Make: Easter origami

Go to work on an egg cup... On page 60 of April's The Simple Things, Frances Ambler meets the arty couple on an egg cup making challenge.  

Alex Brady is a printmaker and illustrator. Her partner Dave Briggs is a filmmaker and artist. The 12 Dozen Eggcups project evolved from a creative couple's desire to try out a new skill together. Their blog about their plan to make 144 different egg cups is at www.12dozeneggcups.com.   

As it's Easter Sunday, we've found an easy origami egg holder that you can fashion in no time. Just get hold of some paper, watch this YouTube tutorial, and start making.

Or try your hand at an origami chicken:

How about a warren of festive rabbits?

If you've mastered those, you could give these 3D origami eggs a go. Not for the faint-hearted...

This blog was originally published in our April 2015 issue. Our current April issue is on sale now, in shops and though our website.

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Recipe | raspberry macarons with lady grey tea

Photography: Isobel Wield

Is there a finer pairing than tea and cake? Tea and macarons, perhaps

Named in honour of Mary Elizabeth Grey, the wife of the original Earl Grey, Lady Grey is a black tea scented with oil of bergamot as well as lemon and orange oils. Invented in the 1990s, it is great served alongside these moreish raspberry macarons.

Makes about 30
220g icing sugar
160g ground almonds
4 large egg whites
A pinch of salt
95g caster sugar
Red food colouring gel
200g high fruit content raspberry jam

How to make

1 Line 2 or 3 baking sheets with baking parchment and draw 4cm circles (spaced a little apart) as templates so that all the macarons come out the same size.
2 Blitz the icing sugar and almonds in a food processor until very fine, then push the mixture through a fine meshed sieve. Set aside.
3 Whisk the egg whites and salt together until stiff and glossy. Add the sugar, about a third at a time, beating each time until the eggs are stiff and glossy and all the sugar has been incorporated.
4 Carefully, but thoroughly, fold the almond mixture into the egg whites, until fully incorporated but still light. Fold in enough food colouring to achieve the desired pink colour.
5 Spoon the mixture into a large piping bag and pipe circles onto the parchment, following the circles you drew earlier.
6 When all the macarons have been piped, take hold of the baking sheet and tap it firmly on the work surface 2 or 3 times to knock out any air bubbles.
7 Preheat the oven to 140C/120C Fan/Gas 1-2 and leave the baking sheets to stand for 30 mins.
8 Bake the macarons for about 15 minutes, until the shells are crisp and they have grown little ‘feet’ underneath. Remove them from the oven and set aside to cool. Once completely cool, sandwich with the raspberry jam and serve. For one pot of tea Use 5 tsp of Lady Grey tea and allow to brew for 5 minutes. Serve with a slice of lemon.

This recipe is taken from Tea & Cake by Liz Franklin (Ryland, Peters & Small). Photography: Isobel Wield. It’s one of several tea and cake pairings we have featured in our April issue.

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Recipe: Wholemeal hot cross buns with whipped honey lemon butter

The addition of wholemeal flour makes these Easter classics wholesome and nutty, while the lemony butter adds decadence to homely hot cross buns

Makes 12 buns
250g strong white flour
200g strong wholemeal flour
1 tsp salt
3 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon
4 tsp easy bake yeast
50g golden caster sugar
110g currants
50g candied peel
50g butter, room temperature
150ml hand-hot milk
75ml hand-hot water
1 egg, beaten

