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The Aga and myself have spent most of our lives in a land called Ayrshire or Land o’ Burns. This, title, I am told, is not so much because of all the scorch marks made on neglected washing left on Agas, nor roast potatoes left for 3 days too long to wails from Mum when she remembered, but to the birth hereabouts some 256 years ago of an iconic poet called Robert Burnt, sorry, Burns. From what I see from my elevated position on the dragon’s hearth, this individual is responsible for the excessive consumption of some pretty weird fare. Why boil stomachs full of grain and spice and offal in a pot when they can just roast a leg of lamb and share it with me? Then they go all silly with stinky whisky stuff and chanting outbursts.
 Mum as Agnes Broun outside Burns’ Cottage Yesterday was that notorious poets’ birthday and Mum was dressed up to the nines, tripping over her hemline and asking Dad to strap her into an over-tight dress so she could look like she was younger, slimmer and lither. Personally I think being able to breathe does more for a girl. She even painted her head fur (and my kitchen) a rusty colour she calls henna before donning a white cap which completely covered her efforts. She said she was playing the part of Robert’s mum Agnes in the cottage he was born, as if that explained everything, before rushing off with a wicker basket of fresh hot bannocks and soup, determined to have the Burns’ Cottage smell as good as our home. Well of course it won’t, their stove went out years ago and the fire is pretend, and the cottage cat only comes out at Halloween, but thats another tale.
Mum says haggis is awfae rich reekin fare, then blames the bard for her lingo. She claims it tastes pretty good mixed with chopped tomatoes and stuffed into baked potatoes. I told her some white fish would be preferable thank you, so she obliged me. I have her well trained now. All I have to do is threaten to be sick, generate a fur-ball, and she is putty in my hands.
 gorgeous me
Love from Tiddler x
Thank you to Janet Renouf-Miller for the piccy of Mum, who was far too tired after all her yapping to hundreds and hundreds of visitors to manage a selfie, and so was very pleased with the souvenir.
Mums still on her “eat the freezer” post-Christmas clear-out. She seems to think that she needs to declutter everywhere and the food stores are to be “turned over” She is pretty good at finding bargains and freezing them so the big cold store is always full of weird stuff. By that I mean Not Duck and Not Haddock. Those are my idea of good stores. The summer before last, friends and keen fishermen kept turning up at the door proffering their catches. Unfortunately for me, no haddocks and not a duck in sight. Instead there were strange creatures which clacked claws at me, goggled their eyes and looked far too crunchy for my old teeth. Mum said they were crustaceans called common crabs. She likes to pretend she knows about animals. The youngest member of the house decided she would “deal” with them. She looked up Youtube videos covering humane dispatching of crabs, and soon discovered that it wasn’t an easy job at all. Soon there was shell and stink everywhere and after 2 were shelled, the enthusiasm waned and the remainder were stuffed straight into the freezer. That’s where they stayed until the clear-out.
Since Dad was away seeing his grandkids, Mum decided it was a good time to cook smelly fish and meat stuff. I quite enjoyed helping her out with her Paella, but then she cooked the crab and started to smash it to bits with a nut cracker. I tried putting my head down to ignore the stink but had to leave the Aga in the end and occupy the distant end of the sofa. What right-minded critter could be close to that smell? You are right, the dogs, they adored the pong: they are so disgusting. Mum gave them some of the meat and they actually enjoyed it.
 stinky dogs await their smelly supper In the end she gave them the whole lot and burnt the shell and innards in the Aga’s fire. I don’t know why she didn’t just give it a decent funeral in the first place, seeing as she wasn’t going to eat it. Would have saved her, the work surface and mutts smelling quite so bad. She is away now to scrub up with mint soap for the third time. I hope she changes her clothes too. Bet the neighbours at the pub next door are loving that stench. One of the special things with Agas is the way they vent all the cooking or incinerating smells to outside. So the neighbours probably also smelt the oatcakes over-toasting long before Mum remembered she had stuffed them in the top (hot) oven. Then she heard her radio playing ‘Babylon’s burning’ and recalled her cooking. Yup, Babylon sure was burnt tonight.
