Some days I think kneading bread is akin to meditation. And other days it feels like a hideously tough session down the gym. (One day I will give up exaggerating. I promise).
This then is for my "arms are dropping off" days. I tried it and wonders will never cease, it works.
Don'tcha just love it when that happens?
Tell me, if you would be so kind: Nigella.. yay or nay?
For thirteen years I was a fully fledged vegetarian. And then I came home from a raucous night out, shoved a sausage roll into my gob and faster than you can say McDonald's, I was a meat eater again.
A meat eater who couldn't touch raw meat. A meat eater who only ever ate meat her Mummy cooked and a meat eater who still only ever really eats vegetarian fare in restaurants. And then I grew up and decided life would be lovelier if I could stomach roast chicken warm from my own oven.
So I bought a Marks and Spencer's chicken that you roast in a plastic bag (I know!!), and nearly poisoned myself. Then I started buying chickens that came equipped with their own little tray and didn't require any flesh (mine) to flesh (the chickens) contact and yes they meant Sunday roast was a possibility but culinary perfection they certainly weren't. And it was then that I got brave and started buying chickens that needed a little manhandling. Chickens that required hands stuffed up their bottoms and didn't come decorated with grazed knees and abscesses. Chicken I would roast in foil for a good hour and then remove the foil to colour for the remaining time. Salty, scrumptiously juicy chickens that were close to my definition of yummy, but sadly not quite there, certain as I always am that the rest of the world know culinary and literary secrets they have unanimously decided to keep secret from me.
Such as:- you are supposed to turn a chicken so it's lying on both sides and once on its breast while it roasts. You knew that didn't you? Why didn't you tell me? Was it fair to leave me to figure it out myself? To leave it to serendipity that I would eventually discover Marcus Wareing's recipe for chicken perfection and swoon in mouth watering delight as I pulled golden brown skin away from juicy, firm flesh?
Try it yourself:
" For juicy, melt in the mouth chicken, you need to turn the bird over several times and baste it well during roasting. This helps the heat penetrate evenly and makes the meat moist.
After the chicken has been roasting for half an hour and the skin on the breast is nicely coloured and crisp, turn the bird on to one of it's sides (prop it up on roasting potatoes/vegetables) and baste well. Roast for ten minutes, then turn the bird on to it's other side. Baste and return to the oven for another ten minutes. Now turn the chicken over on to it's breast, so the back is facing up, and baste well. Return to the oven to roast for another ten minutes. Finally sit the bird breast side up and roast for the remaining time."
Said Marcus. Et voila! Comfort food supreme.
Tastespotting truly does provide the most scrumptiously beautiful inspiration for eating, baking and creating on the net. A visual gallery of gorgeous food, you click each picture to find a link to a blog post, article, or recipe and once you get started you just can't stop... Culinary inspiration at its very finest.
Good enough to eat!
In honour of another scrumptious baking Wednesday, my Daily Treat today suggests you choose your favourite vintage recipe book, turn the page to 72 and bake whatever you see there... if only because left to my own devices I will bake yet another chocolate comfort cake and never give a thought to expanding my culinary horizons.
Yes it could go horribly wrong. My recipe book of choice is the Ninth Bestway Cookery Gift Book . Page 119 of said book instructs me in the delights of the Spaghetti and Fig Mould (yum!). And page 68 offers the horrible wonder that is the Veal and Ham Kromeskie...
Luckily for me, page 72 has a rather basic and thus probably scrumptious recipe for Baked Orange Pudding, so once I have nipped to the shops to buy a goodbye present for Finley's nursery teacher, watched the egg and spoon race at the Nursery Sports day, posted my very, very overdue tax return and cooked the weekly essentials like soup, quiche and gluten free pizza bases, I shall don a special pinny and whip up an citrus scented storm...
Baked Orange Pudding.
Ingredients.
Grated rind and juice,
1/4lb. self raising flour,
2 eggs, 40z. caster sugar.
Orange marmalade.
Method.
Whisk the eggs and sugar together until thick and creamy, then add the finely-grated orange rind.
Sift the flour and stir it in gradually, moistening the mixture with the juice of the orange.
Mix all together lightly and turn the mixture into a buttered dish. Bake it for about half an hour or a little longer as required, in a moderately hot oven. Serve the pudding with hot marmalade.
