Happy Easter!

We have made these hot cross buns for a very long time now and I thought that I would pass the recipe on. It comes from an old cookbook published by the Vancouver Sun called "Edith Adams Bread Book". Good ol' Edith Adams was a ficticious character. I hope you enjoy them.

This image is from a Victorian book called"Children's Songs With Music". The inscription on the inside reads "Dear Irene, with Grannies best love. Xmas 96.

Spicy Hot Cross Buns

Sift together 4 cups all-purpose flour with 2 teaspoons cinnamon, ½ teaspoon allspice, and ½ teaspoon cloves.

Add ¾ cup washed raisins, 1/3 –1/2 cup of mixed peel, ½ cup chopped cherries (opt.)

Dissolve a teaspoon of sugar in ¼ cup warm water; sprinkle with 1 package yeast. Proof for 10 minutes and then stir well.

Heat 1-cup water; add 1-teaspoon salt, ¼ cup sugar, 2 tablespoons soft shortening, and 1 beaten egg. Mix well. When lukewarm add yeast.

Pour into well in flour, stirring until liquid disappears. Form into a ball and knead for 2 minutes. Brush top with melted butter, cover with damp then dry towels. Let rise double. Punch down. Put ball of dough on lightly floured board; cover; rest 10 minutes. Cut in two; form into cylinders. Cut each cylinder in to 9 parts. Form into slightly flat balls. Put in 2 greased 9” square pans or 2” apart on baking sheets. Cover and let rise. Cut crosses in tops. 

Bake. After 15 minutes brush with glaze of 2 tablespoons sugar and two tablespoons of hot milk or hot water. Finish baking. Reglaze. Cool on racks. Frost in creases if desired. Makes 18 buns. BAKE: 375 deg. F for 20 – 25 minutes.

My adaptation to the recipe

I use whole-wheat flour. It does make them denser but they are very tasty. Add 1 tablespoon off fresh lemon juice for every 4 cups of wholewheat flour and it will make your wholewheat bread less dense.

Any time it mentions sifting I put the flour and /or spices into a large bowl and incorporate them with a French whisk. Using a whisk to fluff up the flour is so much faster and tidier.

I use ½ a cup not 1/3 of peel, plus I use candied citron. I make a quadruple batch of buns so when I measure out the mixed peel I measure 1 cup candied citron and 1 cup mixed peel. The raisins must be washed, it helps to plump them up when baking so that they are soft otherwise they tend to be hard. I do a mix of 1 cup golden raisins, 1 cup dark raisins, 1 cup sultanas, and 1 cup currants.

I don’t like to use shortening so I substitute it with butter. We try to use honey in place of sugar. The hot cross buns are baked in two large pans. One pan is left unglazed and the other I glaze with the sugar/milk solution. I like the sugar for glazing. Have fun baking.

Happy Valentine's Day!

  HAPPY  VALENTINE'S  DAY!  

Here are

a few

1920's Valentine's to wish everyone

a very happy and love filled day.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Three Feather Trees

Just a tad late for Christmas but here are three feather trees that are decorated with vintage and antique ornaments. I have them on display on the buffet. We have usually put the village there but it is taking a rest this year.

This 2' tall feather tree I picked up for $2.00 at a Saint Vincent de Paul thrift shop years ago. I almost didn't buy it for not recognizing how old it was. Its branches were loosely crushed up against the trunk, then wrapped with cheap decorations. After paying for it, removing all of the cheap decorations, and straightening the branches I realized that I had a 1920's feather tree.

It has been decorated with vintage and antique cotton batting ornaments for the most part. The green Santa was given to me by Robin, our oldest boy, when he was very young.

The little girl and the metal ball are Victorian. I'm not certain how old the chenille roping is.

I saw this Victorian wooden ornament that was made in Germany in a book about Christmas decorations and fell in love with it. A few years later I came across one at a flea market in Victoria. I bought it immediately!

This is the snowman Santa that was behind the wooden ornament above.

