Friday, April 11, 2014

Welsh Cakes and Lavender Lemonade with Honey and Call the Midwife!!




     I don't know about you, but a British time period show is just that much better when I've made some British yummies to munch on while watching.  Last week my husband had found a recipe for Lavender Lemonade with Honey and shared it on Facebook.  It sounded really good, so I decided to try it.  Besides, I already had some organic culinary Lavender on hand, in bulk!  I also had raw local honey.  You can find the recipe here.  I took pictures and tried to take a short-cut that I won't do again.





Here is what raw local honey looks like.  It is thicker than the regular honey we are used to seeing in the stores.


 
 
 
 

When the water came to a boil, I added the raw local honey and stirred until it dissolved.







When the honey was dissolved, I added the dried Lavender to steep for about 20 minutes.  Next time I'll probably let it steep longer.

 
 
 
 
 
 
While the Lavender steeped, I washed the lemons and used a peeler to zest.
  
 






Then I gave the lemons to one of my helpers to juice.  That notebook next to her is one of my two notebooks of recipes I've found online, printed and slipped into a protective sleeve, because cooking gets messy.







Here's where I tried to skip a step.  I tried to strain the Lavender infused honey water into the pitcher instead of a bowl.  See the droplets on the cutting board?  That's what happened.  Take my advice and strain into a bowl.  THEN pour into the pitcher!







Here's the strained Lavender infused honey water, the fresh "squeezed" lemon juice and lemon zest.


 
 
 
 
 
The Lavender Lemonade with Honey and some lemon zest, ready to chill!!!  This lemonade was a big hit with the family, so I will probably double the recipe next time.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
     I also made Welsh Cakes.  The recipe I use, I had gotten from a Unit Study by Amanda Bennett (so I'm not including a link to this particular recipe, but you can do a web search for a recipe) that we did back when the 2012 Summer Olympics was held in the United Kingdom.  We did a study on the UK and then a study on the Olympics.  Unit studies are a great way to homeschool.  We all learned some new things and they've retained a lot of the information they learned.  We had also done the unit study for Germany that year and we did one for Valentine's Day a year before those.  I have since come to the conclusion that the unit study method is not the best fit for our family dynamics.  However, if your family does well with the unit study method, I would high recommend Amanda Bennett.  I really liked the way she had them set up.  There are a lot of options of things you can cover.  I had a hard time making the hard decisions of what to use and what not to use and probably overwhelmed my kids.




 Here's the Welsh Cakes rolled out and cut out.  It is important to get the dough rolled to 1/4" thickness.  If it is thicker, it won't cook through.  If it is thinner, it will most likely burn. 

 




Although the recipe I use says that it takes 3 minutes per side, my pan tends to get hot, so I need to stay close by to keep an eye on them.  I doubled the recipe and they were completely gone the next evening.






Ready to sit down and enjoy my Welsh Cakes and Lavender Lemonade with Honey while I watch Call the Midwife!!!


 
 
 
Now...what am I going to make for the next episode of Call the Midwife??? 
 
Do you make anything to enjoy when you watch the show?