I've just had a cup of Love.
A cup runneth over with rose, lavender, chamomile and the joys of a quiet bank holiday weekend yawning ahead of me...
There is just no getting around it: some days are potato days and that is all there is to it. All thoughts of Atkins this and GI factor that go flying out of your rain speckled windows and only the sheer carb laden comfort of a potato or six will do...
Today Darlings is one of those days, and the universe has arranged it so that I have a glut of red roosters available and an oddment of ingredients slowly withering in the fridge, just begging to be magiced into something lip smackingly, butter dribbily delicious...
So inbetween running in and out of the living room lusting after that wacky little man from The Fratellis, (What is it about quirky men??) on MTV, I have par boiled the potatoes and cut them into half inch thick slices (peel and all), chopped onion and rashers of streaky bacon, and now when I can drag myself away from the cosiness of my armchair I intend to layer it all in a deep dish, add a few spoons of cream and knobs of butter between layers, sprinkle with salt and a hefty dose of black pepper, and top with gruyere before cooking for about a thousand years and when law and order is restored after Finley's bedtime, serve it to myself with dark green cabbage and a glass of red wine...
Who wants to join me for a carb fest? I am going nutty night after night in this here little house.
Somebody launch a rescue Alison mission before I turn into Ten Ton Tessie and start stalking curly locked pop stars...
I have just grilled a whole tray of organic french lavender shortbread. Yes you read that right. I grilled it and what I now have here is a most unbecoming pile of charred sweetness I have tried to disguise with a liberal sprinkling of caster sugar.
Because I plan on eating it regardless. The baby has been daddy-napped. The house is blissfully quiet and Rebecca is on the Dvd. If it was stormy outside I could almost consider it the perfect afternoon.
So burnt lavender shortbread it is. On a pretty plate with a cafetiere of vanilla coffee and some heart shaped sugar cubes.
P.S: Did I mention I am still in my nightie? It's five o'clock. Too late to get dressed? Yes, I totally agree...
In every Liverpool Mum's kitchen repetoire is a recipe for the Winter staple that is Scouse. A simple concoction of cheap meat and basic vegetables, Scouse was the one thing I looked forward trudging home from school in the January snow when I was young.
It goes without saying that all Mums make Scouse to their own recipe. There is no "right" recipe, mostly because Scouse was invented to feed the five thousand when times were hard- so it is made of whatever was available and has over time firmly established itself at the heart of every Liverpool teatime...
Try as I might my Scouse doesn't taste as good as my Mums - though I cook it in exactly the same way, with exactly the same ingredients, it seems to lack a certain magical something, but is cosy all the same. I don't like other peoples' Mum's Scouse. I would never order it in the kind of establishment serving it up with a hefty dose of irony, would fade away and die in horror if somebody other than my Mum plonked a bowl full of it on my tablemat and wouldn't dream of eating it anywhere not in spitting distance of this lovely city. In short, when it comes to Scouse, I am a fussy cow.
But today is one of those icy, blowy Winter days, so under Mum's supervision I have got a vat of it bubbling on the hob (potatoes, carrots, onions, and beef mince and oxo, cooked in one pan till mushy and served seasoned to taste, with pickled red cabbage/beetroot and HP sauce). Mark is on his way around to discuss goodness knows what (he never gets round to saying much of anything really when he call's these "talks") and I shall do my best to stop him stealing slurps of my Scouse, before enduring his rambling musings and shuffling him out of the house so I can climb into flannel jama's, fill a bowl with Scouse served with lots of very bad for me white bread, and snuggle up in front of an evenings worth of tv I am positively demented with excitement about (first night of Celebrity Big Brother and a new series of Desperate Housewives).
Homely bliss.
I haven't baked for a Brocante lifetime. I gave it up as a bad job in favour of prawn salad and smoked haddock. For the sake of skinny thighs.
But after a night spent on my knees convincing Finley that the "hair in his mouth" was more likely to be a sore throat, I woke up this morning desperate for the cosy bliss of baking a brown cake, radiators on high, pink pinny tied in an extravagant bow and the Womans Hour on the Roberts Radio. I've been denying my authentic needs for way too long. And plainly what this girl authentically needs is the restoration of my equilibrium, a sprinkling of cinnamon and an intelligent conversation about Virginia Woolfes claim that all women need is a "room of their own" in order to reach creative ecstasy.
