Crafting, Baking and Drawing.Oh my!

I’ve been very busy since we last spoke. I’ve made progress on my craft and baking badge and I’ve also made a start on my artist badge.

The craft I chose to do was weaving, mainly because my husband bought me a loom last Christmas and I’ve not used it in nearly a year. I decided on weaving a coaster because that was the least complicated thing I could think of. I thoroughly enjoyed it and the repetitive nature of the craft was calming, until the back ache came on!

Yesterday I made an absolutely gorgeous banana bread as one of the 3 cakes I need to complete for the baking badge. It’s an old favourite of mine, and as I’m the only person in the house who likes bananas I get to eat it all! It’s taking all my willpower not to eat it all in one go.

On Monday I embarked upon the artist badge. I’m not a natural artist and I’ve not really attempted art since I was a child. I thought that I’d get the still life drawing out of the way first because I knew that would be the one I’d struggle with the most (I also had pencils to hand). Having no clue where to start I watched a Skillshare course on how to draw a pear from still life and this is what came out of it. It’s not the greatest thing I’ve ever created but I’m impressed it looks like what it’s meant to look like!

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Butter Making

Starting on my Farming badge today, so I made butter. Because that is apparently what I do now. It’s easier than you think to make butter at home. All you need is double cream, a stand mixer and a ton of patience. Optional ear defenders if your mixer is as loud as mine. You put the cream in the bowl of the stand mixer, use the whisk attachment and turn it to medium. Then you stand there for 15 to 20 minutes going steadily deaf from the noise of the stand mixer (or is that just me?). First you’ll get whipped cream, and if you are anything like me you’ll take a spoonful to eat because just what even is impulse control. Then the mixture splits and you’ll think it’s all gone wrong…but don’t panic! Towards the end you’ll notice the butter separating from the buttermilk. If you have one, using a mixer bowl guard is a good idea now. I do not own one, so I got covered in buttermilk. Awesome. Once you can see the butter formed in the bowl stop mixing. Drain ...

A Very Dodgy Pie

I’m working towards my baking badge. One of the tasks is to make a sweet tart. Is pumpkin pie a tart or a pie? For argument’s sake let’s call it a tart! When it comes to pastry making I’m not exactly Mary Berry. I knew that to avoid a dreadful soggy bottom that you need to blind bake the pastry case, though I wasn’t too sure of the timing. That caused the pastry of the finished pie to do a wonderful impression of charcoal. Great. I was going to try to jazz it up with cream decorations but the phrase ‘lipstick on a pig’ came to mind. Onwards!

It’s been a while

I’ve had a little time off from blogging for Christmas but I’m glad to say I’m back now! In the last few weeks I’ve been up to lots of new things and even completed a Rebel Badge! To start, I’ve been baking I made this lovely rosemary and sea salt focaccia I also finally used my food processor for more than grating cheese by making pastry for the treacle tart pictured above. Finally, I finished the last task for my craft badge part 1. Part 2 will probably be easy to get too because I’m always crafting!

Catherine’s Rebel Journey

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