for the crosses
75g plain flour
5 tbsp water
for the glaze
3 tbsp apricot jam

1 Sieve the flours, salt, mixed spice and cinnamon into a bowl and add the yeast, sugar, currants and peel.
2 Give it a quick stir, then make a well in the centre and drop in the butter, followed by the warmed milk and water, and the egg. Mix well with a wooden spoon and then go in with your hands and knead, adding a little more milk if the mix feels too dry.
3 Cover the bowl with cling film and leave in a warm place to rise for around two hours, or until it has doubled in size.
4 Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead it briefly again, then divide
it into 12 pieces. Roll each into a bun shape in your hands and place onto a baking tray lined with baking parchment, leaving space for each to rise. Cover with a tea towel and leave to rise for a further 45 mins or so, until doubled again.
5 Heat the oven to 220C/Fan 200/425F while you make the crosses. Mix the flour and the water to a thick paste, spoon into a piping bag and pipe on the crosses. Bake for around 15 mins.
6 Meanwhile, heat the apricot jam in a small pan and then sieve it to remove pieces of fruit. Remove the buns from the oven, place on a wire cooling rack, and paint immediately with the glaze. Allow to cool a little before eating, or cool completely and split and toast.

Whipped honey lemon butter

Smother your hot cross buns with this for a true taste of Ostara

110g butter
4 tbsp honey
zest of 1 lemon

1 Chop the butter into cubes and drop it into a bowl of lukewarm water, then leave it for at least five mins, until really soft. Drain off the water and tip the butter, honey and zest into a large bowl.
2 Use a wooden spoon to beat until all is combined and the butter is creamy. Use straight away or put into a ramekin and chill.

This recipe was first published in our March 2016 issue. Our new April issue is on sale now both in shops and via our website and has lots of ideas on how to do Easter weekend well.

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Friday Sketchbook Club | Houses

Join us in drawing these quirky houses in today’s Friday Sketchbook Club

Welcome back to Friday Sketchbook Club. We’ve teamed up with illustrator Jennie Maizels to bring you a sketchbook project to do every Friday for the next few weeks. We hope you enjoy them. Today we’re drawing rows of houses. 

Jennie started her Sketchbook Club because she believes that anyone can draw. Her principle is that if we treat Art like any other creative pastime and follow simple instructions, just like a recipe, we would all be drawing as much as we are baking, sewing and knitting. Each project comes with instructions, a ‘How to’ video, reference material and often, templates which you can ‘transfer’. They have been carefully designed to suit all ages and abilities.

 A note on materials: Originally designed to introduce a plethora of different paints, collage and methods. All modules can be altered to use what you have available - just substitute as you like or need.

Ready to draw houses? Then we’ll begin. You can watch the Houses video tutorial first if you like and find the instructions and house ‘references’ here or just follow the instructions below, using the pictures above as inspiration,

You will need

An HB pencil
Rubber
A small and a large paintbrush (Jennie used size 6 and size 2)Fineliner (thin one)
Scissors
Glue
Old book
Blue, white and yellow acrylic paints

How to draw your houses

1. First of all, have a really good look at the houses for reference in the link above (you might also like to look at the hashtag #SketchbookClubHouses on Instagram for further inspiration).
   2. Next, following the reference pictures,start to draw your houses along the bottom of your page. Use a size one or two black fineliner and draw in as much detail as you can, like roof tiles and windows etc.
   3.Next, start to paint the background colour. Do this by mixing a lovely aqua blue acrylic, Jennie made her colour by mixing a mid-blue with a tiny dot of yellow and some white.
   4.While the background paint is drying, start to draw little clouds on an old unwanted book page (or newspaper if you can’t bear to cut up an old book!).Cut the clouds out carefully and once the paint is dry, stick them onto the background sky using a glue-stick. You might like to tear tiny strips out and stick down to make tiny plumes of chimney smoke, too

There are many more modules available on Jennie’s website, Sketchbook Club (only £4 each.), where you can also buy art kits and supplies. For more inspiration, you can follow Jennie on Instagram @jenniemaizels or visit the website jenniemaizels.com. Look out for another Friday Sketchbook Club project with Jennie here next week.

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Romantic introverts | the newt

Why newts don’t do the dating scene

Newts are fascinating creatures and, if you’re lucky, now’s the time you might spot one in a pond, or hanging about among the weeds. In our April issue we have a feature in praise of the newt - we think they’re a bit magical. 

