GOLDEN WINTER DUNDEE CAKE.....

Finally, I can stand long enough to BAKE! Yay me. It's been almost five years since I've actually been able to do this. So exciting.  The hardware in my leg is daunting, but I can walk between counters, furniture, etc. doors, windows, with more independent walking, every day.  I can  last about 20 minutes. Yay! Four months ago, couldn't get anywhere. Wow, it's great to be standing up again.  I can reach the baking cupboard once more (Double yay).......so HERE is my own version of Golden Dundee Tea Cake.....

Prepare five small loaf pans: Greased and lined with greased parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350 F.

You can use a couple of medium sized loaf pans, or a round cake pan  if you wish instead.

                                          I like the small loaf pans, as they freeze well......

Combine 3 cups Golden Raisins in a saucepan, cover with water and boil about 5 mins . This will soften the raisins. 

Drain liquid from the raisins.

Add to the still warm raisins: 1 cup of margarine , cut up  into pieces,  beating well after each one. The warm raisins will melt the margarine.

Then to this mixture: add 3 eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one. 

Add : 1 1/4 cup white sugar and beat into the raisin/margarine/sugar mixture. Beat with a large spoon or large fork. 

Add a 1/2 teaspoon of lemon/or almond flavouring , if you wish. Sometimes, I add a couple of tbsps of marmalade, if you wish...just for something different. But I didn't this time.

In a separate bowl: 3 1/2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking powder, pinch salt.

COMBINE: Raisin mixture with the dry ingredients. Mix well.

Plop batter into the five loaf  pans , all ready and lined with parchment paper. 

Put loaf pans on a cookie sheet  and then into oven . I baked these for about 40 minutes. (I started at 30 minutes then added time, till a sharp knife inserted into centers came out clean.)

Take a piece of margarine and paint the warm cake tops with the margarine. It just gives a nice sheen. Freeze in the loaf pans. Slice and serve with a hot cup of tea and share with friends. WONDERFUL!

"

"There is nothing better  than cake, but MORE cake..." - Harry S. Truman

Photographs 2025 
                                       

SNOW DAY.....

"A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky...unbidden...and seems like a thing of wonder.." -Susan Orlean

"It is growing cold. Winter is putting footsteps in the meadow.." -Roman Payne

"Snow is a beautiful reminder of life, and all its quirks. It makes me pause. Think. Stay still..." -R.B. O'Brien

                  "Do you remember your first snow?" -Lara Biyuts

"Snow is falling outside and all is peaceful and still. In such moments it is possible to believe that the world could still be good...." -Richard Paul Evans

                                      "The snow was endless..." -Cambria Hebert

"The snow did not even whisper its way to earth, but seemed to salt the night with silence..." -Dean Koontz

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer..."-Albert Camus

Vibernum.....flowers in winter

"The very fact of snow is such an amazement.." -Roger Ebert

"It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. the crisp winter is full of it...." - John Burroughs

"Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood..." -Andy Goldsworthy

"And finally Winter, with its bitin', whinin' wind, ad all the land will be mantled with snow..." -Roy Bean

                                                      "With every falling flake...." -P. Miller

"Imagine if fire extinguishers were full of snow. Imagine the fun we could have.." 

                                                                                                               -Neil Hilborn

          "Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius...." -Pietro Aretino

              "Winter is for wondering....." -Debasish Mridha

"Welcome, Winter. Your late dawns and chilled breath make me lazy, but I love you nontheless..." -Terri Guillemets

"Only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savour belonging to yourself..."  -Ruth Stout

"Snow flurries began to fall and they swirled around people's legs like house cats. It was magical, this snow globe world..." -Sarah Addison Allen

Mini, from across the way, visits at 1 am...

Photographs 2025
 

SHE is WINTER

A WINTER's TALE by D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

Yesterday, the fields were only grey with scattered snow

And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge:

Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and go

On towards the pines at the hills' white verge.....

I cannot see her, since the mist's white scarf

Obscures the dark wood and the dull orange sky;

But she's waiting, I know, impatient and cold, half

Sobs struggling into her frosty sigh.....

Why does she come so promptly, when she must know

                                        
That she's only the nearer to the inevitable farewell;

The hill is steep, on the snow my steps are slow.....

Why does she come......

                  When she knows.......

                                                                 What I have to tell?

Photographs 2025   D.H. Lawrence was an English novelist, wrote on travel,  plays, painter  amongst other creative endeavors. He died of tuberculosis, on March 30 1930...there were over 60,000 deaths in  France, and over 50,000 in the UK, that same year.