1940s fashion under 40 dollars

 While browsing Pinterest yesterday I found a link to this post by Chronically Vintage, showing 1940s sewing patterns for under 40 dollars. I thought it was a great idea and decided to do my own version, for fall-winter clothes. I'm feeling a little low on fashion inspiration but looking at these beauties gives me tons of ideas. 

I love the pocket detailing on this lumberjacket dress. It would be great for work or hanging around with friends at the weekend. 20$ from Tender Lane.

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Speaking of workwear: You could outfit yourself from autumn all the way through winter and spring with this lovely pattern. Simplicity 1752, 16,81$ from 101 Sewing Patterns. 

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Want to look cute and put-together? You can't go wrong with this suit! I love the pointed lower edges, like a vest. And it's Truly Teen Style! Simplicity 1247, 6,83$ from Isabella Canada

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Butterick 3033 is a dressier suit option. I am drooling over those shoulder details! 17,49$ from Michelle and Marguerite.

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Such pretty blouses, I can imagine so many fabric possibilities here! Another flexible look, with the short-sleeved option perfect for spring and summer wear. 10$ from Pam and Amanda.

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 You're going to want to make some skirts to go with all those blouses! Simplicity 1431, 19$ from Jennie Charm.

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 I really want to make a bedjacket because my arms always get cold when I'm reading in bed. This one with tiny pockets and a hood (swoon!) is pretty much irresistable. Advance 2612 is 34,99$ from Your Pattern Shop.

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Such elegant, flattering lines on this late 40s look. Simplicity 2617, 17,25$ from Kimberley Caffe.

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You're going to want a new jacket for autumn, and isn't this a cute little number? It would be perfect for work. Vogue 5396, 27$ from Flowering Ash Vintage and free shipping within Canada! 

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Whip up some cute accessories to match your new fall looks! Comletely adorable Simplicity 4089, 19$ from Lady Queenie Quinn.

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A bomber/lumberjack/Eisenhower jacket will be perfect for all your weekend looks. This pattern is so flexible, just look at all the different styling options on the envelope. McCall 6360, 25$ from Kchoos.

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Perfectly elegant evening wear, Simplicity 1220 is a cape in three different lengths. 39,99$ from Your Pattern Shop.

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Such a pretty blouse. And imagine how fun it would be to choose the lace and do the embroidery! McCall 1458 with embroidery transfer, 16$ from Lisa Anne 1960.

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Such unique and dramatic lines on this Hollywood pattern. I love the colour-block version. Imagine going to the theatre in this, perhaps paired with the cape pattern above! Hollywood 1735, 16,78$ from Flowering Ash Vintage.

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 Are you going to a new year's party? Imagine this in a shimmery black lamé! Simplicity 2238, with its peplum and scalloped edges, has '40s style for miles. 11,25$ from 4Ever in Vogue.

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A new pair of pyjamas is always a fun and quick project. Make the long-sleeved version for now, perhaps in a nice warm flannel, and the cute tied top for spring or summer wear! Simplicity 1230, 19$ from Pattern Life Vintage.

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Now you've done all that sewing, you're bound to have some scraps! Use them to make these Scottie and terrier toys. An Economy design, 32$ from My Original Patterns

Monday. Sigh.

Sigh sigh. I have to write a paper. Like, right now. It's due tomorrow at midnight, you see.

But all I want to do is draw! And maybe embroider and look at pinterest a little. We spent three or four hours yesterday evening madly cleaning out the kitchen cupboards after seeing a moth so it definitely feels like I deserve some drawing and relaxation time in exchange for my sunday evening!

It's a pretty interesting paper though, at least I hope it will be, about diversity in children's television. I'm using the swedish childrens channel as a positive example. Swedish speakers, watch Min familj on svt play! It's a children's show, of course, but I get really excited about it, it makes me feel hopeful for the future. Really smart, articulate, happy kids showing off their families. Your heart will get all warm and fuzzy!

Okay back to writing. I have to get this done so I can do all the other things I have to do... and maybe eventually somehow scrape aside a little drawing and crafting time!

polish trick

My grandmother used to tell me that when she was a girl, in the 1940s, it was the style to leave your "half-moons", or the area by the cuticle, unpolished when doing your nails. I always thought that sounded very difficult, verging on impossible, so I didn't try it. But a few days ago I read that it was also the style in those days to remove a tiny hairsbreadth of polish from the ends of your nails by running the edge of your thumb along it. Taken together these two tricks were supposed to make your manicure last longer since the polish is prevented from peeling at the cuticle and chipping when you touch things with your nails.  I never bother painting my nails lately since I hate how quickly it looks chipped, so I had to try it. And it totally works!