And so I baked a cake. A vintage, cosy "brown" cake. To be served with clementines and clotted cream at three o'clock- the witching hour for every woman who knows what it is like to find yourself beholden to a demanding, daft, three year old, twenty four hours a day...
Ingredients.
1 teaspoonful of baking powder. 1/2 lb flour. 3 oz dark brown sugar. 4 oz margarine. 1 teaspoonful of ground cinnamon. 4 oz pint of golden syrup. 2 eggs. 3 tbsp cold strong coffee.
Method.
"Beat the sugar and the margerine to a cream. Sift the flour with the ground cinnamon and baking powder. Whisk the eggs, warm the golden syrup and add it, then whisk all together. Gradually stir the flour into the creamed fat, moistening the mixture with the eggs and golden syrup, and lastly the cold coffee.
Beat all together before turning the mixture into a greased baked tin and put it in a moderate oven to bake.
Who needs skinny thighs??
Taken from "Cooking With Elizabeth Craig ( A cookery book for the housewife of modest income), 1949.
Preserving.
"Some housewives limit their preserving to making marmalade in the Spring and jellies in the Summer and Autumn. I preserve all year round as fruit and vegetables become cheap and plentiful. When I find my jam giving out between seasons, I make dried apricot jam, orange and pineapple honey as well as lemon cheese and grapefruit and lemon marmalade.
RULES FOR MAKING JAMS AND JELLIES.
1. Use dry fruit and pure cane sugar when available.
2. Choose fruit just ripe, unless otherwise stipulated.
3. Boil steadily, skimming carefully.
4. Allow fruit to come to the boil before adding sugar. Stir till sugar is dissolved before bringing again to boil..
5. When ready to pot, stand jam in pan for five minutes then stir well before pouring into jars, to prevent fruit rising in pots.
6. Pot in heated jars and cover. store in a dry airy cupboard, when cold.
7. Fruit lacking in both acid and pectin, such as blackberries, cherries, vegetable marrow and strawberries, set better when the juice of 1 lemon is added to every pound of fruit.
TO PREPARE FRUIT FOR PRESERVING.
1. Pick over soft fruits such as all berries. Only rinse quickly if necessary.
2. Wash currants, gooseberries and cherries.
3. Damsons and plums can be wiped, or washed.
4. Wash and dry lemons, oranges and grapefruit.
5. Discard any bruised fruit and cut out any blemishes.
6. Dried fruits should be thoroughly washed and drained.
TO MAKE JAM.
There are different ways of making jam, but I prefer this method. Place prepared fruit in a preserving pan, and stand pan at the back of the kitchen range or on a slow gas burner, till the juice begins to flow, then place pan on fire, or if cooking by gas, increase the heat and bring to the boil. Cook for a few minutes, then add 1/2 oz. butter, wjich clears the jam and saves the trouble of skimming. Add sugar, heated in the oven and boil quickly till the "jell" stage is reached- when a drop will hang from the stirring spoon. Cool for five minutes, then pour gently into heated glass pots. The pots should be quite full.Wipe the rims and the outsides free from any drops of jam. Cover at once and label and store, when cold in a dry and airy cupboard.
*
Apple and Blackberry Cheese.
5 1b tart apples.
Water.
5 1b blackberries.
Sugar.
Peel and core the apples. Place in a saucepan with just enough water to prevent burning. Cover and stew gently till soft. Add blackberries. Stir for a few moments, then boil for five minutes. Pass through a fine sieve, a little at a time, scraping the sieve clean underneath from time to time. Weigh sieved fruit and turn into a preserving pan. Add 3/4 1b. sugar for every pound fruit pulp. Boil quickly for 30 minutes or until cheese sets when tested. Skim well. Pot at once.
Ginger Marmalade.
3 1b. tart apples.
1 quart water.
Sugar.
1 3/4 1b. preserved ginger.
