Tea Time Treats - Perfect Pudding

Tea Time Treats is a monthly challenge run by Karen from lavender and lovage and Kate from What Kate Baked.  This month's challenge is being hosted by Kate and the topic is 'Perfect Puddings'.

In our house there is one very clear winner when it comes to puddings - the crumble.  Its delicious buttery golden topping can cover a variety of flavours, and is often the way of choice for using up garden fruit.  In fact due to an unfortunate childhood encounter with a bug ridden berry, it is not easy to get Arthur to eat garden fruit.  However it is always easy to get him to eat crumble!   We like it with custard, with cream, with ice cream, with tinned milk, cold or hot the crumble is a winner.

So when challenged to make the perfect pudding crumble had to be it.  Having finally been able to get out in the garden at the weekend, the snow and frost having past, I noticed a lovely clump of young rhubarb just ripe for the picking so the flavour was chosen.

Vintage Mystery 2013 challenge: Scattagories

Next Thursday (7 March) is World Book Day and in the run up to this I have been looking for some reading challenges to participate in.

One I have decided on is Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge 2013: Scattergories hosted by Bev at My Reader's Block. The challenge is to read at least eight vintage (pre 1960) mystery books fitting into a list of categories.  You can find the full list of categories and sign up post here.

I'm not sure which categories I will go for yet, I need to do a bit of research, but will keep you updated and hopefully post some reviews of the books I choose.

Update!  I have done my research!  My first foray into Vintage Mystery

Kindle - A conflicted review

Today I bought a Kindle.

To me this sounds like a confession, an admission of guilt.

Today I bought a Kindle.

Anyone that knows me might think this an ideal purchase - I love to read.

Anyone that knows me well will understand my hesitation - I love books.

I have been vehemently set against e-readers since they began emerging.  To me it was a prophetic herald of the end of the bound paper book.  People would no longer waste the money and resources to print books when they could be produced much easier and cheaper through electronic formats.  My mind raced ahead to books becoming a rare collectable commodity, housed in museums and private collections, accessible only to the few thanks to the expense of their rarity, no longer read for fear of damaging their fragile paper nature.  A future where children would no longer recognise books, having never see one let alone owned one of their own.

I wanted no part in this future.

I love books.  The beauty of bindings, images and colours chosen to highlight themes within the story, paper or fabric coverings protecting the pages within.  I love the feel of books, the paper sometimes parchment thick, so thick you are convinced you must have turned two pages at once, sometimes tissue paper thin so every page turn feels like it risks ripping.  I love the smell of the paper, the potential held within each binding, I love to look at books.  I spend many happy hours organising my collection into whatever order seems most sensible at the time, arranging onto various bookshelves by author, category, age, size, preference, and love to sit back and admire the view of those many spines together.

All that enjoyment before you even get to the story.  How could an e-reader compare?

It cant.  That is the simple truth, no less true now I have bought one.  An e-reader does not, can not, compare to the printed, bound word.  It does not replace the book, nor does it even come close to competing with it.

However, it may begin to complement it.

Time for a wedding?

I have not posted on the blog in a very long time.  I had all sorts of wonderful plans to chart the progress of the wedding with all the things we were making, but as it turns out the making things took up all my time, it takes time to plan a wedding, who knew?!

So now it is over and we are settling into married life I hope to pick up with the writing again, and hopefully will go back to some of the things we made, because I'm really quite proud of them.

But for now here is a visual summary.

My Dad and I entering the church

Cake for camp

My Rangers are off to County Camp this summer which is very exciting and for some of them is the first time they have been on a Guide camp (for me too!).  Given we are a new unit and haven't camped before we didn't have any camping equipment. Some things we can borrow but there was still a lot of expensive equipment (i.e. tents!) that needed to be bought.

We have been fundraising throughout the year with a stall at the church's Christmas Fayre, and face-painting at various events.  I have also done a couple of cake sales at work which have gone very well.  The people in my office are very supportive of good causes, particularly when it involves cake!

As I came to bake for the last sale I had all the ingredients piled up on the side and it was a pretty impressive pile!  So I took a picture.  Here it is, my last cake sale from this:

To this:

There is:

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting

Lemon sponge with icing

Chocolate brownies

Caramel Slice (Millionaires shortbread)

Jam and coconut sponge

Chocolate tiffin

Vanilla sponge with butter icing

They went down well and we raised over £100 which is amazing, huge thanks to everyone who ate cake!.  A friend at work is doing a cake trolley this Friday to raise funds for Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Imagine Appeal so I will be baking for that and will try and remember to take lots of photos and blog some of the recipes.