But, in their romantic lives, at least, they’re rather backward in coming forward. The smooth newt (the most common type of newt in Britain) is nocturnal, though not much of a party animal. During daylight hours they hide under stones or in compost heaps, which you wouldn’t think appeals to any newts of the opposite sex looking for love. But there it is. We can’t all be gregarious socialites. In fact, they hibernate between October and March so are out of circulation entirely for almost half the year. You’d think they’d relish the opportunity of some daylight during British Summer Time, really. 

But it’s at around this time that the males do start to show a little romantic interest. Being rather unpractised at enticing the fairer sex, they eschew boxes of Terry’s All Gold and bunches of carnations and go straight for the kill, wafting secretions from their glands towards lady newts to entice them their way. Paco Rabanne Pour Homme this stuff is not, unfortunately. 

Indeed, no one gets too close to anyone during smooth newt mating season. When Barry White and Candles Night arrives, the male newt simply drops off a packet of sperm near the female, which she collects at her leisure. Not even a peck on the cheek for her trouble. A week or so later, without further ceremony, she lays around 300 eggs on broad-leaved aquatic plants somewhere near her gaff. And that’s that. The romantic life of a smooth newt. Maybe if he were a bit more smooth he’d see a bit more romantic action. 

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Make | Rhubarb leaf stepping stones

Turn over a new leaf with this simple project for your garden

You will need:
One rhubarb leaf per stone
Chicken wire, cut to just under the size of each leaf
Plastic sheeting
Sunflower/olive oil spray
Ready-mix concrete Trowel

How to make
1 Put down your plastic sheeting and lay your leaves on top, with veins facing upwards. Spray on a layer of oil.
2 Prepare your concrete mix, and smooth on a layer of concrete, to around 3 cm. Tap carefully to get rid of air bubbles.
3 Lay a piece of chicken wire on top for strength, then cover with another concrete layer of about the same depth. Tap and smooth edges with your trowel.
4 Cover with plastic, and leave to dry out overnight.
5 Spray with water to remove the leaf. Over the next week, spray regularly until the concrete is hard enough to take a person’s weight.

You’ll find more ideas for intriguing things to make, do and just know in our regular Miscellany pages.
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Friday Sketchbook Club | Spring Banner

Welcome to Friday Art Club! We’ve teamed up with illustrator Jennie Maizels to bring you a sketchbook project to do every Friday for the next few weeks. We hope you enjoy them.

Jennie started Sketchbook Club because she believes that ANYONE can draw. So whether drawing is a long-lost love of yours or you haven’t picked up a colouring pencil since school, do have a go. Jennie’s principle is that if we treat Art like any other creative pastime and follow simple instructions, just like a recipe, we would all be drawing as much as we are baking, sewing and knitting.

Each module comes with instructions, a ‘How to’ video, reference material and often, templates which you can ‘transfer’. They have been carefully designed to suit all ages and abilities. Young children, grandparents and whole families or groups of friends are all drawing and painting together as a result of Sketchbook Club.
 
A note on materials: Originally designed to introduce a plethora of different paints, collage and methods. All modules can be altered to use what you have available - Just substitute as you like / need.

Let’s get started! You can watch the Spring Banner video tutorial and use Jennie’s references to copy or trace. There are flowers and wreaths references, rabbits and birds references and references to trace and copy for the lettering all here. Just click to download and print.
 

You will need (if you have them):

HB pencil
Rubber
Size 1 and size 6 paintbrushes
Watercolour paints
Coloured pencils
White gouache paint (optional)

How to create your Spring Banner picture

1. Start by transferring your chosen lettering to your Sketchbook by drawing over the whole of the reversed text image with a firm HB pencil.Turn the paper over and position the text on your page and scribble over the back with a lead pencil firmly, making sure it doesn’t move around too much.

2. Now, using watercolours, start to add colour. You can always add shading, shadows or decorations with coloured pencils later.