Since she did a better job with the Paella, here’s what she did:
Start with 2 dessert spoons olive oil, 3 cloves garlic, 2 small red onions finely chopped, soften in a large frying/paella/saute pan.
Add oz arborio/risotto/short grain rice, 1 tsp saffron threads (crushed), good grinding black pepper, 2 tsp oregano, 1 tsp bayleaf powder, stir to coat the grains with oil. Add 200ml canned tomatoes, 1/2 sweet potato diced, 1 stick celery, 1/2 leek finely sliced, enough stock to double the volume and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring so it doesn’t stick.
Add 1 fillet white fish (mum used pollock because I had eaten all the haddock), 1 oz prawns, 2 oz mussels, 1/4 red pepper, some broccoli in 1″ florets, 1 teaspoon bouillon powder (or to taste-you humans seem to like salt) and a lid to cover and steam for 5 minutes or till the fish is done if its very frozen. Feeds 2 humans.
And remember to pay your cat her Butter Tax fee when you fetch things from your fridge box. Just because you are ‘healthily eating’ olive oil doesn’t mean your cat can’t indulge in proper butter. It keeps our coats glossy and furballs at bay. Make it Organic butter please.
Love from
Tiddler
My Mum says she hates waste. Of course I am the chief offender as far as she is concerned. I try and tell her I am just maintaining my trim figure. And the stinky house dogs love having my scraps as gravy anyhow so where is the waste?
She was on one of her bandwagon rants again, this time on the stuff left over after New Year. I hadn’t like to mention the strong fruity whiff emanating from the big table as the bananas became blackened. Dad says he likes black bananas so I thought he would have polished them off but it seems its not only me on a svelt-awareness kick.
The wind is blowing gale-force strongly from the west, and as I have already mentioned, thats when our dragon becomes very active. the Aga top was so hot my tail toasted and I was forced to retire to the sofa. Dad pulled the flue flap out to reduce the air pull while Mum gathered ingredients for a cook-fest. Such a hot stove could not be allowed to go to waste.
First up to be cooked was a plum conserve called Porwidl or plum butter.
 plums bubbling into a rich preserve This, I am informed is a yummy spread to use on bread, cake or ice cream. Why she can’t just keep to butter toppings beats me. Then I get to have lots of delicious butter (see the butter tax, mentioned with crumpets). Seemingly she had foraged many plums from a certain supermarket at 1p per 400g and intended to make the most of this bounty. She used:
6lb plums, 2 organic oranges (rind and juice of), 3 oz butter, 12 oz sugar
In a large pan, melt 2 oz butter. Add the stoned plums, rind and juice. Cook fruit till thick and dark coloured (no, not burnt), stirring frequently so it doesn’t stick. For total smoothness you can sieve the skins out. Mum hates fuss so didn’t. At this point find 10 small jam-jars, clean, dry and heat them in the bottom oven (if you have an Aga) or microwave if not- lids and indeed jars can be sterilised in a low oven. Add sugar, melt it in. Stir well. Pot the preserve into the hot jars, smoothing the top. Heat the remaining 1 oz butter and pour a little on the preserve surface to exclude air. You can add a waxed disc too for luck. Cover with the lids and tighten them. Label, with reminder you need to fridge this once opened and in any case to use within 6 months. When cool, keep in a cool dry preferably dark place.
Serve with your rye bread or crumpets as from the earlier blogs.
 lovely chutney made from spare veg and fruit The consummate chutney
The Dragon’s hearth still being hot, Mum continued by making a chutney. She chopped up all sorts of veg and fruit and boiled it (funny idea she has of what she should eat i am sure). Here is her recipe. Her friend Pat came over while she made it and helped with the stirring and the tasting. She said she put lovely wishes and blessings in and that it tastes great. Its not tuna though, is it? Come on Mum, get that tin open.
