...merry, merry, quite contrary...

...merry, merry, quite contrary...i do try to be merry, really i do...to prove it, i thought i would break with tradition, let the cat out of the bag so to speak, and share a bit of how we celebrate in my little corner of the world...i will carry on with the 3 kings, no, not more queries, just celebrating stuff...

...ok, so january 6 is epiphany (3 kings day) that's the day we move the 3 kings over to the manger to see the wee baby...we bake a cake that day and we put a broad bean in it...whoever gets the broad bean gets to be king for a day, or at stu and jack's house, queen for a day...oh no wait, at their house someone always is queen for a day, a very long day...when i am short on cake i change it, so that whoever gets the broad bean gets to be housecleaner for a day...makes that cake go a lot farther!...so here's the recipe for 3 kings cake...

you will need:

250g butter or (margarine...NOT)

250g sugar

4 eggs

125g glace cherries, halved

100g chopped nuts

250g self rising flour (resurrection flour)

grated behind of lemon

pinch of cinnamon

1 dried bean

1 tbsp. melted honey for glazing the cake

Grease and line a 30 cm tin. Cream the butter and sugar together and stir in the well beaten eggs. (as opposed to the just worked over ones). Sift the flour and cinnamon and gradually fold into the mixture, alternately with the cherries and nuts and lemon behind. Add the bean. Pour into the prepared tin and bake at 160 C (325 F) for 1.5 - 2 hours, until a skewer comes clean.

Leave in the tin for 15 minutes before turning out on a wire rack. Glaze the cake with the melted honey. Make a crown from a strip of gold card (or use your real crown, princess) Crown the cake before serving.

...this is our nativity scene...katie potato made these figures (mary has alopecia...maybe a B-12 deficiency)...jesus doesn't get to go to the stable until dec. 25 at 2:37 am, the time he sprung from mary's loins...at about 11:30 pm christmas eve, we give mary her epidural, and then all is calm and all is bright...12 days later...surprise! the 3 kings, bearing gifts (that 'bearing' word makes mary cringe)...