Here is one of the feather trees that I made years ago. Most of the ornaments on the tree and below it are celluloid.

The large red curved item is a hunting horn/party horn. Both this horn and the pink, white, and green horn still work. The large swan is a celluloid bath toy.

The clown head at the top is not made of celluloid, neither is the little girl in the snow suit. The clown is Italian.

The garland is very tatty isn't it, I love it though. It is made of metal tinsel and finely cut cellophane. I have not come across it since purchasing these two garlands. It is less than 1/2" wide.

The little girl in the red coat was bought at the same time as the girl in the snow suit. I think that they may be from the early 1960's. There are lots of celluloid animals on the tree. The angel, or if you are British, the Christmas Fairy, is made of hard plastic dressed in tarletan.

 Tarletan is similar to cheesecloth in the weave but is stiffened and came in a variety of colours. I have some folds of it from 1910, one with a beautiful chromolithograph on it of a costume that could be made using the tarletan and inexpensive fabric or crepe papier.

The other feather tree that I made several years ago is decorated with a selection of chenille ornaments.

Lots of chenille Santas, candy canes, and animals decorate this tree.

The Santa at the bottom is about 8" long with bells on his feet. There is another one close to the top of the tree beside the trunk. The tree topper is made of two flower shapes made of silk bump chenille that are tipped with glass beads I put them together to create one large full star-like tree topper.

I hope everyone is still enjoying the holidays such as they are after Christmas. It is on to New Year's Eve.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! Have a wonderful time with friends and family. Enjoy the holidays.

2012 mantle and garlands.

Here is this year's Christmas mantle. The rest of the party hats and noisemakers went onto the mantle. The crepe papier party hats didn't make it out as there is not an easy way to display them. 

Most of the hats and noisemakers are from the 1940's through to the 1960's.

The first thing I did was to centre a 6' faux garland on the mantle letting it hang over each end. The base was ready so I arranged as many hats on the garland and stuck in as many party horns as I could while still keeping some sense of design and order.

And now for the close-ups...

Once the base of hats and horns was done I tucked tiny Christmas trees, vintage tinsel roping, lights, as well as vintage and antique Santas. The big elf like Santa is a favourite candy container. To his right, your left is an early wooden party horn in the shape of a little man. There is a white Belsnickle farther down the line-up.

This is not a great picture to show this Santa in his sleigh. I picked it up at a Salvation Army store about 5 years ago for $21.00, a steal! His sack of toys has old Cracker Jack prizes in it. You can just make out, leaning against the mirror, a heavy Dresden decoration of a deer standing beside a small log house.

In the back leaning against the mirror is a Dresden decoration of Santa in his sleigh on his way to deliver gifts to the little log house in the previous photo.

Lots of hats and horns with one lone Santa standing beside a white Christmas tree.

When the top part of the mantle was finished I draped two long strands of early vintage roping that has glass beading attached to it. After that was done more hats were added and finally the strands of tree lights.

Here are a few more of my Favourite Santas. All of these were bought at Thrift stores years ago when items such as these were fairly common.

On the left is a hand-carved wooden nutcracker, next is a candy container Santa container. That tall necked Santa is my all-time favourite not because of age or beauty but for sheer sillyness. It is made of hard plastic. You hold by his middle, push it down and all of a sudden, his head, that is held in place by a cylinder of coiled heavy waxed paper, shoots up about 12" and falls back onto his neck. The next Santa I bought at Saint Vincent de Paul for $30.00. It stands about 10" high. The very next day I was at Salvation Army and saw a small table of Christmas ornaments. I didn't think that there would be much of interest but looked anyway. The last item that I saw was this giant Japanese Santa. The larger version of the Santa that I had purchased the day before For $2.95!

Every Christmas we hang paper garlands and lanterns. It wouldn't feel like Christmas without them. Once they are up it totally transforms the room into an Aladdin's cave.

Paper lanterns and garlands are a British tradition. Two lanterns were used to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. The Union Jack is on the front with the words "God save the Queen" circling the base.