For the love of a hot muffin

Just a quick post to get us all back into the swing of things: how the hell have you been?! Have you lost weight?
I notice that we are down in number by 2, but at least there are still enough of us to play 20-aside football or to create a respectable flashmob or look daunting to small children if we bunch together at a local park by the swings (nonchalant sneering optional). It's far too many to play sardines in my house at least, unless we play in shifts.
I had a moment of domestic goddess madness last week where I fancied something a tad more interesting than Crunchy Nut for brekkers, and so turned to one of my favourite cookbooks, 'Spooning with Rosie' by Rosie Lovell. It's a wonderful book, celebrating the joy of sharing food and life in good company. The recipes are simple and delicious so that, should hungry chums suddenly appear on your doorstep, you'll be able to feed them well and in a relatively stress-free way. She owns Rosie's Cafe in Brixton, and a number of the recipes have been been tested on an appreciative audience. One day, I shall haul my buxom ass over there.
Anyhoots, I sleepily whipped up a batch of her marmalade muffins to a highly appreciative audience. Muffins are the perfect thing to make when you are still asleep and unable to focus as, for them to rise properly, they need to be mixed roughly, with bits still unmixed, quite slapdash and without grace. Warm, filling and luxurious thanks to the melted butter, they more than satisfied the jaded weekend palate, filling the house with comforting scents. The recipe inspired me to have a bash at creating an even more breakfasty muffin featuring a plethora of wholesome gubbins to keep the morning ticking along, and it is this creation I lay at your feet now.
Unless you have friends coming over, or a huge family, allow any spares to cool completely then freeze them. This means you can have delicious warm muffins over a number of mornings: hurrah! Feel free to use nuts and seeds to suit your own particular whimsy. Oh and by the way, the bizarre mixture of semi-skimmed milk and double cream was due to not having full fat milk: that's what I had in and I thought it would substitute well, which it did. Oh yes. Likewise using orange essential oil instead of orange zest: it's what I had in.

Luxurious but darn simple Breakfasty Muffins

Dry stuff :
300g self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
125g  unsalted butter, at room temp and cubed
150g soft brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
20g oats
50g chopped walnuts
50g mixed seeds (I used pumpkin, sunflower and hemp seeds)
1 eating apple, peeled, cored and roughly chopped

Wet stuff:
125ml full fat milk (or 100ml semi-skimmed + 25ml double cream)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 drops of sweet orange essential oil (or grated zest of 1 orange)
2 tbsps thick cut marmalade

• Preheat the oven to 160oC and adorn a muffin pan with muffin cases
• In a large bowl, rub the cubes of butter into the flour and baking powder so as to create a breadcrumby-like happening
• Add all the other dry bits to the happening and mix together, with a spoon or a clean hand (yours or someone uncontagious) until it is evenly blended and brings to mind masonry pebbledash, albeit with seeds
• Now it's time to get moist: in a separate bowl or jug, mix together all the wet ingredients until they are thoroughly combined, save for the bits of chunky preserved pith
• Pour the liquidy melange into the pebbledash and using purpose, a firm resolve and a spoon, roughly combine the juxtaposing elements until just combined but not smooth. Lumps are essential in muffins as they hold the key to their defining texture
• Pour, or dollop, the mixture evenly into the awaiting cases and bake for 20-25 mins until golden brown. Check with a skewer at 20 mins: if the skewer comes out clean, they're ready
• Allow to cool very slightly before chowing down smugly whilst still in your pjs.

These are suitable for freezing: allow them to cool completely before freezing. If you like them warm, don't bother to defrost them but simply pop in the oven at 175oC for 10-15 mins. Wrap it in foil if you want the muffin to stay soft or leave it naked for a crisper top.

Yay! September!

Right: ambassadorial things first -

The autumn issue is out now - go lookie! (and this isn't shameless self-promotion: I didn't contribute to this one.)

I love September: perhaps it's those years in education that always make it feel like the true start of the year. Usually, it's still warm but there's that crispness in the air, that freshness, the lazy low-slung sun casting long shadows through the stained glass leaves, the promise of woodsmoke and the need for cardigans. 