3. Once your lettering is complete you can start to draw in your decorative surround. Firstly, transfer any rabbits and birds using the method above, then if you are nervous going straight to paint, lightly draw in all your squirls and stem positions. To make it symmetrical, transfer a rabbit or a bird on one side then repeat on the other. Do this with the flowers and leaves too.

4. Once you are happy with the decorative surround and the birds and rabbits, start to add some lovely colour. If you are brave enough, leaves do look better if painted straight on with watercolours. You may also want to add another layer of watercolours for the flowers so they cover the leaves and maybe some further details on the leaves and birds too?

5. You might also like to add a few white highlights using gouache paint. Do this using little swipes of your size-one brush on the lettering, petals and leaves.

6. Finally, if you would like, add some coloured pencil details. Jennie added all the shading, ears and whiskers etc. on the rabbits and feather details on the birds and some darker sections of leaves and flowers, too. Jennie also added shadows to the lettering and the tiny words as well.

There are many more modules available on Jennie’s website, Sketchbook Club (only £4 each.), where you can also buy art kits and supplies. For more inspiration, you can follow Jennie on Instagram @jenniemaizels or visit the website jenniemaizels.com. Look out for another Friday Sketchbook Club project with Jennie here next week.

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Recipe | Pink lemonade

Zingy pink lemonade to brighten every spring lunch, with just three ingredients

A jug of this refreshing pink lemonade will cheer any outdoor spring lunch table. It’s part of our outdoor menu in our April issue, which includes a Picnic Pie, homemade scotch eggs and peanut salad jars, and is so simple to make.

Makes 1 litre

Juice of 6 pink lemons (about 100ml). Buy British if in season, otherwise Italian pink lemons are available most of the year

60g caster sugar

800ml hot water

1 Juice your pink lemons. Retain the skins to zest later - they look really pretty topping cupcakes or other desserts. Put the pink lemon juice in a large lipped bowl.

2 Add the sugar, pour on the hot water and stir until sugar has dissolved.

3 Let cool completely then pour into re-sealable bottles and store in the fridge until you’re ready to serve.

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Recipe | nettle soup

Serves 6

Knob of butter
1 onion, diced
2 celery sticks, diced
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 bay leaves
2 large potatoes, peeled and sliced
1½ ltr vegetable stock
1 handful of spinach
3-4 handfuls of young nettles, well washed
Vegetable oil, for deep-frying
Crème fraîche, to serve
Toasted seeds, to serve

1 Melt the butter in a large saucepan, then add the onion, celery, garlic and bay leaves and sweat down for a couple of mins.

2 Add the potatoes and stock and simmer for 30 mins until the potatoes are cooked through.

3 Add the spinach and most of the nettles (saving a handful for deep frying later), then return the soup to the boil and remove from the heat. Allow to cool for a few mins before transferring to a blender. Whizz the soup until smooth, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

4 Pour a couple of centimetres of vegetable oil into a small, heavybased saucepan. Heat the oil over a medium heat until a small cube of bread dropped into it turns golden in about 15 secs (about 180C on a cooking thermometer). Deep-fry the reserved nettle leaves until they are dark green and just crisp, being careful to shield your eyes as the hot oil can spit with some ferocity.

5 Drain on kitchen paper, then drop into the soup with a drizzle of crème fraîche and some toasted seeds.

Taken from Giffords Circus Cookbook: Recipes & Stories from a Magical Circus Restaurant by Nell Gifford & Ols Halas (Quadrille). Photography: David Loftus

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Art tours | virtually Vermeer

We hope you liked the free gift in our April issue, an Old Master for every reader. Vermeer’s The Milk Maid hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and is one of the museum’s biggest attractions. 

In these strange times, however, when we can’t just hop on a plane or train, art has so much to offer us from our own homes. In our April issue, art historian Susie Hodge, author of The Art Puzzle Book (White Lion) talks us through appreciating art slowly. We hope you’ll find ten minutes to spend with your own personal Vermeer at some point, getting to know it better before you hang it on a wall or perch it on a mantel somewhere.

