Experimenting

Like many of you I watched the Festival of Rememberance coverage on Saturday evening. I’m afraid it has left me feeling a little out of sorts. My father fought at the battle of Monte Casino and coupled with losing him in the month of November old memories have surfaced. The video coverage of the battle brought home the realities of what so many suffered through and I know the nightmares never left Dad, not just of that battle, however he always maintained that his Italian campaign medal was the one he fought hardest for.

Luckily we finally have a few rays of sun here in Devon, so on the days I am not working I am making sure to spend some time out of doors. I was up early this morning and am more than halfway through my to do list so later I hope to take a quick stroll up the nearby lane.

On Sunday we headed out to youngest daughters for tea, we were not the only guests so for the first time ever I made some doughnuts…strawberry sauce and Holland cream were the fillings…

I weighed each dough portion into 60 grams, instead of the 100 grams the recipe called for, they were plenty big enough, and despite a piping bag disaster I was pretty pleased with them for a first attempt.

The Holland cream recipe made loads and I decided to go for the full amount as apparently it freezes well. Later today I shall see as earlier I made some rich sweet pastry and will be making an attempt at creating some pineapple cream tarts as I believe the Holland cream should go well in them. With a little luck the kitchen won’t end up in quite such a sticky mess as it did on Sunday…when left too long before sieving it strawberry sauce tends to set! Burst piping bags full of cream leave quite a clean up operation too.

Hopefully some will make it to my colleagues at work tomorrow, they would have liked the doughnuts but there’s no way I could make them before work and they don’t fare well overnight!

Right cup of tea finished, time to get back to the list!

Blessings, J. x