Friday, June 20, 2008

Egg and biscuit

A special request from my friend Jill - a little painting of, and the recipe for, the biscuits we had for tea this morning - they were jolly nice and easy to make. What you do is:
Melt together: 4 oz/110g butter, 3oz/75g sugar (demerara or I used light brown) and 1 dessertspoon syrup or runny honey..... Sift 4oz/110g self-raising flour with a pinch of salt... Add 4oz/110g porridge oats and 2oz/50g dried cranberries... mix together evenly then pour in the syrup mixture. Stir well then form a dough with your hands... roll walnut-size bits into balls and press onto worktop... scatter more cranberries plus some flaked almonds on top and press gently in. Transfer to a baking sheet with a palette knife and bake at 350*F/170*C for 10 minutes. Let them cool on the tray for 10 mins before moving.


And I had to paint one of our farm eggs that we bought at the market too - not that it looks any different to any other egg, I'm sure, to the casual observer, but it is a very very big and pretty egg, being a gentle creamy colour instead of the standard brown or very white eggs we usually get. I seem to be seeing a lot of painting of white subjects lately - maybe just noticing more of them - and think it's something I must try to get better at. This white hen eggcup was really hard to paint - there's lots of scrubbing out of areas where I made it too dark, and some white crayon and pen on top where I added highlights, and some of my preserved white highlights are in the wrong places - lots more practice needed!

6 comments:

Gillian said...

Ah - the white object! And a bikkie + recipe. Always dear to my heart! I decided my calorie reducing efforts here HAD to include my umpteen cups of tea enjoyed with at least ½ a bikkie now and then... I learn so much from you and VP. I don't see where you need practice at all. Egg + china chook are wonderful. Maybe the egg is a little too luminous in relation to the chicken? But which comes first, the chicken or the... ;D

Cathy Gatland said...

I think your magnolia started it off...the White Phase...and what is the point if you can't have a likkle bikkie now and then. The digital pic doesn't show the rubbings and scrubbings into the paper - watercolour is not supposed to be like that (though I am encouraged when I look carefully at some of John Singer Sargent's, and see that he worked his quite hard in areas - to great effect!)

Vivienne said...

I don't know how anyone can paint anything white in watercolour at all! It is amazing to me, and surely involves smoke and mirrors. Now making and eating biscuits is another matter. Those look scrummy.

Anonymous said...

That egg is just perfect!It reminds me of a painting I saw this past weekend in dordogne in france, of a clown with a red nose. I had to touch the painting to convince myself the nose wasn't built up to be round as a ball1 It was fantastically done...looked just like a round little ball and was just good painting technique. Like your egg.
ronell

Ramblingroses said...

I can vouch for these biscuits. They were de-licious. I feel a bit of an imposter even commenting on this blog because I can but only admire sketching and painting. At least I can make biscuits and grow vegetables!

Cathy Gatland said...

...and much much more besides! But admirers of sketches always welcome ;o)