'Shades of Grey' by Jasper Fforde

I’ve been interested in trying a Jasper Fforde book for quite some time, they appealed to me greatly, I do know some people who don’t get on with them, but thought I’d give Shades of Grey a go. The first couple of pages were somewhat bamboozling, the kind of feeling you get at the beginning of a novel such as Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World, or Oryx and Crake. It takes a little while to settle into the new world being portrayed in the novel, and get used to its various quirks.

Once I’d got past the initial disorientation, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It introduces you to a world where the hierarchy is based on colour perception, and everything is quite strictly regulated. Some of the moral code may seem a bit historic, and the strict hierarchical concerns which decide who can marry who certainly seems to hark back to a previous era.

There have been a series of ‘Leapbacks’ whereby things have been lost, and the number of facts deliberately reduced. The library no longer holds many books, but the librarian proudly knows where they would all have been placed. This leads to some amusing confusion, Catch-22 being part of a series of fishing books, and such, which I’m sure many book fans will enjoy.

The utter dependence on the Word of Munsell raised some interesting ideas to me. In one of the Leapbacks the production of spoons was banned. Eddie, the main character, questions this, and is told that sometimes you just have to accept that Munsell knows best. As a Christian, I have often been faced with the idea that we don’t understand everything, and that a lot of it just comes down to faith. Reading this it seemed somewhat ridiculous, but it made it more apparent why so many people find it absurd when explanations of belief rest merely on the notion of trusting that you don’t know, but that there is a bigger purpose.

This book does suck you in, though it takes a while for the core of the plot to become apparent, it’s an enjoyable journey. There are moments that will make you laugh, but also parts which will cause strong feelings about the injustices being laid on some of the characters. The world in which it is set proves to be a lot more corrupt than initially seems to be the case, and it’s not until the very end that you discover the truth about which characters are to be trusted.

All in all a fantastic book which I would definitely recommend. Apparently the next one in the series is not out until 2013, which just seems too far away. In the meantime I will have to keep myself amused with some of his other novels, but I eagerly await his next offering in this series.

Gingerbread house under construction

Earlier this year I decided I would like to attempt to make my first ever gingerbread house over this festive period. I've been so busy with work that it seemed the possibility of this actually happening was fading fast, and then my rather lovely boyfriend bought me a copy of Baked & Delicious which came with a mould for a gingerbread house. I just couldn't resist, here's how it turned out:

It may not be the neatest, most perfectly decorated gingerbread house the world has ever seen, but it stands up on its own, and I'm pretty pleased with it. The gingerbread isn't bad either...

I took some photos along the way of making it that I thought I'd share on here.

It was one of the most time-consuming things I've ever baked, I think I would have cried if it had all fallen apart at the last stage, and I now don't want to destroy it by eating it, but if you have time then I'd definitely give it a go. I thought I didn't have much to decorate it with, turns out I had quite a lot of potential gingerbread decorations tucked away in a box (I don't know about you, but I shouldn't be left alone in baking sections of supermarkets, or shops like Lakeland, my bank balance does not appreciate it!).
I plan to make another one in the future (though perhaps not turn it into the yearly practice that I thought it might turn into), but here are a few tips from my experience this year.
- Do as much of the decorating as you can before constructing the house, it's a lot easier, and prevents too much icing running down the side.
- Allow a whole afternoon, or more, to make it, so you have enough time for things to set properly.
- Use cans of food to hold it all together until the icing has dried enough for it to stand on its own (a second pair of hands comes in handy at this stage!).
- If you are making your own icing, make sure it's nice and thick so it doesn't do what some of my white icing did and run down the house, covering some of the other decorations.

All in all, have fun doing it. I'd love to see photos of other people's attempts.

If I don't post again before Christmas, merry Christmas to you all.

Wholemeal raisin muffins

For those of you who were most distressed by my last post that my friend didn't get her birthday cupcakes, fear not, I made her a slight variation (and possibly a slight improvement) of the chocolate chip cupcakes that I shared a few months ago on here.

For my latest baking endeavour, however, I decided for a slightly less indulgent and possibly a little healthier (or perhaps just a bit less unhealthy...) option. My Gran recently gave me her recipe for wholemeal scones, and it got me thinking that I had never tried making cakes with wholemeal flour. Here's how it turned out....

Here's how to make them:

• Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and fill a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin cases.
• Take 8 oz. caster sugar and 8 oz. Stork margarine and cream together well.
• In a separate bowl whisk 4 large eggs, add them to the butter mix, and beat in.
• Gradually sieve in 4 oz. self raising flour and 4 oz. wholemeal self raising flour and fold in.
• Pour in some raisins (here again I'm going to be quite unspecific I'm afraid. I like lots in my cakes so added quite a lot, but it's entirely up to taste. Ideally make sure there is quite an even spread of raisins throughout the whole mix, but not so that they out-number the cake mix!).
• Spoon into the muffin cases (I had enough mix for four little cakes as well) and pop into the oven for 20-30 mins.

Baking books, and yummy results

Whilst browsing my local Waterstone's at the weekend I came across this book

http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/mini+cakes/8554962/

for just £2! now, I'm a sucker for a cheap book, and couldn't resist this one. I was planning to make some cakes for a friend as a little birthday treat, and this seemed a great place for inspiration.

I went for the chocolate and raspberry cakes:

Unfortunately plans changed and I didn't see my friend to give them the cakes, so, alas, had to eat them myself...

I can't share the recipe here because I'm sure it would be infringing all kinds of copyright laws, but I will say, the pink icing on top is divine, and so easy to make (icing sugar and juice from raspberries). Tasty.

