Sweet Saturday

Banana Bread

• 225 gr self-raising flour (or if plain flour add baking powder)
• salt
• teaspoon of cinnamon
• 110 gr sugar
• 1 egg
• 75 ml sunflower oil
• 2 sachets of vanilla sugar (or some vanilla essence)
• 65 gr of chopped pecan nuts
• 3 large bananas

Mix flour, salt and cinnamon, add the sugar. Mix in (gently! don't bead) the egg, sunflower oil and vanilla sugar. Smash the banana with a fork and chop the pecan nuts. Fold in them into the mixture. Butter a tin loaf and fill up with the mixture. 

Bake in a preheated oven of 180°C for 50-60 min. If it springs back when you prod it with your finger it's ready.  Once you take it from the oven be patient and leave it another 10 minutes in the tin before taking it out, than let it cool further on a wire rack.

Enjoy!!!

Friday Finds

Not every Friday but some Fridays I will share some remarkable finds with you. 

Today that is TASART, tas is Ducth for bag, so art bags.

I met Yvette Wiers, the woman behind TASART on a fair in Hasselt. She had a booth beside mine and we could talk very little as it was so busy, but her bags facinated me. 

She makes them from old leather motorbike jackets and coats and combines them with 

the strangest of other items: parts from bicycles, telephones, skates, old keys, ......

It's a great way to recycle, I might just dig out my old leather bikers pants to get a custom bag from her ;-)

(yep, in another era I used to be a biker and owned one too, cruising around Ireland :-)

You find all info on the bags, Yvette and her work on www.tasart.nl

Le Veauthibault 2010 - making paperclay

When I was in France  last month I also made my own paperclay. As it is a bit messy I preferred to make it in France and not in my own tiny atelier. I had some pieces which were not suitable for firing after drying and kept those to make paperclay. Of course you can buy ready made paperclay, but this way you can reuse failed pieces (so long as they have not been fired)  and create something new with them. I do like working with paper clay and paper porcelain as it stronger due to the fibers.

The recipe is easy:

1 empty box for 6 eggs

750 grams of dry clay

0,5 liter of warm to hot water

Tear the box to small pieces and put in a bowl, add the hot water and mix well. 

Grind to dry clay to as fine a powder as possible. 

I just batched it with a rolling pin until it look like this:

Add the powder clay to the paper slush and mix well.
If you want you can add a stain at this point. In this case the clay is antracite clay so not much use to add a colorstain to it, but works well for porcelain and white clays.

Put all unto a slab of plaster (you can make this yourself or buy ready made from some DIY stores), which will suck out the moist. Leave it to dry and turn if need be.
I left mine to dry overnight and there was no need to turn, there will be if you leave it out in the sun.

Once it's dried to a consistency you are happy to work with kneed it and store it air tight.

Inspirational Ireland

Last week I spend a few days in Ireland. 

I lived there over 10 years ago, just bought a ticket and went. Lucky for me the Celtic tiger had just started roaring it was not hard to find a place to stay and a job; designing kitchens for the rich and famous of Ireland.

I go back at least once a year to catch up with friends and stay in touch.

 

I spend some time on the coast, enjoying the sun and the view. Later in the week I went with a friend and her kids to the Botanical Gardens. All museums have free access and so do these gardens. I never went there when I lived in Ireland, so it was a good reason to go. The weather was just gorgeous and there was a temporary exhibition of sculptures in all shapes and sizes.

Happy Bronze Friends

Twig Goat

Looking for the fairies under the fairy seat mushroom.

Mixed Media Dove

Iron Deer

Cute Squirl

Amazing Plant Sculpture

Paparazzi, they were al taking pictures using there mobiles....

Organic Sculpture in Felt

Autumn

The season of nuts and tangerines has arrived :-)

Marché Bricolé

Hi there, did you have a great weekend too? I hope so. I enjoyed a great day at the fair Marché Bricolé in Bruges, Belgium. It was real busy and the weather was just lovely, I had a spot with the sun on my back, hhmmmm. And just across from me a nice coffee and tea stall, lucky for me they had GingerLove too.

Beside me Greet from Fleurfatale had a stall, we could hardly chat as it was so busy all day. We'll just have to catch up later. I have joined her and Mitsy from Artmind to write a regular "With love from Belgium" post on the Dutch Handmade blog. You can read my first post there tomorrow.

My new ear studs went flying out the door, as did my rings and necklaces, especially the roses. Also got a visit from clients who had bought before and came to tell how many compliments they had received already. 

It is so nice to make people happy and receive compliments.

The sun did not only bring out a lot of people but I saw lots of ladybugs too. A little girl pointed one out to her dad, it was sitting in the street in from of my stall. Her dad picked it up and set it down in a safer place, so cute :-)

One ladybug came to visit me and found my cat and mouse brooch real interesting :-) 

Sweet Saturday

This Sweet Saturday a recipe for cinnamon rolls.

Ingredients:

• 450 gr of white flour
• pinch of salt
• 50 gr of sugar
• 50 gr of soft butter
• 200 ml milk
• 22 gr of dried yeast
• 1 egg

Filling:

• 100 gr soft butter
• 100 gr brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon (or a bit more if you really love cinnamon :-)
• 1 egg

Sieve the flour and mix with the salt and sugar, than rub in the butter. Heat the milk until warm, blood temperature and mix with the yeast, add the egg. Combine the 2 mixtures, using the dough hook or by hand, until springy and smooth. Cover and leave to rise for about 30 min in a warm, draft free place. 

Mix the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and egg to make the filling.

Knead the risen dough lightly and roll out a quarter to form the base of a cake-tin (diameter about 23cm). Roll the reminder into a large rectangle. Spread the filling over the rectangle and roll up. Leave a strip on one side filling free. Roll the rectangle up towards the free strip, egg wash strip if need be to make it stick, but usually a bit of water works too.

Slice the roll into 8 slices, set these on the base, well divided. Bake for about 30 minutes at 180°C.

Enjoy!