Of books and baking

For the past couple of weeks, the main topic of conversation in the library has been our Literary Archive launch. Newnham writers have been invited to contribute some of their creative work to a Literary Archive, and we have had a great response, with manuscripts, books, photographs, letters and memoirs flooding in. To celebrate the creation of the Archive, this weekend we had a two day launch event, with displays of a selection of the donated material in the library, and with authors Claire Tomalin, Sarah Dunant and Nicola Beauman giving talks and running discussions over the weekend.

While my part in the launch event was fairly small, there was still a lot of work to be done - making displays, making the library look nice and presentable, and at the actual event doing a front-of-house type job. On Friday night we had a packed library, and on Saturday many of the same people came back a second time, as well as those just attending the Saturday events. Well known names including Eleanor Bron and Miriam Margolyes were there, as well as alumni of all ages, and all who I spoke to were really enjoying the event. I took a few photos before people started arriving:

 Meanwhile, I had my friend Rosie staying the weekend. As is fairly common when we get together, we spent the weekend eating at Nandos, baking, watching films and copious episodes of the West Wing! We decided to try a recipe I found on Annie's Eats for chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes. The frosting was absolutely yummy and they had big chunks of chocolate chip in, but the actual cake part turned out a little...odd! They were a bit crispy, and kind of rubbery. I think when we were converting from cups and sticks to grams, and then halving the recipe something went wrong somewhere perhaps! (Just goes to show you should never decide to halve a recipe!)

Anyway, they looked pretty, and we had the assistance of Ernest the baking bear:

We made some of them bitesize using Rosie's mini silicone cupcake cases (which I've just gone and ordered a set of for myself!)

So it wasn't a total disaster (and we've had some total disasters when baking/cooking). I might give it another try when I've bought a set of measuring cups!