And if you’re inspired to spend more time with art from home, you might like to visit a Vermeer virtually, or an O’Keefe online, or perhaps even a Van Gogh on Google. 

You can visit the Rijksmuseum online where you can choose to explore particular artists, or browse by category, from still lifes and portraits to biblical scenes and landscapes, getting up close enough to see every brushstroke. Don’t forget to drop in on The Milkmaid. 

Fancy a meander among the Monets? Pop down to the Musee d’Orsay and have a virtual wander through this beautiful building on the banks of the Seine, in the former Orsay Railway Station.

Or, if you like a more hi-tech approach, nip into the Met in New York, and try out the Met 360 Project, a series of six videos filmed to allow you to view it in 360 degrees. If you view it on your phone you can simply raise your phone to look up to the ceiling or drop it downwards to see what’s beneath you. You can stand in the galleries alone for an ‘after hours’ view or soar above the gallery’s cloisters for a bird’s eye view.

Sometimes you just need to look at something from a different perspective.

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Make | parsnip panpipes (yes, really)

Looking for a new project this weekend? Each month, we publish a ‘veg box music’ idea, ingenious ways to make those edibles audible

Got some spare parsnips? Then you’re all set to try Blowin in the Roots. Don’t forget to send us photos of your band practice!

You will need:

4 or 5 parsnips (as many as you can hold in your hand comfortably)

Knife

Apple corer / drill

How to make:

1. Slice the skinny ends of the parsnips off at the point at which they are still of a good thickness – 1 or 2cm in diameter, let’s say.

2. Bore wide, cylindrical holes down into the parsnips using an apple corer or a drill. Make the deepest one as deep as the parsnip will allow without breaking through the other end, then repeat on the other parsnips, ensuring that each hole is progressively shallower than the last.

3. Finish them off by slicing across the top of the holes at an angle and hold them upright in a row, from deepest to shallowest, with the highest part of the parsnip closest to the face.

4. Blow diagonally across the parsnips down the same plane as they have been cut – the angle makes it easier to get a note.

Taken from Musical Experiments for After Dinner by Angus Hyland, Tom Parkinson, and illustrated by Dave Hopkins, is published by Laurence King. Available at.laurenceking.com.

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Cake facts | Simnel cake

This light fruitcake, served traditionally for Mothering Sunday and Easter, and layered with marzipan might look innocent enough, but it is, in fact, steeped in mystery and intrigue. 

Leaving aside the missing 12th marzipan apostle (that’s Judas, who betrayed Jesus and therefore is not deserving of a marzipan sphere in his name), there are other puzzles… Such as where Simnel cake got its moniker.

There are several stories. Are you sitting comfortably? Then take a slice of Simnel and we’ll begin.

One tale goes that the cake was named for Lambert Simnel, who invented it while working in the kitchens of King Henry VII as punishment for trying to usurp the throne. Simnel, a boy of ten, had been passed off as one of the two princes in The Tower, who were allegedly murdered by Richard III (so not a terribly convincing story, really). He turned out to be a much more convincing kitchen hand though and did so well he was eventually promoted to the position of Falconer by the King. However, we remain unconvinced that Lambert is the true King of Simnel cake. When you’ve made up a whopper like being heir to the throne of England, who’s going to believe you when you say you’ve invented a new cake, after all? 

An even bolder story appears in Chambers’ Book of Days in 1867. This story says that the cake was invented by a couple by the name of Simon and Nelly (we expect you already have a hunch where this is going). They had set about making a cake to mark the end of Lent, using some leftover plum pudding from Christmas. Simon thought they should boil the cake and Nelly was convinced it should be baked. After a brief domestic disagreement they compromised, deciding to boil the cake first and then bake it. And this happy union of baking methods produced a cake that became named after both of them - the Sim-Nel cake. (We’d have gone for Nelsim, had we been young Nell… assuming, of course, that we believed this very tall tale). 

