#6 Pumpkin to Talk About

 In this episode Hannah and Lotty discuss Halloween, Farming and Sustainablity. All with a fudge up mixed in! 

This October we're celebrating the humble Pumpkin with a spiced pumpkin cake perfect for the changing seasons - We also take a deep dive into sustainable swaps and the Farmers Against Farmwashing campaign as this episode's Food For Thought segment. 
 If you like all things pumpkin spice, this cake may be for you! Pop your aprons on and get listening! 

This Episode's Recipe: https://www.flour-power-podcast.com/recipes/spiced-pumpkin-cake

Featured in the Episode:

Leena Norms

Riverford & the Farmers Against Farmwashing Campaign - https://stopfarmwashing.co.uk/ 

Smol Cleaning Products (not sponsored)

Jeremy Clarkson & "Clarkson's Farm"

Follow along for delicious recipes and thought-provoking conversations - You can find us on Instagram @flour_power_podcast, and listen across Spotify, YouTube, Samsung Podcasts and the RSS Feed on our website https://www.flour-power-podcast.com/ 

(Apologies for the poor sound quality, Lotty's mic was having an off day while recording.)

Transcript

LOTTY: Welcome back to season two of Flower Power, a baking podcast with two twenty somethings -I'm Lotty, and my co-host here is Hannah.

HANNAH: Each episode we choose to make a recipe together, despite being over 150 miles away from one another. As of recording, it's officially spooky season. We love October, we are very big October Halloween fans, and we will get into that.  what better ingredient to be the star of this episode than pumpkin? Seen any of our other content, or the other content that will be coming out we are pumpkin mad this batch. So, you're going to see a lot more of this in many, many different ways. dog treats, to fertilizer, to feeding the birds. To even meals! You're going to be sick of pumpkin by the time we're done with this

LOTTY: I know for one, I'm not going to be sick of pumpkins, because I love squash in every format, so I'm very excited for this season!

HANNAH: so, while we're baking, we'll be sharing our favourite things we’ve found recently - a recipe a book or something intriguing we discovered, as well as sharing a little fudge up or two because we're human not perfect We make fudge up sometimes. This episode, we will be making spiced pumpkin cake. This specific recipe I've not made before, but I did make spice pumpkin cake last year. And it was so much of a hit that everybody asked me to make more. So, I'm hoping it's going to be such a hit this time around that I end up making multiple batches. Which is good because I've still got shit tons of pumpkin to use, I don't know about you.

LOTTY: I mean, I love a good vegetable cake - I mean, you know, chocolate courgette cake, for example, or carrot cake or even beetroot cake. Love that! I've never made a pumpkin cake before, so this is new territory for me, and I'm very excited.  So, with that we have got our ingredients out and our ovens are preheated. So, let's get baking!

HANNAH: Right, so for this one, what we need to do is basically just combine everything! We don't have to whisk the butter and sugar together, which is weird because that's normally like the basic step for a cake, but I've read through the recipe and it doesn't say to do that It just says “Combine all the wet, combine all the dry, and then combine them together”

LOTTY: I love that. It's a good easy “dump and go” kind of cake. So perfect low effort autumn baking. we're going to start with our dry ingredients.  So there goes...

HANNAH: I'm going to start with my wet -

LOTTY: Okay!

HANNAH: And do the opposite of Charlotte

LOTTY: I'm gonna start with my dry because I'm following the recipe right now on my laptop, and it says to put your flour, your sugar, your bicarbonate of soda, and your spices in to a bowl. The recipe that we like that we're taking inspiration from says to use mixed spice. We are kind of pushing the values for that a little bit, so I've added some extra cinnamon and ginger just to balance it out and make it a little bit more autumnal. You can just use straight mixed spice or you can make your own spice blend. It is entirely up to you.

HANNAH: [INAUDIBLE] Was butter and orange juice, so, you know, it could be worse than this. Okay, going to add in my eggs.

LOTTY: We want...  a half teaspoon of salt

HANNAH: oh, we have an Ollie.

LOTTY: Excellent.

HANNAH: He heard food... he hears food, he wants to be involved. So, we may see an Ollie in frame, we may not. He's just out of frame at the moment.

LOTTY: For those who are new to our podcast, Ollie is Hannah's adorable greyhound. He is absolutely gorgeous. Loves to sleep and also loves to steal plushies, as we discovered while we were carving pumpkins. So yeah, Ollie, he's gorgeous. I love his pieces.  So, I've done all of my dry's so we started before crossing record we melted our butter. (Mine's started re solidifying, I guess, because we got chatting! [LAUGHS]. So, I'm going to just pour my mostly melted butter into this bowl.

HANNAH: I love that we’ve done this the opposite way round, where I’ve done the wet first, because it's really going to show that it doesn't make a blind bit of difference.

LOTTY: Exactly. It would be fascinating if this actually did make a difference.

HANNAH: It’s basically just a “pour everything in, and then put it in the oven” kind of cake, which is very much up my street. I am very much on board. I'm just adding in my bicarbonate salt, which I mixed together just because I only had one small pot... We are not professional bakers; I do not have 100 different bowls that are all the same colour. And I've just spilt all over the sides!

LOTTY: It's okay, it happens.

HANNAH: We make do.

LOTTY: This is baking. You're allowed to make a mess. In fact, we encourage you to make a mess because it's more fun that way.

HANNAH: 100%. I realized that my minced pumpkin is not as minced as I was hoping it would be, and there were some chunks in it. So, we're having chunky pumpkin cake over here.

LOTTY: [LAUGHS] The texture brings more fun.

HANNAH: And I'm just going to add in my sugar now. I'm literally just adding one thing at a time, mixing it all in, making sure it's fully incorporated, and then moving on to the next ingredient. So, it's very much a just throw it in and go for it kind of cake, and that's, sounds great, to be fair.

LOTTY: That does sound great. Okay, so that's the second time that I've gone off screen to find something that's actually been within my field of view the whole time. [HANNAH LAUGHS] Love that!  Object permanence!