Wash and dry apples very carefully. Cut them into thick slices without either peeling or coring. Put all slices into a saucepan with the water. simmer gently till the fruit is well pulped, then strain through a jelly bag. Aloow to drip for several hours. when all the juice is in the basin, weigh it and for every pound of juice add 1 1b. sugar. Turn juice and sugar into a preserving pan, add ginger cut into small pieces, then bring to the boil. Boil quickly for 8-10 minutes or till preserve sets when tested on a cold plate. Pot and cover while hot.
****
Taken from "Home Catering and Cookery", 1956.
"The housewife who caters for a large family will find it more economical of time and energy, as well as of fuel, to have one baking period for the scones, cakes and bun's needed for the whole week. The various items will, of course have to be stored in airtight tins' or they will of course become stale..
The schedule outlined below gives an example of what can be done in just over three hours. The programme can be varied to suit individual families, but it is important that the items requiring the shortest baking time and the hottest oven, should be tackled first. Those needing a longer time to cook and a cooler oven should be left to last. Once in the oven they can then look after themselves for the required period.
It is also important to study very carefully the baking instructions which come with the cooker. Controls do vary with the individual makes of stove.
A Mornings baking to cover:
The TimeTable.
Note: When the Victoria sandwich is cool, spread jam (or any other desired filling) on the lower half. Place top half in position and dredge with icing sugar. Exact times have been given for cooking these items, but it will be necessary for the cook to use her own judgement as to the precise moment when any scone or cake, shall be taken out of the oven..."
Well I've got to tell you that at first I wasn't happy. Biscuits shaped like little hammers? I don't think so. Obviously made for chubby bricklayers with dirty white vests and a penchant for the orangest, strongest brew they can make with six teabags and ten sugars. Biscuits in a shape they understand.
But readers I was wrong. This is biscuit engineering at it's cleverest. Dunk the left hand side of the hammer and eat. Dunk the right side and so on and so forth. This like the the tea it is made to accompany, is a testimony to the sheer sense of the good Yorkshire people.
A biscuit that doesn't fall apart! In a shape you can dunk! With the slightest hint of spicy something and a gentle hint of Yorkshire tea...
I'm quite delirious with excitement. I do so like a good biscuit. As I think my hips will testify.
My morning elevenses are an orange coloured dream. And should word get out every builder in the district will be beating a path to my door. Which is wonderful because I do so like a nice builder.
As the trollop in me will testify.
So never mind that for every cake I bake there is one that goes in the bin. That Mark is learning to love charcoal toast, and that Finley only tells me my food is stinky once or twice a week now...
Like I said I am Domestic Goddess.
And so it was that I found myself with somewhat of a baking crisis on my hands the other day. You see I wanted to make a Gateau Breton ala Nigella, which having baked it before, I know to be a mighty fine impression of all that is buttery and more-ish.
The ingredients of which are:
225g Plain Flour.
250g Caster Sugar.
250g Unsalted Butter (cubed)
6 Large Egg Yolks.
And so into the baking cupboard I went. Oops only 175g of plain flour left, so I'm going have to substitute it with 50g of ground almonds. Hell's bells, not enough caster sugar and so I'm going to have to half and half with some light brown sugar (Call myself organised??) and would you look at this- only five eggs left. And oh goodness was that a whole egg that just slipped in there? Ok so in my world six egg yolks means four egg yolks and one whole egg, whites and all. And heck why not add a spoonful of that yummy vanilla essence for good measure?
So I did. And into the oven it went. Twenty minutes on 190, and then twenty minutes on 170.
And when it came out it looked, as my concoctions are often prone too:- a teeny bit strange. But never one to be put off, I let it cool to kind of warm, and then presented it on a plate with a cup of good coffee to my nearest and dearest.
Who took one bite and declared it disgusting. And pretended to choke and looked a bit sorry for me as if to say "Well never mind sweetie, God loves a tryer".
So I retreated back into the safety of the kitchen, lined a scrumptious vintage tin with greaseproof paper and laid my efforts inside. And then I put it away and forgot about it until this morning, when I opened the tin to find all but one slice left. All of it ate by mice. Or a great big Spur's supporting Rat. A great big rat who informed me upon questioning, that said disgusting cake had matured really rather well.
So I took out the last piece , sprinkled it with icing sugar, arranged it fetchingly on a pretty plate, and ate a little piece of heaven.
