Rhubarb Cake

We grow rhubarb on our allotment.

Many years ago a Dutch quilting friend, Irene, gave me a recipe for a rhubarb cake, which she used to serve at her quilt meetings, having found it again a while ago I made it for the friends I have made here. Everyone liked it so much I thought I would share the recipe with you. I don't have a picture of the cake, so I have included a picture of rhubarb instead! Before we eat in future I will have to get out the camera.

What has never occurred to me before I set out to copy this recipe, is that it is in imperial weights. I'm sure you can adjust it to whichever method you are happy with, as it's the idea that counts.

Rhubarb Crumble Cake

14 oz trimmed rhubarb

7 oz butter

10 oz SR flour

3 oz pale muscovado sugar

4 oz caster sugar

11/2 oz chopped hazelnuts

1 orange

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the nutty crumble topping:- Sift 4 oz flour into a bowl - add 3 oz butter, rub in roughly, stir in muscovado and nuts, set aside.

Cake mixture:- Slice rhubarb into 1-inch chunks and finely grate the rind of orange over it.

Put remaining 4oz butter, softened but not runny, caster sugar, remaining flour, spice, eggs and two tablespoons of the orange juice into a bowl and beat together.

Spoon cake mixture into a greased and lined 8 - 9 inch loose bottomed or spring clip cake pan. Scatter over rhubarb and orange, then cover the fruit with the crumble mixture.

Bake at 180c, Gas mark 4 for about one and a quarter hours. Cool slowly - don't turn out until completely cold - try to wait until the next day before eating.

You can make this with frozen rhubarb.

Quilt Show Birmingham

Finally, after waiting three long years, I made it to the quilt show in Bham. My sister Michelle, over from Boston, went with me. We looked at many mad and fantastic works - nice to see so many done by machine these days - in fact my sis thinks I should buy a long arm quilter! She's not really into quilts and sewing but was a very good sport about the whole thing - didn't grumble once in 6 hours! My love of all things primitive or with hearts on it made her decide that I must be Amish - my husband agrees and simply says "that explains it."

While there I got very close to Kaffe and Janet Bolton (actually telling her "I love your work" she smiled at me kindly).

I was very good and spent hardly a penny, we were there after all to see the quilts, AND I didn't even go near the book stalls!!!!

Before going on the train , we sat down for a coffee. Two women from Cornwall joined us. They are part of a group of 4 who meet at each others homes. They USED to belong to a formal group BUT....

Using up those fabrics

Lingering after lunch

About a year or so ago we decided to make some small quilts for the childrens' hospice. We have been fairly prolific quilters in the past, and each have a large stash of fabric (show me a quilter who hasn't), so we though we'd use some of it up.

We decided on a bobbin/spool pattern, and to start with we each made as many little blocks as we found time for. When we had made enough to go together attractively one of us would take the blocks home, sew them together, back it and quilt it.

The first pieced quilt and more blocks finished

Then we thought, rather than just meeting up one evening a month, why don't we have a day when we meet together and just work on the little quilts, cutting, machining, sandwiching with wadding etc. in company. These day-time meetings have become great fun, we have made several quilts, made much conversation and generally enjoyed each others company. Until last year daytime meetings were not possible as many of us were still working, but now it is only Anne who is working full time, and as she works term times only we do see her on some of these days.

The hostess for the day makes soup and bread, it's quite a challenge to find a different and interesting soup for each occasion, none of us like lumpy soups. Last time we all met up I have to be honest and say that the weather was so good we sat in Imogen's garden and talked, not a needle was plied, we are full of good intentions for rainy days and winter ones too, but we are considering a picnic for our next day-time event, weather permitting!

Here is my recipe for :-

Spicy Squash and Carrot Soup

Medium-sized butternut squash and carrots equivalent to approx. three quarters of prepared weight of squash.

2 onions.

Ground cumin and small amount of hot chilli powder to taste - or fresh red chilli if you have it

Enough olive oil to lightly coat a shallow roasting tin

Chicken stock, (or cube and water), milk

Roast the vegetables at the top of a hot oven until browned and caramelised. (Carrots may not be cooked all the way through, but will finish cooking in the stock).

Scrape the browned vegetables into a large pan, stir in seasoning, try 2 teaspoonfuls cumin and one half teaspoon chilli powder to start with, you can add more later, swish out the roasting pan with boiling water to make sure you have all the juices and add to the pan with the vegetables. Add enough stock to cover the vegetables comfortably and cook until everything is soft enough to puree.