HANNAH: While we’re doing this bit, I figured that we might as well share our Fudge Ups! So, my Fudge Up of this week that I managed to go to the shop, thought I'd bought something like fully consciously thought I'd bought it. I must have picked it up, and then put it back on the shelf. That's how sure I am that I got it. Err, came home, didn't get everything out of my boot until the next day. Realized I didn't have it by which point we were recording. So... I had to substitute an ingredient! That I could have sworn I bought, but very clearly did not.

LOTTY: Honestly, the number of times that I do that while I'm cooking in, like, I can never follow a recipe perfectly because there will always be something I haven't quite got or that I don't quite have on hand, you know.

HANNAH: Or that you don’t like! The original recipe - Just don't like them.  So instead, I have just removed them!

LOTTY: You’ve got your bougie flower mixer, flower sifter out.

HANNAH: Yeah, I love this thing. I don't know why I waited so long to buy one. Ikea is my favourite place.

LOTTY: I, until Hannah showed me that was a tool you could have, I didn't realize that was something that you could just buy and use. Really cool! I tend to just go for pre-sifted flour because I cannot be bothered to accept stuff.  I am somewhat of a lazy baker, I will admit.

HANNAH: I mean, so am I, but this is fun. And it looks cute,

LOTTY: That's very true.

HANNAH: Which is why this is being recorded at the same time. Okay.  a top down, and will probably be on Instagram by the time people see this. That's why if you see a weird halo light coming from the cupboard - I don't have a weird cupboard that lights up on the inside Although that would be quite clever. Maybe think like an LED strip on the inside of a cupboard would be a really useful addition?

LOTTY: Oh, absolutely. You could so do that, though. It would be so easy to make that happen.

HANNAH: But no, I'm essentially trying to light my surface downwards so that I can Record the whole thing.

LOTTY: Right, so I've just added my wets into my dry’s. Hannah's done the opposite of that.  We'll have to see if that actually makes a difference to the cake itself, because I'm intrigued.

HANNAH: I'm intrigued. I very much doubt it would make a difference.  But like, baking is basically chemistry. And that shit has rules for a reason.

LOTTY: So, it'll be interesting. You'll be able to tell which one actually does work, because we will be writing up a strategy and it will be available in the description below and on our website. And you'll be able to see which one of us maybe was right, or maybe it doesn't make a difference at all.  Okay, I think I'm ready to add my pumpkin.

HANNAH: I've already done that [LAUGHS]

LOTTY: Oh my god, I thought I was ahead of you for once! [HANNAH LAUGHS] I'm gonna just add mine a little bit at a time, because I do have half a kilogram of pumpkin here. And so, I just want to...

HANNAH: This smells amazing...

LOTTY: It does.

HANNAH: So, while Charlotte's doing that, I'm gonna start moving my mixture over into my baking tin.  

LOTTY: While Hannah's moving her mixture [my Fudge Up] happened in the really small hours of this morning. We're recording this on a Sunday afternoon, right? I woke up in a panic at 6. 45 exactly this morning, going, “oh shoot, I need to get the train, I need to go to the office, I've missed my alarm!” I was halfway through booking my tickets when I realised, “wait, that’s tomorrow.  It's a Sunday today, you don't need to do anything. It's a Sunday.”  And then I promptly went back to sleep. [HANNAH LAUGHS] Like, I fully skipped a day in my brain. I don't quite know how I managed to do that. But, anyway. The good news is I didn't end up booking the ticket, so I didn't waste my money? And I didn't end up much further than getting out of bed in a panic - I didn't, you know, get dressed or anything. Didn't pack my work bag. But like, awkward!

HANNAH: This makes so much cake mix.

LOTTY: I know, I'm wondering if I need a bigger tin or a second tin.

HANNAH: You know, now you get to watch me grease it because I've already filled this most of the way to the top and I'm worried that if I overfill it then we'll have a volcano cake situation. So, I'm just gonna have to get out another tin!  I wasn't planning on using my loaf tin but now, now I think I have to.

LOTTY: Alright, I am gonna see...

HANNAH: Well, I hope this is as good as the other one I made last year, because there's plenty of it to go around.

LOTTY: Yeah.  Okay, let's start by filling this.  This is where I drop in the whole bowl? Let's see.

HANNAH: Okay. it can be somewhat instructional, and you can watch me grease a tin. My favourite method for greasing a tin doesn't involve greaseproof paper because I can't be fucked to cut it. And that is my professional opinion.  So, I always use a little bit of butter on a bit of tinfoil. Just go around all the edges, make sure you've coated it completely, and then take a little bit of flour, sprinkle it into your tin, and then literally just work it around.  Now this is not foolproof, I have had cakes get stuck before. But I also like greaseproof paper and can't be bothered with it. And it seems like an unnecessary extra expense, so I would much rather do it this way.

LOTTY: Honestly, I tend to go for greaseproof because I’m always worried that my cake going to stick but, I don't know, maybe I should try your method? Yeah, I'm gonna do greaseproof paper for now because that's what I have in my tin currently. I'm just going to get the last bits out of my bowl.

HANNAH: like I've said, not foolproof, but I do prefer it.  But it's because I'm lazy, and I almost never remember to buy greaseproof paper, whereas you have to have flour and butter to make the cake in the first place.

LOTTY:  That's very wise.

HANNAH: I really like those... [reusable greaseproof mats]

LOTTY: I do need to get me some more of that because I did have one of those. And then it ended up over in the oven and slightly melting, which I didn't think it was supposed to do that.  So, I, I got rid of that because potential carcinogen, I think. And I haven't got another one since... I probably should, but anyway.

HANNAH: It would be sustainable.

LOTTY: I'm hoping that this will not explode because there was too much for one but not enough for one getting out a second tent. So, we're gonna have a very big cake hopefully.  I'm hoping you can see that on my camera. I'm looking forward to this.

HANNAH: I’ve managed to fill two. But I think I probably did more than 500 grams of pumpkin

LOTTY: That's fair, that's fair.

HANNAH: But I did my standard measure with the heart situation.  So... there was probably more than there should be

LOTTY: [INAUDIBLE]. All right, so now what we've got to do when we're ready is we pour the batter in... We've done that so now we just put this into the oven, which should be preheated, it should be 180, and it should be about ready.

