Tuesday baking and little bit more of Santa's Village

The backing fabric for St Germain quilt arrived from Billow Fabrics, half price in their Sale, so I am very pleased.

That means that I have no excuse, 2 quilts to quilt now.

But I needed a break from all that, and luckily I have several "in between" projects on a go, so there is always something else to pick up. My eyes need a change for a while.

Santa's Village is a very long term project. I am not a cross stitcher really, but I liked this the first time I saw it, one of those "must do". It is a lovely design by Country Cottage Needleworks. 

So last night I finished "Candy Cane Cottage", the 6th in the set.

Six done,

and six to do.

The basic colours are the same all throughout, 

but each cottage has an additional colour threads and a button to stitch on.

After the miserable weather over the holiday weekend, today is a real spring day.

And despite the bad weather we had, things are happening in our garden.

First camellia blossom is out,

and miniature Japanese cherry is nearly fully out.

Today's baking is a simple one. I used the basic recipe for Marbled cake, just without the "marble",

6 oz flour, 6 oz butter, 6 oz sugar (but I used less, because I am using sugar with Stevia), 3 eggs.

Plus some sultanas soaked in Amaretto instead of "marble".

It was the first time I used spelt flour for this cake; 

I ended up using white and wholemeal together because I did not have enough of the white, 

but it did work well together.

Only after I realised I forgot to add vanilla, despite the fact I had it ready.

No problem, little vanilla sugar sprinkled on top.

The result is a light and moist cake; 

I will definitively used spelt flour again for this recipe.

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