Lammas 2020

It was Lammas last weekend (Saturday 1st August). I meant to post last week but didn't finish it, so I'm posting today instead. :)

 

As I said in the Baking for Lammas + Extra Ideas post, my main activity for this sabbat is baking. This year I made Cornish style pasties for lunch and also baked my usual gingerbread.

The Cornish style pasty recipe is from The Real Witches Kitchen book by Kate West. I used Jus-Rol ready-made pastry and made a beef, potato, carrot and onion filling. Here's a picture of one of them:

 

Sorry it's a bit blurred!

 

 

I had it with Bulmers cider.

Then in the afternoon I baked gingerbread. In the past I've used a recipe off the light brown soft sugar packet, but as I said last year, they've stopped putting it on there! Last Lammas I used the ingredients list from that recipe (all that I had saved) and the method from this BBC Food recipe: https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/gingerbread_men_99096

But this year I ended up just using the BBC Food one. It came out quite nice. I had to get new gingerbread cutters because I lost the old ones. I got a set that has 3 different sizes, so I made bigger sized "men", smaller ones and baby ones! I put some icing on top (just made with icing sugar and water).

Here's a picture of the "baby" gingerbread before they were iced: 

They look a bit pale here but tasted nice!

 

 

And here are some more iced:

Icing got a bit messy! lol. I ice some completely.

 

I did them in a couple of batches and the first lot got a bit burnt, but never mind!

In the evening I went up to my favourite nature reserve on a hill. I don't think I'd been up there since last Samhain, due to family car problems and then the lockdown (I don't go much in winter anyway), so it was good to go again. I went for a walk and took some sunset pics. Here are a couple:

 

Mill Hill, Shoreham-by-sea.

 

Sunset on Mill Hill.

 

When I got back I lit a candle ( to celebrate the sun and the light). I thought I had a white candle but realised I didn't have any, so I used a Yankee Citrus Bark one I'd had a for while instead.

I also baked some bread. I made this No-knead overnight artisan bread: https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/no-knead-overnight-artisan-bread/

 

Since it's overnight I made up the dough on Lammas and then baked it the next day. Unfortunately the bread didn't rise! Other bread recipes I've used from Don't Waste the Crumbs (Man bread last Lammas and beer bread for Madron) have come out fine, so I'm not entirely sure what I did wrong. But I think it may have been too much water in the dough. I ended up baking a bread mix instead, lol. Tesco's crusty white bread mix. That came out fine!

 

I won't show a picture of the artisan bread because it looked weird, lol. But here's the bread mix:

Bread mix.

 

The bread was disappointing, but never mind. I think I'll try again for Madron/the Autumn Equinox but maybe a different recipe!

So now we're in the last full month of summer. It's been a strange year so far! August is one of my favourite months because it feels like "proper summer", (I'd say June to August is my fave time), although really we're moving towards autumn now. There are already signs of it with berries coming out on rowan trees and the days starting to become noticeably shorter. They're still quite long though, which is good.

Past sabbats have looked different this year, but with Lammas I felt a bit more freedom. However since my main celebration is baking, I wasn't planning to do much outside that day apart from go out at sunset! With the coronavirus lockdown restrictions easing, we've been able to go out more in the UK and it has been good. I went to the beach recently. But we should still be careful to social distance. :)

 

After a summer that has been generally cooler (although I remember there were a few hot days in June), there is a heatwave here at the moment. On Friday it was the hottest August day in 17 years, with tempatures reaching 36-38C (96.8F-100.4F). Being on the coast we're a bit cooler down here, with the highest about 32C (about 89F).

The next sabbat will be Madron aka Mabon/the Autumn Equinox on 22nd September. I will do a post with celebrations ideas nearer the time.

Hope you had a good Lammas and are enjoying your summer! (Or hope you had a good Imbolg/Imbolc and are enjoying your winter if you're in the Southern Hemisphere). :)