She used: 12 oz = 2 large onions, chopped finely, 1 1/2 oz garlic, 2 Tbsp olive oil, 12 oz = 3 parsnips, 5 oz = 2 carrots, 12 oz = 2 cooking apples, 2lb ripe bananas, 3 oz sweet tamarind pulp (or 1 dsp paste), 750ml water, 1/2 red pepper in fine strips, 300ml cider vinegar, 4 oz sugar, 1 tsp salt, chilli to taste (she used 1 fresh sweet one, one hot dry one and 1 tsp chilli flakes as she likes heat), 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp cloves, 1 tsp fennel seeds, 4 inches fresh ginger (minced), 1/2 stick cinnamon, 1 brown cardamon pod-seeded, 2 tsp coriander seed, 1 tsp allspice
The how to: In a big pan put oil, garlic and onion and sweat till soft. Add ginger, crushed spices, then water and all fruit and veg except red sweet pepper (=capsicum) add sugar and vinegar, salt to taste. Cook till thick. Add the pepper for colour. Sterilise medium sized jars as above in Porwidl recipe. Pour/spoon chutney into hot jars and screw lids on tightly. Label and store for 6 weeks before use. If you can resist it.
 I love steaming my old joints over the stove Mum says Mondays used to be washing days when she was wee, but that was in the olden days before machines did the work and at least 100 kitty generations ago. Now any day can be a washing day. I am very happy about this as it means a steady supply of damp cloths to sit on. Oh, I know, cats don’t sit on wet things, but these are not so much wet as steamy, because Mum hates ironing and Mum has Old Smokey Joe the Aga. Agas have hotplates with lids. When the lids are down they are hot shiny surfaces, great for doing the ironing on. So Mum folds her clean washing onto the cleaned hotplates and lets the Aga do the work, turning the clothes from time to time so they don’t get burnt and to ensure her folds and tucks (and she does so love her pleats and tucks) are pressed to her liking. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and we cats have been associated with gods for thousands of years. So its only right that the clean washing should be next to the Goddess of the household. For that reason and since the Aga dragon and I are best friends, Mum knows she can’t keep me off the stove so she places towels over her washing to keep my hairiness from her washingness. I climb aboard and steam gently. Nothing better for easing the ancient joints. Sometimes she put wool insulation on top of the stove too to protect me from high heat: she knows I can’t resist heat. I bet there’s a spa out there would pay a fortune for my ideas. I’ll accept payment in tuna fish and duck breasts if you are reading this….
Its a roaring night tonight. Bet the neighbours in the village think thats the wind making all the noise, rattling rooftops and windows, loosening slates and shaking the trees. I know better. Its on nights like this that the Aga dragon cuts loose. He whooshes up the chimney sending sparks up the lum, perches on the chimney can with his swishy tail knocking lumps of mortar from the stack and whistles to his dragon friends. Then he is away over the rooftops, causing all the aforementioned racket. When he gets back he invariably loosens slates which slide into the gutters. The humans call it “storm damage”. If only they were more observant. Tonight the dragons must be out en masse. Mum has the radio tuned to something she calls “civilised” or Radio 4. A news programme said that a fire in Oxford which fire-fighters had extinguished has been relit by the wind. By the wind! As if the wind is full of spark and flame. No! its the dragons cutting loose from their chimneys and roaring round the towns and cities. I bet a posh place like Oxford is full of Agas and the country stoves are bound to be solid fuelled and dragon-filled. You see if I am not proved right. It’ll all come out in the wash, as the humans say. Now washing, that’s more my idea of fun. Come on Mum, get that machine unloaded, I feel the need for a steam treatment coming on.
