River Cottage Baking Day

“Bake with love..”
― Manuela Kjeilen

My sister and I were treated to a day with our Mum at River Cottage today (you know, the place where the River Cottage cooking series is filmed) learning how to bake cakes and desserts! So we began an early morning trek down to Devon enjoying the absolutely breath-taking scenery on the way there…

Once there the views got even better. I’ve never been to Devon before and it’s only a couple of hours down the road… so I’ll be revisiting sometime very soon with my ‘proper’ camera.

Everything about the day from start to finish was perfectly organised and amazing. Photographs were encouraged, wandering around and looking at things was encouraged and we even got to glimpse inside the cottage where they usually do the filming…

We were plied with home-made goods in between tasting our own, drinking cordial, tea and coffee. We made muffins, loaf cake, profiteroles and chocolate tart (from scratch!)

At lunchtime we were served delicious home-made steak pie, mashed potatoe and carrots. And if that wasn’t enough we had tasters afterwards of some of the things we’d been baking.

The best bit was the view. What an inspiring view.. all day we had this gorgeous landscape to look out onto as we baked…

 

 

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Week Four: Ice, Muffins & Sunsets

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life:

…It goes on.”
― Robert Frost

Week four is upon us!  For someone who has had barely anytime this week, there are a fair few photographs to share. 2015 has started off with a lot of hectic-ness and things which are taking up time, energy and focus. When I’m not occupied with those things I like to switch off as much as possible – baking the odd bakeable thing, reading and becoming an expert at Catan and beating William every single time. Practically.

Temperatures plummeted mid week and we were collectively scraping ice off of our cars in -6 degrees c temperature, shivering furiously. Then they rocketed and we were opening the window at night to +10 degrees! After the ice storms of last week it has been very strange – but welcome. Signs of spring are here and the builders have started up with the landscaping again planting us a few trees along with a rather annoyingly positioned lamp post.

Work has been going well. I’ve obtained a laptop which is now helping my back pain incredibly as I can work from home in between appointments here and there. But why would you work from home when your office view is like this every morning…

Sunset photos were achieved yesterday evening when my Mother and I were sat on the A34 in a layby with a pancake flat tyre on her BMW. We were on the way to see my Grandad in hospital but unfortunately didn’t make it due to the length of time it took to get the RAC to us. It was getting quite desperate after we’d finished our petrol station bought drinks and so we tucked into Grandad’s egg custard tart. Mainly why we couldn’t then go on to see him empty handed! Today saw us successfully reach the hospital and come home to the smell of delicious roast pork gently cooking away… it’s Sunday. Of course.

 

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