HANNAH: Perfect.

LOTTY: And that hopefully will take about 30 minutes, although that will depend on how good your oven is.

HANNAH: I will leave Charlotte to set the timer because do mine through my friendly Amazon bot and I'll set off everybody else's by asking it. So, I won’t Subject you all to that. Yeah,

LOTTY: Alright, I'm going to do it on my phone, because if I do it on my oven timer... the weird thing about my oven is the timer itself heats up too.  I think it's a pretty significant design flaw.

HANNAH: Yeah, that does sound like one

LOTTY: Yeah, that's not great. I didn't choose this oven...

HANNAH: So, I think it's quite a good time for us to move on to our Food for Thought section.  So, in this episode, we are talking about sustainability. And how to be more environmentally friendly when celebrating – Now, I love Halloween. But it is quite a wasteful holiday, with all the candy wrappers, and the decorations that are single use, the plastic buckets that get thrown away and don't get used next year - There's a lot of waste involved even down to the... you know, you carve a pumpkin, and then you leave it outside of your house until it gets mouldy, and then you bin it?  Like, ethically, I don't think that's a very good way of going about it.

LOTTY: No,

HANNAH: Which kind of pioneered the idea for our batch this episode, was last year, I took a pumpkin, I carved it, (I had a lovely time) and then I as much of it as I could, that I had never thought of before down to roasting the seeds and using the last bits of the pumpkin to fertilise my soil for the next year.  So, there's plenty of ways to use pumpkin and be more sustainable about it and still getting the joy out of it.

LOTTY: Absolutely. I'm looking at this from a slightly more zoomed out angle this year. I got my pumpkin this year from me veg supplier I’m with Riverford, who going back about 30 years they started selling veg boxes. This isn't sponsored, by the way. I should probably point out. And they are constantly running campaigns about sustainability and about working to make farming and vegetable growing a more sustainable practice in Britain. There is an awful lot of food waste that happens with pumpkins, as Hannah said, like every year. You see them piled high in the supermarkets, people go home, they carve them, and then that's it, they don't know what to do with the rest of them.  And so, they just get dumped into the food waste once they get mouldy outside. We've already proved that you can carve a pumpkin and then eat it.  I mean, the proof is literally in the pudding right now. But moving back the scale a little bit more, where do they come from?  Do we know whether the farmers who are growing our pumpkins and other vegetables are actually getting a fair deal out of all of this?

So currently, Riverford is running a campaign called Farmers Against Farm Washing. And it's something that's been quite... it's been growing momentum for a great couple of years. So, I just wanted to maybe raise my issue on our platform. Because I think it's really important to know where I think it comes from, and also to know that where it's coming from is giving the people who are growing it a good deal and giving them actual livelihoods. So, it’s quite a serious topic, I'm aware, but it has given me quite a bit of pause recently.  So, Farm Washing is probably a new term I'm guessing you haven't really heard before. I hadn't heard of it either. It's this idea that everything you see in the supermarket, you know, you see all these union jacks everywhere, you see it was like grown by Some guy in Somerset or whatever, and you're like, “Oh, nice! A guy grew this in Somerset.”  Do you really know he actually grew it, or is he just the C. E. O. of a ginormous farm?  Do you know whether the pork that is apparently British hand reared is actually from Britain, or is it imported, but because it came through, say, Northern Ireland, for example, I'm giving this as an example, I'm not saying this is exactly what happened. It could have come from Argentina. This was a huge scandal, like, years ago, where actually beef that was supposedly from Northern Ireland came from Argentina. That was a huge deal. And that's still going on. Like, supermarkets have been doubling down recently on making it look like everything is grown in Britain, everything is to the highest welfare standards, but it never says what those welfare standards are. And so, the idea behind this Farmers Against Farm Washing campaign is to raise awareness of this, because farmers are facing such a huge threat to their livelihood, and British farming, like a lot of things in British industry right now, is on the brink of collapse, and that’s a really scary thought.

HANNAH: It is and like to jump in on this obviously Jeremy Clarkson is not everybody's friend and not everybody likes him (and that's completely valid and fair and you're entitled to whatever opinion you want) I'm, not the biggest car person I watched top gear because it's so good, but I'm not the biggest car person, so I was never particularly interested in him. However, Clarkson's Farm is a fantastic show.  He talks about All of the things that faced the average farmer in his first season, he talked about how he would have made a total of 30 P or something? It wasn't a lot. It was a very, very, like wouldn't even have paid his wages type value.  And he said, “well, in my first year, I've made a profit.  But it's not really a profit.  I wouldn't be able to do this if I wasn't also filming it.” So as much as he loves farming and a lot of people in the farming community love what they do. I mean, I would love to be a farmer [LAUGHS] in my soul. I would love nothing more than to be outside.  and farm. And I imagine it's incredibly gruelling, back breaking work, and I'm not trying to glamourise it because it difficult, but it is something that I would definitely enjoy. And that's also the sentiment that Clarkson takes, is that it's the happiest he's ever been, but it's so far from profitable that you have to diversify. To stay afloat nowadays, and it's so wrong! Farming has been a huge part British communities a very, very, very, very, very long time. I mean, when you think of Britain, an outsider perspective, you think of rolling countryside hills and London, but you think of cows and sheep and farmers and hay bales and all that kind of stuff – but we are pushing things to the limit, where it's untenable a lot of farmers and a lot of farmers have to stop doing kind of what they love and what they've always done.

I mean, farming is quite a, like, family-based occupation in that it's quite often: “My dad was a farmer and his dad was a farmer and his dad before him was a farmer” So it's handed down through generations, which is not something that happens quite so much anymore. So, it's quite a treasured tradition in its own way and we're putting young farmers at risk and threatening their livelihoods, which is something that they have always done and something that their family has always done. That's all they know how to do. And they're in this rural community where they aren’t other jobs and livelihoods that you can make for yourself in these areas. It puts people in a really dangerous situation. I try to buy as much of my produce as possible from our local farm shop. Obviously, that's not always possible. And there is a cost implication to that, because if you're buying it from the farm shop, it has been priced fairly. If you're buying it from Tesco, it's probably not been priced fairly or quite so fairly. It's priced based on a volume output and there will be deals and corporate things behind that, that enable the price to be different. But it also makes the quality different. Anything I buy from the farm shop is miles above.

