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No, not Vanilla and Oatmeal, of course - Cous-cous and Halva. But we’ll come to them later. They should be first, but the picture of the Halva isn’t as nice as the ones of the soap, and I couldn’t ask my five-year old to wait before eating it until Natural Light Came Out.
So, moving swiftly forward, as well as the lovely Semolina, I also flirted with her cereally sister, Oatmeal, making Vanilla and Oatmeal soap to give as Christmas Presents. Soap-making the easy way is fun. For this, I used opaque pure soap base, melted in a double boiler, and added cocoa butter, apricot kernel oil, vanilla extract and oatmeal. The yellow bits are calendula (that’s English Marigold to thee and me) petals – purely for show in this instance. If you’ve got dry skin, then this soap is really rich and moisturising. I use it as a face soap – it lathers beautifully, and it smells gorgeously wholesome but warm, too.
Now for that Semolina shout-out. Cous-cous is one of our teatime staples, but Halva I tried tonight for the first time – in search of a starchy pudding to warm up the children after a hard day at school and a long walk from the bus. It was a resounding success. A bit over-sweet and cloying for my taste – next time I’ll cut down on the sugar a bit – but the rosewater and cinnamon stick provided a really delicate combination of flavours which complimented each other perfectly. I may try popping a Vanilla pod in with the cinnamon stick next time.
The recipe, should you so desire to make Halva (it is very easy, and requires little more than sugar, milk, semolina and butter), I shall include on the recipes page (which is going to get awfully long, but I shall try to think of an alternative – I’m still building my website, but I could always stick the recipes up there in a ‘holding’ capacity, perhaps?)
The rest of my travails have been reasonably successful, too, which makes me sound like Ms McSmuggery Horrid, but usually at least 1 in every 10 of my travails ends in disaster, so be reassured. To the left is a sneaky peek of a work-in-progress – Christmas Stockings.
Unsurprisingly I make a lot of these at this time of year, but I’m particularly pleased with these two. I’ll post proper pictures of my latest batch when I’ve trimmed them with vintage buttons and shiny satin ribbons. I’m taking orders for next year, would you believe?
Also the Turkish Delight, although not perfect (have you ever tried whisking boiling sugar syrup into stiff cornflour-paste mixture?), is at least an approximation of delightful. And very pink. I shall blog about it when I’ve photographed it, and decided where to put all these recipes. Which people are reading. I know this because WordPress, in all its wisdom, has a Useful Stats Page. Aha.
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