And the moral of this long and over winded tale? If you are as good as you make them, then I might not be Nigella, but without a doubt I'm a happy accident.
I had a little cry this morning.
I opened my eyes and thought- maybe I can't face today. Maybe I will just stay here.
You know one of those days?
And before I knew it I was sobbing on to Mark's shoulder, begging him not to go to work, to find my lost voice, banish pmt and find a cure for the common cold.
He laughed, and kissed me and said I was asking to much of him. Then he got up and left me crying grey tears into my vintage pillowcase.
It's nothing you see. It's exhaustion. And no end to it. It's nothing. Truly it isn't.
So I pulled myself out of bed and hugged him goodbye and drank coffee and freaked the baby out with my strange raspy whisper and then I made pancakes.
Because although I made the batter yesterday, I forgot to have Pancake Tuesday thereafter.
And so this morning, in a break with tradition, I have had Pancake Wednesday Morning.
One perfect pancake with chocolate orange sauce and one perfect pancake with lavender butter and sugar served with that strange hybrid of a plum and an apricot: the plucot.
How did they taste? Like cardboard. Like everything else.
But it's the ritual that counts isn't it?
Ritual matters on day's like this.
The wonders of the organic box will never cease. Could these purply wonders be any further away from the scary flourescent orange affairs you buy in the supermarket?
Carrot cake anyone?
Click the recipe to make it in time for tea...
On Friday night, Mark had just returned home from a fourteen hour shift, when the phone went at 10.30pm and he was called back to work for the entire night...
So by the morning of his birthday he fair old crawled his way into the house and collapsed in front of his birthday breakfast...
His meal of choice? The heart attack material that is the BrocanteHome version of his favorite breakfast of all time- the McDonalds Sausage and Egg McMuffin...
a teeny tiny carrot cake,
and the strongest coffee I could muster to try and keep him awake for the rest of the day...
So you wait and you wait and you wait. You trawl all the cook shops in the locality and you keep your fingers crossed in all the most unlikely places. But you never see one. Perhaps they don't have them here? Too sophisticated? Too French?
So you keep on baking these tiny little cakes and although they are delicious, they are not oyster shaped, so Little Miss Perfect hesitates to call them Madeleines because it is plain for all the world to see that they are just tinsy little cupcakes...
Then one day, as you are on your weekly trawl of Tk Maxx (Love the housewares section!), you see it. And it couldn't be more perfectly beautiful, because it is pink. And it is made by Fauchon, home of the Madeleine, and it is on sale for just £2.99! And you push past an old lady to grab it, just in case half of Southport also have their eyes peeled for a scrumptious pink Madeleine baking sheet. And you are so happy you smile inanely at the boy with the spiky hair at the till, and drive home dreaming up all kinds of oyster shaped variations, till you open the box and find a recipe for Madeleines Provencale, that sends your savoury tastebud's a sizzling....
85g Flour.
1 Egg.
45g Gruyere Cheese.
5cl White Wine.
5cl Milk.
6g Baking Powder.
1 Pinch of Salt.
2 Grinder Twists of Pepper.
90g Sun Dried Tomatoes In Oil.
35g Stoned Black Olives.
6g Chopped Basil.
1 Pinch of Salt.
3 Grinder Twists of Black Pepper.
* Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and pepper* Add the egg, start to beat at the centre,add the white wine, milk and grated cheese. * Set aside for two hours before use at room temperature.* Pre-heat your oven to 160 degrees celcius* Drain excess oil from the tomatoes by laying them on absorbent paper, then chop into small cubes. crush the olives.* Add to the mix you have set aside.* Slice the basil with scissors into thin strips and add to the mix.* Season with the salt and pepper.* Fill the baking tray's to 3/4 full.* Place in the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.* Then serve preferably warm, accompanied by a mixed green salad...*
Gluhwein...
250 ml strong brewed tea.
75 ml sugar
500 ml red wine
5ml ground cloves
1 cinnamon stick
rind of one lemon.
Boil all ingredients except the red wine together, then allow to simmer. Add the red wine and bring to the boil, then add a slice of lemon for decoration and serve...
Purely for the sake of research you understand, I have today tried a really rather divine mulled cider crockpot recipe and if it does nothing else it has filled the house (and the street outside the house!) with the scent of Christmas, which would be just perfect for a cosy Christmas Eve soiree after midnight mass...
