Guardian Girl

I liked the idea of Dan Lepard’s How to Bake recipe this week, being an enthusiastic fan of cider and bread. Unfortunately though, I insist on having dinner on the table within a few hours of buying the ingredients. When it comes to food preparation, I don’t do overnighters.

Instead of trying to change my ways and learn the indubitable joys of properly risen bread from an expert, I took the decision to make this cider loaf my own way – the instant gratification way. I was willing to suffer the consequences, which turned out to be fairly minimal. Luckily I have a deep appreciation for the sort of airless, dense baked goods that wouldn’t make it past the car park of a church fête, so opening the oven door to what looked and felt like a wheaten quern stone didn’t faze me in the slightest. Liv was over and she enjoyed it too, straight from the stove with melting butter and posh raspberry jam. The best bit was the base, which I’d left stuck to the bottom of the tin when cutting the top, softer bit into slices. I managed to jemmy the base off the tin in one piece with a knife and we ate it like a giant cookie. It was pretty rad.

NB I couldn’t find pure rye flour so I used a wholemeal multigrain seeded bonanza I found down J Sains.

Cider rye

Slightly wry

I didn’t do a good job of this aesthetically speaking, but I did enjoy the eating. Bravo.

I also ought to address the matter of Topshop trophy jumpers. I am still living on cash because of a banking problem. I forgot to put money from my stash into my purse yesterday morning as I was in a rush to adorn my wrists with gold cuffs. I realised this at 5.30pm as I contemplated setting off to Topshop. No Eiffel Tower sweater. Not enormously disappointed. Ends.

And on to today’s outfit, about which I have no complaints. Miraculous!

Spring

has sprung

I guess every photo’s going to be pretty much identical for the rest of the week.

Conclusions:

• Today’s post was brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of Overlooked Tools.