Aaargh, Not only did my Mum commandeer the Aga for Hours yesterday, she went and exploded apple puree all over the kitchen table, chairs and even ceiling! She said it was an accident, the scales top slipped and the weighing pan tipped over. So how come it spread quite so far? I think she is inventing some new sport. Or trying to turn me into a vegetarian by adding fruit to my dishes. Either way it was a failure and Dad had a laugh as she scrubbed the splodge off her new infra-red room heater.
Now that I do approve of. It has an Aga feeling but comes from on high (is that why humans think Heaven is up above?). She’s got them in all the rooms now, its great- just like her cattery heaters, which I know about because thats where I stayed when I first arrived at Weston. My friend and I were unfortunately bereaved at 16 years of age. Initially we stayed in the cattery while our human was in the hospital but she never returned to us. Mum fosters for PFSS when she can. She tells me we were lucky foster-girls. As we were ladies of a venerable age with medical needs we were not sent anywhere else. To tell the truth I had already decided to stay. I had given her the “hard stare” with my emerald eyes and I think she got the message. My friend went to care for another human being and I can say elderly as Lily was 101 1/2, which is even more than me, allowing for cat/human adjustments. Unfortunately for me Lily also passed on and ‘the other one’ came back. We don’t get along well at all. She keeps to Dad’s room which suits me, while I take all the amenities as Queen of the household. And I supervise all the rooms as you know.
 apples are boiled till soft  apple puree is suspended in a sieve over a bowl to drain off the juice
Our cool store room is full of apples in boxes, so Mum thought she would use a few. She usually makes marmalade at this time of year, as the bitter seville oranges are in season for just a few weeks. She really wants to make some but the cupboard is full of last year’s and Dad is growling at her. She needs to go to the story and folk clubs with her Babushka basket more often: home made jams are always welcome there. She started with a mission to use up grapefruits that were in the fruit bowl. Grapefruit, lime and glacé ginger marmalade, using apple juice for pectin and to dilute the strong grapefruit flavour a little.. Then as she had pulp and juice left over she made an apple butter, and undaunted by the puree redecoration of the ceiling incident, she took frozen garden raspberries and made raspberry and apple jelly too. So instead of just having an overload of marmalade the house is full of jams too.
Here’s what she made:
She 2/3 filled a pressure cooker with apples, added water to almost cover and cooked them till they were explosive (see above). The remaining mush went into a large sieve over a bowl to collect the juice. You can suspend doubled up net curtain or muslin or an old pillow slip over a bowl/clean food-safe bucket if you don’t have a large enough sieve. That gives you juice and pulp.
For the marmalade she cooked the citrus fruits, again just covered with water in the pressure cooker till soft. She removed the fruit and when cool enough to handle, finely chopped the rind and flesh, discarding coarse tissues. Weighing the remaining citrus juice and citrus fruit, she added equal quantity of sugar in a large pan. Then she added 2 pints of the apple juice with 1 1/2lb sugar and 4oz place ginger. She heated it to dissolve the sugar. You can split the quantity into 2 if theres too much for your pan- play safe so you don’t burn your Aga cat who will be watching from what she thinks is a safe distance. The mix is brought to a rolling boil and after 14 minutes you start to test if setting point has been reached. With a wooden spoon, lift the preserve. If its ready it will gather thickly on the spoon and 2 drops will form as it tries to flake off. Drops put on a cold plate will gel after a few minutes cooling. Mum had put clean glass jars and lids in the bottom oven already. When setting point is reached, draw the preserve off the heat and rest for 2 minutes while you get the jars out of the oven. Take your time as this ensures the peel stays suspended in the cooling jam. Bottle into the jars, covering with waxed paper and screw on the lids tightly. Label with the date of making and what it is. All marmalades look similar, we have enough of the stuff for me to know that. If you don’t like peel (why are you bothering?) use the juices only or just as many fine strips as you desire. The apple will give you a clear jelly to display the peel in.
 simmering juices, this is not hot enough yet  this is a rolling boil, see the scum of protein forming? you need to skim these off at the end
Apple butter is a favourite with visiting children. Its essentially apple puree with an equal volume of sugar, simmered till its so thick, drawing a spoon across the surface leaves a trail mark. You can add extra flavours while its cooking: spices (cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg) or lemon peel, ginger root or chopped apricots. Bottle as before. Mum uses a food mill to squish the boiled drained apples to mush excluding peel core and pips. Theres hardly anything left to compost.
