Tuesday, 8 April 2014

100 days happy- Day 52

righty ho- I'm in holiday mode- I was all set to go for a swim this morning- having replaced my bikini bottoms which caused me so much humiliation last time I went to Aqua aerobics in january!
I was all ready to leave and did my last "bag check" and realised that my bottoms still had the labels and hygiene sticker on them- the labels came off no problem, buy the hygiene sticker was a pain, and left loads of sticky residue on the inside of my bottoms.
So, Swimming postponed until tomorrow, as combination swimming and hoo-ha waxing doesn't sound like an ideal start to a Tuesday. Or any day, If I'm being honest.

I've put them in the wash so am hoping for the best- and I got a new pair in Debenhams for £4 this morning just in case they need a few washes.
So either way, I'm going swimming tomorrow and Thursday (Maybe even friday).
Who knew swimming would be so stressful- and I haven't even made it to the pool yet!

I picked up the biscuit ingredients from tesco in town too- so I did get a bit of a walk out of it- and a flapjack! woop! I wore my denim shorts out today- which was perhaps a little premature as although it's really sunny, it's also quite windy.
I might put them away for a few more weeks yet!

Then I came back and made biscuits for The arrival of Traff's parents. This is the recipe I used- it says it makes 20 quite large biscuits and they're not far wrong...
Whilst the biscuits were cooling I did some more work on my crochet projects. just to make myself feel even more accomplished. Short wearing- buscuit baking- crochet making excellence. If you ignore the slightly burnt edges (I have some suspicions about the reliablity of the thermostat in our oven..)


Obviously, in the interest of quality control I had to eat the burnt ones before moving on to the icing stage of this project.
The end product: 1 large jar of cookies!




  • Basic biscuit
  • 125g softened butter
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • pinch salt
  • 1 cup plain flour
  • 1 cup self raising flour
  • 1 egg
  • splash of milk

Directions

Preparation:10min  ›  Cook:8min  ›  Extra time:2min  ›  Ready in:20min 

  1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
  2. Mix the butter and sugar until you get a soft creamy mixture.
  3. Add the salt and mix; add the egg and mix.
  4. Add the flour 1/2 cup at a time, and mix with each addition.
  5. Add splash of milk if needed and mix.
  6. Knead the dough until it is not messy and is supple, then roll it out until about 5mm or so thick. The thickness doesn't really matter - 10mm thick if you want - the biscuit will expand a lot.
  7. Cut using a cookie cutter shape to suit yourself.
  8. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes – for a lesser time for a nice soft biscuit, longer time for a harder biscuit - just keep an eye on them.
  9. Changes and Variations

  10. For a sweet biscuit, add a tablespoon of hundreds and thousands to the mix.
  11. You could also add: cinnamon or nutmeg or Pureblends Sweetspice or ginger or allspice or star anise or whatever you want in the way of spices.
  12. Also try adding peanut butter or almonds.
  13. Just prior to cooking, sprinkle some coarse sugar on top, and they will end up like "Nice" biscuits.

I made the normal mix with vanilla essence in- they're the flower shaped ones.
Then I added mixed spice to the dough- those are the heart shaped ones.
I wanted to make a 3rd variation to use my xmas hippo cookie cutter (He came in a box of plastic christmas cookie cutters I bought from notcuts for the brownies to use to make xmas tree decorations- they kept asking how a hippo is festive, and he was universally rejected. there were no hippo shaped salt dough xmas tree decorations) but we didn't have anything else that I could add. Expect some pan dan extract, but I'm really not sure about pan dan and mixed spice!

After all my cooking I played the violin for the first time in forever- Inspired by listening to pentangle- and I found the sheet music for matty groves! 

In the evening, Emma and I are going  to watch the boys play football. I haven't seen Emma for ages so it'll be nice to catch up- I've also never met Traff's football team mates before.
:D
Have now!

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