Saturday 12 December 2015

Lemon Honey curd

 I was really happy when Granny gave me this magazine...


As it had this recipe in it....


Even better I had all the ingredients...


so I launched straight into it....
Weighing 300g of honey and 125g of butter into a heatproof bowl, sitting the bowl on a pan of simmering water...

 

It all started to melt together quite nicely, so I added the zest and juice of 1 lemon...

 

 

Then came the wierd bit...gradually adding 3 lightly beaten eggs.  Each addition really did go quite gloopy and alien like as it joined the main mixture, but frequently stirring, as the instructions said, it gradually came together into a smooth thick paste...

 

 

It is ready when you can "draw your finger across the back of the spoon and it leaves a light line"

Then its time to strain the curd into warmed jars.  I was about dubious about the need to strain it as it looked pretty good to me, it did seem rather a bit too much fuss...


But as it dripped through into the jars...the "eggy strands" that were left behind looked distinctly unappetising ...

 

 

About the only  downside to this recipe is that you don't get much curd (recipe says it makes approx 450g) ...


and you do use rather a lot of honey...  but it us a good sign of a good afternoon's baking!


Friday 30 October 2015

Edinburgh City break

Rather than spend the whole of half term at home we decided to take a city break and the lure of a castle on top of a volcanic rock was too much to resist.  Edinburgh really is dominated by its castle...




...and rain.....it rained a lot on the morning we explored the castle...


It wasn't all gloomy - there were some spectacular views across Edinburgh from the very top...

 

 


And the formality of the firing of the world famous "one o'clock gun" was a piece of theatre in itself..

 


We climbed up  and down the hill and all around the castle - seriously is there an award for the hilliest city in the world?  Edinburgh has to be a strong contender...



So really felt we'd earned lots of cake at the end of the day....

 

 

Day two was brighter and a little sunnier so we headed slightly out of the city towards the Zoo...

In among the spectacular views back across the city...


We found baboons and formation zebra grazing...

 




Pygmy hippos and rhinos enjoying a bath (not together I hasten to add)

 

Hunting dogs and sun bears...

 

Wallabies and tigers...

 

There were also the considerably (for the UK) more unusual...like our only Koalas.... although as you can no doubt guess from their day time pose.....they are not the most exciting critters...

 


There was this rather scared-y looking Scottish wild cat. Part of a breeding programme to reintroduce them to the remotest part of the highlands -it did look like it couldn't wait to get there...


There were the completely unexpected...

 



But the star of the show was this chap....Yang Guang.  The UK's only male giant panda. We were lucky enough to see him awake  - he's only ever awake for a maximum 8 hours in 24, which means he eats VERY fast...



But the stars of our day out were the Merecats.  Who were taking full advantage of exploring the Halloween jack-o-lanterns in their enclosure...

 

 

After all that exploring we felt we'd earned our evening treats again...

 

 

Sunday arrived and started with the best weather of the long weekend (grrrrr) and as we all had to return to work, or school, on Monday, we had no choice but to head home.  Thank fully we had some great views - north of York at least - to entertain us....

 


 







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