Sunny Sunday

After a few days of greyness and showers it was wonderful to finally wake up to a sunny day.  It was even more wonderful that the sunny day happened to be on a Sunday, so I could enjoy it with Andrew and not have to look at it from the window at work.  It was cold again though 0C/32F but as we haven’t had that many cold days this Autumn so far I really can’t grumble about that.

We decided on a stroll through some local woods after breakfast as it was too pretty not to do something with the morning.  And everywhere did look glorious.  There’s something about Autumn that makes my heart sing and it’s not just the colours.  I love the earthy, slightly sweet smell of it, the low slanting sunlight through the leaves, the glorious blue sky, the crunchy leaves underfoot after a frost, the warmth of the sun on my face and the briskness of the air.  I think I really love Autumn and Winter more than I do Spring and Summer in so many respects.

 

 

 

 

 

Back home we prepared a little treat to go with our morning coffee.  We have a specialty food store near us called Trader Joe’s, it’s a national chain but there aren’t that many of them around, they have a lot of seasonal products and at this time of year it’s all about the pumpkin.  We missed out on this last year so as soon as the products were in Andrew hot-footed it down to our local one and came back with these magical little beauties, Pumpkin Croissants!  Found in the frozen section in packs of four you let them prove and defrost overnight and then bake them for 20 minutes when you want them.  They do need to cool a bit before eating as they have a soft pumpkinny filling that will probably burn if eaten too hot, but oh my, I can see why these sold out in a matter of days at our local store last year.  We need to get some more of these and stash them for when the snow is flying.

Absolutely perfect with a cup of coffee.

 

For those of you with a Trader Joe’s within a 100 mile radius of your home I suggest a little road trip might be in order… but for those of you in countries without one, I’m sorry.  I’d pack my bags and move to America if I were you.  They really are that good!  Chin, chin.

 

Nice Buns!

No, really!! Nice buns!  Lemony Buns to be exact.  I made these last weekend and thought I’d put up a little recipe post as I haven’t done that in ages.  They’re an altered recipe of something I made for Christmas treats, I thought at the time that it would be very adaptable so I decided to give it a go using different flavours and ingredients from the original.

The basic recipe is very simple.  Make up a soft cake batter, adding any spices or flavours you like.  Line a muffin pan with 12 paper cases and add about a third of the batter to the cases.  Pop a teaspoon of something nice in the centre of the batter, the original recipe used mincemeat, and use the other two thirds of the batter to fill up the paper cases, and bake.  What you end up with is a soft muffiny type of little cake with a sweet filling in the middle when you bite into it!  An this is where the adaptability bit came into play, because I started dreaming up all manner of ideas for fillings and bun/muffin flavour combos, the world is, quite literally, your oyster.

So my first flavour is Lemon Poppy Seed with a Lemon Curd Filling.  Scrummy.  We ate four of them on Saturday right after they were cool enough to handle and then a few more on Sunday!  I had to put the rest in a container and put it in the cupboard otherwise we would have eaten the lot!

 

And this is how they turned out.  You can see the poppy seeds but otherwise, an ordinary little offering!  But cut it open and you have a soft, gooey, flavoursome centre!

 

So here goes with the basic batter recipe, the American quantities and ingredients are in brackets:

 

Ingredients:

• 6oz SR Flour (1 3/4 cup of plain flour with 1 tsp of baking powder and 1/4 tsp of baking soda sifted together)
• 3oz – 4oz of sugar (1/2 cup) Depends on how sweet you like things, I usually do the 3oz only.
• 6oz softened butter (1 1/2  sticks) I use a mix of butter and a soy margarine type spread at a ratio of 50/50
• 3 eggs
• 2 tablespoons of milk, I use soy milk
• 1 tsp pure vanilla

To this basic recipe, I added a heaping tablespoon of poppy seeds, the grated zest of a lemon and a good grating of fresh nutmeg to the flour.

Method:

Either by hand or with a mixer, beat the softened butter and sugar together until light and creamy.  Mix any spices, poppy seeds, lemon etc with the flour.  Beat the eggs together along with the vanilla.  Alternate adding the egg and some flour to the mix until it’s all incorporated.  Finally, mix in the milk.

Line the muffin tin with 12 paper cases and use about a third of the cake batter to partially fill them.  Add about a teaspoon of Lemon Curd to each one, make sure the cake batter is mostly level and keep the Lemon Curd in the centre.  Use the rest of the cake batter to fill up the cases.  Don’t be tempted to add too much of the filling, you don’t want it boiling out and making a mess.

