A mooch about Lochgilphead

Toad and I had been going to take part in a field trip to Kerrera with the Argyll Bird Club but because of a forecast of heavy rain and strong winds it was cancelled. This meant that LSB and I could go for a mooch around Lochgilphead instead. LSB drove there and we had refreshments at the Smiddy Bistro. Then we explored homeware and arty shops working our way up Argyll Street. When We spotted a sign saying "Free coffee", LSB pressed her nose to the window (well, almost) to see what was what. Next thing we knew three people were leaning out into the rainy street urging us to come in. I wish I'd had a camera ready to get a shot of that!

We went in and found it was a drop-in meeting place, in someone's house, for SNP (Scottish National Party) supporters. We were given hot drinks and biscuits and had some friendly chat. We live in the same constituency as the group of people in this house. We didn't talk politics.

The house has a big applique hanging in the entrance hall. I took a picture of part of it.

Continuing up Argyll Street we went into another homeware shop where I splashed out on a silicon pastry brush—my natural bristle one is starting to moult, presumably like the animal it came from—and a ball of soft Indian cotton twine. Boggy Brae gardening tasks always seem to need more string.

On our way back down we stopped for tea and cake—the best chocolate and carrot cakes ever!—at Cafe 35, where I and two other friends had called in a few years ago after our trip to Knapdale to see beavers (we saw no beavers but we did have a lovely day). LSB is the carrot cake tester. I test chocolate ones. Each of these types of cake can be disappointing; those at Cafe 35 were not. The tea was good too. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area.

On the drive there and back we noted with delight the many hazel catkins dancing in the wind in the road verges and, on other tree species, the clothing of lichens that makes them look never-bare even when they're leafless in winter.

Archery in the garden and a coffee break with cake

Early Sunday morning I headed round the loch to do a supermarket shop that had to include elderflower cordial for the archery club cake I was going to make later in the morning. I did the shopping and headed home only realising when I was nearly there that I'd forgotten to get elderflower cordial! It wasn't on the list! I had supposed having in my head would be sufficient. Let's just say I won't rely on my head for shopping list stuff again.

There was a possibility that the local shop would have the cordial so I passed our track and carried on to the next village. Woohoo! They had some – cake-making saved.

Then, as I unpacked the shopping I spotted what look like an elderflower cordial bottle tucked in behind where vegetables are kept. It turned out to be grapefruit and honeysuckle cordial and its use-by date was way back.

Anyway, the cake got made. I'd chosen elderflower cake because I'd found a recipe by Olivia Potts and I'd found such a recipe because elderflower cake is what Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have chosen for their wedding cake later this month. It was good.

The coffee and cake table well into proceedings
while it rained a bit outside

The newly opening wild cherry blossom was bright against the raincloud sky.

The day brightened up again and we continued our shoot. We ended up shooting a half Stafford round, three dozen arrows at thirty metres. I hadn't done any archery for about a year but my mended broken arm coped fine and I think the mopping, scrubbing and hoovering I do at the day care centre, not to mention  dealing with dragon-energised shrubs at home, have kept other requisite muscles (back and shoulders) ready to go.

Dennis, the archery club chairman, did not shoot but he spent some of his time re-fletching arrows. I found two of them on a chair that had been brought into the washhouse after everyone had gone.

Two arrows needing another feather each

Toad wants to gets people back soon to shoot the other half of the Stafford round. I'm all for it not just because it's fun but also because he finds the need for an archery range is the best motivation for grass-cutting. The ground might look fairly smooth in the photo but it's actually quite bumpy and mowing is hard work.

Penguin Cake

After the card and present opening, grandson 'DoubleAitch', whose fourth birthday it is today, tried on his new cowboy outfit while his big brother broke eggs into the cake mixture (DoubleAitch wants a penguin cake) and helped stir.

breaking eggs

DerbyshireDaughter has been reading the first Harry Potter book, The Philosopher's Stone, to BigBrother so when they'd all come back from a jaunt down to the loch beach for 'treasure', they settled down to watch the film on DVD while I embarked on my first attempt at cake decorating that needed to go a bit further than slapping some water icing on it. I'm more of a cake than a cake decorations person.

Once I finished playing with icing, melted chocolate, black candles for a penguin beak, and a few sweets the four film watchers (DoubleAitch, HisBigBrother, their mum, and their aunty Toadlet) paused the DVD for a few moments while they scraped out the icing and melted chocolate bowls.

sticky dips

Soapy water was provided for destickifying and then the penguin was (cough!) admired. It's a roaring success! It makes people laugh 😂 and it'll taste just fine.

Penguin cake extraordinaire!

Toadlet's pals say it's a demon. These are the same pals who've nicknamed me "Shady" 😀

Streusel sussed

I made a red fruit streusel cake today and feel I have sussed the method. I used this recipe (without the video; someone just sent me a simple version) but tweaked it a bit because I found the cake layer of the first apple streusel cake I made a bit dry. My tweak was to use two eggs instead of one egg and some milk. So this version has no milk in it and the cake was indeed less dry.

Having read through the instructions twice, I also simplified them for inclusion in my little recipes notebook, so a paragraph on how to make the streusel topping became: Rub butter into flour, then add the rest (which could be shortened even further to rubbing in method).

Similarly, the paragraph about making the cake layer became: creaming method.

<< the moment of truth before putting the fruit layer on top of the cake batter.

The fruit is some slightly sweetened and lightly stewed raspberries and blackberries that I had in the freezer. Before adding them to the cake I stirred in a heaped tablespoon (roughly) of dry semolina to help soak up the juices.

Seems to have worked. Tasted good warm with cream.

So, yeah, I've sussed streusels: essentially a fruit crumble with cake underneath.

Toad claims not to like hazelnuts or walnuts but when walnuts are ground and put into banana muffins, and when hazelnuts are chopped and toasted and put into streusels, he doesn't have a problem with them! Eating raw nuts on their own is indeed a quite different experience from eating them mixed in with other ingredients in cooked food.

As I told someone via Twitter, I had to hide the last piece of the apple streusel or Toad would've scoffed it and I wanted it for breakfast. #cakewars ;)

Another tweak I might try is to go back to the one egg plus milk idea but to make the apple layer thicker, and to use cooking apples rather than eaters for a bit more apple zing.

And yes, those are staples in my cake tin liner. Doesn't everyone have a tiny stapler in their baking kit?

Vinegar ice-cream

pic from Wikimedia Commons

Long ago, in pre-Toadlet times, Toad and I took two Bangladeshi kids I was tutoring to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Afterwards we went along to "G & D's" (George & Davis' Ice-cream Cafe) on Little Clarendon Street.

I remembered this event today when I began to tuck into my second wedge of apple streusel cake, this time with some added homemade chocolate sauce (melted chocolate and double cream, essentially – the low fat mantra never caught on with me) and vanilla ice-cream.

Because...

...when I was reading out the available ice-cream varieties for Tanni and Robbie, Tanni must have misheard vanilla as vinegar. She asked for vinegar ice-cream and I, mishearing her in turn, accepted that with a perfectly straight face. It was only afterwards that Toad told me she had said vinegar and obviously wondered why it was called that! Brave girl to have chosen it in that case!

Anyway, ever since then vanilla ice-cream has been vinegar ice-cream in my mind. And so, this afternoon I had a slice of apple cake with 'vinegar' ice-cream and chocolate sauce. Very nice it was too.