LOTTY: Exactly right. Like, it's the whole reason why I buy my veg from someone who is an organic farmer and who actually is a cooperative rather than just being, you know, you don't know where it comes from. Like, I get newsletters with my grocery boxes. And quite often it would be the farmers themselves writing about what's happening in the fields, like whether they've had a good crop, whether the crops have been washed away, what they're planning to do with it, like, you know, for example, if they're foraging wild garlic in that time of year, which is not happening right now, but it does happen or if they're changing the way they're doing something. And it’s really lovely having that transparency of knowing exactly where the food on my plate is coming from.

I've got a couple of stats from the Farmers Against Farm Washing website. And, like, they're very stark, to be quite honest. So, I mean, Hannah's been talking about the fact that you cannot... sometimes it is just financially impossible for a farm to keep running. Last year, 48 percent of farmers thought they might have to give up their farm in a few months. This year, 61 percent of farmers thought they would have to give up the farm in the next 18 months.

HANNAH: Oh my god.

LOTTY: 62 percent say that their farms are at financial risk.  65 percent want clearer legislation, because there's just no legislation - Supermarkets can just use the word “farm” whenever they feel like it, and there's no actual legislation for that. 67 percent would support a ban on fake farms and that they feel under pressure from supermarkets and buyers to be as low cost as possible. And that makes such an impact on the quality of goods they can produce and the quality of their own lives.

And, you know, I'm coming at this from a buyer's perspective.  I've never ploughed a field in my life. This isn't my livelihood. But my family has been buying organic food as much as we can since I was little.  I remember in Year Five, we had a project where we had to look at a piece of food and figure out where it came from. And most of the kids in my class hadn't realized that potatoes were grown underground, for example. Like, there was a huge disconnect, and I remember making a PowerPoint in Year Five about the life of the humble potato - about literally farm to supermarket to plate. And that PowerPoint, the homework that I did with my parents, stopped my parents from buying vegetables at the supermarket. Like, that was the turning point. They were already looking at trying to go more organic. They didn't know how to do it, and I did a piece of homework, whatever age Year Five is. And that changed it and the food quality is so much better. And also, we know that the farmers that we get our vegetables from are growing that and they know, they've got the livelihood as well, and they've got the support. It's an employee-owned business, and they have backup if something did go wrong. Whereas a lot of farmers are one bad crop away from not being able to farm anymore.  It really is that stark.

HANNAH: It's a terrifying prospect. And it's something that I would love to be in a financial position to do. I would love to buy everything from a farm shop. To be able to afford your food? just like, even supermarket prices are so much higher than it used to be. So, while I buy Farm where I can, it's not sustainable for me financially to do that all the time. And I'm sure that is the case for most people.  So, what really needs to happen [LAUGHS] not to push everything back to the government, [LOTTY LAUGHS] the government needs to step in and do things about it. Whether that is raising minimum wage and living wage to cope with the price of what things actually cost.  Like the cost of actual food from a local source. And if we got our food locally, on the sustainable eco side of things, you’re not having all that transport cost.  Now, I’m saying that as someone who works in logistics, and my whole job revolves around trucks moving. [LAUGHS] That's where my living comes from. But there would be, and should be, ways to make transport more sustainable, more environmentally friendly. We don't really use rail freight in this country.  Rail freight would make a massive difference terms of movement of goods, because if you had rail freight terminals that were major, like they have in Germany and other parts of Europe, so you would take things from the port by rail to the major city, and that they can be distributed from there by truck.

LOTTY: I would argue -

HANNAH: That’s a much more sustainable way of doing it.

LOTTY: I would argue that's also most likely better for, say in this scenario, if you're transporting meat or vegetables or just generally perishable goods.  It's a lot better for that to be going at a constant speed in a, like, well conditioned environment, rather than with trucks, for example, if they get stuck at borders, or if they get stuck in traffic jams, or if there's diversions, it can change how long it takes to get from one place to another, and that lowers the shelf life and so that causes more food waste! We already have a huge food waste issue in this country, which I don't have the stats for right now, but it's very significant. And a lot of that is before we even get to our shelves. And so, there have been campaigns in years gone by. I think last year? a couple of years ago, there was a huge push to have wonkier veg to make it more, like, normalised. Because supermarkets had been pushing for this idea that vegetables had to look a certain way, regardless of how well they tasted. And they've started actually being more okay, outwardly, at least, with wonky veg, or normal veg, essentially. Because there was a huge campaign by farmers to say, “well, actually, you're wasting so much of what we're producing, and we're not getting anything back for that, and that's not fair.” So, there can be change. There can be change. Like, we pushed, yeah, I mean, absolutely.

HANNAH: There are things as simple as being able to buy fruits and veg individually. Now that might sound like a ridiculous notion to some people, but like, I needed one orange for this recipe. I don't really like oranges! I had to buy five because my supermarket didn't have a singular orange.  What am I going to do with these other ones? if I could have just bought one orange, that would have been far better for me.

LOTTY: Absolutely

HANNAH: Same with like peppers and spring onions and tomatoes. Sometimes I need three tomatoes, not six.  if I could buy them individually, then I wouldn't be buying them covered in plastic packaging, like this plastic netting. That's another eco thing that wouldn’t be a huge swap. It would also be. I'd argue cheaper you don't have to pay for the packaging.

LOTTY: Yeah,

HANNAH: The supermarket doesn't have to pay for the packaging.

