Accessorise me
After entertaining last night until the baby-friendly hour of 10pm, Big-P and I got up this morning and headed down to Brunswick Street for a late breakfast: eggs benedict and hot hot coffee. And then I bought a hat, and then a second hat and then a bag from Douglas & Hope which I have been coveting for the longest time. Early birthday presents all round!
And just quickly:
Reading: Gigi and the Cat by Colette
Watching: Hornblower – new series starts tonight!
Cooking: making and remaking mum’s chocolate cake. Why, oh why, will it not rise? Tomorrow she is going to watch me make it to discover my cake baking weakness. Could it be that the self raising flour is too old?
Drinking: The most delicious cordial – Happy Valley Apple Raspberry.. mmm…
Surfin’: Nobody’s Doll (from where I found that one of my favourite rainy day books I Capture the Castle is going to be released as a film this year), 10 million march in peace protests, Nathan’s Kelman to the Rescue and Tadahiro Uesugi Illustration.
I’ve heard before that you should put the eggs in last, and this will help it rise, but I don’t know that that is true…
Will the cake rise?
What ancient baking secret will be revealed?
*Is* the flour too old?
All these questions and many more need to be answered!
I must find out, I *must!
I think a photo of any success is essential (and the recipe – the experiment must be reproduced elsewhere)
Good luck!
claire -i adore those bags, many a time i wander in, pick out my favourite and then realise i don’t -really- need another bag.
as for the cake, it could be the flour. self raising flour needs to be stirred up if it’s been sitting for a while. something about distributing everything evenly or something (i can’t remember the details clearly – but i distinctly remember seeing something about it on some cooking show a few years back)
Steven – I will definitely report back on the cake. Mum assures me that it is all to do with taking the eggs straight from the fridge. She made a spectacularly fluffy version last weekend with an egg that had sat at the back of the fridge resulting in a frozen white.
Miss Sugar – I also discovered some super cute bags in a shop on the corner of Brunswick and Bell Streets… it was a tough decision between the two and I might have to go back for another!
Your Mum’s choccy cake was in instant classic ’round these parts. I don’t know how cold the egg was, but I did cook it in a square tin (didn’t you originally stipulate a loaf pan?). It was lovely and fluffy.
my mum got me into Hornblower – it’s now that instead of the sunday movie. and oh what a cutie.
bronwyn – I totally agree with you when it comes to Hornblower being a cutie. I actually call him Horny Hornblower and P has taken to calling him Prawnblower in retaliation. And WHAT is Horny doing hitching up with that woman? He could have any 18th century hottie up and down the coast!
i too was horrified at the match. it is all wrong! but i couldn’t think of a better love interest for horatio off the top of my head. my husband thinks hornblower is the biggest celebration of man-love he has ever seen. and i have to agree that there seemed to be more to the relationship b/w horatio and archie than met the eye …
No, don’t say it! Hornblower and any one of his young leiutenants? You are ruining the fantasies of millions of women! I have to admit, he agreed to marry a girl he doesn’t seem to much like just when he realises he’s about to be at sea, with his men, for years and years…
Hornyblow (as we call him in my household) does make Sunday nights so much more interesting. Soy and I love to cry “derring do!” just as the action starts. Try it.
I am betting onthe flour. Replace that ingredient and begin again. Also, do I detect some experimenting with red in latest illo?
I reckon it is the flour too. Throw it out, flours cheap and life’s too short to eat unfluffy cakes.
hey claire,
could it be the oven at your new(ish) house?
once my mother had to bake a sponge cake for some type of parents and friends meeting at my primary school and she just could not get it to work. our compost bin was full of 15 failed sponges. our neighbour priscilla (who gave us this zucchini soup recipe) even came up the hill and supervised the cake baking. nothing worked, and so many cartons of eggs and bags of flour were used that it couldn’t have been either of those things.
11 years on and my mum still hasn’t attempted another sponge.
sorry, that isn’t at all encouraging. the chocolate cake will work out.
on saturday i was making felafel and they would fall apart as soon as they hit the oil. eventually, i did get them to stay together. which proves that cooking disasters can be overcome.
Can anything be wrong with a cake as long as it has chocolate in it? I don’t think so. But keep at it–I haven’t ventured to try baking a cake from scratch before…only boxed. But you may inspire me to whip one up someday. I’m so glad I discovered your site…your illustrations and comments make my day!
claire – oh but did you see that face?? i don’t know there could be a mystery or two coming up i’m sure :]
Claire dear,
Could you let us tired moms in on how you are accomplishing all this (blog, cakes, books, surfing, trying on hats, illustration, etc.) with your new wee one? Do you have a nanny tucked away in a cupboard? Mine is a year and a half and I can barely shower. (Granted, it all changes once they get mobile, heh heh).
I capture the castle! I read that and clicked thinking that you could not be talking about the same book as i had… and it was! I love that book. I have an old copy of it… first or second edition or something… I wrote a book review on it in Year 9 and the teacher thought i’d made it up!
whoa – i am jealous of douglas and hope from the article that you linked to – store AND house just off brunswick st in fitzroy? studio 10 minutes away????they’re such a stylin’ couple too – some decorator mag (living etc? brain is furry…) had them create a home office – they basically crammed all their merch into it, and it was sooooo beautiful.