With more apple juice, Mum made jelly. Thats fruit juices with just less than half their weight of sugar, boiled to setting point as above. Mum took frozen raspberries, crushed them in a pan over a little heat till the juice wept out. (Try not to overcook to preserve the best colour and flavour.) She sieved them overnight like the apples, thus leaving my kitchen a real mess of fruit and pans. I hardly knew where to put my paws. Then she got out even more jars and labels and commandeered my favourite space on the Aga top again while she cooked the jelly in 2 batches. It only takes about 12-15 minutes from rolling boil till setting for a jelly and does not benefit from cooking longer, unlike the butter or even the marmalade which just darkens. So do in small batches and pay attention. No music Mum, No Facebook!
 tighten the lids while hot and label your goodies And thats it. Your cupboards will soon be as full as ours. Dress your jars up with paper covers and ribbons for fabby presents. If you would like more exact quantities please let us know.
The trashy jams in shops have only 45% fruit if that. Home preserves can have much more, are tastier. As a guide, 60% fruit or juice: 40% sugar by weight/volume will preserve fine. Ensure your jars are clean, sterile, with clean sterile metal tops screwed on tightly while jam is hot so a vacuum forms in the jar. Store in a cool preferably dim place and they will last a year or even two.
Mum was a bit sad this week. It seems humans worry about all sorts of things they can’t change including other human’s health. Instead of calling the vet she chewed her nails and typed on her word machine, face booking, as she calls it. The face she was worried about is indeed a very attractive and kind-looking one. Seemingly her friend Andy, who i haven’t met, has died and we didn’t know he was ill. I saw her wearing what she calls guilt as well as sadness. I could see she was down so i suggested she cook something in his memory. It seems that one of Andy’s things was bread-making. This is something Mum doesn’t do so much of theses days since she has gone gluten-free. But all inspired, she picked up her mixing bowl, got yeast from the freezer and decided to make rye bread which she could share with others. There is something in one of her books about sharing loaves of bread as a kindness. I prefer chicken, still Andy liked that particular Big book. He told stories aloud like Mum does and helped all the beginner storytellers and the Edinburgh story club. He went about on his bicycle, telling tales and loved the Earth. I understand the last one.
So for the bread-maker and bike rider, helper of the less able and all round good gentleman Andy Hunter, here is a rye bread recipe:
 rye bread for Andy 
500g rye flour, 1/2 fresh yeast, 2 teaspoons honey, 1 Tablespoon oil, rind of an organic orange, 1 tsp fennel seed, 2 teaspoons caraway seed, 1 teaspoon coriander seed, gluten free flour.
Dissolve honey in warm water, add yeast and allow to become frothy. Warm flour in the bowl and add yeast, crushed spices and warm water and oil till a thick batter results. Cover and put in a cool place overnight so the flavours can ‘wake up’ and combine. Next day bring dough into warm room, add gluten free flour till kneadable (doesn’t stick to the bowl sides). Fold together using more GF flour. Put on a baking sheet. Cover with a damp cloth or plastic sheet and leave till doubled in size. Bake in a medium oven with a foil sheet over it to protect from drying out for at least a hour till when the underside is tapped it sounds hollow. Keep the foil on as it cools.
This bread keeps ages and is great sliced thinly with cheese. I like cheese. Slice cheese thickly for me please.