This picture was taken days after I painted my nails, the manicure lasted through daily showers (always a culprit in my nail chipping), dish doing, tub scrubbing, lots and lots of typing and who knows what else, with only one touch up. After a week I took it off for another colour. I'm so impressed how this works! The chips are barely existent and way less noticeable and I think my nails look longer too.

It's not at all hard to leave the half-moon unpainted, just paint three strokes, one in the middle, then one on each side that starts a little further down. It's easier to get the shape smooth on
the second coat, and it takes a little practise to get them all even.

Allotment in Autumn

I spent the afternoon in my allotment. I'm trying winter sowing this year - the idea is that you sow seeds of certain plants before winter comes. They overwinter in the soil and come up just as soon as they can in spring. It certainly works with weeds! Hopefully I'll get a good result and an early harvest. I'm trying carrots, spinach and onions.

There was still a little bit waiting to be picked, too. Lots of calendula that could care less about the frosts we've had, some mint and borage flowers for Hoppy, and a good bunch of swiss chard. I almost didn't plant chard this year, but I really wanted to try the variety 'Bright Lights' - it looks so pretty in photographs! - so I made room. What a good decision that was! I've been picking it all summer, it keeps growing back, and it takes more than a couple of frosts to kill it. I think it can even stay in good shape all winter under insulating snow.

Hoppy loves to run off with a leaf of chard and snack on it in a corner. We like it steamed, sauteed with garlic and especially creamed.

Creamed swiss chard with mashed potatoes

Ingredients
1 bunch swiss chard
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
up to 1 cup milk (optional)
salt + pepper

Wash the chard thoroughly, steam it in the water that clings to the leaves plus about 1/2 cup. Drain and save the cooking liquid. Let chard cool.

Meanwhile, make a white sauce: melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir the flour into the butter with a whisk so that it gets the texture of wet sand. Keep whisking and let the butter and flour cook for couple of minutes - this gets the floury taste out. Whisk in the cooking liquid from the chard gradually to make a smooth sauce. If sauce is too thick, add milk until desired consistency is reached


. It will continue to thicken somewhat as it cooks. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

By now the chard should be cool enough to handle. If not, rinse with cold water. Squeeze firmly to remove residual cooking moisture and rinse water. Squeeze it down into a little bundle. Chop. Add to white sauce and heat through.

Serve with mashed potatoes. I like to make a 'nest' of mashed potatoes on the plate with creamed chard in the middle. Serve with flaked salt.

keeping clean

I'm studying a one-year journalist master, so by June I will theoretically be employable. The last two weeks we've had a radio sub-course and it's been fun, but exhausting. I spend a lot of time at our college radio station anyway, but these last two weeks have all had nine or ten hour days - or longer. Lots of fun and I'm really happy with my assignments but I've barely been home. I get so sad when I'm away from home, and don't have enough time to play with Hoppy, my rabbit, or sew, or keep the apartment tidy.

I finished the last assignment quite early today, went to trumpet practice and was home by 6:30 but I haven't managed to convince myself to do anything. The kitchen's a mess. There are dishes in the living room and a half-finished dress all over the dining room table. But I can't be bothered tonight, I'm simply too exhausted! Tonight is a night for watching the Simpsons, taking a bath and putting all that boring stuff off for one more day.

Christmas is coming! ... really!

The grocery store is already filling up with Christmas things: chocolate boxes, gingerbread in a million forms, julmust (spicy Christmas soda pop), but I'm makng myself wait until November before I can start even thinking about such things. It's hard to wait! Especially for all the Christmas magazines, those are my favourite.

Strange hobbies

I tend to go through phases - sometimes really long ones - where I just can't bring myself to buy clothes. I love clothes, I love looking at magazines and online and in catalogues and in second hand stores and on etsy and pinterest and - well you get the picture! I like looking in stores too, but even if I find something I like I usually end up thinking "meh, I'd rather sew a dress myself", at least right now.