LOTTY: this is actually something, again, Riverford's done quite well, is they've been working tirelessly for the last couple of years to make their boxes as packaging free as possible so you can literally go for a zero packaging option and if something does come in a punnet it will be a cardboard one that you can then reuse for, like, plant seedlings in, or you can just compost it, because it's made out of compostable, biodegradable material. They have made sure that they can, if they have to package something, it comes in a biodegradable compostable bag. They've worked to make that out of potato starch.  Like, if a company like Riverford can make that happen, then a huge conglomerate like Sainsbury’s or Tesco can use the same technology and make that happen. Because it's not made a huge difference to the cost of the vegetables. Yes, things have gone up in price because inflation but that's not really because they've changed from plastic to non-plastic packaging.  And, even if it has, there was a, like, there was in the newsletter discussion about this. People were able to give their feedback and were welcome to give their feedback to Riverford. And like, the vast majority of people who responded to that were very happy for it to change from non-compostable to compostable packaging. That was a huge thing. It was a massive celebration. And I know that other vegetable suppliers like Abel and Cole, for example, I know they do very similar things. I just, I use Riverford as an example as it's the one that I'm the most familiar with. And, you know, I think it's very useful, especially as someone who lives solo a lot of the time - Sometimes it's just a little bit too much to go out to the supermarkets, and so having a delivery, and having an organic delivery as well, It's great! It's more peace of mind for me. I know that other people in my neighbourhood also use Riverford. So, I know that they're just doing it in one specific van - Like, my delivery day is a Wednesday, because that's when the van's in my area. It's great. It's much more sustainable.  And just generally, like, if you can, it’s a fantastic swap. I can link below like ways to access the Riverford, Able and Cole, and other options for this. I know in the US, there are definitely things like this as well, although I don't know the names of them. Yeah, like they've, they've made that progress because there's been positive feedback from their buyer base. And so, if. You know, if a small vegetable company can do that, a giant supermarket can also do that, that's my point.

HANNAH: Exactly. And you know, there are the things that can’t change on an individual basis straight away. But there are things that we can change! One of the things that I do is that I use Smol and I've used small for.  Oh God, three, four years now? And they send me all of my washing tablets in a cardboard box for washing my clothes.  It gets delivered on a schedule that you choose, which is great. And it’s not covered in plastic.  That's like a massive difference! I will pull up my stats because they calculate how much CO2 you've saved and water and everything like that, they calculate that all for you.  So, I will, I'll get that printed out and I'll add that to this video so you can see what difference I've made as one person. There's now two of us in our house, but previously it was just me. And I use that for my surface disinfectant and bathroom cleaner, because if you think about buying a bottle of cleaning liquid, it’s mostly water! So you're buying a big plastic bottle that's mostly water with a small amount of active ingredient in it, when instead, you can buy little tablets. Let's see if I've got some in the cupboard. If not, I think I'm due for a delivery... Here we are.  So, it comes in this lovely little cardboard box. It fits through the post box, so you don't even have to be in accept your delivery it's in a child safety packaging, which is quite hard to get into and then each tablet comes in this little bag here, which is biodegradable. I think it even breaks down on water to be honest

LOTTY: That's so good.

HANNAH: I will double check that actually... no, compostable! “Home compost wrapper, place in your compost or rubbish” and its 100 percent plastic free.  And it's a little tablet, a teeny tiny little tablet, and you just put it in some water, and it makes your surface disinfectant.  it makes a whole bottle of them, and there's three of them in this packet that's this size. It was probably delivered with six or seven in this much packaging. Whereas you think of six or seven bottles of cleaning liquid...

LOTTY: Oh, that's going to take up like – Yeah exactly.

HANNAH: like, volume, it’s a massive difference. I mean, these [cleaning bottles] have been refilled with this!

LOTTY: That's fantastic.

HANNAH: it isn't what it says on the outside! [LAUGHS] but it doesn't matter because it still works. It doesn’t need to go in the bin, you can refill it. So, I would recommend Smol as an eco-swap and there's loads of others and we'll go into a couple more but is one that I tried and recommend massively.

LOTTY: This is Hannah Approved

HANNAH: it's easier.  You choose how often it gets delivered and then it just gets delivered.  they're not like a subscription service where they just like, don't mind taking your money. They email you three or four days before they dispatch and check if you still want it. And you can go straight online and go, oh, I don't need another one yet. And delay it.

LOTTY: That's brilliant.

HANNAH: It’s honestly fabulous. I mean, the inside of this bottle, the inside of this bottle... the inside of this packaging.  “Spray bottles use 7, 800 tons of new plastic yearly in the UK. You’re helping to bring this down. Small things make a big difference.”

LOTTY: That is wonderful. So yeah, like Hannah says, we will have all of these linked in our description box below. And so, you'll be able to see what we actually do use. And again, these are things that we've been using for a while. We do both, like wholeheartedly endorse these ones! so yeah, I mean, you know, if you have any eco swaps that you have been trying out yourself or any ideas that you'd like us to try out, then we would love to hear that. Because honestly, both of us are just sort of trying to find little ways to make our, like, our lives and also just our world a better place.  And just, you know, one small step at a time.

HANNAH: Exactly. I'm always happy to try anything that's a more environmentally friendly way of things.  As much as I possibly can. I mean, obviously there's things that you can't change or are difficult to change financially. And I am not a perfect person. Like we have bathroom wipes to clean the bathroom, but every other surface that gets cleaned in this house gets cleaned with a reusable rag or a microfiber. And we have loads of them.  And I wash them in the washing machine. I don't use cotton face pads for my face anymore. I have reusable ones. Okay.  And I wash them.  there are just loads of examples nowadays where I do things slightly differently than I would have done previously. And some things are almost easier. If not easier, like, I steam mop my floor rather than using a mop pad, a normal mop, because my steam mop is better, (personally, I think so at least.)  it cleans with just steam, you don't need any disinfectant or any liquid to go in with it, so that's one less thing you're having to buy.

LOTTY: That's so good.

HANNAH: One less lot of plastic as well. And the mop head comes off and washes in washing machine. I've bought it once, I will use it for many, many years until it dies, and no longer works.  it cleans most of my house, including the inside of my oven. So, I'm also reducing the amount of chemicals I'm using, which is better for the environment all around as well. So, there’s things that you can do that don't feel like a massive difference... that can really add up. I mean, in the time that I've had my steam mop, I've had a steam mop now for three years. One of them died about a year and a half in, but I got that second hand. So, you know, it already lived a life before it came to me. And now I've got one that I did buy new because I couldn't find one second hand at the time.  But I will use it until it doesn't work anymore. I love it.

