baking – T E Shepherd https://shepline.com author | illustrator | digital designer Sun, 05 Apr 2020 15:55:15 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.6 https://shepline.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/cropped-shepline-white-on-green-square_512-32x32.jpg baking – T E Shepherd https://shepline.com 32 32 I have my first virtual cake meeting tomorrow for Camilla’s birthday, so I baked Easter Biscuits for the occasion… #baking #WorkingFromHome #Easter https://shepline.com/2020/04/05/i-have-my-first-virtual-cake-meeting-tomorrow-for-camillas-birthday-so-i-baked-easter-biscuits-for-the-occasion-baking-workingfromhome-easter/ https://shepline.com/2020/04/05/i-have-my-first-virtual-cake-meeting-tomorrow-for-camillas-birthday-so-i-baked-easter-biscuits-for-the-occasion-baking-workingfromhome-easter/#respond Sun, 05 Apr 2020 15:37:44 +0000 http://shepline.com/2020/04/05/i-have-my-first-virtual-cake-meeting-tomorrow-for-camillas-birthday-so-i-baked-easter-biscuits-for-the-occasion-baking-workingfromhome-easter/ I have my first virtual cake meeting tomorrow for Camilla's birthday, so I baked Easter Biscuits for the occasion... #baking #WorkingFromHome #Easter

I have my first virtual cake meeting tomorrow for Camilla's birthday, so I baked Easter Biscuits for the occasion... #baking #WorkingFromHome #Easter

I have my first virtual cake meeting tomorrow for Camilla’s birthday, so I baked Easter Biscuits for the occasion…
#baking #WorkingFromHome #Easter

]]> https://shepline.com/2020/04/05/i-have-my-first-virtual-cake-meeting-tomorrow-for-camillas-birthday-so-i-baked-easter-biscuits-for-the-occasion-baking-workingfromhome-easter/feed/ 0 I’ve been busy… #mincepies #Christmas???? #baking #yum https://shepline.com/2017/12/09/ive-been-busy-mincepies-christmas%f0%9f%8e%84-baking-yum/ https://shepline.com/2017/12/09/ive-been-busy-mincepies-christmas%f0%9f%8e%84-baking-yum/#respond Sat, 09 Dec 2017 18:40:04 +0000 http://shepline.com/2017/12/09/ive-been-busy-mincepies-christmas%f0%9f%8e%84-baking-yum/ I've been busy... #mincepies #Christmas???? #baking #yum

I’ve been busy… #mincepies #Christmas???? #baking #yum

]]> https://shepline.com/2017/12/09/ive-been-busy-mincepies-christmas%f0%9f%8e%84-baking-yum/feed/ 0 Easter biscuits… Yum! ???? #Easter #biscuits #baking https://shepline.com/2017/04/12/easter-biscuits-yum-%f0%9f%98%8aeaster-biscuits-baking/ https://shepline.com/2017/04/12/easter-biscuits-yum-%f0%9f%98%8aeaster-biscuits-baking/#respond Wed, 12 Apr 2017 18:30:08 +0000 http://shepline.com/2017/04/12/easter-biscuits-yum-%f0%9f%98%8aeaster-biscuits-baking/ Easter biscuits... Yum! ???? #Easter #biscuits #baking

Easter biscuits… Yum! ????

#Easter #biscuits #baking

]]> https://shepline.com/2017/04/12/easter-biscuits-yum-%f0%9f%98%8aeaster-biscuits-baking/feed/ 0 Traditions https://shepline.com/2013/11/17/traditions/ https://shepline.com/2013/11/17/traditions/#respond Sun, 17 Nov 2013 21:30:58 +0000 http://journal.shepline.com/?p=5795 This weekend has been one for hibernating, partly because of the weather which has been cold, and grey, and utterly wintery, but partly also because Emma has been working/on-call which dictates that we can’t venture very far. So I decided to blitz the jobs early, and on Friday evening made a start on cleaning the house, and then on Saturday morning cleaned out the bunnies and the chickens. As it turned out, I’m glad I did for by the time I headed into town to do the veg shopping the grey mizzle had come down.

Saturday afternoon was definitely hibernating weather and I tucked myself up with my book: Four British Fantasists: Place and Culture in the Children’s Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, and Susan Cooper by Charles Butler. I actually bought this book when it came out back in 2006 but struggled then to read it’s selection of discursive essays on four of my most-favourite authors. Yesterday I was romping through its pages, and today, I have been doing the same.