It's not always less expensive to sew my own, but on the other hand I can be choosier about fabric. And I really do enjoy the process of sewing, choosing a pattern and fabric, cutting it out, fixing all the little details. I suppose I just like spending the time sewing, and have a few things slowly, rather than have lots of clothes quickly.

But time! Boy does it take time. Especially the last few weeks, my school schedule has been really demanding. I started a dress, the perfect fall dress, ages ago, by the time I finish it'll be winter! Today, for example, I sewed and hemmed the sleeves but now I think I have to cut out new ones and start over because I don't like how the plaid matches, or rather doesn't match.

Oh well, it'll be great when I finally finish!

Building a wardrobe

On Thursday I saw Julia Biel at the Stockholm Jazz Festival. It was an amazing concert and extra fun because I had a press ticket - I'll be talking about it in my radio show on wednesday so more on that later.

Getting ready to go though, I discovered an big hole in my wardrobe: I have nothing to wear for an evening out that's not either very casual or quite dressed up. What does one wear to a jazz club, or any concert for that matter where adult people are? My wardrobe right now is very collegiate (hey, if you're going to be a student, milk it I say!), with lots of nice-casual things for day and dresses for dinners and balls. I should edit that to say very Uppsala-collegiate, I think there's more dressing up here than a lot of other schools.

I really like the idea of having a 'complete' wardrobe - of course it would never be completely complete but I like working towards having something for every occassion (the same something works multiple times of course) rather than having tons of clothes and nothing to wear. One of my hobbies is really thinking about clothes, thinking about wardrobe staples and building up "the compleat wardrobe".

So not only did I see a great concert, and go to Stockholm, but I also get to start thinking about the next addition to my wardrobe: What does one wear for a weeknight concert (or theatre visit) in the city? 

Summer Reading List (Part One)

Every summer I make a reading list of 10 books. This summer I'm hoping to get through two such lists, I have a shelf full of unread books I bought during the year and haven't had time for yet. Here's the first list:

OBS! Spoilers ahead!

1. Bättre tillsammans/Better Together - Sheila O'Flanagan
What better way to start the summer than with "chick lit" (a demeaning term I don't really love but hey, maybe it's time to reclaim it). This book and the next I've been looking at in the shop for ages. I really liked Better Together, it was everything you could ask from the genre, well-written, likeable characters, the perfect amount of drama. 

2. Livet efter dig/Me before you - Jojo Moyes
This one, though ... I was not impressed. I really didn't think it was going to turn out to be yet another one of those "the quadriplegic has to die" stories so I was genuinely surprised and very disappointed with the ending, especially because I'd enjoyed it so much up till then. The characters are well developed and you genuinely enjoy "being with them" - right up until the end. It really felt as though the author just wanted to make a point about assisted suicide and invented the characters to suit a message that would perhaps be better suited for a newspaper opinion page, rather than the other way around. And it's not that I'm opposed to assisted suicide - I basically agree with Moyes' argument that it's each person's choice. But the book's insistent liberal individualism, its faith in a world where worth ultimately comes down to money and travel and making business deals - despite claims otherwise - made the book feel somehow American despite the endless references to cups of tea and English holiday towns. The basic argument was that the Good Life can be measured by how many extreme sports and trips to Bali it involves and despite the author's efforts to portray the working class compassionately it seems quite clear which side of the class divide one should prefer to be on. And this is all besides a dismal portrayal of life with a disability. As I read in another review, it doesn't seem like the author has real-life experience there, but just decided "now I'll write a story about what it must be like to become paralyzed"; considering that a lot of people who read this book probably don't have any first hand experience either, that's a problem. I don't know. It was an upsetting read on a lot of levels; of course I wouldn't care this much if it hadn't been well-written to begin with. 
One last thing - the character commits suicide just over two years after his injury. Now, my understanding of assisted suicide clinics is that they go to great lengths to make sure you really want to make that decision and it seemed a little unrealistic to me that they would go through with it then, since it is also my understanding that a depression lasting 2-3 years after a spinal cord injury isn't completely uncommon. Again, just another thing that felt "off" with the story line, as if her plot and characters didn't quite fit together with the soap box she shoved in to the novel. I think some people feel that they need to make their chick lit "go beyond" what we expect of the genre - that it has to have some "serious" aspect that's presumed missing from these "petty things women care about". A story where he embraces life, where a life of the mind can - at least somewhat - live up to his previous life of adventure, and where the love of a woman is enough to make someone want to stay alive - nevermind a novel in which the other characters learn to let the disabled character make decisions and reign over his own life as much as possible would have been great.

