KITCHEN CREATIVITY

When the weather is wet outside there is nothing for it but to get the baking tins out.

Alastair spent 2 hours with me this week. It's amazing how much easier it is with one less child! So we got out the cupcake holders and the cake mix from Tesco's.

Since I was in the kitchen and in the mess I decided to make a fruit loaf. However, I found I did not have any butter/margarine and ended up making a fruit loaf from the Scottish Woman's Rural Cookery book of 40 years ago. This, I was told, was a wartime recipe, i.e. a basic fruit cake with no butter and no eggs. Alastair helped me spoon it into the loaf pan.

It was also very easy to make - you just stir everything into the saucepan of boiled raisins and sugar. Come to think of it, there was no sugar either! (It's basically a dumpling I would say, and best eaten warm.)

Well, that white snow on top of the fruitcake batter was not quite what the recipe called for ... and all that dark stuff which freely poured out of the little Lifeboat pepper shaker all added that bit of Je Ne Sais Quoi!

Meanwhile Ishie and I arrived home from school last Thursday afternoon quite wet from the downpour that seems to be its heaviest this week just as children are coming out of school.

Grandpa put the fire on and we enjoyed her batch of cupcakes (made with red colouring so that they are Pink for Girls) in front of the fire with a pot of tea and, for Ishie, many glasses of milk.