Great British Bake Off: Week 4 - Desserts

It was tricky to decide what to make for this challenge, but in the end I settled on a classic: the bread and butter pudding.

For this one, I consulted the old family cook book, which is a cook book that was published in 1968 but I always remember my Mum using it at home (and I guess my Nan before her). That book is also responsible for my favourite macaroni cheese recipe!

Now, it's probably fair to say that my Bread and Butter pudding wasn't as good as my Dad used to make it (and you'll certainly never hear me say that again!) but it was still tasty, and my husband seemed to enjoy it. I remember it being slightly crunchier on the inside though...no food poisoning today though, so must have been ok!!

Golden Brown!

Week 5 was spice week, so of course, I'll be making gingerbread biscuits! The real question is, do I do the fancy piping like they do on the Great British Bake Off?? (Spoiler - I'm rubbish at piping!)

Great British Bake Off: Week 3 - Bread

Yes, I know it's late!! I actually made this weeks ago but we've had a lot of busy weekends lately so I've gotten behind with all of the other challenges!

So, the third week of the Great British Bake Off was bread. I have to be honest, I used my bread maker for this one. My bread maker is a fairly key part of my kitchen, because a lot of shop bread has vinegar in it (which I'm allergic to) but fresh bread from the bread maker doesn't need it.

So, bread week was a good chance to try a new bread making recipe. I went totally adventurous and tried a chocolate and almond pannetone. It was essentially like chocolate bread - not the marbelled stuff you get in the tin at Christmas. But it was still nice!

Any chance for Bren to use the "food" mode on his camera phone...

Week 4 of the Great British Bake Off was desserts, but I only actually got round to completing that challenge yesterday: stay tuned! (I'm sure you're all on the edge of your seats haha)

Love Quilt Square 23

Despite saying that I would concentrate on other stitching projects for a while, I quickly backtracked and signed up to stitch a square for Tillieasha. It's a unicorn and fairy themed quilt, who am I to resist??

I found a gorgeous unicorn chart on Etsy which uses different shades of purple and blue to create a galaxy effect. I was so excited to start I got started almost straight away!

I soon discovered that the colour gradient effect is achieved with mixed threads. That is to say, out of the 2 strands of thread you're stitching with, both strands are from different colours which are very close together on the colour wheel. I might do a section of DMC 209 and then I'll need to do a section of  209/208 combined, then a section of 208. It does look really effective, even if I have to really concentrate on the chart!

All in all, this one didn't take me too long to stitch and I really enjoyed seeing it come to life. Even more so when I added the backstitch. I think it'll look brilliant on a quilt.

Galaxy Unicorn

The only issue is, I want to stitch this for myself now! Do you think my husband would be ok with a unicorn picture in our bedroom?? =D

As things stand, I haven't signed up to anymore Love Quilt squares...honestly!