I paused from my reading only in the afternoon to luxuriate in one of my annual pre-Christmas traditions: the making of the Christmas cake. Stir-up Sunday should actually be next Sunday being the one closest to my Mum’s birthday but we will be otherwise busy next weekend so I brought it forward. In the Shepherd household, it was always a family thing. My Dad would line and grease the cake tin with baking parchment and newspaper and make its little newspaper hat already for the four hours in the oven, and my brother and I would help my Mum get the ingredients all ready and ready to add into the BIG mixing bowl. And we’d listen to Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker whilst we did so.

In the new-Shepherd household we seem to have a different tradition, one that we observed today.

1464026_10151995730390630_429294408_n

I set my LP of The Nutcracker playing on the record player and prepped and made the Christmas cake whilst Emma snoozed into the afternoon, and then I returned to reading in the armchair whilst the delicious aroma of Christmas wafted out of the kitchen as the cake cooked…

]]> https://shepline.com/2013/11/17/traditions/feed/ 0 On the twenty-third day of advent… https://shepline.com/2011/12/23/on-the-twenty-third-day-of-advent/ https://shepline.com/2011/12/23/on-the-twenty-third-day-of-advent/#respond Fri, 23 Dec 2011 21:37:00 +0000 http://journal.shepline.com/?p=1932 ~ Today I headed down to Oxford to collect the replacement TV – venturing out before the rain but in the wind on a roads that were already getting very busy. At first, Comet didn’t know anything about it, and then had to go and find it out on the shop floor! What the? The organisation of this store is woefullly awful! Getting the TV home and setting it up was straight forward and it is a fatastic picture, but woe, the sound, so tinny!! It makes my old TV which didn’t have the absolute best sound seem like the very best! That said apparently all the small LCD TVs – and even the bigger one’s – have pretty naffish sound. Have improved things though with some computer/walkman speakers which make it okay.

~ Collected the turkey. John The Butcher was a bit of a bah humbug being rushed over his feet, but jollied up when Emma gave him the bottle of beer we had got him as a Christmas present. Then went on into Bicester to get our weekly veg, and to give Hayley and Spence some chocolate as a present for all the leaves.

~ After lunch we set to an afternoon of baking. Emma made sausage rolls and I made cheese straws for the Bicester Vets secret santa party this evening…

~ Then I decorated the cake, possibly going a little OTT with a snowman as well as Father Christmas, and three outsized robins (or albatrosses) and a couple of silver giant redwoods! Still, if you can’t go OTT on a Christmas cake, when can you?

~ Next, remember that chocolate and brandy mixture from the other day, I finished them off…

]]> https://shepline.com/2011/12/23/on-the-twenty-third-day-of-advent/feed/ 0 On the twenty-first day of advent: the shortest day… https://shepline.com/2011/12/21/on-the-twenty-first-day-of-advent-the-shortest-day/ https://shepline.com/2011/12/21/on-the-twenty-first-day-of-advent-the-shortest-day/#respond Wed, 21 Dec 2011 18:57:00 +0000 http://journal.shepline.com/?p=1928 ~ I have finished my present wrapping – well, with the exception of the yet to arrive amazon delivery. Ggrrr, its frustrating. I pay for Amazon Prime which gives me free next day delivery on all eligible items (or everything sold by amazon itself), and ordered my last present on Sunday. It was dispatched on Monday with delivery scheduled for yesterday. When it didn’t arrive I went to track the order because all prime deliveries come with tracking to see that there was no tracking because it had gone out by standard Royal Mail. What the?!? So I contacted amazon by email and they responded very quickly and offered me £3 by way of compensation and dispatched a new copy of the thing but this one is still going out by First Class. Who knows when I will receive one or other or both or neither parcels…?

~ Emma’s best friend Caroline came to visit for lunch and pressies with her children on their way back up to Yorkshire. Arthur, in particular, did a good job of flying the feline flag and entertaining the children.

~ This afternoon I have been mixing up chocolate truffle mixture and baking mince pies whilst catching up on the last four days of The Archers

]]> https://shepline.com/2011/12/21/on-the-twenty-first-day-of-advent-the-shortest-day/feed/ 0 On the twenty-first day of advent: shortest day, first mincepies https://shepline.com/2010/12/21/on-the-twenty-first-day-of-advent-shortest-day-first-mincepies/ https://shepline.com/2010/12/21/on-the-twenty-first-day-of-advent-shortest-day-first-mincepies/#respond Tue, 21 Dec 2010 22:12:00 +0000 http://journal.shepline.com/on-the-twenty-first-day-of-advent-shortest-day-first-mincepies/ Another day of working at home proved to be a productive one, building some new pages whilst lounging on the sofa in front of the Christmas tree and the (pretend) fire. By starting when I would normally begin my journey to work and working across lunch I was able to finish up – not just the day but my working year of 2010 – with a good stretch of afternoon to do what I pleased. And I did.

