Charitably creative

Where has the past month gone? I can't believe it's six weeks since I last sat down to write. In that time I have mostly either been entertaining house guests or being entertained as a house guest. It has been a lot of fun and great to reconnect with friends and family.

However, I've not been entirely idle on the creative front. This weekend I provided three gluten-free bakes for a friend's daughter's charity tea stall at the Southbank Bristol Arts Trail. She is raising money for her school charity which is a school in Uganda that takes boys from the streets. Anyway, the whole of south Bristol was buzzing when I dropped the cakes off yesterday lunchtime and I was very tempted to stay but had chores to get back to. Anyway, I was delighted to hear later in the day that the cakes were proving so popular that customers were putting additional donations into the tin once they'd finished eating. What more praise could a cook wish for?!

If you are interested I made a lemon, pistachio and polenta cake, which was positively dripping with lemon syrup; a chocolate and hazelnut cake based on a classic chocolate and almond torte but with ground hazelnuts replacing the almonds and a sneaky splash of kirsch; and a vegan and gluten-free version of a millionaire's shortbread. This takes its inspiration from a date and nut bar with added ginger and desiccated coconut topped with dark chocolate.

In other charitable acts I've been busy knitting children's hats. When helping a friend with her first ever knitting project last autumn I was reminded how much I love knitting and how much I missed it. I was therefore casting around for a project or two. After knitting myself a jacket...

I turned my hands to using up left-over yarn to make children's hats. These are to go into gift boxes for orphans this Christmas made up by my parents' local community. I began with some super chunky wool in red and black but swiftly moved onto yarn from a sack my Mum had been given by a friend. I began with the pink and green but it took me a while to come up with something child-friendly to make with the large quantity of beige yarn. In the end I used the 'teabag' hat pattern (square with a bobble in each of the top corners) to make bear faces, which I'm hoping the younger recipients will like.

With months still to go before the Christmas box deadline, I'm sure the hat count will continue to rise. There are also a few more balls of the beige yarn to go!

But for now, I'm off out to make the most of the sunshine, which has been rather rare in the UK in 2018.