Golden oldie

Yes, it's that pylon again. It was chilly out, so I wasn't inclined to venture far.

This morning I decided to try baking the panettone from my favourite baking book, The Italian Baker by Carol Field. As well as buying some paper panettone cases, I'd already studied the recipe so I knew it was complicated. However I wasn't expecting total elapsed time to be close to twelve hours; I started the sponge at 10 a.m. and took the panettone out of the oven around 9:30 pm (see extra) ... Was it worth it? Well, it was pleasant enough in a brioche-like way, but it didn't have the airiness of the kind of panettone you can buy in Lidl for a few euros - I probably should have let it rise for even longer. And the outside was a bit over-browned due to the middle taking a long time to get cooked. Still, I will definitely try again, when I have a whole day to spare ...

Cat update: I took Mystère to the vet yesterday, and as well as cleaning out the wound and giving him an antibiotic jab, the vet put one of those cones of shame on his head, to stop him scratching at it. The indignity! He's never had one of these before, and in the 15 minutes it took me to drive home he'd removed it. So I decided he'd earned the right not to wear it. Especially as we would be out for a large part of the day, and I worried he'd get it jammed in some awkward way if he tried to get it off again. We went to B's for a leisurely lunch -- it was nice to catch up, having not seen her since before we went to Spain.