I’ve base iced the Christmas cake, ready for final decorations tomorrow, and boxed up the chocolate balls, cooked a nice dinner, thought a bit about Louis Tumnal’s story, wrapped some more presents, and made the first mincepies of the season … and eaten them… 🙂

]]> https://shepline.com/2010/12/21/on-the-twenty-first-day-of-advent-shortest-day-first-mincepies/feed/ 0 On the tenth day of advent: baking into the small hours… https://shepline.com/2010/12/10/on-the-tenth-day-of-advent-baking-into-the-small-hours/ https://shepline.com/2010/12/10/on-the-tenth-day-of-advent-baking-into-the-small-hours/#respond Fri, 10 Dec 2010 23:57:00 +0000 http://journal.shepline.com/on-the-tenth-day-of-advent-baking-into-the-small-hours/ Well almost! 🙂

Upon getting back home from work this evening I found the house smelling deliciously of vanilla; was making fudge. Not to be outdone by this creativity in the kitchen I set to making not one, but two Wimpole Coffee and Walnut cakes. One for Emma’s birthday tea on Sunday, and one for Emma to take into work on Monday. It all turned into a bit of an epic time in the kitchen, the fudge making took way longer than the recipe suggested and the cake also took longer to bake than the recipe would have otherwise have reported. Consequently by the time the second cake was almost done, Emma had already left me and gone upstairs to bed, and I was left to oversea the kitchen.

]]> https://shepline.com/2010/12/10/on-the-tenth-day-of-advent-baking-into-the-small-hours/feed/ 0 On the nineteenth day of advent: in the kitchen https://shepline.com/2009/12/19/on-the-nineteenth-day-of-advent-in-the-kitchen/ https://shepline.com/2009/12/19/on-the-nineteenth-day-of-advent-in-the-kitchen/#respond Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:43:00 +0000 http://journal.shepline.com/on-the-nineteenth-day-of-advent-in-the-kitchen/ A year ago today I got my new kitchen, and I love it. It seems appropriate therefore that I have spent a good part of today in my kitchen. Tuned to Radio 4 dramas and comedies on the iPlayer I have made a further batch of mincepies. My plan to make cheese straws failed upon realising that I hadn’t as of yet defrosted the puff pastry.

Before the exploits in the kitchen, we had a nice walk down by the canal with its very frozen water, and then headed into town to visit the veg stall and get a few bits for lunch. After the mincepies, I was going to make a start on base icing the Christmas cake, but got diverted when Lucy came round and we went for a bit of a festive jaunt to the garden centre, a nice cashew chilli chicken meal and some good ol’ Strictly… on the tele. Emma was very pleased with the result, as was I, for Chris Hollins definitely seemed to the dancer who, if not the best, had developed the most of the course of the series and thus seemed to embody what it should all be about.

]]> https://shepline.com/2009/12/19/on-the-nineteenth-day-of-advent-in-the-kitchen/feed/ 0 On the thirteenth day of advent: birthday celebrations https://shepline.com/2009/12/13/on-the-thirteenth-day-of-advent-birthday-celebrations/ https://shepline.com/2009/12/13/on-the-thirteenth-day-of-advent-birthday-celebrations/#respond Sun, 13 Dec 2009 11:08:00 +0000 http://journal.shepline.com/on-the-thirteenth-day-of-advent-birthday-celebrations/ Today I wished happy birthday to my beautiful wife. We began the day with a leisurely breakfast which I made and served up at the dinner table so that she could open some of her pressies. It was miserable weather so we had a relaxing morning of pottering. I made first use of our bain‐marie that we picked up whilst antique hunting back in the autumn. It is the most perfect pan for the melting of thick, gooey chocolate and with a (substantial) dash of brandy. Yum!

