Because it’s Decembrrr… letterpress gingerbread cookies

A while ago, I had the thought of using
our wooden letterpress blocks to
stamp letters into cookies.

I tried it. It wasn’t a failure.
But it wasn’t a great success either.

Then my husband tracked me down
some letterpress cookie cutters instead.

With Blook Club 3 on Sunday,
I thought it was the perfect excuse
to try them out…

So I made up a lump of gingerbread dough
based on an adaptation of this recipe …
(Lump being the technical term of course!)

140g unsalted butter
100g dark muscovado sugar
6 soup-spoons of golden syrup
350g plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoon powdered ginger

Heated up the sugar, butter and syrup
then mixed in the rest until there was
a lump of gingerbread ready to go!

Then it was just as simple as pressing
the letter you wanted into the dough…
firmly or they lost their shape when rising.

And then cutting them out using the cutters…
Much simpler than my original plan!

And then they went into the oven
for 10 minutes at 200C…

And the finished result…
Not bad for a first attempt!

I did consider icing the letters
but thought that might
look like they’d been iced on…
which would defeat the point!

*****

What will you be baking this Xmas?
I’ll definitely be making more of these
and some of Danae’s amazing brownies
that she brought to Blook Club too.

*****

P.S. I owe the title of this post
to this gorgeous illustration
(found via Wit + Delight‘s pinterest)
… it’s blooming freezing isn’t it!

Blook Club… wine and wombles

I brought my new tote bag to the second Blook Club.
Thankfully, everyone had read the book
and not been reading wine labels instead.

(Though I was feeling a little blurry round the edges
myself thanks to a birthday party the night before.)

Our book this time was When God Was A Rabbit.

Some of us loved the book, some liked it, others loathed it.
Which was good, because heck who wants to agree all the time!

The one thing we all agreed on? That the bit
with the Womble was a tad disturbing.*

For the Americans amongst us,
it was perhaps even more disturbing
as a bunch of us tried to excitedly describe
a Womble and then sing the theme tune.
(And maybe almost try to reenact the scene too.)

Yup, serious English Literature tutorial we ain’t!
But that’s what I’m loving so far about Blook Club.
Smart, funny, chatty, talented, passionate
witty, wonderful gals who are good for a giggle.
And some of them even baked too!

*****

So, the next Blook Club…

The next date I had free was in early December.
So I thought it would be good to do a Christmas themed
Blook Club. And you can’t really get any more festive than…
 To read: Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
To read by: 4th December
To be accompanied by: mulled wine
and minced pies (I may do a recipe too)

*****

 If you want to read along or just talk
books to other Blook Clubbers,
the twitter is @blookclub or #blookclub

If you’d like to come along,
click here for more details.

*****

P.S. Did you read When God Was A Rabbit?
Did you love, like or loathe?
What was your most memorable bit?
(Since I’ve shared mine!)

*This covers a teeny, tiny part of the book.
Don’t read any further if you don’t want to
know what happens… essentially someone
has sex with a person dressed as a Womble.
There. I warned you.

The first rule of Blook Club…

Yesterday, I held the first, little trial run of Blook Club.

Some very lovely blogging ladies came along
and it seemed to go pretty well.
We all liked the book for a start.

We’d all cringed, laughed, guffawed
and crossed our legs at the book.

As it was the first Blook Club, and the first time
meeting for some of us, I thought it might be
safer to start talking about the fashion chapter.

But from there (with the help of some booze)
we covered life, housework, vulvas
and everything inbetween.

The word ‘junk’ has also been changed
irrevocably, thanks to Lauren!
Must remember not to tell
Americans how much I love junk!

We laughed. We ranted. We probably
made for entertaining eavesdropping!

*****

If you haven’t read How to be a Woman, do.
Though be warned, it’ll make want to read out loud
all the rude, brilliant, immensely quotable sections
to complete strangers on trains.

My husband was my audience.
He just kept asking, ‘what are you reading?’
followed by ‘who suggested this book?’
Yup, that would be me.

I stopped reading it out loud
when I came to the childbirth chapters.

Instead, I may have had the following
expression on my face…

You have been doubly warned!

*****

So, the next Blook Club…

I wanted to choose something very different
to How To Be A Woman and so I choose something
that I bought as part of my 3 for 2 when I got HTBAW!
(Yup, an intellectual choosing process here!)

To read: When God Was A Rabbit
To read by: 16th October

(UPDATE: I’ve now moved the ‘about’ Blook Club details
to its own page… just click the button at the top right.)

****

Oh, and the first rule of Blook Club…
to have fun. (And read a book.)
(And maybe eat some cake.)

If you’d like to join, just leave a comment here
or email and I’ll put you on the list.
Already emailed/commented?
Expect to hear from me soon.

There’s also quite a few people asking
about reading along online. If you’re
doing that, you can use #blookclub
on twitter, leave a comment here if you fancy
or write you own post and I’ll link to it here.

*****

Happy Monday everyone xx