Baking Fest!

I have been enjoying baking over the last week and surprisingly (!) everyone has enjoyed eating the results! First we have Old Fashioned Raisin Bars pictured above. These are an old favourite and if you are interested, here is the recipe. It comes from a cafe called The Well which used to be opposite Victoria Coach Station a very long time ago when P and I were engaged and working in the same area, we used to meet up there for lunch and have delicious homemade soup and homemade wholemeal bread with cheese (this is still our favourite meal some 30 years later!!!)
Sadly the cafe/restaurant is no longer there but I still have their recipe book/pamphlet which is looking rather dog-eared now.

Old Fashioned Raisin Bars

Combine in a large saucepan:
1 cup raisins
1 cup water
Bring to the boil andthen remove from heat and stir in:
4oz margarine
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 ¾ cup SR Flour
1tspn cinnamon
1 tspn nutmeg
1 tspn mixed spice
1 tspn cloves
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Stir all together and then pour in greased 13” x 9” x 2”. Bake 350 degrees for 30 mins. When cool, dust with icing sugar




Then we have Date and Cinnamon Slices - very yummy indeed and didn't actually last 24 hours in this house!
Finally I just fancied making a Victoria Sponge which I haven't done in a long time and the first one made last weekend was gone in 4 hours!! Well, we did have 6 people around at the time so it wasn't as if just three of us were stuffing ourselves!! The creme fraiche instead of butter cream was a real hit so a request that this might be made again please mum, this weekend, was granted and I managed to take a photo before it was gobbled up! Actually there is a still a slice or two left for daughter no. 1 who is coming back late this evening.


But I haven't only been baking of course. On Wednesday a good friend took me to her gym as a birthday gift and we both did a pilates class, had a delicious lunch and then took a little turn in the jacuzzi and sanarium. What a delightful way to spend an otherwise working day. It was my first pilates class(I am a yoga girl at heart and have done some Iyengar yoga in the past) but I was pleasantly surprised and could do most of the poses. Lately my back has been causing me problems and I discovered that probably this is because I have Lordosis (a spine that curves inward) so need to do some exercises to strengthen the muscles around that area.
On another note congratulations to Driftwood who wins the giveaway Batik fabric having provided the only comment! Thank you for joining in Tess. I will mail it out to you this week.

There's been quite a bit of crafting going on here this week as well as the baking but I guess I will leave that for another post. Hope you are all having great weekend.