3. Jane Austen's Sewing Box - Jennifer Forest
My dad bought this for me while he was visiting a couple of weeks ago. I wouldn't have bought it myself (a bit expensive) and it's great! It's full of regency-era craft projects. The photographs are great and the instructions very clear.

4. The Tailor of Panama - John LeCarré
 My dad had this with him on the plane and left it here when he went back. I like John Le Carré and a spy drama is perfect summer reading. 

5. S. - J.J. Abrams
I have no idea what this is, but it looks very interesting. A friend posted it to me quite a few months ago so I've really got to hurry up and read it. 

6. Himmel över London - Håkan Nesser
I bought this at least a year ago after eyeing it for a while. It's about the 60s and I think it's a mystery. During the year I read so much non-fiction so it's fun gulping down novels! 

7. The Hare with Amber Eyes - Edmund de Waal
A biography I've been longing to read. I bought it way back in february at the annual book sale, where all the shops in town have a huge sale. 

8. How to Eat Out - Giles Coren
Rather cheeky title. It's about Coren's life as a restaurant critic. I think he's very funny so I'm looking forward to it - and have been since I got it for Valentine's day in february. Sigh. I'm terrible!

9. Matens pris - Malin Olofsson
I don't really want to read this anymore, to be honest. I bought it about a year and a half ago when I was really into food issues (still am, but less intensely), but I have no other non-fiction (besides biography) on this list and I do own the book, after all.

10. Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom sverige - Selma Lagerlöf
A classic. And yet another book I got as a gift and haven't read yet.

Baby animals!!!

So the big excitement around here lately is that a baby bunny is coming to live with us!

I picked her out a few weeks ago but have to wait until she's eight weeks old, and weaned (around the 22nd) to bring her home. It's so so hard to wait! I've always wanted a pet rabbit of my own so I'm really excited to be getting one.

She's a mini lop so her ears will eventually flop over, although I've heard it sometimes happens that one ear flops over and the other doesn't, which would be so unbelievably adorable!

Names currently under consideration: Tailsie, Hoppy, Trixie and Cricket.

Do the Hucklebuckle

Every Wednesday I broadcast my own radio show on our local college radio station. It's great fun, definitely the highlight of my week!

The show is called Vintage Party and I play music from the 40s-60s, my favourite music. There's no limit to the genre but it has to be fun music that I think you can get up and dance to - hence the name. Every week has a theme - last week was jazz guitar, and the week before that I talked about Sun Records.

Yesterday's episode was about fad dances, which is something I've wanted to do for a while. I started by playing some swing jazz from the '40s and talking about the Lindy hop, since it was one of the biggest dance crazes of the decade. For the '50s I played the Stroll and the Madison. But the thing I really wanted to get to was the novelty dances of the '60s! It's so funny to dance the mashed potato, the monkey, the swim and all that.

One dance I'd never heard of was the Hucklebuck but I found this amusing and instructional clip from the Honeymooners:

I think the Hucklebuck is really nothing more than a glorified version of the Twist but of course for comedy's sake they really elaborate on it here!

What about you? Do you like to go out and dance, and do you ever do any fad- or novelty steps?

PS You can listen to Vintage Party every Wednesday at 7pm (GMT +1) at www.studentradion.com. If you're in North America that's some time between 11am and 1pm depending how far West or East you are!

Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Boys and Girls

Golly! I grew up cooking out of this book and I just discovered it was reissued a couple of years ago. Looking through the preview on Amazon I'm finding I remember so many of the recipes and the quotes from the kid recipe testers off by heart, like "If I were a mama I'd cook all day!" Actually I recall that I found that so amusing that I made a cross-stitch sampler magnet out of it as an eight-year-old. Odd kid I was.  It has terrific recipes like "Bunny salad," "Zoo cake" and as I recall the chapter on campfire cooking is positively mouth-watering.

 As a kid I had my dad's old copy (from when he was a kid) but it's in a box in Canada right now. I think I spy an amazon purchase in my near future...

fantasy outfits for autumn

As you might know, I'm a Canadian transplant to Sweden. I've been here for a year now and I love almost everything about it. Almost! The one thing I don't like is that my sewing has suffered since I've been here. I have a great sewing machine, a Husqvarna from the '60s, but I have not figured out the fine art of fabric shopping a la Sweden. Fabric is sooooo much more expensive here! I have a fantasy of going to Canada for two weeks with an empty suitcase and spending the whole time sewing and eating Canadian pizza and doughnuts (another thing I miss).

