone can help me with the ever so slight skewing of the pictures I'd be forever grateful!)

Yule Trees, Lights, and Treats

More often than not I seem to accidentally pick this bench. And it always brings a smile to my face, for an obvious reason; someone in the long distant past (No-one I know i'd like to add) has carved my name on the arm. And so many a memory of shopping days, dates, people-watching sessions, waiting for rendevouz etc have been peppered with some comment about my supposed vandalism. All very amusing of course, but it fixes this place and all the varying experiences I've had around it together in my mind. Me and a group of friends were even interviewed on it once. I think we talked about vampires...And  every time this little thing, six scratches on a bench, has been noticed and noted, filed away in the brain. So what if the shopping trip was a failure. I had 'my' bench, my Christmas coffee (my first of the holidays, a Toffee Nut latte, and very good it was too) stollen from Huffkins in my bag, my cape and a lovely walk through the crisp wintery sun home ahead of me, to be greeted with some excellent news from my genius little brother. I won't go into it, but so very proud of him, even more so than usual...

I thought I'd accompany this with some more suprisingly sunny winter days, these from Oxford 

Trees on Brasenose Lane, and into Radcliffe Square

 

And some light of a different kind, a few blurry shots from the Christmas Lights switch on a fair few weeks ago, again in Oxford.

Christmas Cupcakes with Spiced Cream Cheese Icing

Just one of the various things I've been forcing my brother to take to school this week (well what else am I meant to do in the holidays?) other delights include some dubious looking cheesecake-cupcakes (not to be posted) and sweeter-than-sweet coconut florentines...The old 'stuffing oneself with food at Yuletide' trick is fully in force.

The basic cupcake recipe was taken from ‘Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery’ by MarthaSwift and Lisa Thomas, although the idea is from a Hummingbird Bakery recipe. My version was a bit haphazard, so this may need some tweaking (partially because I can’t really remember what I put in them, except it’s a mixture of lots of Christmassy tastes)

This recipe made 24 mini cupcakes and 6 normal sized ones

Ingredients

105g butter

10g (ish?) marzipan, cubed and softened

225g caster sugar

2 eggs

275g self raising flour

100ml milk

20ml orange juice 

(a good one like Innocent Juice is fine)

2 teaspoons mixed spice

1 teaspoon cinnamon (or to taste)

A couple of handfuls of raisins, chopped dried apricots, dried cranberries or any other dried fruit you fancy

A good glug of brandy 

Spiced Cream Cheese icing

(this is half the recipe in the book, and was just enough for my amount of cupcakes)

85-90g cream cheese

225g icing sugar

60g unsalted butter

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon mixed spice (again, or to taste)

Some dried cranberries to decorate

First put your dried fruit in a bowl and glug the brandy over it. Leave this for as long as you dare. Overnight would work, so would an hour or two (depends how spur of the moment your baking is)

Make your icing before you start if you like, so that it can firm up in the fridge if necessary (especially with lower fat cream cheese) Beat the butter and gradually add the icing sugar a tiny bit at a time, keeping it light and fluffy. When you’ve added as much as possible, then beat in the cream cheese (keep adding the icing sugar) and the spices.

Preheat your oven to 160 for a fan (180 for normal) and line your muffin trays

Cream the butter, marzipan and sugar together, then add the eggs, beating after each one. Mix the flour with the spices and alternate between this and the milk, adding it to the butter and stirring in. Move on the orange juice when the milk is gone. Fold in the boozy fruits, and a bit of the leftover brandy if you like. Spoon into the cases and bake for around 15 minutes for the little cakes, and 25 for larger (check with a skewer, the amount of liquid/fruit means they may require longer) Inhale the spiced brandy smell…and let them cool before icing and decorating!

Peanut Butter Apple Cookies

Once again, this post is not quite what is was meant to be, but as I haven't typed the recipe up for my Christmas cupcakes yet I thought I'd fill the space with these lovelies, which have been waiting a long time. I don't know if you've discovered the uber-snack that is apple slices and peanut butter (I'm sure I've gone on about it before) but these cookies were the product of that, baked for a friend's Amnestea. And very good they were too, I promise you. 

Peanut Butter and Apple Cookies

Adapted from ‘The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook’ this makes around 15 cookies

Ingredients 

110g butter

100g caster sugar

100g soft dark brown sugar

1 egg

120g crunchy peanut butter

170g plain flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

One medium apple, chopped finely

Preheat the oven to 160 for a fan,

Cream the butter and sugars together until light and, well, creamy looking. Then beat in the egg, followed by the peanut butter (more or less depending on taste, and also feel free to use smooth if you rather, but I like the added texture of the peanut pieces.) Mix the flour and the bicarb together as you weigh, then fold it into the cookie dough, with the chopped apple. Put the mixture into the fridge (I left mine overnight) then when you’re ready and it’s nice and chilled, bake around 5 on a tray at a time for 12-15 minutes until golden (Mine weren't quite as orange as the photo's suggest, but the camera was having a tango moment)