So today it’s International Woman’s Day. How did I celebrate it?

I went to work, where I typed, and answered the phone.

Then I came home, where I baked, sewed, and did laundry. So much for women’s lib.

But anyway. I enjoyed my evening. I had a craving for brownies so here’s the baking part….

Why do my baking photos always turn out so average? They don’t taste nearly as blurry as they look, I assure you.

So these are based on this recipe, and I didn’t change much at all. I wanted to call them Christmas Blondies, because the apricots & coconut remind me of the Apricot Balls which are so popular in our family at Christmas; but it’s only March, so I’ll settle for Apricot Blondies.

50g butter

395g white chocolate melts

3 eggs

1/2 cup white sugar

2 tsp vanilla essence

2 tsp orange flower water

1 cup diced dried apricot

1/2 cup dessicated coconut

1 3/4 cups flour

Melt the chocolate & butter in a double boiler (or in the microwave, like I did). Allow to cool slightly. Whisk the eggs with the sugar & add in the vanilla & orange flower water. Add the chocolate to the eggs. (I used a whisk, but slowly, to combine them to a smooth cream.) Fold in the flour, coconut & apricots.

Bake at 190C for 20-25 minutes. A

As usual, my oven was too hot, and it went a little darker than I like. And it sank in the middle. I’m not that bothered though. (I had two pieces, which was about one and a half more than I really needed. Om nom nom.)

Anyway, while that was in the oven, I transformed this average study chair:

Into something slightly less hideous:

Yeah! Basically I made elasticised covers for the back & seat. Same principle as a showercap. The material was from my stash. The chair was from K-Mart. I bought the pink one because it was $6 cheaper than the same chair in black, and I would have made a cover for it anyway. Although, if I’d bought the black one, I probably wouldn’t have made the cover as quickly as I did with an ugly pink chair sitting at my desk. So thank you, pink chair.

Then I took the brownies out of the oven, finished putting away the laundry, did the washing up and wondered where the day went.

So much for International Women’s Day. At least the baking was accompanied by some girl-power music! No, not the spice girls. Thanks to Diana Anaid’s ‘Beautiful Obscene’ and songs about not needing boys (even though they’re fun sometimes).

Hope you all had a day being the woman that you want to be!