This whole year I've only sewn one blouse, a dress, and a pair of shorts. To satisfy my sewing itch I spend a loooooooot of time on Etsy looking at patterns and imagining what I want to make. Here's a look at some "perfect outfits" I've put together recently.

 I've been admiring this pattern for ages. Oddly enough I ran into a friend a few weeks ago and she was wearing exactly this outfit! (the blouse and red slacks). This confirmed that it looks equally good in real life.  Find it here if you want to snatch it from my fingers.

Summer is very emphatically over and the only thing that could possibly help me to cope with/enjoy fall is the introduction of a Pendleton into my wardrobe. Failing that I could use this pattern to make my own knock-off. From wearevintagesewing's etsy store.

This versatile shirt pattern would work with my fantasy-Pendleton and I love the sweater trims! Imagine how great they'd be for all those sweaters I always imagine myself knitting! It's here.

Speaking of knitting sweaters...

I adore this fair isle! Knitting sweaters actually seems like a more economical prospect here than in Canada, actually - I'm always finding wool on sale - but my slow knitting skills and total lack of stick-to-itiveness when it comes to big projects means this one will almost certainly remain in the realm of fantasy.

Sigh. A girl can dream...

Have you been sewing much recently? What's your fantasy outfit of the moment?

dresses and dinners

I'm all curled up on the couch this evening, worn out after spending the day in Stockholm at the Vintagemässan. It was great fun! I didn't buy anything, somehow I was satisfied with just looking today. Sometimes when I'm in a place where I want to buy/wear everything I compromise by buying nothing. Sigh. I saw so many lovely lovely dresses and was seriously tempted by, among other delights, a short-sleeved, robin's egg blue cashmere sweater, but it was just too big on me. Great fun anyway! It's on tomorrow, too, so if you're in the area you ought to go!

Now that I'm home and all tuckered out I'm taking advantage of the time by planning this week's meals. What are your favourite vintage cookbooks and/or meal planning tips? Have you seen that Amy Vanderbilt's cookbook is available on archive.org? It's got lots of nice recipes and I especially like the menu ideas, though I have to vegetarian-ize most of it. I shouldn't really call myself a vegetarian but I avoid meat almost all the time. In the summertime I indulge a bit more. After all, a grilled hamburger with chips and a coke is my favourite meal of all time, I think.

Gee I'm going to stop writing now. Apologies for this oddly stilted-sounding post. I haven't blogged since July and it would appear I've gotten rusty.

a promise to my oft-neglected blog

Oh my dear little blog. I really to want to be a good blogger, really I do. It's just that, well as you can no doubt see - sometimes weeks go by in which I want to do anything but blog! I'm going to try again though. Good blogs are so fun to read, and bloggers seem to meet so many wonderful people and get great opportunities via their blogs - and I want that too! So I'll try a bit harder and see how it goes.

Saturday at the beach

Finally, finally, finally the sun shone and it was swimming weather! We drove south to a tiny town in Halland called Frillesås, to the beach at Vallervik. The water was warm and beach was all sand and no seaweed. It was perfect!

I have seriously been waiting all year for this.

After swimming we went to another, slightly less tiny town, Åsa, and picked up some bread at a bakery. We drove out of town to a church with a beautiful lawn and gardens and a view of the ocean for lunch. This picnic basket is getting some serious use lately!

Ahhhh. I was tempted to begin a career in the church so that I can live here with this view.

And then it was back to Gothenburg. But the sun has continued and tomorrow we plan to go to the ocean again!

Majorna

The sun was finally shining today! We've been in Gothenburg almost three weeks and this is only the second or third time I've seen the sun.

It was also Friday. Hurray! Fridays are the best, even when you're on vacation.

We walked around in the Majorna neighbourhood, a nice area, pretty quiet, with cool second-hand shops and neighbourhood bars. Majorna is what I think cities must have been like in the 70s.

 With neat small shops like this greengrocers. The sign says, Eggs, Potatoes, Vegetables. What more can you need! They also sell pickled herring. So Swedish.