Bake in the centre of a pre-heated oven at Gas Mk 5 / 375F / 190C for 15 – 18 minutes.  I’ve always given mine the full 18 minutes but I turn the pan around after about 10 minutes.  Allow to cool in the pan and then transfer to a wire rack.  These do keep pretty well, assuming you have any left to keep that is!!

For the American contingent:  Lemon Curd is a jam like smooth spread made with eggs, butter, sugar and lemon rind and juice.  You beat it all together in the top of a double boiler until it’s thick, smooth and the eggs are cooked.  It’s fantastic stuff, brilliant as a cake filling, on toast or scones or whatever you might normally use jam for.  The trouble is that it doesn’t keep and needs to be used within two to three weeks if you make your own.  However, you can buy it at specialty food stores, good grocery stores and even at Trader Joe’s, which is where mine came from.  Well worth seeking out.

And now this is where the fun begins… Andrew immediately said Ginger and Lemon would be wonderful!  I think Peach and Almond would be pretty great too!  And can you imagine if you know someone who makes homemade jams!  Strawberry, blueberry, tangy raspberry, tart rhubarb… ooh the list goes on and on!

And of course, there is the original recipe.  It’s called Little Mince Pie Cakes and it’s in a little book from the BBC Good Food magazine people that I bought when I was in England last year.  It’s also available on their website and I’ve linked the name in case you’d like to try that too.  I made the originals just before Christmas and took them in to work as some of the Americans I work with had been asking me about English mincemeat.  I thought these buns were a great way of letting them have a taste of my homemade mincemeat, without giving them a proper mince pie that might be too strong a taste for them.  I took two dozen in and only brought one home, so I think they were well received!

Give them a go, and I’d be interested to hear what other flavours you might dream up.

Blue And White

Morning peeps, I’m back with another card.  How was your weekend?  Our clocks finally went back on Sunday morning. it was dark so early on Sunday evening, although it was quite light this morning driving to work which I liked.  Although, as I leave the house at 6:30am, “light” is a relative term!  I had such a wonderful weekend.  It was cold and showery all day Saturday so I got a number of cards made for posts this week.  Sunday was cold, crisp, sunny and dry, so after bagging a few groceries we went to the local woods for a walk, there’s still some wonderful colours about.  Back home for coffee and biscotti and time for a bit of stamping before we headed to a local Indian restaurant for their Diwali buffet.  Diwali is the biggest festival in India, The Festival of Lights, and all the Indian restaurants have an amazing and sumptuous buffet all set up.  We forgot about it last year so we made sure to have the date on the calendar for this year!  We were so very stuffed and didn’t eat again at all yesterday!  Back home I finished my stamping (LOTV images for a woywwer), and settled down with the laptop to check the challenges out and discovered I’d won a set of ProMarkers at Sweet Stampin’, and have been asked to be a GDT for Penny Black & More At Allsorts in January and had a Top3 pick at Winter Wonderland challenge!  So a good weekend all round really!

Anyway, today’s card!  A very CAS blue and white make, using very similar techniques to Saturday’s pink angel card.

I stamped the sentiment in Memento Bahama Blue on Friday and then didn’t know what else to do with it so put it to one side!  I pulled out a few sets of stamps on Saturday and found this lovely tree image from Kanban that exactly fit the centre of the card.  I wanted to emboss it with the Ranger Holographic powder and knew the Memento ink is too quick drying, so I used ColorBox Q Sapphire Silk instead, which explains the slight colour mismatch between the image and the sentiments.  At least with this image you can see the lovely sparkly effect of the Holographic EP.

And that was it, single layer, very clean and simple.  It’s a small card at about 4 1/2″ square.  I concentrated this weekend on small, single layer, or close to single layer cards that are not going to break the bank to post off!  I’ll be back later in the week with another one.