LOTTY: Honestly, I think that's the most sustainable thing of all, is you don't have to go out and buy all these brand new things. Use what you have first.  You don't have to instantly discard all of your chemicals because the most sustainable thing you can have been the one you already have.

HANNAH: Exactly.  could not agree more. And buying things second hand! Not only is it more cost effective for you, but things like Facebook Marketplace will save you a fortune. And also, you're using something that someone has already loved. I have an electric airer, which helps dry my clothes a lot faster.  And I have two.  One was a hand me down from my mother and the other one I bought second-hand.  not only was it like 15 pounds instead of 50, it had already been used and already been loved. So, it's getting a much longer lifespan and that's so much better!

LOTTY: Absolutely. I mean,

HANNAH: Like it's a win for me and a win for the environment. It didn't go into landfill. It’s still being used. And even when the electric part doesn't work anymore, I will still use it because it's still an error.

HANNAH: Yeah. So, it's going to have a longer life for me.  A lot of the stuff that I have in my flat is second hand a lot of it I've ended up inheriting which has been quite good and it has meant I haven't had to buy cleaning supplies for about two years, because I've just had all the stuff that my Nanna basically bought it which is pretty great, actually. And so, it means that, like, I can just use up what already exists in this world, and then when it's done, I can make that decision to make a more environmentally friendly swap. But the best thing to do is use up what I have. Like, most of my furniture is second hand, or sometimes even third hand. Most of my appliances... yeah, I'd say half of my appliances are second hand as well. Like, my toaster is second hand, my kettle, my microwave, one of my mixers. My TV is third hand, and like, I do my best with electronics at least to look after them for as long as possible. Like, my laptop is not second hand, but I've had it for (When was 2017?) I've had it since then, basically. And I will keep using it until it is no longer physically usable. Like the camera that I been using as backup for this, from 2008. Basically, just use everything as much as you can in its lifespan. If you extend that lifespan, look after your stuff, I think that's really important. And then when you can, make these swaps to make the world a little bit more sustainable.And like, advocate for them. Like, I mean, maybe as an individual you can't save the planet, but You can do a hell of a lot more than you think you can.

HANNAH: Exactly. And there are, these aren't exactly things that I have come to on my own accord. I would love to say that I am like, a philosopher and I, thought of all these things and I've come up with all these ideas! But most of them are not mine. As is the case for most people. We follow people who inspire us.  and help us with our eco worries and any other concerns that we have. And a really, really good example of this is Leena Norms. I’ve been watching her videos for a couple of years now. I don't actually know how I stumbled upon her, but I stumbled upon her and I am very glad that I did.

LOTTY: Can I pause there for one second? Because my timer's just gone off. We should check our cakes. And then we'll get back to Leena. Okay, mine's very liquid right now...

HANNAH: Same, I don’t think mine’s cooked.

LOTTY: So, I think mine can use a bit more time.  Now, mine So, had a good wobble...

HANNAH: same.

LOTTY yeah, that's not what you want with a cake. How long do we put it on for?

HANNAH: Another ten?

LOTTY: Yeah, let's give that a go.  Anyway, Leena Norms.

HANNAH: Leena Norms. I genuinely stumbled across her. I don't know how. It ended up on my YouTube feed. I've never been happier.  and she does a lot of videos on eco things, from reading books, she, if you like us, you'll probably like her.  She's very funny. And she's a woman in her thirties living in the Midlands in the UK. Basically, trying to do her best to make more sustainable choices. So, this year, specifically, she's doing a year of make do. And what that entails is she's not buying any new clothes.  Now, a lot of her content is about fashion. So, she's not buying any clothes from second-hand sources, from charity shops, from like Vinted, Depop, from firsthand, nothing. She's not buying any new clothes at all. She's going to make everything that she needs, which is incredible and sounds incredibly difficult.

LOTTY: Yeah.

HANNAH: And I don’t know that I can do that yet,

LOTTY: I, I don't yet have the skills to do that, but I think it's amazing that she is taking that on.

HANNAH: It’s inspiring, and she's working very hard towards that, and she doesn’t shy away from the fact that it's not something that everybody can do. And one of the pointers that she's brought up previously, is that you should build yourself a community, in that, if I can knit, and you can sew, a good team. If I can bake and cook and you can't really, but you're really good at gardening, then why don't we swap a cake for some potatoes?  You know, like don’t we have more of a community mindset in that way? And that sounds lovely I mean my hobbies are quite far and wide and I do a variety - I knit, I sew, I garden, I read... I know cleaning is not a hobby, but sometimes it feels like it is because I Passionately enjoy really getting into like the bits and crannies with the toothbrush and cleaning things but I bake, I cook, I've got like a wide variety of things that I enjoy. But she is right, there are things that I'm not great at. Like, I am not great with time. [LAUGHS] That's not a good thing for me, I'm very time blind. And my attention to detail just doesn't exist. So, you know, you could collaborate with people who fill in these gaps and do things that you're not very good at, and can do them better than you, then you can work together as a community to do things in a more environmentally and sustainable way without just doing things you hate and eating things you don't like. You can make... changes while still having an overall positive life. And it's quite nice to do things with your hands, not gonna lie, so...

LOTTY: Yeah, absolutely.

HANNAH: You should do something with your hands, whether it's woodworking or, I don't know, soldering, there’s a never-ending list of things you could try.

LOTTY: exactly. And like, when you create that community, you open up your world to so many different experiences that you might not otherwise have.  And I think we are conditioned in this society as people who kind of have to just grab things and go. Like, we're conditioned to have everything as an inconvenient convenience. By slowing down and deliberately making choices, we're actually Engage with other people who you can learn from, or you can exchange skills with. It's an amazing way to broaden your horizons, and meet new people, and have new experiences. And, I mean, not to get all philosophical, but that's what life is really about, you know? And sharing ideas with different people, especially if your ideas are very different to their ideas. It's an amazing thing that you can do. And it really does enrich your life.

