Posts Tagged ‘books’

I recently had a birthday and I received two of these non-stick Madeleine pans from DH. I tried them out for the first time this week and made these lemony Madeleines. I have eaten Madeleines before, but I had never attempted to make them. I discovered that most of the recipes are basically sponge cake recipes that you bake in these special shell-shaped pans to produce tender, cake like cookies. I think they would be nice as refreshments for a shower or tea.

I work in an office with two other ladies. We often discuss books that we are reading or authors that we have enjoyed. This summer all three of us have been enjoying books by Alexander McCall Smith, a Scottish author who has written a delightful series of books about The Number One Ladies Detective Agency. The stories take place in Botswana, South Africa. They do not contain a lot of violence or bad language — the stories are primarily about relationships between people and you can learn a lot about the customs and life in Botswana. I have found the stories to be quite charming.

One thing that the ladies in the Number One Ladies Detective Agency do quite often is to drink Bush Tea.They also treat themselves to donuts on Fridays. I found some Kalahari Bush Tea at a local grocery store (Ingles) and on Friday we had a little tea party at work with the Bush Tea and Madeleines. The tea is a herbal tea and we tried a variety that was lemony. It went quite well with the lemon-flavored Madeleines. It was a fun way to end the week.

Becka

If you enjoyed this post, get my RSS feed or get my posts by e-mail

Several years ago I saw a Cake Mix Doctor book at a local bookstore and perused it. I later checked it out of the library for some in-depth study. After this I decided to purchase a copy of my own. I have since also bought the Chocolate Cake Mix Doctor and another book by this author called the What Can I Bring Cookbook.

The author, Anne Byrn had a cooking column in a newspaper in Tennessee and in one column she asked readers to submit their best recipes for things made from cake mixes. Thus began the idea for the cake books.

My daughter Megan's friend, Kristen, bakes cakes for birthdays at her husband's office and she often uses recipes from the Cake Doctor books. She tried a number of the cakes and both she and Megan really like one called the Lethal Peppermint Cake. Here's a picture of the cake:

This cake is oft requested in our family for birthdays and I also made large two layer sheet cake versions of it for the groom's cake at both DD, Meg and DS-in-law Jim's wedding and at DS, Mark and DD-in-law Katie's weddings. Here's a picture of one of the groom's cakes:

The cake itself is a deep, moist chocolate cake filled with a peppermint buttercream and then frosted with a chocolate ganache icing. This picture shows the peppermint filling:

If you like chocolate and mint you will probably like this cake.

I have tried a number of other recipes from these books and there are several that we really like. The author also has a web-site set up like a newsletter with recipes that are not in the books. One recipe that I found on the web-site that is one of my favorites is the Orange Marmalade Cake. If you have read any of the Jan Karon books you are probably familiar with Esther Bolick's famous Orange Marmalade Cakes (scroll down to the recipe--it's in the newsletter titled 4th slice, from 2006 under the heading Recipe Swap ). I tried several recipes for Orange Marmalade Cakes that I found in magazines that I did not care for, but this one is very, very good.

The first Cake Doctor book has a wide variety of recipes for white, yellow, and spice cakes, fruit flavored cakes, chocolate cakes, bars, cookies, etc. The second book has some of the recipes from the first book but nearly all the recipes contain chocolate or white chocolate. In the second book she has revised some of her recipes just a bit. At the front of both books there are small color plates which picture every recipe in the book. I find this to be very helpful.

So, if you like to bake or need ideas for an upcoming birthday or other celebration cake I would definitely recommend that you check out these books.

Becka

If you enjoyed this post, get my RSS feed or get my posts by e-mail

I realized this week that it's been a while since I wrote a post about one of my Christmas books. I have been reading a delightful biography about Dewey, the library cat from Spencer, Iowa.

He was a tiny kitten when he came to the library. He had been shoved into the library drop box one cold morning in January of 1988 and went on to reside there until his death in 2006. He was quite famous in his time and there were news stories about him all over the world. If you like cats or animal stories you would probably enjoy reading about Dewey.

I have never been to a library with a cat, but I have been to a couple of stores here in Greenville which have cats in residence. How about you--do you know of any libraries or businesses where pets reside?

We have two cats as those of you who read my husband's blog know. They are very difficult to photograph, especially with a digital camera. By the time I take the picture they have generally moved on out of camera range. I did snap a couple of cute shots of one of the cats the other day. She was lying in the sun and enjoying herself so much that she didn't get up and run away. Here are the best pics I could find of both of them.

Here is Clementine:

This is Adelaide:

Becka

If you enjoyed this post, get my RSS feed or get my posts by e-mail

Our little grandson, Drew loves Curious George as you can see here.

He got George this past Christmas (actually he found his gift early, so his mother didn't have the heart to take it away from him!). The two have been inseparable since first meeting.

George has had some interesting experiences including a couple of showers and a swirly. George is very helpful to have around. Sometimes in the evenings or at naptime when "George is tired" Drew will very happily crawl into bed so that he and George can get some much needed rest!

I recently found this little George and purchased him for Drew's birthday which is coming up soon. This George is in his pajamas and is holding a little teddy bear. I'm not sure he will be as well loved as his predecessor, but perhaps he can stand in when George I is drying out from his next water adventure.

Another gift that is going into Drew's birthday package is this little gift set of the book Corduroy and a little Corduroy bear wearing green corduroy overalls. This set is in honor of Corduroy's 40th birthday.

So, if you see Drew, please keep these new friends a secret. Fortunately he doesn't read my blog, so I'm safe sharing these pictures with you.

Becka

If you enjoyed this post, get my RSS feed or get my posts by e-mail

Several weeks ago I wrote a post about a new book I had received for Christmas. Last night I finished up the first of several aprons I hope to make from the book, A is for Apron. During Christmas vacation my daughters and I went out to Hobby Lobby (where the book was purchased) and while we were there Megan chose some fabric for an apron. Since then Nora has purchased some fabric and chosen a pattern that she would like and I plan to make one for myself as well. So, I should be in the apron business for a while yet.

The first step in making the apron was to get the pattern from the book enlarged 400%. The friendly woman at Kinko's figured it all out and printed my pattern for me on a large sheet of paper.

I thought the apron turned out pretty well and hope Megan agrees. This apron is cut on the bias and I did have a slight bit of trouble stitching the waistline seam without puckers. I think if I make this one again I will add a little bit of gathering on either side near the ties. I did find the general directions in the front of the book for working with the bias tape to be excellent. I had fun making this and am looking forward to trying some of the other designs.

Becka

If you enjoyed this post, get my RSS feed or get my posts by e-mail