Card Recipe:

• Card: Blank bought at a craft fair in England in May!
• Stamps: Recollections Merry Merry clear set ~ Kanban clear set (no name but it has different Christmas Trees)
• Ink: Memento Bahama Blue ~ ColourboxQ Sapphire Silk
• Embellies: Ranger Holographic Embossing Powder
• Tools: Heat Gun

***********************************************

Challenges:

Winter Wonderland ~ Blue And White

Hazel’s Christmas Challenge ~ Bling It Up

Hazel’s Christmas Extra Challenge ~ Anything Goes

Addicted To Stamping & More ~ CAS

Sister Act Card Challenge ~ Anything Goes

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge ~ Anything Goes

Crafty Calendar Challenge ~ All Things Christmas

Allsorts ~ Christmas Cheer

Aud Sentimens ~ Christmas Sentiment

Polkadoodles ~ Christmas Anything Goes

Beccy’s Place ~ Christmas Challenge (Day 9 Christmas Trees)

It’s Definitely That Time of Year Again

When the weather can’t make up it’s mind.  It’s Autumn one day, cool and frosty overnight with brilliant cobalt blue skies and changing leaves during the day.  The next day it’s back to summer, hot and humid, usually ending in a thunderstorm, the day after that will be positively miserable with rain and cold temperatures.  When I come in from work one day I put on shorts and a tshirt and sit on the deck enjoying the warm weather.  Then the next day I come home from work, put on sweatpants and a long sleeved top and sit indoors with my knitting and a hot cup of tea.

It’s the time of year when the front garden is starting to look like Autumn..

Yet the back garden is still resolutely Summer, not a single splash of colour to be seen anywhere, apart from green that is.

It’s the time of year where last Saturday I wore shorts and a strappy top and got my back sunburnt…. and last Sunday I was all wrapped up against the cold and cooking comfort food in the shape of a roast chicken dinner and a warming blackberry and apple crumble for afters.

It’s also the time of year when I have two pairs of pajamas neatly folded at the end of the bed.  One thick, warm pair and one thin cotton pair and I switch them around practically every night depending on whether the day was hot or cold.

Earlier in the week it was the warm pj’s with the covers pulled up tight.  The last couple of nights have been back to the short sleeved cotton ones again, last night was the cotton ones and sleeping on top of the sheets.

Yes.  It’s Fall.  It’s Michigan.  It’s very beautiful.  And I love it.

Traffic Light Tomatoes

I was struck by the colours of my sliced, homegrown tomatoes whilst camping at the weekend, reminded me of a traffic light, only I didn’t get the colours in the right order!

From the top…. Golden Jubilee, Indigo Rose and Green Zebra.  Paired with some cheese slices and fresh Rosemary Sourdough from the market, they made a mighty tasty lunch.

Somerset Apple Sauce Cake ~ A Post For Sandy

Somerset in England is well know for it’s apple production, so it’s no surprise that a lot of recipes from the region, both sweet and savoury, feature them.  It’s also apple time here in Michigan and due to a nasty storm packing high winds middle of last week we’ve been gifted with a big bag of them from our friends trees.  You may recall that we’ve had a lot of rain and a cooler summer this year which has been perfect for all the fruit trees round about, however, it also meant their branches were heavily laden when the storm came into town!  So the apples we’ve got are slightly under ripe, as they were from branches that parted company with the tree!  It was a case of pick them and use them, or let them rot on the ground.  We have an apple in the UK called a Bramley, and I still miss this little fella so much!  It’s a cooking apple, not an eater, and as such it’s incredibly tart but it also has a superb flavour.  It would make a Granny Smith seem sweet!  We use it a lot in the UK for all our pies and apple deserts but there’s nothing like it in the US that I know of.  These apples from my friend though, are the closest thing I’ve come across in 18 years to a Bramley and I’m looking forward to making a “proper” apple pie with them.

However, back to the cake!  I started by peeling, coring and chopping a bunch of apples and stewing them down with just a couple of tablespoons of water to make the apple sauce.  I made way more than I needed for this cake but it’ll come in for something else and it freezes well too.

Not the most interesting of photos I have to admit, but trust me on this, it’ a great cake!!

I used up a few raisins I had in the packet, as well as the sultanas, if you’re wondering what the dark bits are.

Somerset Apple Sauce Cake (American  conversions in brackets) :

• 4oz butter (1 stick)
• 8oz soft brown sugar (1  2/3 cups lightly packed)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 6oz unsweetened apple sauce (about 1 cup)
• 8oz SR flour (2 cups of all purpose flour with 3 tsp of baking powder and 1/4 tsp of salt sifted in)
• 4oz sultanas (Scant 1 cup of golden raisins)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cloves

Method:

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, beat in the egg in stages.  Mix in the applesauce and sultanas (raisins).  Sift the flour with the spices (and baking powder and salt if needed) and mix into the batter in batches until fully combined.  Recipe says to bake in a greased and lined 8″ square tin, I used a 10″ x 6″ as that’s all I had.  Bake in the centre of the oven at 350F/ Gas Mk 4/180C for about 1 hour or until a skewer comes out clean.  I baked mine for 45 minutes as the tin was a different size.  Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack until completely cold.