Neapolitan style muffins

Having been inspired by Holly's Neapolitan mini cakes in the final of the Great British Bake-Off, I thought I'd give some neapolitan style cakes a go myself. I was going to make a large, celebration type cake, but thought perhaps I'd better wait for a special occasion, so decided on muffins instead. I used to make multi-coloured cakes with my Gran when I was young so knew putting blobs of different coloured cake in one container worked just fine.

Here's how they turned out (excuse the bad icing skills!)

Here's how to make them:

• Preheat your oven to gas mark 4.
• Take 10 oz. Stork, and 10 oz. caster sugar and cream together until pale.
• In a separate bowl beat 5 eggs and add gradually to the mix, beating as you go.
• Sieve in 10 oz. self raising flour gradually, and fold in until combined.
• Separate the mixture into thirds. In one bowl, add just over half a tsp of vanilla essence and baking powder, and fold in.
• In another bowl, add just over half a tsp of strawberry flavouring, baking powder, and a few drops of red food colouring. Fold in.
• In the final bowl fold in just under 1 tbsp of cocoa powder.
• Take your muffin tin, fill it with muffin cases, and spoon in some of each flavour cake mix into each case. I went a bit over the top with how much cake mix I put in each, but it's up to you how much you use of each colour, etc.
• Pop in the oven for 20-25 mins.
  
  They should look something like this:

For the decoration:

• Cream together 1 tbsp milk and 8 oz. Stork.
• Gradually sieve in and cream 12 oz. icing sugar.  Do this gradually or you may find yourself covered in icing sugar (or at least I do anyway...).
• Separate about a third of this, add about a quarter of a tsp of strawberry flavouring and a couple of drops of red colouring, and mix well. Swirl this pink icing into the rest of the icing (but not so much that it's all just pale pink). 
• Put in a piping bag, and swirl onto the top of the cakes, crumbling a flake on the top.

The joys of gardening

This year was the first time I've done any substantial amount of growing my own fruit and vegetables. I'd cautiously dipped my toes into the world of home growing previously, growing simple herbs, and such, on windowsills. However, this year, I thought, I will finally get round to growing things that can form the basis of actual meals. Now, I don't have a large garden, so most of this was done in pots, and grow bags, but I was amazed how great the results could be with not that much effort involved. The only vegetables that I failed to grow successfully were cucumbers and mushrooms.

As a first time grower I found it fascinating, and hugely rewarding, to watch seeds turn into plants, and grow fruit. It was interesting to see how the different foods grew, and I was impressed by how pretty the plants could look in the process.

The peppers are finally turning red:

I was much excited by this, and thought I would share some photos of some of the plants and tasty food that resulted.

I thought the strawberry plants were some of the prettiest whilst in flower, and with fruit growing at the same time:

Our tomato plants were the most bountiful, and I was amazed by just how large the plants grew (they were as tall as me by the end!). I'm having trouble uploading the pictures of our giant tomato plants, so sadly won't be able to share them with you.

One of the other fun things about growing fruit and veg, is that you then have to think of something to do with your produce. Here's a few of the things I made with ours:

Rainbow Celebration Cake

A rainbow cake makes a great treat for a loved one, not many people would expect to find a rainbow cake inside the icing, and I found it made a lovely surprise. I am interested in trying various different flavourings, and also possibly making patterns within the cake, and will keep you all posted if I do. Here's how to make the basic one, it does take quite some time, so be prepared.

• Preheat your oven to gas mark 4, and grease two 7 inch cake tins.
• Take 14 oz Stork, or any softened butter, and 14 oz caster sugar. Cream together until smooth and pale.
• In a separate bowl crack 7 large eggs, make sure there are no bits of shell, whisk, and add gradually to the sugar and butter mix, beating in well. 
• Gradually fold in 14 oz. self raising flour. 
• Take a separate bowl and take some of your mix. I don't have a scientifically accurate way of making sure all your individual cakes are the same size, I just took a table spoon, and my wooden spoon and picked up a large dollop of mix, and did this three times for each cake. Of course you can just weigh out the mixture if you want to be more accurate. Add some food colouring and fold in until the whole mix is evenly coloured. Spread this coloured mix into one of the cake tins. Repeat in a separate bowl for your second colour. Put both coloured cakes in the oven for about 15-20 mins.
• I was always taught to get the cake in the oven as soon as possible after adding the eggs so I found it quite unsettling having to leave so much mix waiting while the first few baked, but as I'm sure not many people have six cake tins of the same size, and an oven big enough to bake them all in one go, I didn't have much choice. Cover your mixing bowl of mixture with cling film while you wait for them to cook. 
• Once the first of the cakes are done, leave them to cool, remove them from the tins, and repeat until all the cakes have been baked.
• Once they are all cool, make some buttercream icing by creaming softened butter and icing sugar together.
• To construct the cake, first decide what order you want the colours in. Take the base cake, cover the top with a thin layer of buttercream (I tried to keep the filling quite thin as there are so many layers, I didn't want the overriding taste to be buttercream rather than cake!). On the next cake cover the bottom with raspberry jam and place on top of the bottom layer. Continue until all layers have been added.
• I had to then wrap cling film around the outside of the cake as it was quite a tower so it didn't all slide off before the buttercream set a bit. Even if you have a large enough fridge to put the cake in it's probably worth wrapping it up to ensure it keeps its shape.
• In the meantime, sprinkle some icing sugar on your work surface and roll out your icing. When ready, unwrap the cake, cover the outside with a thin layer of buttercream so the icing sticks. and cover.
  It's up to you how you decorate it. I went for icing flowers (roll out the various colours, cut out the shapes of petals, and construct on the cake), but the options are endless.
  
  Here's a photo of the other side of mine, in case you wanted to do flowers as well and wanted some ideas.