Sunday 29 September 2019

Madron 2019

Last Monday (24th September) it was Madron, aka Mabon and the Autumn Equinox. As I mentioned in the Madron Inspiration post, I normally bake for this sabbat and this year I made some one bowl gingerbread spiced muffins. Here is the recipe: https://www.forkknifeswoon.com/one-bowl-spiced-gingerbread-muffins/

"One bowl" recipes are good because it's easier just to mix everything together! A couple of years ago I made a one bowl chocolate cake which was nice.

The gingerbread muffins were quite nice. I used applesauce instead of banana because I don't like it, but it still worked quite well. Also I used mixed spice rather than cloves and nutmeg separately. The recipe has molasses but treacle is more readily available in the UK and is similar, so it's a good substitute.

The topping is either a maple vanilla glaze or frosting (see recipe) but I decided instead to make some cream cheese/peanut butter frosting. I've used the cream cheese icing from the frosted white chocolate cake I sometimes make for Easter for ginger cakes before, and it's gone well with them. I also wanted to try out a peanut butter frosting I'd come across a while ago but thought it might not go so well with  the ginger, since it's for banana cakes. In the end I made up the frosting without the peanut butter first (also followed the James Martin white chocolate cake recipe for the British measurements), put it on 7 of the muffins and then added peanut butter to the rest and put it on the remaining 5. Here's a picture:


Sunday 22 September 2019

Madron Inspiration

 

Madron (also known as Mabon and the Autumn Equinox) is almost here.  This year it's on Monday 23rd September which is tomorrow. (I started writing this post last week!).

Note: If you're in the Southern Hemisphere it's nearly time for Oestara aka Ostara/the Spring Equinox. You may like these posts with ideas for celebrating:

Oestara/Spring Equinox Celebration Ideas: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2017/03/oestaraspring-equinox-celebration-ideas.html

Celebrating Oestara + Spring: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2018/03/celebrating-oestara-spring.html

Oestara Celebration Inspiration: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2019/03/oestara-celebration-inspiration.html
 

For the previous two years I wrote Madron celebration idea posts which you can see below:

Madron/Autumn Equinox Celebration Ideas: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2017/09/madronautumn-equinox-celebration-ideas.html

Celebrating Madron + Autumn: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2018/09/celebrating-madron-autumn.html


This year I've written a series of Inspiration posts for the sabbats, so now it's time for Madron's!

Madron is the second harvest festival on the Wheel of the Year (after Lammas and before Samhain) and its themes include grain, balance, thanksgiving and gratitude for what you've "harvested", and abundance. It's also the time of the Autumn Equinox, when day and night are roughly equal. This day marks the "official" start to autumn, although as I've written in my Getting Ready for Autumn post, the meteorological beginning of autumn is 1st September.

The Autumn Equinox is the opposite of the Spring Equinox. This year it will occur at 7.50am UTC, 8.50am UK time, and 3.50 US Eastern time. You can work out your local time compared to universal here: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/universal-time


Sunday 8 September 2019

Summer Photos + Preparing for Autumn

Summer Photos

Summer is coming to an end. As I've often mentioned, summer is my favourite season and I'm not keen on winter! So while the shift from winter to spring feels more hopeful and "lighter" to me, the one from summer to autumn isn't quite the same. We're now moving towards the darker half of the year. But  I do like autumn; I love the beautiful autumn colours of the trees changing during September and October, the golden days with a "mellower" light and the cosiness! I also like the events such as Hallowe'en/Samhain and Bonfire Night.

This post is a combined one with some photos from over the summer and ideas for preparing for autumn. :)

The past couple of years I posted some pictures from my summer. You can see them here:

End of Summer (+ Full Moon Esbat Biscuits): https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2017/09/end-of-summer-full-moon-esbat-biscuits.html

Summer Photos: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2018/07/summer-photos.html

Late Summer: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2018/08/late-summer.html

 

Now here are some pics from this summer:

Worthing seafront- July.