This is a light but incredibly moist cake with a wonderful fruity and spicy aroma.  It doesn’t particularly taste of apples, but it’s the apples making it so moist and keeping it so soft and eatable!!  Scrummy, definitely one for the recipe folder.

Weekend Treats

Morning all, hope everyone in the UK is enjoying the run of warm weather I know you’re having, nice to be having a summer for a change!  I’ve been baking again this weekend, haven’t done any baking in quite a while actually, but when I was in England earlier this year I picked up a couple of gardening magazines and one of them had a few recipes to use up your Spring veggies.  Now I know it’s July!  But I did manage to find a few stalks of rhubarb in the shop this week as one of the recipes in particular had caught my eye and I thought it was perfect for a little weekend treat.

It was for Rhubarb and Almond Crumble Squares, and I know the pic doesn’t make them look very appetising, but trust me, they’re a winner and go perfectly with a strong cup of coffee in the morning for elevenses.

We both love rhubarb in this house, it has such a tart tang to it that’s great for crumbles, pies and cobblers.  And of course, the Americans pair stewed rhubarb with strawberries when they stew it down, and for the English contingent, that’s a stunning flavour combination that you really have to try.  In fact, the couple of stalks that I didn’t use Andrew stewed with strawberries for later use, it’s a fantastic topping for vanilla ice cream.

I haven’t Americanized this recipe at all (apart from a few things in brackets), you can easily Google the conversions if you’d like to give it a try, assuming you can still find fresh rhubarb in your neck of the woods this late in the year!

Rhubarb And Almond Crumble Squares

Shortbread Base:

• 225g (8oz) plain flour
• 100g (3.5oz) ground almonds
• 100g (3.5oz) caster sugar (fine sugar)
• Pinch of salt (omit if using salted butter)
• 225g (8oz) butter, softened and diced (2 sticks)

Crumble Topping:

• 85g (3oz) plain flour
• 85g (3oz) demerara sugar (normal sugar)
• 50g (1.75oz) butter, softened and diced
• 40g (1.5oz) flaked almonds
• 40g (1.5oz) dessicated coconut

Rhubarb Layer:

• 550g (1lb 4oz) fresh rhubarb, sliced
• 60g (2.25oz) brown sugar
• 2 tbsp orange juice (about half of a medium orange)
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp (pinch) cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla

Method:

1. Put the rhubarb, brown sugar and orange juice into a pan and stir to dissolve the sugar and coat the fruit.  Allow to simmer for a few minutes, uncovered until the fruit is soft (can take up to 20 mins).  If you get a lot of liquid from the fruit increase the heat to boil this off.  When soft and completely pureed remove from the heat, add the spices and vanilla and set aside with the lid on.

2. Put all the shortbread ingredients into a bowl and rub the butter into the dry ingredients.  Pull together into a ball, it will be very sticky because of the butter content.  Lightly grease a 12×9″ baking tray and line with parchment.  Press the shortbread into the tray and smooth out.  Prick all over and refrigerate for 30 mins.

3. Make the crumble: Put the butter, sugar and flour into a bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.  Mix in the almonds and the coconut.  Set aside.

4. Put the shortbread into the oven, middle shelf, at 160C/325F/gas mark 3 for 20 minutes.  Spread the rhubarb over the shortbread, scatter with the crumble mix and return to the oven for an additional 25 minutes.

5. Let everything cool for a few minutes then cut into squares.  Leave in the tin until completely cold as the shortbread needs to be cold before handling, otherwise it will break apart.

Notes: I added the vanilla and spices to the rhubarb mix, add your own or leave it out if you wish!  I also added the coconut to the crumble mix as it gives extra crunch.  My tin was 12×8″ so I cooked the shortbread for a few extra minutes and once it was assembled and back in the oven I cooked it for 30mins not 25.

Original recipe appeared in the May issue of Kitchen Garden magazine and is probably copywrited to them.

I found more treats in the garden on Saturday when I was thinning out all the leaves on the tomato plants….

