Addison Embroidery
at the
Vicarage

From a recipe on the BBC Good Food website, but using dried cherries instead of glacé cherries which are less sweet and, I think, work better with chocolate.

Gooey chocolate and cherry biscuits

200 g unsalted butter, at room temperature

85 g light muscovado sugar

85 g golden caster sugar

1 egg

225 g self-raising flour

50g plain chocolate, 50-70% cocoa, roughly chopped

50g white chocolate, roughly chopped

85g dried cherries (ornatural colour glacé cherried) roughly chopped

Gooey chocolate and cherry biscuit

Heat oven to 190 °C/fan 170 °C/Gas Mark 5.

Makes about 40 biscuits of roughly 5 cm diameter

Line 2 baking trays with baking paper. (I make my biscuits small, so I use the two trays twice, waiting until the tray is cool before adding the second batch ).

Beat the butter, sugars and egg until smooth, then mix in the flour, chocolates and cherry pieces and a little salt if required (I use no salt). Spoon nuggets of the mixture on to non-stick baking sheets, making sure sure they are spaced well apart as the cookies grow quite a bit during baking. (Raw dough can  be frozen.)

Bake for 12-14 mins until just golden, but still quite pale and soft in the middle. If baking from frozen, give them a few mins more. Cool on the baking trays for 5 mins, then move to a wire rack to complete cooling.

Seventh embellished patchwork star (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Since we came home from Cornwall, our trip to the Eden Project has taken root in my mind and both the conservation project and the china clay pop into my head unbidden. With lots of embroidering (4 more flowers to show soon) and sewing of patches still to be done for the altar frontal I have been very sedentary this week, a condition made easier by the companionship of iPlayer whose programmes have dovetailed nicely into my meandering thoughts. Professor Kathy Willis’s programmes  ‘Plants from Roots to Riches’ (Radio 4, late 2014) were brilliant, utterly addictive and 5 hours of informative entertainment I shall definitely want to go back and hear all over again. Kathy has been head of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew since late 2014. She looks a slip of a thirty something woman in pictures but in delivery and manner has the ageless engaging directness of David Attenborough, the nation’s favourite nature broadcaster – well she does to me, at least – definitely someone to watch out for.

Detail of embroidered patchwork star (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

I have also been chewing over the china clay aspect of The Eden Project too. A comment on the last but one post by a welcome and regular contributor, Penny Cross, reminded me that “The White Road” by Edmund de Waal traces the history of porcelain and would probably answer most of the things anyone could want to know about china clay and porcelain production. I passed the book by when it came out but now Penny’s nudge has given me a great desire to get my hands on a copy.

Eighth embellished patchwork star (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Penny incidentally tells a lovely story of her and friend, as teenagers, booking their own inexpensive Cornish holiday from an advert which had appeared in “The Lady” (shades of ‘Enchanted April’). Thrilled at their initiative and independence and congratulating themselves on the comparative cheapness of their slap bang beside the sea location, they took their first dip in the sea, only to emerge entirely covered in white clay! Wonderful – rebrand the place a health spa and people would be falling over each other for the luxury of a pure, white, kaolin full body mask!

Detail of embroidered patchwork star (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Getting hands on new books is, however, something I’m trying to avoid doing at the moment when we are attempting to cull what we have. But then I remembered another book on the secret of porcelain making which I really enjoyed and which had the great advantage of actually sitting on the shelves currently. Janet Gleeson’s “The Arcanum” is a terrific read tracing the alchemical origins of the Meissen factory and relating the almost unbelievable life stories of the factory’s major chemists/designers. More of this book in a couple of days time because I just couldn’t resist reading it again – even though I really should be concentrating on reducing that Manhattan skyscape of newspaper cuttings I want to get through before we leave…

Emma Bridgewater books: ‘Toast & Marmelade’ & ‘Pattern’

Emma Bridgewater may not be a porcelain maker but the  two recent books by our favourite pottery entrepreneur are great fun – either to read through or to dip into. Buy them as presents – for others or just for yourself and enjoy the mix of recipes, family life and the history of the pottery so many of us love and which has been an integral part of our adult life. Great text and pictures.