Tapping fingers... baking stollen and eating eclairs!

In limbo; waiting waiting, making more phone calls, hassling and waiting with increasingly impatient patience. The final stage of relocation has to happen in the next 10 days otherwise we will be wishing we hadn't recycled the tent when everything went into storage. Hopefully we are moving into our own house a week tomorrow and can start settling in properly to the area.  However, with the hindrance of the stupid English legal system, we still cannot be totally sure it is happening. so we cannot say to the removal company when they will be delivering our stuff out of storage and moving us from the rented house to the new one. Of course they may book up by the time we know for sure.

So in anticipation of the move I have not managed much knitting, no crochet (shock horror) but I have achieved a lot of comfort baking and eating. Last weekend I finally made the Christmas Stollen for Sunday breakfast. I make the rich buttery and eggy dough with sultanas, dried apricots, cherries, mixed peel and almonds in my bread machine from Delia Smith's recipe, and then knock it back, wrap it around the  marzipan (use by October 2012) and leave to prove in the fridge or cold garage overnight. Bake whilst making the morning cuppa, ice with lemon glacé icing and enjoy!  Lovely toasted the next day too.

In the week it was still cold, and the school one had a cold, so I baked  Oaty Banana Nutella Muffins to avoid throwing two very black bananas away, and Nutella was on offer. Smoothies might have been healthier! I "wassaped" the school girl to let her know that after her cold walk home in the snow feeling grotty (I am a rotten mum, I send them to school with sniffles) that warm muffins awaited. She turned up with two friends in tow, it was lovely having 16 year olds sat round eating muffins, drinking tea and chatting after school, just like Primary School days.

Then all week we have enjoyed a short revival of Great British Bake Off for Comic Relief. One night they made eclairs, I haven't made choux pastry for at least ten years so I thought I would see if I still could on Saturday afternoon. The pastry turned out OK but my piping skills are still atrocious. Uneven, different sizes and  knobbly bits but the "bake" was good and filled with whipped cream and topped with lashings of chocolate ganache they certainly tasted good.

Hopefully the colds have been shaken off, the snow has gone and I can get out on my bike again and get some exercise and start packing for the move, rather than eating all the time! However, there are 6 unfilled eclair shells in the freezer...and the top down sweater is just 6 cuff rounds of sleeve ribbing away from being finished.