Can’t wait to pop these little beauties into my mouth and chow down!  Love fresh tomatoes straight from the vine!  Judging by the size of the plants and the amount of fruit and flowers appearing they really liked our wet and humid weather.

Sunny Sunday

We had a great weekend, nothing in the way of papercrafting, but a lot of fun all the same.

On Saturday we met up with our friends, Paul and Leah, and they took us out to lunch.  Our Christmas present really, but I had that impacted wisdom tooth removed over Christmas, and they have two kids, so between them, school, family stuff and work we’ve only just been able to get together again.

They took us to a place Andrew and I didn’t know about called Tyme Well Spent, which is a traditional tea room in an old Victorian house in Hartland, Michigan.  This is the only place I’ve ever been to where they give you a tea menu instead of a wine menu, that was four and a half pages long!! We spent longer deciding on our pots of tea than we did on our lunch!  We had their lunch menu with hot tea, followed by cakes and more tea, and in between courses we got up and went upstairs where the bedrooms all contain a plethora of Vintage items to buy, including jewellery, clothes, tea cups and plates, home decor items, books and hats!  Oh the hats!  Leah and I had a very mad 10 minutes trying on as many crazy hats as we could find!  At one point Andrew joined in with us too!  And guess who put the camera ready and then walked out of the house without it!!  Not one of us  had a camera of any kind on them, which is probably just as well!

Afterwards we stopped in Milford, a really quaint town with a lot of vibrant shops and cafes, we needed a stroll around after all that delicious home made food!  I found a knitting shop but unfortunately it had just closed for the day, I heard Andrew breathe a sigh of relief at that though!

Sunday was a cold but sunny day, we never actually got above freezing again and we’d had a light dusting of about an inch of snow on Friday night, so after breakfast we went out for a walk through one of the many parks along Hines Drive.  And I didn’t forget the camera this time.

[This is one of our favourite trees in the area and we always snap a picture of it when we do this walk.  It was struck by lightning many years ago and lost its top. so it now grows out sideways instead of upwards!  We love the shadows that it creates, it’s interesting in any season.]

I spent my Sunday afternoon knitting!  I finished a sock for me, still have to knit the other one of the pair though; and I’m now on the decreases on Andrew’s hat.  I want to get that finished before I cast on for the second sock, as I know I’ll get distracted by it if I do.  With a bit of luck he might be able to wear it this Winter after all!  And finally,  late in the day I worked on a card, so I should have something of the paper crafting variety to show you tomorrow.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!  Can’t believe I now know someone so famous that she’s gone and got her name on Wikipedia!!  Brilliant or what!

An American Four Day Weekend

Otherwise known as Thanksgiving.  We were having beef for dinner on Thursday, eschewing the popular turkey as that’s what we have for Christmas.  We were going to have an early dinner, a lunch really, but we woke up to temperatures 19F higher than normal, blue sky and sunshine, so we hit the park for a wonderful long walk instead.

 

 

 

 

 

Back on the home front we had ourselves a modest Thanksgiving dinner…… the beef, roasted to perfection, served with roast potatoes, roast parsnips, cabbage, carrots, green beans, cauliflower and creamed leeks!  And the red wine and thyme gravy on the side.  Plus of course, the pie.  Pecan in this house.  Homemade.

 

 

 

I made a couple of individual ones this year, along with the larger one.  Like the dinner, just enough for two!

As it turned out, we were very thankful indeed for that lovely warm, sunny day, as we woke to this 0n Friday morning…

 

 

And worse, this on Sunday morning…

 

 

But in between, we managed to put all of the Christmas lights on the front and back of the house and take down all the inside fall decorations and have a good clean and tidy up.  On Saturday we ventured out to the shops for a few things, not busy at all as I did a lot of online shopping on Black Friday!  Won’t catch me getting up at 5am to wait in line, no siree!  We also came back home with a Christmas tree, so that’s now sitting in the nook, in it’s stand, waiting for inspiration to strike.

And I thought if we’re in for a penny then we might as well be in for a pound (or dollar, substitute as necessary!) and go the whole hog…

 

 

But I suppose you were probably expecting that!

Baking With Pumpkin

No doubt you’re all wondering what to do with all that pumpkin you saved from Halloween  aren’t you!  No?  Then just copy me and run and and buy yourself a can of pure packed  pumpkin!  A lot less messy.