The least charming, most tedious story, is probably the most believable. ‘Simila’ is Latin for the sort of fine, white flour that was used for these Lenten cakes, and it’s easy to see how Simnel would come from simila. We told you it was slightly tedious. There’s no arguing with Latin though (unlike Simon and Henry VII, who it seems were both up for a bit of a disagreement).

The rather fine Simnel cake pictured above is taken from Fitzbillies: Stories & Recipes From a 100-year-old Cambridge Bakery by Tim Hayward and Alison Wright (Quadrille) with photography by Sam A. Harris. You can find the recipe on p23 of our March ‘Blossom’ issue. 

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Playlist | Songs about birds

Hoppin’ and a-boppin’ and singing his song.

Listen at thesimplethings.co.uk/blog/birdsplaylist

More of our playlists…

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Competition | win a pair of barstools

These beautiful stools from Cord Industries would look great in any kitchen

Handmade in Cornwall, these elegant hairpin leg barstools from Cord Industries feature a timeless design that would complement any kitchen counter. Available in a variety of wood options, and with over 200 leg colours to choose from, it’s clear to see why they’re so popular throughout the world. Craftsman David Jones uses timber and solid steel to create robust, made-to-last furniture that stands the test of time.

And now one lucky reader of The Simple Things can win this pair of 65cm-high hairpin-leg barstools, with ash seats and ‘Old English White’ legs, each worth £220.

How to enter

For your chance to win this pair of stunning hairpin-leg barstools, click below and answer the following question by the closing date of 6 May 2020.

Q. How many leg colours do Cord’s hairpin leg barstools come in?

Simple Things reader discount

To enjoy 15% off all purchases, plus free worldwide shipping, visit cordindustries.co.uk and quote KEEPITSIMPLE.

Terms and conditions

This competition closes at 11.59pm on 6 May 2020. The winner will be selected at random from all correct entries received and notified soon after. The winner cannot transfer the prize or swap for cash. Details of our full terms are on page 127 and online at icebergpress.co.uk/comprules

Competition | win tickets to the Handmade Festival

Get hands on at Kirstie Allsop’s crafty event this September

Back for its seventh successful year, Kirstie Allsopp’s The Handmade Festival returns later this year (11-13 September 2020) showcasing all things creative at Evolution London, Battersea Park. More than 300 passionate exhibitors are providing over 150 demonstrations, talks and skills workshops on everything from baking and upcycling to sewing, wellbeing, and even pottery. Plus the Shopping Villages and Artisan Market Place, where you can discover new makers and stock up on gifts and supplies to enjoy at home.

For further information, visit thehandmadefestival.com. Two lucky readers of The Simple Things can win a pair of VIP tickets, worth £95 each. The package includes entry to two skills workshops and a creative talk, lunch, drinks, plus an exclusive Q&A session with the host of the day.

How to enter

For your chance to win one of two pairs of VIP tickets to this year’s Handmade Festival (on your choice of date), click below and answer the following question by the closing date of 6 May 2020.

Q. How many exhibitors will be at the Handmade Festival?

Terms & conditions

The competition closes at 11.59pm on 6 May 2020. A winner will be selected at random from all correct entries received and notified soon after. The winner cannot transfer the prize or swap it for cash. Details of our full terms are on page 127 and online at icebergpress.co.uk/comprules

5-minute gardening

Daunted by your garden? Try taking it five minutes at a time

We were really inspired by Laetitia Maklouf’s feature on ‘little by little’ gardening in our March issue - the concept of spending just five minutes in the garden each day. We’ve all been out doing our little-by-little jobs every evening as the days get longer and seeing a real change in our gardens already. 

Here are a few ideas for jobs you can do in five minutes that will help add up to a beautiful outdoor space by the time summer’s here.

1. Weeding. Pop on your headphones, a podcast, a pair of gloves and tackle one small patch of earth, maybe just a square metre. Don’t get distracted by anything else, just concentrate on your patch.   