It's also the time for cobweb bling...(sorry; this pic doesn't show it's full majesty thanks to the exuberant glare of the 7am sun, but you get the gist.) 

This does also herald the migration of the spiders into the house, but all four of us are trained in the use of cup and postcard (or flattened cereal packet for the really big muthas) so it's not really a problem.

I've finally started on the task of sorting our house out, starting with the books. The issue of how I sort my books (and cd's, before we sent them on a sabbatical in the loft) has been a source of much amusement, wonder and fear to Mr Yump. I sorted them all into genres: all the fiction together (then alphabetised), all the art books together (ditto), all his animator-nerd books together, music, health, witchcraft etc etc. (ahhh bite me: I work in a bookshop- at least I didn't have face outs...or shelf talkers...or pyramid the books in the bathroom) Still, despite my sad efforts, only I could ever find anything. This time, however, after seeing these in the May 2010 edition of Livingetc

...and then reading about it on Huma Qureshi's blog, I thought I just had to give it a go:

(and, yes: I have put similarly coloured fripperies on each shelf)

The greens and blacks are on a freestanding Ikea Billy shelf (picture to follow), but the bigger black books are on the other side of the chimney breast:

You might also notice the brown and 'natural' coloured books plonked next to the ILM bibles: I guess I should have put the books in the traditional Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain order, but once I'd thwacked up the whites, I could not be arsed doing it again. I'm sad, but not that sad. They looked rather fab, waiting on the floor;

I have, however, refrained from colour-coding the dvds and games, much to the relief of Hubs. As a system, you may think it makes finding the right book tricky: not at all, as long as you remember what that book looked like! Sprogling #1, famous for not being able to find things gaffa taped to her nose, actually found the book she needed. Result!

Such is the need for colour order that I have matched my glasses to my current read thus:

I love this story: O'Brien paints a picture of rural Ireland that is simultaneously grim and beautiful, brutal yet warm. It is hopeless and optimistic and rather wonderful. It is also, I have decided, the perfect size for a work of fiction: you can take it anywhere without it impinging your slacks (slacks are best unpinged) I was surprised, and worried, because the delicious Bloomsbury Classic editions are still at large in the 2nd hand ether. (well, Amazon) Look at all the gorgeous covers!

What do you do when you have fruit that's a tad unappealling? Thwack it into Google and see what turns up! I found this delicious recipe on a wonderful blog called 'Reluctant Gourmet'. I have doctored it a tad: a little less sugar, using apples I happened to have (probably Braeburn) and used self raising flour with a touch of baking powder as I was bereft of plain. I also baked it for 15 mins less.  However, it created a delicious cake: firm vanilla with soft, cinnamon-soused fruit. It's as if I've baked autumn. As are all my favourite recipes, it's stupid-easy: do it!

Baked Autumn
Cakey Bit:
250ml sunflower (or veg) oil
4 eggs (free range and large)
260g golden caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
460g self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
100ml orange juice
Fruity Bit:
2 pears
2 eating apples
4 tablespoons soft brown sugar (or caster)
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

• Preheat the oven to 180oC / 350oF / Gas 4
• Grease and line a large tin (mine has a 9.5" diameter)
• In a large bowl, beat together the oil, eggs, sugar and vanilla until blended and a festival of creamy beige
• Bless the beigeness with a flurry of sieved flour, baking powder and salt and mix well until you are unaware where the dry stops and the moist begins
• Add the ornage juice into this confused state and mix gently together
• Now prepare for the fruity bit: in another bowl, mix together the sugar and cinnamon
• Peel, core and slice the fruit and pop into the spicy sugar: stir it gently so that every piece is coated
• Pour (or spoon, as you may find the cake mix has turned quite gelatinous) about a third of the mix into your prepared tin
• Top with half of the fruit in an even fashion
• Pop a third of the mix onto the fruity layer like a cakey duvet
• Pop the remaining fruit onto the duvet like scatter cushions
• Deciding that it looks like a cold night ahead, pop a final duvet layer of cake mix onto the sleeping cushions
• Bake for 1-1hr 15mins until it's firm, golden brown and produces a clean skewer when stabbed in the traditional baking fashion (rather than the rather strenuous 'Psycho' motion: unless you need to slice it quickly for a party or such is like.)
• Allow to cool for about 10 or so minutes before popping onto a cooling rack.