In the afternoon we made our way to chez Jefferys for Emma’s birthday dinner of roast beef, citron tart and coffee and walnut birthday cake, complete with 3+7 candles, the magic seven of which stood proudly in their Womble candle holders…

Birthday Cake

]]> https://shepline.com/2009/12/13/on-the-thirteenth-day-of-advent-birthday-celebrations/feed/ 0 On the eleventh day of advent: in the bleak midwinter https://shepline.com/2009/12/11/on-the-eleventh-day-of-advent-in-the-bleak-midwinter/ https://shepline.com/2009/12/11/on-the-eleventh-day-of-advent-in-the-bleak-midwinter/#respond Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:26:00 +0000 http://journal.shepline.com/on-the-eleventh-day-of-advent-in-the-bleak-midwinter/ After the crisp, sunny cold of yesterday and the gorgeous walk in the woods, today began grey and foggy and lingerd long into the day. We had a leisurely lay in before an even more leisurely breakfast. I had a nice morning baking a birthday cake for Emma; a proper, solid, National Trust tearoom kind of coffee and walnut cake, whilst listening to The Archers and a bit of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue…

…before proceeding on with a bit more house cleaning.

Come the afternoon we headed into Bicester town centre to buy Christmas stamps, vegetables and a big bunch of holly from the market, during an hour when it was bright and sunny between the fog lifting and the sun setting.

]]> https://shepline.com/2009/12/11/on-the-eleventh-day-of-advent-in-the-bleak-midwinter/feed/ 0 Baking Bread https://shepline.com/2009/08/14/baking-bread/ https://shepline.com/2009/08/14/baking-bread/#respond Fri, 14 Aug 2009 22:27:00 +0000 http://journal.shepline.com/baking-bread/ Having come by the recipe for sundried tomato foccacia bread, and as of this evening, all the ingredients (namely the sundried tomatos!), tonight I made some. Whilst the breadmaker took most the strain, there was a certain amount of kneeding and resting to be done before it went in the oven. Now, the loaf is out and cooling on the rack, and I am trying to resist the temptation of freshly baked sundried tomato faccacia…

Edit: Umm, okay so we couldn’t resist, but it’s very nice!

]]> https://shepline.com/2009/08/14/baking-bread/feed/ 0 Cooks In The Kitchen… https://shepline.com/2009/02/25/cooks-in-the-kitchen/ https://shepline.com/2009/02/25/cooks-in-the-kitchen/#respond Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:44:00 +0000 http://journal.shepline.com/cooks-in-the-kitchen/ I’ve been busy since getting home from work. I’ve let the chickens out for a run round the garden, and I’ve baked a birthday cake for my future mother-in-law and I’ve ironed my shirt and trousers for tomorrows interview, and began ironing the hankies that lurk at the bottom of the basket but I stopped doing that, just before Emma got home, to start dismembering the remains of the chicken (the Tesco one, not Wiggy and Miss Guinevere) for the curry…

Emma got home and for a while we were both busy in the kitchen as she set about boiling up the carcass for the soup. It was fun, the two of us in the kitchen at the same, chopping and dicing, boiling and baking, enthused with the aroma of cooking and making meals out of old meals just like grannie used to.

That said, pausing our viewing of Grand Designs briefly, Emma did succeed in dropping the seive of straining soup in such a way as it was too splash up all over her and across the top of the birthday cake. Hrmm… chicken-flavoured victoria sandwich…

]]> https://shepline.com/2009/02/25/cooks-in-the-kitchen/feed/ 0 The rich aroma of Christmas https://shepline.com/2008/11/23/the-rich-aroma-of-christmas/ https://shepline.com/2008/11/23/the-rich-aroma-of-christmas/#respond Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:24:00 +0000 http://journal.shepline.com/the-rich-aroma-of-christmas/ What a warm and comforting feeling it is to go to bed in a house that smells richly of Christmas baking. Somewhere during watching the season opener to Survivors (not sure how I feel about this, it was good enough for a first episode but just as to whether I can stick with it for a whole series, I’m not sure…) we fetched the cake out of the oven and it looks and smells delicious. And now its permeating the whole house with its aroma. 🙂

]]> https://shepline.com/2008/11/23/the-rich-aroma-of-christmas/feed/ 0 Stir Up Sunday https://shepline.com/2008/11/23/stir-up-sunday/ https://shepline.com/2008/11/23/stir-up-sunday/#respond Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:14:00 +0000 http://journal.shepline.com/stir-up-sunday/ According to tonight’s episode of The Archers today was what is known as ‘Stir-up Sunday’, the day when everyone is supposed to make the Christmas cake. I didn’t know this at the time that I stirred up Sunday myself, but it seems appropriate to mention it as that is what I did. And a very nice, pleasant afternoon I had too. I put my record of The Nutcracker (complete with its curious side 1/4 and 2/3 configuration) and basked in feelings of Christmas joy. 🙂

]]> https://shepline.com/2008/11/23/stir-up-sunday/feed/ 0