Hot cross buns, cherub style..........

 

Cherubs one and two took on the making of chocolate chip hot cross buns today, no small feat for a 1 and 3 year old.  But I shall have them do it every year..............they are just delicious!!!

They helped me measure out and put the ingredients into bowls and then they did the mixing and rubbing and stirring.

I was left with setting the dough out to rise, shaping and then putting on crosses before baking in the oven....how easy was that!!

We made one batch yesterday - just for taste testing you understand and then another today for real.

Happy Good Friday to you all.

Emma (Poires au Chocolat) provides a lovely delve into why Easter and why Hot Cross Buns, worth a read, might whet your appetite (pardon the pun) to do a bit of your own research into HC Buns or other traditional foods.......In our house it is all about life, reproduction and the Easter Bunny.


Makes 12 large buns

1 1/4 C organic full fat milk
1/4 C organic raw sugar
2 tsp active dried yeast granules


Warm the milk just enough to feel just warm to your finger tips so that it will encourage the yeast to grow and not kill it. Mix the milk, sugar and yeast together in a bowl and set aside for about 6 minutes until you get a nice froth formed.


4 C organic plain flour
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp sea salt
65g salted butter
1 C chocolate chips
2 free range eggs

Sift the flour, spices and salt altogether into a mixing bowl, mix up.
Rub in the butter.

Add the chocolate chips and stir to mix in.

Add the eggs (lightly beaten) and the frothy yeast mixture and combine to a dough.

 

 

 

Knead the dough by hand for about 4 minutes or so so that it becomes smooth.

Place the dough ball in a greased bowl and cover. Allow to rise over about 50 minutes or so, it should get to almost double in size.

Now give it a small second kneading and press out into a large rectangle on your baking tray - leaving the dough about 2 inches in height. Using a knife, divide into 12 pieces, nestled up against each other (if you prefer to shape each into a round you can do so now, but we like it rustic in this house). Cover again.

Let them rise whilst you make the cross mixture.

Mix about 1/4 C self raising flour with some water to get a thick, sticky dough that will almost run into the piping bag. Use a small circle nozzle.

Once the buns have had another 10 minutes or so to rise on the baking tray, pipe the crosses onto them.

Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for around 25 minutes until the buns have risen further and are no longer doughy inside (tap for a hollow sound or use a skewer). It's not a complete disaster if you do pull them out with a little stickiness right in the centre as they can be split and toasted under a grill anyway.

When you pull then out of the oven, whilst still hot, you can brush them with some homemade marmalade (just the jelly no peel) to give the buns a lovely glaze and a slight citrus zing to the outside.

Hairband heaven..................

Pre-school cherub is very much taken with hairbands just now. She refuses to wear hair bobbles or clips, it just MUST be a hairband!
Until now I had two or three lying in a draw that had been gifts with purchases from the lovely people at Eternal Creation, but use necessitated that they get washed, or perhaps cherub would misplace them (under the sofa, behind the bed.....) and so I found myself needing a couple more in reserve.
Soft fabric hairbands are proving the best at this age, but often come with a hefty price tag.

So I decided to make some.

I kept it incredibly easy and also forgiving on sewing untidiness (I rarely get a few minutes of quiet time to concentrate on a task).

The main headband piece can be made from one piece of fabric or from a number of smaller pieces. I did both as I had some spare 5 inch squares left over from quilting.

Then you need a piece of fabric to cover the elastic - I used a plain colour piece in contrast to the main piece.

So firstly, I got the squares sewn together to make the 2 sides to the main piece:

 

 and then once they were sewn into the two strips I placed right sides facing and sewed along the long sides leaving the two short ends open so I could turn the whole thing the right way round.

Then I sewed up the fabric casing for the elastic in the same way...

Keeping the elastic pinned down at one end of the fabric, use a needle or safety pin and drag the elastic through to the other end, scrunching the fabric up so the elastic appears at the opening....

I then turned in the ends of the main headpiece and sewed in the elastic piece at each end - you can be as creative as you like here with pleating....

 

Secure the elastic with a couple of runs with the machine and even out the ruffles on the fabric....

 

 

Easy and quick, I ran up one for each cherub within an hour !

 

   

 

 

Because of the width of fabric used in the headpiece, they can be worn scrunched a little as above or spread out for a wider coverage if you fancy it - good for a bad hair day!

 

 

The great thing about these is they are cheap and quick to run up so as colour and pattern likes and dislikes change, so too can the hairbands :)

 



Happy Purple Cake Day to you all......

Happy Purple Cake Day my friends, and big hugs from my wee ones to all the less fortunate children out there.....

We celebrated Purple Cake Day at pre-school and at home with dressing up in the spirit of the day, talking with the girls about it's meaning and goals, fund-raising at school and purple cakes at home :)

For those of you who don't know, today was founded by Emily Sanson-Rejouis, a very courageous and socially driven NZ woman who lost two of her daughters and her husband in the 2010 Haiti earthquake - a story that makes you hug your loved ones a little more tightly and remember to be ever so grateful for what you have right here, right now. The story is beautiful as to why it's about Purple Cakes, and the aim of the charity is all about enabling children to have an education......the only way to bring about change, most especially to raise them out of poverty.

Kia Kaha......

Out of no-where..................2013

I blinked....................and I almost missed it. 2012 ran by like it was competing with Mo Farah!
I shall endeavour to catch up on all the things I mentioned in my last post (sooooo long ago!!), recipes, knitting, preserving and more.

First of all let me say the knitted stars are a real hit with the cherubs. They have them hanging on their bedroom walls now, but for a while they were squeezed to within a inch of their life :)

I managed to get some of the most delicious wool from Red Riding Hood Yarns . Hannah makes simply spectacular hand-dyed boutique yarns......I was lucky enough to get hold of a Delux Rainbow Petite Collection and used a knit star pattern from Ravelry (a truly fantastic knitting and crocheting community site). It was a free pattern by Kirsten Hipsky, although I actually put some stuffing in mine to 'plump' them up for the cherubs.



Starry starry night.......

The colours really are just gorgeous, my photos can't do them justice. I knitted mine on straight needles as Kirsten showed the adaptation for that in addition to knitting them on the round. As a fairly novice knitter (I have done blankets, teddy clothing and am in the middle of a knitted Labrador) they were super easy and in fact I managed to get a set done for each cherub whilst getting mini-cherub down to sleep each night.
After stories and kisses, I would sit on my chair just across from her bed and she would (and does) say 'knitting mamma' and I smile and say 'Yes, knitting' as I try to quietly click-clack away as she falls asleep. Precious moments.