Cornflower

Raspberry ripple

  

     A little experimentation with the camera produced these accidentally unfocussed shots, but I liked the effect which suggests (to me at least) a raspberry ripple ice cream with added strawberry pieces!

No doubt you'll guess the real subject in an instant, so go on, have a go! (I'll show it 'properly' later).

Books and cakes - 20

    This month I've made a cake which is, I think, rather better than the book it accompanies - at least, I know which one I've enjoyed more!

    There's a scene in Iris Murdoch's The Nice and the Good in which walnuts have a certain significance; elsewhere in the book "The dark shut-in velvety smell of the raspberries hung over the kitchen table", so I've found a cake which combines the two and does so to great effect.

 

    This is Sophie Grigson's American-style Raspberry Cake. As you'll see from the recipe there, an unusual sponge mixture enriched with Greek yogurt is topped with fresh raspberries and then a cinnamon-flavoured walnut crumble. It's really delicious! As to modifications, I'd say you'd need more rasps than specified (I used 225g), and I found it was perfectly cooked in only 30 minutes as opposed to the 45/50 the recipe says, but that's partly a matter of knowing your oven, and mine is fast.

 

Do try this cake - it's a big hit in this house - and the walnut crumble would be great with other fruits, too, such as plums or apples. (As to the book, thoughts on it here).

Friday fruit and flowers

 

 

 

Taken in the walled garden at Traquair: wonderfully lichened apple and pear trees, and butterflies galore!

Do visit the house if you get the chance. It's the oldest inhabited house in Scotland, very intimate in feel and a family home. When we were there it was even more atmospheric than normal due to the estate's having a complete electricity blackout - this made catering in the charming 1745 Cottage Restaurant a bit tricky, but nevertheless we had a good lunch.

Photography inside the house is not permitted, but you can see more exterior shots here.

Far over the misty mountains

This is Uig Beach, site of the discovery of the Lewis Chessmen, home to the Brahan Seer.

 

Virtually empty of people, even in early August.

 

 

That's my kind of beach.

Les souvenirs de Lewis

    More souvenirs of Lewis, this time a mug made at Borgh Pottery - perfect for my mid-morning coffee as it's just the right size, weight and feel in the hand. (Fussy? Moi?).

It is a family joke that wherever we go I seek out potteries and bring back something made in them, but then I use all these pieces and love them, and they remind me of my travels in a very meaningful way.

   The mussel shells I found on the beach were so perfectly shaded in their purpley-blues and greys that a few had to find their way into my pocket, but they just go with the mug, don't you think?

O ... well

    Do you remember my O (here and here)? Well, I'm making progress, but fools rush in, etc. and I in my somewhat thrawn way decided I wasn't going to go for the recommended intarsia method of colourwork but would just make do with stranding,

 

so I am carefully catching the non-working yarn at the back every few stitches, and so far making a reasonably even job of it. As they say, a blind man running for his life would never notice any imperfections, and I quite like the look of the wrong side, too!

Tapestries and tweeds

 

     On show at An Lanntair, the Stornoway Arts Centre when I was there the other day was this exhibition of miniature tapestries, all sketches or samples for larger pieces, (some by famous names whose work I saw here in Edinburgh last year).

Also on display was this locally made quilt or wall-hanging:

an unusual but attractive use for tweed.

Harris Tweed - 3

     You've seen the sheep, you've seen the weaver, now go and visit the 'live' website (and look at those gorgeous landscape colours interpreted in the tweed on the homepage)!

Cornflower Book Group 2009: Volume 9

  

     "The sunlight of late September filled the pale, formal streets between Portland Place and Manchester Square. The sky was a burning blue yet the still air was chill. A gold chestnut fan sailed down from some unseen tree and tinkled on the pavement. In the small antique-dealer's a strong shaft of sunlight, cloudy with whirling gold-dust, penetrated the collection of red lacquer and tortoiseshell, ormolu and morocco. Imogen Gresham held a mug in her bare hands; it was a pure sky blue, decorated with a pattern of raised wheat ears, and of the kind known in country districts as a 'harvester'. Her eye absorbed the colour and her fingers the moulding of the wheat. Her husband however saw that there was a chip at the base of the mug, from which cracks meandered up the inside like rivers on a map."