One of the best record shops I've ever been in is in Majorna, it's called Majorna Skivhallen. They had sooooo many albums I was dying over, including an original pressing of Wanda Jackson's first record! I was swooning over this James Bond record. For one thing, I love any "music to do something by" album, and for another I love James Bond and the music from the movies is actually great, unlike a lot of those Music for whatever albums. I didn't buy it though, I only had 20 crowns on me today. Bummer. I need to start moonlighting and earmark all the extra cash for record shopping.

 In Majorna you can also find tiny hot dog stands (famous ones, this one was in a Julkalender (Christmas tv program) with Robert Gustafsson) and camera stores that have been around forever, to judge by the signage.

Tire pumping station. That shade of blue is really the colour of Gothenburg. It's on all the streetcars, among other things.

 These were in the window of a closed antique shop (it was after five pm). Cool, eh?

 We bought a deck of cards from a bookshop and  played gin rummy on a patio while drinking beer. I love fresh cards! Real dockside feeling to this place, with the awnings and cane chairs.

 "Order sandwich cake here." I love smörgåstårta!!!

And that's Majorna! I just have my fingers crossed that the sun will shine tomorrow too so I can finally take my new bikini into the water!

lemon balm

I wrote this last summer and never posted it! Now I don't have any lemon balm in my garden this summer, but after reading this I'm going to plant some! It's so tasty and it smells wonderful.

I brought home a lemon balm plant a few weeks ago, because I wanted to bake some cookies from a recipe that called for it.  When I bought it it was a tiny, tiny little plant, so small that I was almost afraid to pick from it.  The nursery tag said it would thrive best in shady, moist places, and apparently that was true because it grew lightning-fast into a big, healthy bush.

Lemon balm is not an herb I have used a lot before, so I've been trying to think up new uses for it. Should you find yourself with a similar glut, here are some tips!

1. The lemon balm lemonade I wrote about here.  Also good in iced tea.

2. In fruit salads or green salads.

3. Pasta with lemon, parmesan and lemon balm.

4. Vanilla ice cream with fruit, fresh or frozen, and lemon balm is heavenly! 

5. As a hot tea - pour boiled water over lightly bruised leaves and allow to steep.

Or just enjoy it in the garden. Brush your hands over the plant as you walk by for an incredible, summery lemon scent.

Lemon balm works almost anywhere you'd use lemon or mint. In my experience it can be a bit hard to find at the grocery store, but if you've got a shady spot, a pot from the garden centre will grow like a weed!

finished cordial

Last week I posted about making cordial. After letting it draw for several days, it was finally ready to strain and tap into bottles. Here's the result! It's so summery and tasty!

Gunnebo Slott

Time for another day trip! I could get used to this vacation business, I tell you. Today's destination was Gunnebo Slott in Mölndal just 8 or 10km south of Gothenburg. The manor house was build in the 1800s by a British merchant family, so it has that English country manor vibe and extensive gardens. I'll spare you my many photographs of the incredible kitchen gardens (seriously they grow every herb I've ever heard of, and there's huge beds of asparagus, gooseberry bushes, enormous currants ... I was in heaven!), but here's a quick look around:

Those gardens!

The castle/manor house. We didn't go inside.

Varieties of basil in a cold frame.

Seriously, these gardens!

After touring the grounds (and playing in the kids' playground) we had a little picnic on the lawn. Here's a few menu ideas and a recipe for your next picnic!

Sandwich Fillings:

- Baguettes with sliced tomatoes, sliced hard boiled eggs and brie are one of my favourites. Douse the bread in vinaigrette first and season liberally with salt, pepper and thyme. Wrap well in waxed paper and the bread will be tender and moist by the time you eat.
-Creamed fillings with chopped pickles, egg, relish etc are tasty and long-lasting.

Make sure to take a big bottle of water or some other cold drink along with your themos of coffee! 

Currant Cake for a picnic

Recipe adapted from Bonniers Cookbook, 1960

3 egg whites

3 egg yolks

4 dl flour

2 dl sugar

200 g butter

150 g currants

Preheat oven to 195C. 

Cream the butter and sugar so it is light and porous. Blend or cream in the egg yolks one at a time. Mix the currents with a little of the flour and blend them in, then add the rest of the flour. Beat the egg whites to a froth and carefully fold them into the batter. Pour/scrape the batter into a buttered and bread-crumbed baking pan and bake for about 1 hour at 195 degrees. 

Yum!