 Me relaxing on the Aga in dragon heat You have probably worked out by now that I am named the Tiddler by my adopted household. I am sure its because of my daintiness: I keep my weight to under 3kg, I’m a petite puss. It has been mooted that I have the name because I have had a problem directing my pee pee to acceptable locations, but I tell you all urine marking has been entirely intentional and necessary to maintain my dominant household status. And I like to pee standing up. Its my old joints, right? Its not my fault they didn’t neuter me till age 16. I got into certain – habits.
Enough about me for now, I bet you want to know about that Hearth Dragon. Some people think my human pet must be the dragon but NO! we have a real one. The grandkids look for it each time they come. You see, the secret of good baking is to have a pet dragon nesting inside your stove. They used to come as standard with all the coal-fired models, but I believe the habitat in the electric versions doesn’t suit them and oil gives them indigestion.
Whenever the wind blows hard, especially from the west, Dragon becomes very excited. The Aga hotplate glows fiercely orange with its’ glee and when my pet opens the plug to feed more coal to the dragon, a ball of flames bursts out and scorches any fur in range. I am wise to that now and move my delicate butt 3 feet away to be safe. My human has lost eyebrows that way, she is not as smart as me. Most of the time the dragon curls up small in the fuel bowl inside the Aga, keeping us all warm with its fiery breath. It flares the side of the water-heater so human has hot water to wash pots in and keeps the stove toasty warm ready to cook at all hours. When she takes the ashes out from below its easy to see the orange glow that signifies Dragon is in residence.
Sometimes the dragon takes a holiday. I think thats best if this is in the summer so I can be warm-bottomed when the weather is chill. As you can see, I have persuade my human to keep suitable beds on top of the Aga for my comfort and insulation. My Human uses Dragon’s occasional absence to clean chimneys and flues and all that. Then she has the bother of coaxing the beast back into work again. Its a process involving bribery with compressed peat blocks which apparently are like chocolate to Aga dragons. It can make a terrible stink: I call this dragon-breath.
So now you know: I sleep with a dragon. Every girl should have a pet that breathes fire. And my pet does all the baking work too.
(Note to the uninitiated from T
he Human: re-lighting cold stoves is a tedious process as they have to be gradually warmed- paper, wood, peat, anthracite and if really cold, fired up from the base of the fire using a blow-torch. For that reason I believe many people have given up keeping domestic dragons, sorry, stoves and use electric cookers. Its not half as much fun or as dusty. The cooking results however are amazing on our old Smokey-Joe dragon-home.)
 chestnut tart,now just add chocolate Mum likes picking up bargains. I think its so she can spend lots more of her cash on my tasty teas. I am a pretty picky eater these days. After the festive season she says luxury foods like canned chestnuts and fresh nuts can be bought for a snip. If you are lucky enough to live near fruiting sweet chestnut trees, use double the weight and slit the shells, boil, shell, mince, spend a week digging the bits out of your claws and know why Mum uses the canned variety.
Mum was looking at old cookery books for ideas and bemoaning the sickliness of the desserts. She got out her pots, pans, mixing bowls and made a horrible clatter. Its quite hard to get a decent rest in this house when she sets to so I resigned myself to supervising and learning the recipe so i could pass it on to you, my esteemed reader.
Season of Goodwill Chestnut Tart
For pastry: 8 oz gluten free plain flour, 4 oz margarine/butter (don’t forget to pay the butter tax! see last blog entry), egg or water to bind:- as little as possible.
Filling: 1/2 tin/ 100g chestnut puree, 5 oz greek strained yoghurt, juice and rind 1 orange, 3 eggs, separated, 1oz clear honey, 1 oz caster sugar (to taste: more if you have a sweet tooth), Topping: 2 oz walnuts, 1 oz demerara sugar, 1 oz very dark chocolate grated (Mum used thyme infused chocolate), soy cream yoghurt or drizzles to taste
Rub fat into flour lightly and bind so can be pressed into tart tins/ baking dishes. If you have an ordinary cooker bake blind for 20 mins in a medium oven. Cool. If you have an ancient but trusty Aga which cooks from the base evenly, you can just add in the filling: In a large bowl whisk egg whites till stiff. In second bowl combine other filling ingredients. Fold in the whites till filling is light and fluffy and gently spoon into the tart bases. Bake with attention till tart is set and browning, about 30 minutes in a medium oven gas 5, 375F, 190C, bottom of the Aga roasting oven while your smug cat steams happily on the back shelf on the top.