2. Plant out forced bulbs. Have you got hyacinths languishing indoors? Don’t throw them away, try re-planting them outside.  

3. Trim and tie down anything climbing before it comes into leaf and 

4. Turn your compost if it needs it, or just tidy up your compost area so it’s easy to get to with food waste. This week is National Compost Week so there’s no time like the present.

5. Pop some pots of whatever is flowering at the moment by your front door so you can enjoy them every time you go in or out. 

You can read all about Laetitia’s little-by-little gardening ideas on p102 of the March issue or in The Five Minute Garden: How to Garden in Next to No Time (National Trust Books).

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Ingredients for a Slow Sunday

The best Sundays are those just spent just pottering in the garden or playing board games while the roast cooks. In our March issue, we’ve put together a Low and Slow menu that will help you do just that. Here are a few more ingredients we think you need to enjoy a Super Slow Sunday…

1. ALL the Sunday papers. Not just the one you normally buy; also get the one with the ridiculous headlines to laugh at and the one with the good crossword. We’re doing this properly.

2. A decent coffee and a cafetiere. Sunday isn’t slow enough if you have to stand up to refill your mug. A decent-sized cafetiere stationed near you will do it. Don’t put the milk back in the fridge thanks, just leave it there. Yes, you can leave those biscuits, too.

3. An enthusiastic dog. Because Sunday needs a good walk at some point, also, and when you get home, Sunday needs something warm to lie on your feet. If you don’t have a dog, set out in the woods wielding a stick as if you do own a dog, and put some bed socks on when you get home for a similar, but less hairy, effect. 

4. A gin and tonic (or whatever your tipple is) for the prepping stage of lunch. Peeling spuds takes on a rather festive feel when you have something cold and fizzy in your hand.

5. A good board game for while the lunch is in the oven, whether it’s an old favourite or one you got for Christmas and haven’t played yet. Something you can get ridiculously invested in and over-competitive about is ideal.

6. Enough food to do leftovers too. We all know the best part of a Sunday roast is the secret scoffing of the cold potatoes out of the fridge at 6pm. If you’ve got enough leftovers to do Monday lunch too, so much the better, and it will bring a bit of weekend joy to your working day. 

7. A costume drama on telly. Should be watched in your dressing gown with a cup of tea. If there’s nothing good on, dig out an old box set of the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice. 

You can find our menu for Low Slow Sundays in our March issue, on sale now.

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.

Recipe | rhubarb jelly and custard pots

Jewel-coloured grown-up jelly and creamy, sweet custard? We’re a trifle impressed!

These pretty little puds are part of our Low and Slow menu on our Gathering pages in the March ‘Blossom’ issue. The menu is intended to be cooked slowly so you can enjoy the day, either heading out for a walk or having a board games marathon - the ideal way to spend a Sunday. All parts of the meal are either ‘let it sing to itself’ dishes or ‘prepare ahead’ ideas, like these jelly and custard pots.

Pass the crossword and Scrabble, please. We’re very busy idling away the day.

Photography by Jonathan Cherry, styling Gemma Cherry, Recipes Bex Long.

Serves 6

Ingredients
800g rhubarb, cut into 1in pieces
80g caster sugar
5 gelatine leaves, soaked in cold water for 5 mins
500g custard – homemade or shop-bought
Handful of amaretti biscuits

To make

1 Place the rhubarb and sugar in a heavy bottomed pan over a low heat. Place a lid on the pan and allow the rhubarb to cook in the sugar until all of its juices have been released, stirring occasionally.
2 Pass the liquid and fruit pulp through a sieve and then strain the liquid through a muslin.
3 Once strained, transfer the liquid to a saucepan along with the soaked gelatine. Stirring constantly, gently heat until the gelatine has dissolved.
4 Pour the jelly into six small glasses and leave to cool, before transferring to the fridge to set overnight.
5 To serve, top each jelly with custard and sprinkle over some crushed amaretti biscuits.

