Wednesday 6th August - July Tree

Let's just pretend it's the 31st July for a moment...

Here are my two trees, the huge oak, and the little apple tree. If you zoom in, you will see clusters of red apples on the tree. They aren't ripe; the few I've picked still have white seeds at the core.

The oak tree is covered with little acorns, glowing against the dark green leaves. "It's a mast year" said my friend. I looked it up;

"A mast year is when the trees have a bumper crop and produce much more fruit/seeds than they normally would. Trees such as oak and beech fluctuate massively year on year in the fruit they produce – in some years no fruit will be seen and in others, they have an exceptional crop." (Woodland trust website, 7/10/2024)

Baking

I looked at the bread as I wanted to make some toast. It was rock hard; I could have given it to the builders next door for them to use.

Bake when we were first married we never bought bread; we always had scones. 

8oz self raising flour, 2 oz butter (we used marg then, money was very tight) and 1 oz sugar, rubbed together untilit looked like fine breadcrumbs. Then the milk. We kept 'gone off' milk in the fridge, at the hinge end of door. It was important to let visitors know our system before they either added the 'scone milk' to  their tea or threw it away! How much milk to add? Well, the right amount! Enough to form a not-too-sticky dough. 

This will make 3 or 4 scones; I just pat it into a sort of square/round/rectangle shape and cut it into pieces. Bake for around 10 mins at something like 200C. In fact 10 mins at 200 in the basket of the air fryer was perfect.

I used to make up a huge tub of the dry rubbed together and just spoon some out each morning, which is why I'm a bit vague on the amount of milk.

Many recipes from Australia and USA use something called 'Bisquick'. Then I came across some packets on the shelves of the food section and read the ingredients. It seems so be very similar to scone mix, without the sugar. Here's a recipe for Bisquick substitute from the Internet;

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon butter

I've always got those items in my cupboard anyway, so I won't be worrying about hunting down packets of Bisquick!

Music

I'm at the stage where I can't remember what music I've shared and what I haven't!

I'm watching the new tv programme 'Destination X'. The contestants are on a train (going past a nudist camp somewhere in Germany, I think... that was a bit of a surprise)

so here's 'Puffin' Billy', and hopefully I haven't shared it too recently!

I don't think I'll bother with Destination X again. The teams of contestants are deceiving each other and it's all going to end in tears...