Simply pour a bottle of apple cider into your slow cooker with a 1/4 cup of brown sugar, some ginger, a dash of all spice, a couple of cinnamon sticks and a dash of brandy and leave to simmer very low for three to four hours...
Pour into warmed glasses, and add a few slices of apple and a cinnamon stick to serve, preferably with only the glow of the Christmas tree lights for company...
If you bake only one tray of cookies from the new Martha Stewart Holiday Baking magazine, make it the Earl Grey cookies, because out of the six cookie recipes I have tried so far (I am a cookie monster!), these are by far the most elegant.
Cookies for grown ups.
It is baking day, and as you know I bought a bottle of the sweetest, most scrumptiously scented rose syrup in Paris last week, and I've been itching to create something fabulously sweet with it ever since...
I've given serious thought to all kind's of floral delight's, but have decided, that for today, in honour of our little soiree to Paris, I will bake some tiny little rose scented Madelelaines and serve them with a fine cup of Earl Grey this afternoon...
These tiny little shell shaped treats sit somewhere between a cake and a biscuit and are to my mind, the most exquisite sugar dusted way to enjoy a cup of tea and pretend you are in France, instead of pinned to the sofa by a two year old, while you are forced to discuss the merits of Thomas the Tank Engine....
Don't worry about not having the traditional shell shaped cake tray: small cupcake size trays work just as well, and in place of the rose syrup it is perfectly scrumptious to use a squeeze of lemon and a spoonful of grated rind; a handful of chopped raisins, or a 2 spoonfuls of cocoa for a chocolate treat...
My recipe is based on the lovely one in Romancing The Ordinary and the first time I baked them, Mark declared me the next best thing to Delia Smith. Should I laugh or cry?
Rose Scented Madelelaines.
1 egg.
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons of caster sugar (70 g)
1/2 cup plain flour (60 g)
6 Tablespoons of butter, melted and cooled.
3 Teaspoons of rose syrup.
Pre-heat oven to 180 degree's.
1 . Grease your tins with butter and lightly grease with flour.
2. In a bain-marie (double boiler), heat the egg and sugar until warm but not bubbling, stirring constantly. Remove the upper pan from heat, then use a whisk or electric mixer to beat the mixture until smooth and light.
3. Add the cake flour in small amounts at a time, continuing to beat the mixture and finally beat in the melted butter and rose syrup.
4. Immediately pour into tins, filling each no more than halfway.
5. Bake for around 15 minutes, then allow to cool and dust with icing sugar (confectioners sugar)
Serve with a healthy dose of je ne sais quoi...
So I was thinking about Mimi's "Signature" piece and trying to decide whether there was one recipe I always fall back on when people visit, or one for which I am constantly asked for the recipe. And though it was a tough call between my chocolate cake and my brown sugar potatoes, it struck me that the food I never get to eat at my own parties are the potatoes, and that's got to be a good sign, right? Last Saturday I served them as part of Finley's party tea, along with cold chicken, stuffing, sour cream and salad and by the time I got to the table there was none left....
So here it is, the recipe for my signature potatoes: good and wholesome and easy as pie, cos I'm not the kind of girl to go in for fiddly bit's of this and that...
Brown Sugar Potatoes.
Red skinned Potatoes (Desiree or the Roosters in the shops now)
Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar
Sea Salt
Rosemary
Brown Sugar
Black Pepper
Slice as many potatoes as you require into half centimetre slices and par boil. Then lay into a shallow dish and drizzle with olive oil. Now sprinkle liberally with good quality balsamic vinegar, sea salt and black pepper. Shake in the tray. Then sieve light brown sugar all over your potatoes. Shake again. Sieve more sugar over and roast for one hour, turning regularly...
Serve on a half centimetre thick bed of sea salt, garnished with rosemary, and with mustard and sour cream to taste.
Sticky and naughty and ever so nice...
Milk...It Does The Body Good! 
You’ve had an absolutely horrid day. Somehow your red pants got thrown in with your white wash, your 2 year old decided it would be fun to cover himself in baking flour, and your toilet has overflowed yet once again. Time for a break!
