2013 Hols, Why Do You Re-read Books?

So I just booked our NC vacation for this year. At school we called it the hols. We spent so long humming and hawing about it that we missed the first week when we normally go down and had to settle for the next two weeks, boo hoo, means I shall be travelling on my birthday. The girl who took our reservation said that the people who had booked the first week we wanted hadn’t paid yet so if they reneged, she could move the dates for us. I am now keeping my fingers crossed.

Glenda Larke who writes a blog called Tropic Temper and is the author of three great trilogies as well as her singleton Havenstar, posed a question today, Why do you re-read a book? I don’t really know the answer to this question, some, like the Wheel of Time books, one re-reads because they go on for so long that you lose track of the events in the story, but others such as Georgette Heyer, Dick Francis, Anne McCaffery and so on, I personally re-read frequently and have done so over the years. I also re-read Glenda’s books too I hasten to add. I have read Havenstar countless times and although I have the paperback, I bought the ebook too. There have been a number of responses to her question, but I said I would throw it out on my blog and see what kind of a response I got. So, dear readers, why do you re-read a book?

My mouth watered when I looked at this picture. Baking spread is, apparently, a margarine which can be used for baking. I would use butter myself, but if you are going to use margarine, make sure it is OK to bake, a lot of them contain too much water. For golden caster sugar, just use regular sugar. Icing is the same as confectioner’s sugar.

Mary Berry’s Orange Layer Cake
BBC Good Food

The queen of baking, Mary Berry, creates a light and fruity citrus sponge with buttery frosting and a sugar glaze. It can be easily cut into 8 slices.
Ingredients

Ingredients

FOR THE CAKE

• 225g baking spread
• 225g self-raising flour
• 1 level tsp baking powder
• 100g golden caster sugar
• 100g brown sugar
• 4 large eggs
• finely grated zest of 2 oranges

FOR THE BUTTER ICING

• 150g butter, softened
• 300g icing sugar, sifted
• finely grated zest of 2 oranges

FOR THE GLAZE

• 25g caster sugar
• juice of 2 oranges

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. You will need 2 x 20cm loose-bottomed sandwich tins, greased and bases lined with baking parchment. Measure all the cake ingredients into a large bowl (reserve a little orange zest for decoration) and beat with a wooden spoon or electric hand mixer until combined and smooth.
2. Divide evenly between the 2 tins. Bake for 20-25 mins or until well risen, lightly golden and shrinking away from the sides of the tins. After 5 mins, remove from the tins and leave to cool on a wire rack.
3. To make the icing, put the butter and icing sugar into a bowl and mix with an electric hand mixer until light and fluffy. Stir in the orange zest.
4. Remove the paper from the cakes. Sit 1 cake upside down on a plate. Make the glaze by putting the caster sugar and orange juice into a saucepan, stirring over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Boil until reduced by half, then brush half on the upside-down cake, using a pastry brush. Spread half the butter icing over the glazed cake. Sit the other cake on top, brush with the remaining glaze, then spread with the remaining butter icing. Scatter with the reserved orange zest. The cake is best eaten on the day, but will keep for up to 3 days in a cool place. It freezes well un-iced or filled.

Have a great day