Last weekend I made Spiced Pumpkin Scones with a Spiced Glaze, which went down a treat.   This weekend, I had the rest of the canned pumpkin left that I needed to use up so I made Nutty Pumpkin and Maple Squares.  We had a very busy weekend socially speaking so it was nice to put my feet up on Sunday morning and have one of these with a big mug of coffee for elevenses before rushing out on my nest social adventure.

On Friday evening we walked into Northville for their Holiday Lighted Parade, the little town is now all decorated for the Holidays.  Saturday we went to the afternoon matinee showing of the new Bond movie, Skyfall, which is excellent, and met up with friends for dinner.  And then on Sunday I went with another friend to a little card making group where we made 10 cards using Stampin’ Up products, chatted, ate some lovely snacks and basically had a fun afternoon.  Andrew stayed at home and cleared up the leaves!!  I like that arrangement!

So, Pumpkin Spiced Scones.  Just a note on these, you might think these look a  little dark, but I only use wholewheat flour for all my baking and pastry making, along with natural, unbleached sugar and icing sugar (powdered sugar), so your scones will be lighter in colour and the glaze will be almost white.  I initially found this recipe on Homespun Living, but Deb got it from Thyme, both great blogs if you’re looking for some new reading.

[Do you like the photos?  Andrew took them for me when I was at work!  Very arty farty!!]

For The Scones:

2 cups all-purpose flour (1lb plain flour UK measurement)
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons granulated sugar (about 3 – 4 oz depending on your taste)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into 1-inch cubes (3 oz)
1/2 cup canned pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling) (this will be about 4 oz)
3 tablespoons milk
1 large egg

For the Spiced Glaze:

1 cup plus 3 tablespoons powdered sugar (about 5 oz)
2 tablespoons milk
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 pinch ground ginger
1 pinch ground cloves

Mix together the first eight ingredients in a bowl,  rub in the butter.  In another bowl, beat the egg and the milk and stir in the pumpkin puree.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just combined.  Turn out on to a floured surface and pat into a large circle about 1″ thick.  Cut into wedges like a pizza (I made eight), and bake at 425F (220C) for 14 – 16 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack.

Mix the glaze ingredients together until smooth, spread over scones when they’ve cooled and allow to firm.  Both Andrew and I found the glaze to be too thick and just too much, I would definitely halve the quantity next time and just drizzle it on rather than spread it over the entire scone.  These scones are really tasty, especially if you love your autumn flavoured spices.

And next we have the Nutty Pumpkin and Maple Squares.  I came across this recipe on The Quince Tree blog, but I did change it ever so slightly to suite my needs and tastes.  Sue does such a fantastic job of coming up with seasonal recipes, baking them, testing them all out and taking superb photos too.  She also writes wonderful and humourous posts, pop on over and say hello, if you’ve never seen her blog before you’re in for a treat I can tell you.

*I remembered to take this photo late yesterday afternoon as the light was fading.  I didn’t want to use the flash so apologies for the quality of the pic, definitely pop over to Sue’s to see the real thing! *

For the cake:

9 oz (255g) plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
2½ tsp of spices -select your own combination from cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, ground cloves, cardamon and mixed spice.
6 oz (170g)  light muscovado sugar
4 oz chopped pecans
2 eggs
3 fl oz (90 ml)  melted butter
3 fl oz (90ml) milk
3 tablespoons of maple syrup
8 oz (225g) pureed pumpkin -an ounce more or less will not make much difference (I actually used 9 1/2 oz as that’s what I had left and Sue is correct, it didn’t make any difference, although I probably wouldn’t want to use much more without adjusting the flour and baking powder ratios.)

In a bowl mix together the first six ingredients, breaking up the sugar with your fingers to work out any lumps.  In another bowl mix together all the wet ingredients, beat well until smooth and add to the dry ingredients.  Mix well but don’t over beat.  Finally fold in the nuts.  Grease and line either an 8″ x 12″ (as I did) or a 9″ x 13″ (what Sue used), and bake in the centre of the oven at 180C, 160C fan or 375F for about 25 minutes

The icing is entirely optional but I made a bit by mixing about 4 oz of icing sugar (powdered sugar) with about two tablespoons of orange juice and drizzling over the cake once it had cooled.  This is a great cake, very moist and we like the nuts in it.  Sue has some great tips about using other ingredients and also for freezing, which in a house with just the two of us and Thanksgiving in three days time, we’re going to have to do just that!

I can Americanise this recipe, or perhaps that should be Americanize!!, on request.