Taking time out to relax is an essential part of being a Vintage Housekeeper. After all, how can you indulge in the “joie de vivre” if you are exhausted all of the time? You simply cannot! So today I will be sharing the lovely joys of making and customizing milk baths that will leave you feeling pampered and with skin as soft as a baby’s bum...
Did you know that milk can be very softening to the skin, and is a great and natural way to give yourself a little TLC in the bath or shower? You don’t need to spend a bundle on buying fancy milk baths at the store.
You are a clever Vintage Housekeeper and can make your own luxurious concoctions at home!
Bath
A milk bath, as it is typically known and sold on the market, is made up of mostly milk powder, additives, and fragrance either natural or synthetic. They are a lovely treat for soaking in the tub with, while softening your skin. There are different kinds of milk powders out on the market. The most common in the U.S. (and the UK.) is non-fat milk powder. Others include: Whole milk powder, Buttermilk powder, Goats milk powder, and Coconut Milk powder. I personally have only used non-fat milk powder, whole milk powder, or buttermilk powder. Although non-fat milk powder is the easiest to obtain at the supermarket for a good price, the fatter the milk powder, the better for the skin! For example: On a scale from 1-3 (3 being the most softening), non-fat milk powder is a 1, whole milk powder is a 2, and Buttermilk powder is a 3. Goat’s milk powder is a bit different, but is softening for the skin as well. It is also more expensive than the cow’s milk powders. Coconut milk powder is somewhat of a “specialty” that I have been hearing more about lately. I am not personally familiar with it, however it sounds like it would be a great addition to a milk bath, especially if it imparts the scent of coconut.
Bath
Other than milk powder, you can also add a few different ingredients to give the milk bath some variety as well as making it beneficial to the skin. Here are some ideas.
Honey Powder: This is Honey that is spray dried to make it into a powder. Honey is a good cleanser and smoothing to the skin among other things. Using this powder will add the slight scent of honey to your formulation. (The scent is very slight, however.) Use honey powder sparingly, if you wish.
Rolled Oats: Rolled oats are known to be very soothing to the skin, and it is often recommended that an “oatmeal bath” be given to people when they suffer from skin irritations such as chicken pox. Rolled oats are not only soothing, but can also be softening to the skin. Rolled oats have a light and lovely sweet scent to them. If you choose to use rolled oats in your formulation, package your special milk bath in something that will filter the oats so that they won’t clog your drain. Bags made of muslin and tied with a ribbon are lovely for this purpose.
Cornstarch or Tapioca Starch: Lovely, Lovely, Lovely! Using one of these in your formulation will leave your skin feeling silky soft. I have personally only used Cornstarch in Milk Baths, but hear that Tapioca Starch leaves you feeling a bit more silky.
Herbs & Botanicals: You can also add dried herbs such as chamomile, rose petals, lavender buds, calendula petals, or dried mint leaves to your formulation. They impart a nice natural scent to your creations, and can possibly impart beneficial properties to the skin.
Borax Powder (Not to be confused with Boric Acid Powder!): This product is typically used to soften hard water and in natural cleaning formulations. Using a small amount of Borax in a Milk Bath formulation would make the water a bit softer and gentler on your skin.
Essential Oils: These are wonderful gifts from plants and flowers. They not only provide us with natural fragrances, but can also impart a healing and aromatheraputic effect to our formulations. For example, lavender essential oil is very calming, while peppermint essential oil is very invigorating.
Simple and Lovely Milk Bath
Ingredients:
½ cup non-fat milk powder
¼ cup buttermilk Powder
¼ cup cornstarch
2 teaspoons dried, lavender petals
5 drops lavender essential oil
Makes 1 cup Milk Bath Powder
What to do:
·Put the lavender buds in a small mixing bowl (preferably glass, it looks so pretty as you make it!), and add the 5 drops of essential oil.
·Mix together. Cover and let sit for 10-15 minutes. (This is done so that the essential oil has something to “stick” to so that it can last. The lavender petals are acting as a fixative to hold the essential oil, and also impart a calming scent of their own.)
·Add the cornstarch to the small mixing bowl and mix.
·Add the 2 milk powders and mix.
·If need be, use your bare or gloved hands to crush any lumps in the milk bath before pouring into jars.
·Pour into a clean Jars or wide mouth bottle and label. Voila! Ready to use!
