Something is rising in the North...

I decided today for breakfast to treat the family to freshly made bagels. Four hours in the making I can tell you it was all WELL WORTH IT!. Paul Hollywoods book, 100 Great Breads didn't have a recipe for them, so I did a search online and found a recipe by Rachel Allen. I've seen her on tv, and she's pretty good, so I thought I would give her bagel recipe a try. I woke up quite early around 6.30 to start the dough. (Millie was still sleeping so I didn't want to disturb her) As the recipe stated I could use a mixer or do it manually, I decided to try using my dough hook on my Kitchen Aid mixer (as normally I am quite the traditionalist and like to make anything bready by hand) So needless to say as long as it took to make these bagels, they were absoultely the BEST bagels I have ever eaten.  I'm not sure now if I will be able to eat another supermarket bagel again. Millie finally got up about the time that the proving had finished, so she was able to help me with the rest. It was a fairly easy recipe to make and I highly recommend it! Millie below shows you how easy it's done!

The proof is in the rising... Now that's a nice dome

Punch down the dough on a lightly floured surface

Divide the dough into 7 portions

 

 

 

Poke a hole in the middle and place on a prepared baking pan.

 

 

They need to prove again for another 10 mins or so, Time for a cuppa!

Boil them in water, this gives them their chewy texture- Careful there Millie, we don't want to poach you!

Brush with an eggwash, add topping and bake in the oven- OOOh they look so tempting

There you go! Sesame seed bagels- NOM!

The human's breakfast, scrambled eggs, juice and freshly baked bagels!

Lavroche It!

I meant to post this last week, so will be doing a double post today. I remember when I lived in California and we had a shop in Poway called Trader Joes who used to get in wonderful foods from around the Globe. One of these items gems were little crispy crackers called Lavroche, hailing from Cyprus. Sadly after I left the US I never had them again, until last week. I was looking though Paul Hollywood's book, 100 great breads when I came across the recipie for them.
Much to my delight (and sore hands from a lot of kneading) they came out exactly I tasted them before!
Perfect with Dips, Millie and I shall be making them again.

Brush them with an egg wash to give them a lovely golden colour

The are cut traditionally into odd shapes, Oh so light and crispy!

Serve with dip- NOM!

The Great Makie Bake Off

Today, the new preorder slots have opened up at Makielab - 100 new Makies are going to be made available for you to design and buy. This is part of the makie cruel summer collection.
My Makie Ted has been ordered so hopefully will have delivery of him within 3 weeks :)

In all the Excitement, Millie decided to do some baking to celebrate the arrival of the new Makie

Yum- They look delicious

But as we pan out....

Um.... Millie when I said that we are baking for Makie, I meant ONLY for Ted, not the whole 100 new ones!!!

Actually I think I did MOST of the baking and Millie supervised as Project Manager. They are actually baked goods I made for a friend who has a wheat intollerance. I have a son who is a Coeliac and bake for him all the time. Believe it or not, ALL of the above items are gluten free (including the mini victoria sponges with real french style buttercream. I also made 4 different muffins- Blueberry, Apple Crumble, Banana and Cheese and Bacon. I made Oatmeal Raisin and Chocolate chip cookies(12 dozen cookies in total)

Just a trifle bit busy...

...Of late. The whole move to the boys to their own bedrooms have been fine, but alas, the sorting and weeding out of things from the two other rooms into ONE room is another story. I can see light at the end of the tunnel - hopefully I will have something positive to report in the next few days!

In the meantime, poor Mille has felt quite negleted, so yesterday we decided since our friend Jamie was coming to visit, that we would make one of his favourite desserts - Trifle. It light of the current Olympics, Millie has decided to treat this like a sporting event...

The placing of the raspberries have to be just perfect...

Of course everything had to be just the right distance... Can she do it?

Making the final adjustments- Each Raspberry has to be placed equally appart to get that perfect score

She's DONE IT- Perfect score of 10 across the board from the judges- Millie gets gold!

Enough of that- Lets get stuck into it!

It's not easy being green!

All quiet on the home front. The boys are long out of school now and playing video games upstairs. My poorly husband is resting and there is nowt on tv, so what's one to do?

Last week I bought some GORGEOUS teddy bear mohair with intent on making Makie Millie some wigs. It's very expensive and my current wig pattern is not suitable for a non stretch fabric so what is one to do?

Draft my own, methinks, but its a lot EASIER said than done. Try draping paper over an egg and you will understand what I will mean.

In the end, I think I have come up with a basic pattern that needs just few more tiny tweaks. I bought some lovely green short fur in Abakhans sale last week just to use to test out the pattern before I take the plunge into the expensive mohair.

Here are the results, I think it will work! This is a very short fur, but it won't bother me as the mohairs I Have picked have about a 20mm pile so it will look nice to this shape. The important bit is to get it to fit the cap!

Oh my! is that really green??

 

It's quite fetching when you get used to it, Perfect for a little pixie.

The side view

In light of the UK Formula 1 at Silverstone this weekend...

Millie decides that she needs a car of her own.  I had a dig around under the bed upstairs and low and behold I found this mini which I had completely forgotten about. There was a smaller coupe car that I was thinking might work for but it had no room for her legs. This is actually a SINDY car licensed by Mini Car company released about 10 years ago but don't tell Millie that!. I've already ordered the new number plates :-O

It's a good fit! as you can see inside. Maybe because Sindy had a bigger head than Barbie!

Millie in her UK Mini

 

Quite the Sportster she is

 

As you can see, perfect sizing

Millie is quite chuffed with her new car

Of course she will be watching the race this weekend . Shown here with her favourite Mclaren driver Lewis Hamilton

Nice Kitty!

Suki seems quite at home with Millie the Makie Doll

Say Cheese!

The perfect camera prop for Millie! A lomography Diana F+ classic keyring

The Taste of Summer

English Strawberries, ice-cream, home made brownies, Herseys syrup and whipped English double cream!


                                                 BEFORE

and AFTER

My Makie Mille

What is a Makie do you ask? A Makie is a 3D doll printed on a 3D printer. I designed my girl Millie virtually and within weeks WHAM!! I was lucky to be able to order one of the first hundred dolls offered up for sale in the ALPHA Batch, I'm sure a boy will follow in the Beta batch too.

 She arrived to me in a tube

 

Peeking out

 

She makes her arrival

Mine is #18 out of 100