Addison Embroidery
at the
Vicarage

Ipsden Church, Oxon: patchwork altar frontal, detail of ox eye daisy (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Ipsden Church, Oxon: patchwork altar frontal, detail of common field poppy (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Two further flowers for the altar frontal, an ox eye daisy and a field poppy, finished late Mothering Sunday and after an enjoyable half week with family and 9 week-old baby who was a great source of entertainment, distraction and wonder that I ever got anything completed while my own children were babies.

The first of our Mothering Sunday services was challengingly augmented by the obligato digestive processes of a small baby  but as we were looking at a reproduction of a painting by Rembrandt which showed Mary bare breasted having fed her replete baby and which was clearly meant to prompt the viewer to consider the humanity of the Holy Family, this all seemed unremarkable and relevant ( if nevertheless, quite amusing).

Unusually and interestingly Joseph is here depicted as a doting father, bending with concern over Mary and Jesus. Poor Jospeh, painters never really knew what to do with him, so you often have to hunt around a painting before you find him – variously he’s to be found half visible behind a classical pillar, half way up or down a staircase, tucked away in a corner or half hidden behind a tree – the half says it all really. ( I will link to this painting in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich tomorrow – the clocks have just gone back for the start of British Summer Time and I’m feeling the reduction in size of my day – albeit a Sunday.)

Ox eye daisy (hand embroidered) for patchwork altar frontal project, Ipsden Church

Common field poppy (hand embroidered) for patchwork altar frontal project, Ipsden Church

Amaretti dipped in white chocolate with raspberry sprinkles

For Mothering Sunday I wanted something that was special and looked pretty. The English tradition of Mothering Sunday has ancient roots but reached its most important expression the C19th at a time when many country girls left their village homes to take up jobs in service in nearby cities or in London. The church became concerned at long working days, lack of time off and a weakening of family ties, and campaigned for one day’s holiday a year for domestic staff so that they could return to their maternal homes. It was traditional for girls to bake a Simnel cake as a gift their mothers and they would often gather a bunch of wild flowers as they passed along country lanes . Simnel cakes are often decorated with little marzipan balls, which is why I decided to add marzipan balls (admittedly invisibly) to my amaretti.

(Mother’s Day is an American tradition, established at the beginning of the C20th by Anna Jarvis after the death of the mother she loved and whose memory she wished to commemorate. It is celebrated on  the second Sunday in May, while Mothering Sunday is fixed on the fourth Sunday in Lent.)

Ingredients

180 g ground almonds

120 g golden caster sugar

2 teasp chopped mixed peel

60 g marzipan rolled into tiny balls (the size of pearls in a not too ostentatious pearl necklace)

2 egg whites from large eggs

1 teasp of warmed honey

icing sugar to roll the sticky paste in

100 g white chocolate

Freeze dried raspberry sprinkles

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C/ 150 degrees C for a fan oven/325 degrees F/gas mark 3

Line 2-3 baking trays with baking parchment.

Put the ground almonds, caster sugar and chopped mixed peel in a bowl and mix together. Add the marzipan pearls.

In another bowl whisk up the egg whites and the honey until soft peaks form. Now fold this mixture into the dry ingredients in the other bowl until a paste forms. Gather this into a ball.

Pinch off walnut sized pieces of the paste, roll into a ball and drop this in a bowl of sifted icing sugar. Put ball on baking sheet, flattening slightly in the middle.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, turning the trays around half way through to cook evenly.

Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. 

When fully cool, melt 100g white chocolate over a bain marie and half dip each biscuit into the chocolate. Place back on the wire rack and before the chocolate sets, scatter with raspberry sprinkles.

Makes about 24 amaretti. (I made one and a half times the amount which resulted in just over 40 biscuits.)

This recipe is basically the same as that for the Amaretti with Sour Cherries (blog: 19.02.14) based on Ottolenghi’s recipe.

To be frank, the raspberry sprinkles looked pretty but were not especially tasty. The marzipan pearls were a bit of an experiment and not really necessary given the amount of ground almonds used in the first place – I  couldn’t  distinguish the taste of the marzipan itself. The white chocolate was a good addition. The biscuits were excellent.