You can find the rest of the Low and Slow recipes in our March issue, on sale now.

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More from our March issue…

More puds to celebrate Sunday (or any day)…

Recipe | nettle soda bread

Now’s the time to gather treasures from the hedgerows. And then head home and into the kitchen to make this nettle soda bread.

Nettle Soda Bread

Good handful of young nettle leaves and/or wild garlic
½ pint buttermilk
6oz self raising flour (wholemeal or brown)
3oz plain flour
3oz seed & grain bread flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Gather your nettle tips (with gloves on) before they flower. Strip off the stems until you have enough for one large handful of leaves.

Heat oven to 200C/Fan 180/400F

In a blender or large jug, add leaves and buttermilk. Blend until smooth.

Put flour, salt and soda into a mixing bowl. Form a well in the middle and pour in the nettle buttermilk. Quickly mix together with a fork until a soft dough is formed.

Turn out mixture onto a floured surface, lightly need for 2 minutes then form into a round shape.

Put on a floured baking tray. Flatten the top of the dough and score the top in a cross.

Cook for 30 minutes until the dough sounds hollow. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

N.B. You can substitute nettles for ramsons or crow garlic. For a seed top, before baking rub a little buttermilk over the top and add some sedge seeds (found in autumn) or sunflower seeds also work nicely.

 In this month’s Blossom issue, we have a beautiful feature we think you’ll love by Lia Leendertz, in which she looks at cooking and enjoying some of the season’s bounty. Nature’s Table is the first in a new series. Do tell us what you think! This soda bread recipe with photography by Kirstie Young, was first published in our March 2016 issue but it tastes just as good (if not better) four years on.

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From our March issue…

More foraging fun…

Domestic life hacks from Jane Eyre

Photography by Megan Westley

There’s plenty of strong advice we can take from Jane, one of our favourite fictional heroines, about the nature of love, finding inner resilience and more. But if you’ve no time for big changes here are a few simple things you can do to bring a bit more Jane into your life. With apologies to Charlotte Bronte.

• Take up bird watching. It’s a relaxing diversion in times of crisis, particularly if your cruel cousins are being unkind. Losing yourself in Bewick’s History of British Birds is the best response and come Great Garden Birdwatch time in January, you’ll be pleased you spent the time so usefully.

• Should you find yourself living at a charity school for girls, and your pitcher for washing your face is frozen solid in the morning, sprinkle a little rock salt on the surface to thaw it.

• In times of distress, tea and seed cake is almost always a salve for the soul.

• A sprained ankle, after a fall from a horse, perhaps, can be easily treated at home. NHS Direct prescribes rest, ice, compression and elevation. If the injured party can’t put weight on the ankle, offer assistance in walking home. Reader, I carried him.

• You can remove the smell of damp dog from a rug by sprinkling the area liberally with baking soda and then Hoovering up the following day. Down, Pilot!

• Noisy upstairs neighbours are a trial. Remember you can’t necessarily change their behaviour but you can change yours. Try to distract yourself and relax as much as possible before bedtime (perhaps with a cup of tea and some seed cake) to give yourself the best chance of dropping off, despite the din upstairs.

• Candles can bring a relaxing atmosphere but if you’re going to have them in the bedroom make sure you don’t have long drapes around the bed. A simple divan looks cleaner and is less of a fire hazard.

• If your house is larger than you need and expensive to heat, you can always consider closing off entire floors. Better still, think about downsizing to somewhere a little easier to maintain. 

• Never trust a fortune-teller arriving at your door unannounced during a party.

• If you’re rather plain, don’t waste time and money on rouge and pearls, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but you’re sure to have other talents to commend you to others. Perhaps potential suitors would like to hear your talk about British birds? 

Fans of Jane Eyre shouldn’t miss our What I Treasure page in the March issue, in which Megan Westley tells us about her most treasured possession, the beautiful copy of Jane Eyre, pictured above.

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More from our March issue…

More literary things for bookworms…