 Laters x

Self-imposed craft exile...

Regular readers (although, that's an oxymoron as I do not provide enough waffle for you to digest on a regular basis: I'm only thinking of those waistlines...) may have noticed that I have been uncharacteristically quiet on all creative fronts: the shop is still there but bereft of anything new, the blog has creaked to an emollient-free stop, and Flickr, once the place for wips, cakes and inspiration is saturated, regrettably, with my face, a self-portrait on a Thursday being my only creative outburst. Unfortunately, life has got in the way and yumptatious has taken second place to, at the moment, more important shenanigans. Last (school) year was an extremely hectic one and I am determined to redress the balance, but I need your help:

I need YOU!!!

(apologies that the crazy world of foreshortening makes it look as if I am brandishing a stump where my forefinger should be: nice.)

I need you to kick my butt, (in a creative, metaphorical sense only please: I've met a number of you and reckon that you could inflict serious damage if the need arose.) I need you to throw your creative briefs at me: tell me what to write about - be my editor (I won't expect payment...yet) Would you like me to write a review (book, music, film, exhibition etc), re-write a recipe, show you how to make something, tell you a story, give my opinion on a chosen topic etc? I will then post the results over on my spanking new blog. I struggled for ages to come up with a suitable name, fearing what pondlife Google would send my way. Therefore, I have decided against:

• Please kick me up the arse

• Give it to me (and make it hard as you like)

• I need YOU to push me

• Activate my creative juices

• and, of course I need your briefs.

I have gone for an 'exactly what it says on the tin' approach: behold yumptatious waffle!
Just leave your suggestions over there and I'll get cracking.


In the meantime, a quickish precis of the last 9 months creativity:
I've learnt to knit, and, in doing so, created probably my most popular picture on Flickr (21 extremely wise people have added it to their favourites)


I bought some of the yarns seen here from Texere Yarns up in Bradford, the place that I, and the other weavers, bought the yarns for their final projects from back in 1993, so I was thrilled that they are still going. (I wonder if present textile students at Nottingham still go there...)
Ooh, speaking of my fellow weavers from back in the day, I recently got back in touch with an old chum of mine via Facebook, Sarah Allen, who happens to also have an Etsy shop! Go and behold her beautiful cloth: she's damn talented and a purchase from her will increase your lifejoy tenfold.

I made a couple of skirts, one from Clothkits and one made from a sneaky template:

The one on the right is made from upholstery fabric I picked up from my local flea market for £2. Check out my sofa's jealous demeanour (and rightly so.)
I heartily recommend Clothkits: the instructions are easy to follow and they provide everything: the lining, the zip, even the thread. The skirt I plumped for is designed by the wondrous Rob Ryan and comes in many tempting colourways.

I have, of course, been baking, thanks to this amazing book. Every recipe is a winner, although I do think using a food processor does help with the lightness of the frosting. (if anyone would like to buy me a KitchenAid, please feel free: I'm not proud.)

Pornography, pure and simple.

Here are a few of my current favourite things:


clockwise from top left:
my current read and I recommend it whole-heartedly! Funny, honest, informative and inspiring in a cheese-free kinda way. I swear I put on weight with her as she ate her way around Italy (something I would love to do!)
I can't stop playing this album! If you're a pedant, you'll be able to pick out all the 80's references, but that doesn't mean that this is yesterday's leftovers served up as retro. One of those album's that proves that decent dance music can have soul too. This brings me great joy!
Whilst I do indeed love this whisky, it's pictured here more in honour of my latest addiction, 'The Wire'. If you haven't seen it, I can only hope that the God of Karma rectifies the situation and brings you the best thing you can set your eyes on (other than kittens, cake, oh and I guess your children) in the form of the dvd boxed set. And if you don't believe me, listen to Charlie Brooker: he has no reason to lie to you (unlike me, who may at some point need you to lend me a fiver, or help lugging some furniture, or to hide a body)
Superhit jossticks: unleash your inner (or outer) hippy and make your world smell sweeter!
I love Lush products: they smell fabulous, they do a bloody good job and they do it all with a glint in their eye. I'd previously tried Liz Earle's facewash (after remortgaging the house in order to do so...) but my skin hated it. It loves Ultra Bland though, which seems to last forever! Hurrah!
Sainsbury's have introduced more coffee's into their Fairtrade range. Currently enjoying their Italian blend: very nice!