HANNAH: Exactly. There's so many more sustainable ways of doing things that you can do in your community without it being a huge thing. Like, going to a supermarket that's closer. Maybe it's not your favourite supermarket, but if you go to the one that's closer, that's in walking distance, or even if you have to drive there, but you're driving less far, you're using less fuel. Which is better for you financially, but you're also emitting less CO2 in the process. There are little things that you can do that make a difference. You can walk to the shops, if you can. I mean, not everybody can, and there's like, mobility issues associated with that. As someone who has chronic pain, it’s not every day that I can walk myself down into town if I need something. But the days that I can, I will. And now that we have a dog, I can't always leave him for long enough to do that. I can't always leave him for four, five, hours for me to spend the hour walking into the town, and then two hours walking around the shops, and then an hour and a half walking back. Stuff, I don't, I can't always leave him for that time. But when I can, I do.

LOTTY: Yeah,

HANNAH: Like, you don't have to do things all of the time, but every little thing that you do, I do.  does add up, it makes a difference and we want you to feel empowered in making slightly different changes. to make things a little bit better.

LOTTY: Exactly that.

HANNAH: I mean, even down to like, these oranges that I'm, I'm not sure if I'm going to use, and I will find a use for them. I will try. You can use oranges and lemons as part of cleaning supplies with bicarbonate of soda.

LOTTY: Yeah, because they've got citric acid in them, and that is a fantastic, like it's really good I think for antibacterial purposes? I know whenever I clean my microwave, I tend to do that with half a lemon and bicarbonate soda. And it works just as well if not better than your standard cleaning supplies. And it also makes your kitchen smell nicer! [LAUGHS] So, you know, win-win.

HANNAH: You can use a lemon or a lime or orange or whatever you have and some salt - you literally put the lemon or the lime or the citrus fruit in the salt and you can use that as an abrasive cleaner

LOTTY: Yeah, it's fantastic and fascinating.

HANNAH: Rather than using like pink stuff or CIF.

LOTTY: Yeah.  I mean, the other thing you can do with it is just make your house smell really nice by making a simmer pot. It's something I've been meaning to do this autumn. You can get, like, your favourite spices, you get some oranges. If you're feeling fancy, you get some apples - And you boil some water and you just put it on your stove and just let it simmer and it makes your house smell absolutely amazing.  And it just sort of clears up your atmosphere, I guess. Well, I'm a little bit like, whimsical homestead-y, I'm planning to do a similar part with the last over part of this orange and some spices after we finish recording. And I'm really looking forward to how good my house would do as well.

HANNAH: One of the, one of the things that I do is that any vegetables that the dog can eat because he can't have everything. We, we make his food. He doesn’t have kibble for... gastrointestinal reasons that I won't get into so that everybody doesn't have to hear about my dog's bowel movements. [LOTTY LAUGHS] but basically, we have to make his food because it's the only way that he feels well.  so basically, he has rice, sweet potato, or normal potato, vegetables, and mince. That's what he has to eat, which is pretty good. His food is like, human grade food, essentially. So whatever little bits of vegetables I have left, provided they're dog safe, I'm not about to give my dog garlic.  I'm not, I'm not gonna feed him something he can't have.  like, a little bit of bell pepper, carrots, peas. I'll just put it in his and if there's not enough for us to add it into something that we're having, at least it's still being eaten. It's still being used. I also will freeze anything that I can where possible. If I've got tomatoes left and I'm not going to use them all, I will chop them up and put them in a freezer bag because you can use them in sauces later rather than having a tinned variety. Like there are things you can do to use things up where you can. And make changes and obviously not always possible. Everybody throws things out sometimes ... we don't want you to feel bad about that, I'm sure that there are spring onions that are mouldy in my fridge as we speak... [LAUGHS]

LOTTY: It happens, it's okay.

HANNAH: I try to make a difference where I can. So that's kind of what we’re Trying to do that was our aim for using as much of this pumpkin as possible. I mean, currently I have my, my seeds soaking in some water to get all of the slimy pumpkin guts off of them and then I will boil them and roast them and I'll either eat them or give them to the birds,

LOTTY: I'm planning to give mine to the birds because, texturally, I'm not super keen on seeds, but I know the birds will love them.

HANNAH: Have you boiled them first though?  Because boiling them makes them crispy and not chewy.

LOTTY: No, they... Hmm.  They get stuck in my teeth.  I don't like the feeling of stuff in my teeth. Right, my timers just gone. My timers just went off, so I'm gonna give this another try. And then I think maybe we should make some icing for them. Oh, okay. Oh, okay.

HANNAH: This looks cooked to me now.

LOTTY: I'm not sure about mine. Because that still feels frighteningly liquid...

HANNAH: I’m just gonna stick a stick in it.  Oh no, it's still wet in the middle! Never mind.  We lied! It's going to take longer than we told you!

LOTTY: This is why you need to be sure about the oven that you're using. Because every oven is different. Some of them behave. [THROUGH GRITTED TEETH] Some of them are temperamental. And decide that no, actually, everything is going to take quite as long as you want it to.  I'm not salty about this at all, actually.

HANNAH: Right. I can tell.

LOTTY: Yeah, I'm not salty. Still.  Okay, I am going to get started with my icing, but I do need to wash up the dish for...Sorry, this might need to be cut out for a sec, but I need to wash up the thingy to weigh the icing over. Sorry.

HANNAH: Cool.  Well, we'll cut it out, but don't stop the recording because it's harder

LOTTY: Yeah, no, don't worry. Not planning to know, but I need to.  I need to get the pumpkin off first. Oh, actually that's already clean. Sorry, hang on. I’ve just realised the other one is already clean so I can just use that.

HANNAH: Well, I'm gonna have to wash up, because all of my bowls are in the fridge.

LOTTY: Oh dear.

HANNAH: With pumpkin in them.

LOTTY: Okay, shall we do a little, like, we’ll work out this now, and we'll just do a little kitchen reset, shall we?

HANNAH: Well, we could cut it out, or we could like, speed it up?

LOTTY: I guess, yeah, I don't really want to have, I don't really want to video us cleaning, watching us wash up, so.  And that means moving my camera.