To find out where this opening passage comes from, click here, then do come and read the rest of the book along with us!

Mystery chocolate cake - revealed!

    What interesting suggestions for the mystery ingredient in the chocolate cake - some I must try -, but those who put forward beetroot were right!

The recipe comes from the Green & Black's book, though I replaced the drinking chocolate powder specified with cocoa and baked it for a much shorter time than they recommend as I like puddingy cakes. Even Mr. C., who refers to beetroot as "the devil's vegetable" and will never normally eat it loved this cake. As I said before, it's the depth of flavour and the moistness the beetroot gives which make it worth using.

2 tblsps. cocoa powder, 8oz. self-raising flour, 7oz. caster sugar, 3.5oz. dark chocolate (minimum 60% cocoa solids), 4.5 oz. unsalted butter, 9oz. cooked beetroot, 3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas 4/bottom of Aga baking oven. Butter and flour an 8" tin. Sift together the cocoa and flour and mix in the sugar. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a double boiler. Puree the beetroot and stir in the beaten eggs. Add the beetroot and chocolate mixtures to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Bake in the prepared tin for 30-40 mins. until a skewer comes out clean or you have the desired degree of squidginess. Leave to cool for 10 mins. before turning out. Serve, dusted with icing sugar and with some crème fraîche.

Mystery chocolate cake

   I have a picture of a cake for you, but I also have a technical hitch and I can't upload it. We ate a similar cake last week in Lewis, and it was so good that I wanted to try it for myself a.s.a.p., so with a friend here to act as guinea pig, I made it.  It contains an unusual ingredient (9oz. of it), not one normally found in cakes, whose flavour you can't detect in the finished product but which adds much overall in the way of depth and moistness. Can you guess what it is?

Answer and recipe later - and hopefully picture, too.

Harris Tweed - 2

    Snippets of tweed! Coasters - currently in use on my desk, among other places - and a heart which I might scent with lavender oil and hang in the linen cupboard, or I could dangle it from the arm of Monty Mouse, in which case I'd see it all the time!
    You might like to have a look at this clip of tweed on the catwalk, or this article about the show, or visit the industry's main website. The future looks exciting, whether for the traditional colours and patterns or the innovative new designs, in interiors as well as clothes.

Harris Tweed - 1

The raw material! This little fellow is hand-reared and responds to a call.

 

The work in progress - all 1400 plus warp threads are tied individually by hand.

 

A close-up of the twill on the loom. It is checked throughout the weaving process for any thread breakages.

 

And the man himself: Mr. John MacLean of Garynahine Harris Tweed who very kindly welcomed us into his weaving shed and took the time to explain the whole tweed-making process to us, even letting us have a go on the loom (so a tiny area of that cloth was made by me!). These are his lambs, by the way, as he is a crofter as well as a weaver.

Mr. MacLean sells to Savile Row, but his tweed is also available through a local co-operative, where a bouquet of tweed flowers [see the end of that article] was recently made for Her Majesty the Queen.

(More of the finished product later).

Light on water

    This is what I've spent the last week looking at. We were on the Hebridean island of Lewis, enjoying absolute peace and quiet, far away from people, mobile phone signals, the internet (apologies if you've emailed me and not had a reply yet - I shall catch up soon).

We walked, fished (that's Mr. C. in a state of utter contentment), stalked deer, rowed boats, swam in both the loch and the sea, explored an uninhabited island, read (but only a very little), saw Harris tweed being woven (and more on that later) played Scrabble, and had a very good time.

The ever-changing light on the water and the hills held my attention for hours, so simply doing nothing was often the order of the day.

The restorative powers of such a beautiful and secluded place, even in wild weather, are great; I for one can't wait to go back.

Violet