Summer has been and gone, but we managed to get away to Cornwall and had a fabulous time. I love it down there, the mix of raw, beautiful coastline and moors steeped in history and the ghosts of myths and people past. We had a surfing lesson which was a real epiphany, though not for the reasons I had hoped. I discovered that my body is every one of it 37 years: I have no physical strength, I have no flexibility and certainly no grace or elegance (but then I never had!) Ok, I've never been a completely fit person, but my body has often surprised me when called for. Not this time: it's gotten older, and is tired and needs help. At least the neoprene was forgiving! Me and the sea didn't get on too well this holiday: she chewed me up and spat me out as I tried to get over her hormonal waves. I took the hint and admired her from a distance.

I did, however, discover the coffee shop with the finest view:

Tate St Ives.

They also do a good line in sandwiches, cakes and delicious coffee, and use Cornish ingredients where possible. We weren't in the mood for the actual gallery, though I urge you to go. Whilst in St Ives, make sure you go to Barbara Hepworth's Museum + Gallery. The garden is an oasis of space and calm, away from the cramped, yet picturesque, streets. I loved her studio: you can't go in, but you can peer through the windows at a tableaux of artistic industry: it looks like she's just popped out to make herself a cuppa.
We did pop into the shop to add to our collection of joyous inspiration:

clockwise from top left:
1) go to the Eden Project
2) pass out at the wonderment
3) after seeing her lil piggies in the Mediteranean Biome, purchase this utterly inspiring book and immerse yourself in her skillz via her website.
4) thank me later

A fabulous treasure hunt book from Alice Melvin

Postcard featuring 'St Ives Harbour (All Round)' by Bryan Pearce

This book makes me want to get the pencils and oil pastels (Sennelier, natch) out STAT! I love her work oh so very very much. Please buy me some.

Postcards featuring 'Restaurant View with Leach Jug'  and 'View from Pednolver Terrace' by Rachel Nicholson



Right, I'm off to lie in a darkened room in preparation for the arrival of my muse.
Let's not leave it so long next time.
x

Stuff and nonsense

First things first: this Sunday, the 22nd June, a group of fabulously talented makers are getting together near Convent Garden to unleash their creative produce to the world. Its called WeMake, and you need to be there, armed with money and hungry for gorgeousness. You can find out about it on their blog here.
I'm going up to support rather than have a stall. If you see me, do come and say hello and drag me for coffee and cake, not that I'll need much persuading if there are refreshments involved.

Speaking of cake, I've been a bit of a Domestic Goddess recently, if I do say so myself, thanks largely to this fantabulous cookbook. Here's an example of the joy that book can bring:

the ones with purple splodges are cherry (use frozen cherries for ease and welcoming moistness), yogurt and oat and the others are spiced apple and walnut.

The book is wondrous: the recipes are easy to follow, the combinations of flavours are tasty and not outlandish and the results are consistent. Its the kind of book people buy firstly for themselves, and then come back and buy many for friends and family. Its so good, my best mate KT had it sent over from Hastings to her new home in New Zealand as she missed it so.

On the crafting front, sometimes it pays to rethink and re-do a project. I had made some fabric hearts, stuffed with polyfil, as general decorative fripperies. They sat, unloved in my shop, until I suddenly saw the obvious need and re-stuffed them with some calming lavender. I very quickly sold two! Hurrah! I have some more: you need them, your socks need them, let alone your pants. They're in the shop now! (I keep them in a tupperware-style box, determined to keep the freshness in) They're kinda cute, just this side of Cath Kidston, and quite normal for me!



