Shake and Bake Friday!

It was my turn to bake for our Shake and Bake Friday this week at work. I wanted to try something new, of course, and chose these triple chocolate cookies from Linda Collister's gorgeous book Christmas Treats to Make and Give.

They were good fun to make - melted chocolate combined with whisked eggs and sugar, a little flour, and chopped chocolate and walnuts thrown into the mix before putting splodges on a baking tray and baking for ten minutes until they were just baked.

The photo above is taken from the book itself because, uncharacteristically, I forgot to take photos of my finished product. My biscuits turned out darker, possibly because I used golden caster sugar instead of white. I also didn't bother drizzling chocolate over the top, so stricly speaking my biscuits were double chocolate cookies. Really, they didn't need any more chocolate! The house and oven smelled delicous for a day, and my work colleagues LOVED them, which is always gratifying.

Friday's Shake and Bake is turning out to be something we all look forward to, and it's a great shared experience. We're all interested to see and know what each other is making or thinking of making. 

After the momentous task of finishing the boys' jumpers (which they were chuffed with, according to their parents) I have now leisurely picked up my own stripy, long-sleeved TV jumper. I'd finished the back and front ages ago - at the beginning of winter! The pattern has short sleeves, and as documented in this blog I've already made three short-sleeved versions, but I realised I rarely wear them because it's usually either too cold to wear a short-sleeved jumper, or too hot to wear a short-sleeved jumper. I'm using the sleeve instructions from a bolero pattern, which is in the same book (Vintage Knits) and have only had to make a slight adjustment to the sleeve top to fit it into the body. 

I'm having a great Saturday so far. Hagos and I went to Cafe Rouge in town today for breakfast. We both had cafe complet - croissant, jam and butter with orange juice and coffee, and I read the Arts section of The Times, which had a piece by Jeanette Winterson in it. I always like reading her journalism though I've only read her first book Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, years ago, for some reason. I should try another.

Happy Saturday! (photo above of Meg contemplating the outside - she's loving the arrival of spring and the spring-time birds!)