Drizzle with demerara sugar (optional) and chopped walnuts. Return to oven for 5 minutes. When tart is cool, add grated chocolate and serve with more yoghurt/ maple syrup/ soy cream.
 not much left! Note: If you hate making pastry, just use crushed GF biccies- thats cookies if you are over the Atlantic. We like to enjoy cooking in this house and know we can’t all create in the same ways. GF ready-made pastry is not worth the extra cost unless you get that at bargain price too. A mix of crushed seeds might be good too: lucky Mum bought that extra tin for practice.
and if you wonder why its only 1/2 a tin used: the rest went to make a chestnut and vegetable soup with pumpkin, yummy!
Some persons say cats and stove tops don’t mix. Such Bodies of little discernment miss out on learning our Kitty recipes. Being an Aga stove-loving cat, i am in the perfect position most days to learn masses of delicious recipes. I thought I would share some of them with you.
My Mum loves crumpets, she says they are some sort of giant chew you stick in front of flames and burn. Funny things humans. Now she has had to give up having wheat on her dinner plate and she isn’t allowed these things. Its winter and she was becoming sad, she said baking wasn’t the same any more. She came back from her food-hunting trip really excited the other day. Some genius has made chews she can eat. So instead of just fetching those, she determined to find out how to make her own. I watched from my superior viewing point while she mixed up different grains and stuff from the big cupboard and some from the freezy one till she was smug, then she disturbed my repose to demand the Aga top back and singed her makings. She said they were pretty good, I had to take her word for it (the butter was fine) indeed she took some pictures (of me, of course, but I believe some of her baking was included too). I told her I would help her share her discoveries with you, so here you are:
Gluten-free crumpets
Start off some yeast: 1/2 oz fresh or 2 tsp dry with 1 tsp sugar and some of the 15 fl oz warm water. In a bowl mix 5oz corn meal (fine polenta), 3oz rice flour, 1oz potato flour, 1/2 oz tapioca flour, 1/2 oz soy flour, 1 tsp xanthan gum, 3 Tbsp (rape) oil, 1 tsp vinegar, 2 tsp GF baking powder. Add the yeast mix and the rest of the water to a thick batter. Leave in a warm place (if you can ease your kitty away from Aga for long enough, the back of the stove is great, but then again what self-respecting mog parts with her best bum-warmer? Do what you can, it may take longer.) Leave the mix to rise till really bubbly. Longer than you think you should, the bubbles are the best bit. Then lightly oil a skillet/ dry frying pan/ girdle using oiled 2 1/2 inch rings to contain them if you want thick crumpets, else cook like scotch pancakes till bubbles pop, then turn over and sear the other side. Serve hot with butter. And remember to pay your kitty butter-tax first. That’s when kitties like me demand a cut of the gold stuff as you take it from the cold store. Its good for our coats, look at mine and I am 19 years old they say. I always insist on my daily ration. Enjoy, and pass the butter dish….
 yeasted crumpet mix rising  gloopy thick batter  crumpets cooking on the girdle
My name is Tiddler and I am a small and very distinguished elderly cat who loves snoozing on Mum’s Aga and consequently views a lot of cooking. Mum is a storyteller who also loves baking. She has a classy boarding cattery and thinks she knows a lot about cats. Luckily I am here to tell you how it really is. She doesn’t even know about our dragon!
 Notice my stunning eyes, I am a very persuasive Tiddler
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