I was recently commissioned by a chum at work to make something for his girlfriend's birthday. She loves lemurs and he wanted to give her a pouch (zip up purse / make-up / oddment bag) that lovingly empathised with her love of this Madagascan inhabitant.
So, after some preliminary sketches


I came up with this:


He loved it but more importantly, so did she. Even more importantly, it started a chain reaction which linked in with some ideas I'd had in my sketchbook:


and these lead to the creation of these beauties:

top left (sold): "aint nowt wrong with my girlie crap", top right: "aint nowt wrong with loving cake", bottom left: "tea, coffee, wine and beer - its all good" and bottom right: "aint nowt wrong with loving a chicken"

All this creativity needs replenishing, and at times like this, despite her teeth-itching (cheers Maose for that phrase!) tv performances, Nigella shines through. I adapted her recipe for 'Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake', found in the 'Chocolate Hall of Fame' to be found in the beautiful 'Feast'. She suggests '175g best quality dark chocolate', I suggest Lidl's milk chocolate, 29p for 100g.

Its all good.

Quick round up of my recent reads:

Alice Hoffman 'The Third Angel'. I thoroughly enjoyed this story. We start off with one character, then layers are peeled back to reveal a complex story of intertwining characters, linked in ways that none of them are aware of. The characters on the periphery are far more absorbing than the perceived central character, but discovering the warp and weft (eeh! That textile degree wasn't a waste, Mum!) of their stories is ultimately very satisfying. The settings, both physical and in time, are beautifully evocative, but then I'm a sucker for anything set in the 50's and 60's: if its well written, I see it in black and white, in a cloud of innocence and cigarette smoke. I'd love to know what you think.

Nora Ephron 'I Feel Bad About My Neck'. I would recommend this for any woman over 30, and certainly for women over 50. As a 36 year old woman, I want to know that there is life, and it is fun, and it is positive, as I get older. Would-be role models fall prey to plastic surgery and the ridiculous concept that a youthful face is wrinkle free and immobile. As the mother of a rather beautiful teenager, let me remind you that a youthful face is incredibly animated and full of wonder, however much they try and mask it with an air of boredom and cynicism- wrinkles make not a jot of difference. Any hoots, this is a smart, sassy perceptive and honest read, as you'd expect from the writer of 'When Harry met Sally'. It oozes positivity, not in a hippy drippy Louise L Hay kind-of-a-way, but in a beautiful, down-to-earth way. If you've ever had ovaries, or you've ever met someone who has, read it.

Meg Wolitzer 'The Ten Year Nap'. I loved this book deeply. Certain lines in this book were written just for me and me alone I am sure. The woman has opened up my brain, assessed how I feel about being a woman, wife, mother, human, and peppered her story with nuggets of wisdom to remind me that I'm doing ok and that I should stop beating myself up all the time for not being all that I should be. If you're a mother, read this. If you think that one day, you'll have children, read this, because anyone who tells you your life won't change when you have children is lying! The story centres around one character, Amy, then pans out to encompass all her friends. Each has a different take on the notion of motherhood and how it has affected them. I love the idea of 'The Ten-Year Nap': women all over the world are suddenly woken up by the growing independence of their offspring, revealing the woman that was there before ante-natal checks, urine samples and more internal examinations than are strictly necessary: 'Oh shit! I'm still here: a whole lot wider, a little wiser, but I still have my sense of humour and, despite an appalling recall for names, my brain still seems to be working...So what now?!'

On a completely different tangent, I'm currently reading George Melly's autobiographical trilogy and also this anthology of Dave Allen, and am thoroughly enjoying them both. (you can 'hear' them narrate: it is impossible to read without hearing their particular vocal inflections.) I'll let you know how me and the boys get on!


PS: thanks, hugs and the promise of cake to Bee and Maose for their nagging: I'll try and blog more, but, if you enjoy the read, feel free to nag more! :-)