·Use about ½ cup to soak in per bath.
·You can easily buy non-fat dry milk at your local grocery store.
·Specialty milk powders can be ordered on the web. One place you may like to try is http://www.soapdish.com They carry several different types of specialty milk powders and even honey powder!
·Rolled Oats can be purchased at your regular grocer or natural food store.
·Borax can be purchased at your grocery store in the laundry section.
·Herbs and botanicals can be found in your garden or natural food store in the tea section, along with the muslin tea bags as well. These items can also be found on the internet at http://www.mountainroseherbs.com
·Essential Oils can be found in the natural food stores in the beauty section, or on the internet. My favorite place to buy them is at http://www.essentialoiluniversity.com
· Look around your home for nice jars or pretty envelopes to package your milk baths in. There are very many different ways to package your custom creations: Jars, Glassine or Vellum envelopes, Pretty Tins, Muslin Bags, Wide Mouth Bottles, and Cellophane Bags are just a few ideas. Here are two places on the net that I like to shop for containers at:
http://www.wholesalesuppliesplus and http://specialtybottle.com
·Make some pretty homemade labels on your computer or by hand. You can also order labels for yourself or for gift giving at this absolutely scrumptious website http://www.myweddinglabels.com
Milk baths are easy to make and just scrumptious to use. Feel free to modify my recipe above to suite your own convenience and taste. For simplicity’s sake, you could always just use a cup of fresh milk in the tub along with a few fresh flower petals from your garden. That would be just lovely too! So put on your prettiest little apron, and have fun making these luxurious little bath treats. Have some ready made and on hand for when you need to take some time out and relax in a nice warm bath. Enjoy!
-Susana Lucero a.k.a. Vintage Flower...
Oh darlings, what fun we had! We went fruit picking at the weekend, partly because we had friends coming for dinner and partly because we had a couple of munchkins to entertain at the time and nothing excites children more than strawberry picking (with the added benefit of getting them out of the house and into some fresh air): I think it has something to do with them being allowed to eat fruit straight from the bush!
We set the children the task of strawberry picking whilst my friend and I chose gooseberries (I rather like the red gooseberries as they are much sweeter and I had plans for a rather splendid crumble). We managed to pick two large punnets of gooseberries before moving onto tayberries, and although they are coming to the end of season, the bushes were full and the taste is uniquely light and refreshing. A little later the children returned having gathered plenty of strawberries and we headed back home…
When the children had gone, and peace was restored to Chez Mabel, I rustled up a Gooseberry and Elderflower Crumble for that evening and made plans for Gooseberry Chutney with the remainder. The tayberries became Tayberry Jam the following day and we had the strawberries with some thick jersey cream the following morning as a naughty little breakfast treat…
Gooseberry Chutney
2 lbs. (900g) green gooseberries
1 lb. (450g) raisins, stoned
1lb (450g) onions (finely chopped)
3 oz. (75g) pounded mustard seed
1 oz. (25g) salt
1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
1 pint (570ml) malt vinegar
1. Put the gooseberries, vinegar, onions, mustard seed and sugar in a preserving pan and boil for 45 minutes
2. Add the raisins, salt and pepper and simmer for 5 minutes
4. Bottle in warmed, clean jars and label
Very good with cold meats but particularly smoked mackerel
Tayberry Jam
4LB (1.8kg)tayberries (this works equally well with any soft berries but if you can find them, give tayberries a go - I think you will be pleasantly surprised)
4LB (1.8kg) jam sugar with added pectin
15g (1/2oz) unsalted butter
Put all the berries and the sugar into a large heavy based pan and heat slowly, stirring all the time until all the sugar has dissolved. Add the butter and increase the heat, bring to a full rolling boil and boil for exactly 4 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to stand for one minute, then pot and cover immediately.
Don’t worry if any scum appears whilst dissolving the sugar as when you add the butter this will disperse.
This would go splendidly with some of Mimi's “straight from the freezer scones” and clotted cream.
Gooseberry and Elderflower Crumble
2LB (1.8kg) gooseberries
5oz (125gm) caster sugar
1 Tablespoon cornflower
1 fl oz (30ml) elderflower cordial
4oz (100g) plain or whole wheat flour