Dilute with stock and add milk to make it creamier, and to tone down an over spicy soup,check the seasoning, make sure it is not bland, you can heat extra spice in a little olive oil and add to the mixture. Heat to serve, adding salt if you have used home made chicken stock. This should make more than enough for eight.

When I started to make this soup I used Schwartz Moroccan Seasoning, now discontinued, which was a very easy option, but I did use about two dessertspoons for this quantity of soup. There may be other Moroccan style seasoning that would work, Caroline has given me a sachet she bought in Asda, but I have yet to try it in soup. Cumin and chilli works well though.

Caroline, our Quirky Quilter

One Nemo Quilt wrapped around Daughter No. 2

Caroline is the only professional quilter is our group, mad as they come, here is her story of her quilt for Jess.

Thank goodness Nemo is finished!

What a story to tell!

Daughter number 2 asked me if she could have a Nemo Quilt for Christmas. No problem, says I, thinking I could knock up a Lap Quilt in no time. Was I wrong!

No, says Daughter no. 2, I would like to have one that wraps around me! Oh! and don't worry about the material, I will buy it off the Internet so you will not have to pay for it.

Planning ahead, how to use my pattern knowledge, thinks me, easy: - stars, squares, oblongs, no problem.

Material came, oh brother! all that rotary cutting, it took me two weeks before I could even start making the blocks. All blocks done and top pieced took me another 4 weeks, long gone past Christmas I may add.

Trying to iron the 'Darn Thing' with my Jack Russell puppy and my kitten Mr. Tibbs wrapping themselves in it and Moo Cow (puppy) sitting on the bottom of it thinking ' Oh, wot fun!' My temper was not too good...

Then came the sandwich:- Wadding and Backing (I love to pin on the ironing board).

1) Run out of safety pins. 2) Moo Cow sitting on the end of the quilt, dragging it off the ironing board. 3) Mr. Tibbs thinking it is a climbing frame!

FINISHED:- MAY 2007, One delighted customer, 1 Moo Cow in picture, One label on the back.

THANK GOODNESS NEMO IS FINISHED

Introducing Imogen

This is me at Jane's 70th birthday party with the pavlova I made.

I am the badly behaved drunkard on the first photograph swigging back---a bottle of lavender liqueur with the lid firmly on! I am a retired primary school teacher and have discovered that my 'Lavender Licence' is wonderful i.e. doing what I like , when I like , how I like and with whom I like!! AND I like my quilting days more than I can say. We decided ,gathered round and sewing one evening, to sparkle up our get-togethers,so various hilarious suggestions followed. Our next get-together was round about my birthday so ,egged on by Sharon, I decided to give the evening a lavender theme. I made a victoria sponge and soaked it with lavender liqueur,topped with the last of my lavender from the garden, and served it with cream. Then I made shortbread and tipped the liqueur into the mixture. It actually tasted nice-subtley lavender. We watched Ladies in Lavender, did absolutely no sewing and laughed a lot!

My husband (banished to another room for the evening on the promise of some cake) took the photograph.

Since this evening we have had other wonderful outings/evenings with plenty of hilarity!!

Jane is 70

Jane and Sandra






Jane was 70 on May 23rd, the first of us to reach
that milestone, so we decided to have a supper party, just the eight of us, with everyone doing something. We made up a menu and printed it with our Ladies in Lavender picture on the back, and a purple ribbon trim on the front.

You will guess that we are very fond of Jenny Joseph's poem 'When I am an old woman I shall wear purple with a red hat that doesn't go', but I had better say quickly that three of us are only in their early fifties.

Sharon made a very festive looking, and delicious punch with raspberry and pomegranate bucks fizz from M&S mixed equally with their matching juice, and lots of summer berries. It suited the evening perfectly.







The menu for the evening started with a vegetable terrine, followed by chicken tagine, with cous-cous (or rice for the cous-cous haters), delicious puddings, pavlova with beautiful fresh fruit and a lemon meringue pie. We all ate some of each I'm afraid, but we could not manage birthday cake as well, so Jane took it home to share with her family. There was a photo on top of the cake of some of us on a shopping spree... for fabric of course.

The First Stitch

... Thus the day was spent in friendly gossip as they quilted and rolled and talked and laughed... Harriet Beecher Stowe

We are a group of eight friends who have been quilting, cooking, eating, gossiping, weeping and laughing together for over 15 years.

Some of us were founders of a formal quilting organisation but after a few years couldn't cope with the constraints i.e. lack of laughs as the group got bigger and bigger. So we rebelled, closed ranks and surreptitiously became 'sew-together', sharing the threads and patches of our lives as well as our fabrics.

We are starting this blog to share together our recipes, our quilt patterns and our lives.