Sullington Windmills WI

The weather is definitely feeling autumnal and therefore I started by making the Pear & Ginger Flapjacks.

Despite the recipe being quick and easy, I was not very happy with the results. Even though the flavour was really good, I just found the consistency too soft and crumbly. I even baked the mixture for an extra 20 minutes!

The problem may lie with the addition of the fresh, grated pear. I think this makes too moist a flapjack for me. My family prefer a stickier, chewier flapjack.

I ended up improvising and turning the flapjacks into granola, by breaking up the flapjacks, adding a few tablespoons of honey and then baking in one layer in the oven for 30 minutes.

As the flapjack recipe was not a major success, I then went on to bake the Caramel Apple Cake.

Again the recipe was very easy, but the results much better. The apple was evenly distributed throughout the cake and the cake cut well.

The final cake was perfect for an Autumn day, lots of warming cinnamon plus sweet caramel, tempered by the sharpness of the Bramley apple. The crunchy demerara sugar on the top added another texture, which complimented the soft sponge.

This is the type of cake that you could have warm with some custard or cold with a cup of tea.

** NEXT MONTH **

There are a couple of baking opportunities in October.

We have the Pop-in Lunch on Thursday 3 October. Hot puddings are needed to be served to the diners. Traditional puddings like fruit crumbles, apple pie or bread & butter pudding go down well. If you are able to provide a pudding, or help in any way, please contact Sorrel.

On Wednesday 16 October we have our monthly meeting. This month is our Birthday meeting and we will be providing homemade cake for all of the attendees. If you can make a cake or tray bake, please contact Liz, letting her know how many people your baked item will cater for.

I intend on making a simple vanilla tray bake to a Waitrose recipe. Click here for details.

What a fun and productive evening we had this month.

We sat around our tables in groups, chatting away as we endeavoured to sew together a limited number of items to produce a spray of poppies.

With the guidance of Wendy we took on the challenge and after a few pricked fingers, lost wires, disappearing thread and some slippery little buttons, we all managed to make our poppies.

These are going to look great in the Storrington village shop windows this November in the run up to Remembrance Sunday.

A big thank you goes out to everyone who put together the packs and helped to cut out the felt. Especially to Wendy and her son (who kindly donated the felt for us to use).

Whilst we had refreshments we also had the book sale. This appeared to go very well as there was a good selection of books, which seemed to be to a lot of people's taste. Not many had to be taken home again at the end of the evening. Thank you if you donated or bought a book.

The meeting also covered the usual business notices, including one to inform us that our fundraiser in August made an amazing £134.19, which has already been sent off to ACWW.

"Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?" is one of the questions raised in the blurb for The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.

Although we may all have some regrets in life, reading this book was not one of them. This was a book that was liked or loved by everyone in the book club.

Depression is the core theme to this book, but it also covers life and death, love, despair, hope, friendship, choices, self-acceptance, how do you rate success and whether the grass is really always greener.

Although you may feel that the subject matter sounds a bit 'dark', the book was very intriguing and in parts uplifting

Everyone confirmed that it was an official "page-turner" and we all seemed to have taken something from this book. We had a very good discussion on various topics. 

Many of us were able to empathise with Nora, the protagonist, and worried for her as she fell into a spiral of despair. We talked about how people in our lives often do not realise how the little things really matter to, or impact on, other people. How that teacher really inspired us, for example.

A great read and we thank Helen for suggesting it to us. Many of us would now like to read more from Matt Haig.

The next book to be read will be "Between the Acts" by Virgina Woolf.

This will be dicussed on Friday 11th October.