HANNAH: Let’s see how we feel. We can get rid of it if we want to, we can keep it if we want to, it doesn't matter.

LOTTY: Yeah. It's just that my back's going to be to the camera.  Which isn't –

so's mine.

LOTTY: It's not super fun viewing. Anyway. Let's have a little

HANNAH: [SINGING] la la la...  Quite nice being able to wash up in the middle of the episode though.

LOTTY: It is, yeah, otherwise it's just a whole pile of shit to deal with afterwards.

HANNAH: Well yeah, it means we won't have to do it in the end,

LOTTY: Yeah. Hey you know that cat fight that happened last night while we were recording?  I think one of the cats might have scratched off another cat's collars. There's just this random yellow thing on one of the steps outside. And I'm fairly certain it's a cat collar.  And I'm like, a little concerned.  Yeah, I think that's a collar.

HANNAH: Oh my god.  That's wild. The cat's like, no you're not allowed to go home. No one will know who you are.  I shall be vindictive.

LOTTY: Yeah, I think cats are kind of vindictive

HANNAH: I will make it so you are totally unidentifiable... Cats do that. [LAUGHS] Cats really are just little arseholes, aren't they?

LOTTY: They really are. I think this is why I love them so much.

HANNAH: I’m a dog person, but my dog definitely acts like a cat. Basically a big gangly bag of bones

LOTTY: I know for a fact that I love a cat, but I prefer cats. Like, I love particular dogs, especially ones that like I know and I'm familiar with. But like, I do love dogs, but I just happen to love cats more.

HANNAH: I mean, that makes total sense. Everybody has a preference. I'm just definitely a dog person. Ash thought ... he was, like, he didn't know if he was a dog person or a cat person. But then, he said to me the other day, he was like, “well, I'm clearly a dog person.”  I was like, “well, what gave you that impression?” He was like, we have a dog.

LOTTY: I feel like that doesn’t always signify. Like, so for example, you know Eleanor and Julia, like, they've got Molly [CONTEXT- MOLLY IS A CAT]. Like, Eleanor has grown up with Molly, but she's decidedly a dog person. She prefers old significantly more.  Like, she's not, you know, she loves Molly. But also, just, she prefers old.  Alright, I totally get that. But you can really tell who is more of a cat person and who is more of a dog person based on how they act around them. Like, Morgan, for example, has, like, a family cat called Minerva. Minerva's a bit of a bitch to be fair. She's the bitchiest cat that I know. But, whenever Morgan's around cats, they're like, cool about it. But then whenever they're around dogs, they just go into full, like, absolute loving dog mode. She came over Seamus's house, and Seumas has two dogs, and Morgan was all over them, just absolutely showering them in love. It was funny too - Delphi was having the time of her life. So, like, you can really tell when who's a dog person and who's a cat person. A lot of my family are dog people so I'm a little bit outnumbered in that respect.  But then my parents are people who don't do dogs or cats. Which, fair enough.

HANNAH: Well, one day they’re going to have to learn to love their little grand-cat

LOTTY: They definitely are. They're going to have to learn to visit her. I'm going to have to get a hypoallergenic one though, because otherwise Mum will never come round again. [LAUGHS] Because she's allergic.  So, I'll have to be careful about that.  But like, I would happily be a cat parent! I would love that.

HANNAH: Oh yeah.  I think he'd be really good for you. Yeah.

LOTTY: And also, I don't have the outdoor space that I could provide for them, and I... As much as it's lovely to watch cats frolicking on the steps at the back, I'm not super keen on the idea of cats being able to go out and about like that, because I know that it clearly impacts the local bird population. Like, cats kill more birds every year than any other predator.  And like this, you know, this year's campaign is against, like, wind farms, for example, because they're apparently killing lots of birds.  Cats every year kill more birds than any wind farm has.

HANNAH: Jesus.

LOTTY: Yeah, it's a huge thing. I should probably look up the stats for that...But, like, wind farms are nowhere near as deadly to birds as the average domestic feline.  They're also working on making wind farms, like, more bird friendly.  Which is really good. Like, they're trying to make that better for the birds and bats and stuff. Whereas, like, there's not really that much in the way of campaigning to keep cats indoors. Or, like, keep them on lead. Like, you can walk your cat on a lead! I've not seen that very often, but you can do that!

HANNAH: Oh yeah.

LOTTY: I think that would be adorable, actually... [INAUDIBLE]

HANNAH: I’ve still got so much pumpkin left, Charlotte. I genuinely -

LOTTY: I'd love to be able to get a cat one day. [CLATTERS]

HANNAH: Yeah. Ollie won't be able to meet your cat though.

LOTTY: No, I mean, I might have to, like, whenever, whenever I do get a cat, she, he or she might just have to be, like, put in a cage, and put away for the day...

HANNAH: Yeah.

LOTTY: I don't know. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Maybe, maybe I find a cat who's actually completely chill with dogs.  You never know. Like, say like a retired farm cat, for example.  They might be okay. But it depends on the way that you treat the cats as well. Like, you've got to make sure that they're comfortable. I don’t know if we’ll keep this lovely conversation about cats. I don't know. Let's have a think about that. We'll listen back. You good?

HANNAH: Yeah. I didn't realise you needed orange zest for the icing as well.

LOTTY: Wait, do you?

HANNAH: Yeah,

LOTTY: Oh, I put all of it in the cake.

HANNAH: so did I but you need another orange worth of zest.

LOTTY: I guess at least that's using up another one of your oranges.

HANNAH: Yeah, that is true! That is fair.

LOTTY: I'm nearly done with the washing up.

HANNAH: It needs the zest of one orange and the juice of half... Feels like I just did this If I had known that I would have zested too! and not washed my zester up.

LOTTY: Is your cake out the oven yet?

HANNAH: No,

LOTTY: No, me neither. I just have my next ten-minute timer. So, I’m gonna do another ten and see what happens.

HANNAH: It's springing back!

[OVERLAPPING VOICES]

HANNAH: So how long was that altogether?

LOTTY: that was 50, I think.  Which... was not what it said on the tin!

HANNAH: No. Really was not what it said on the tin.

LOTTY: I could have sworn that I had...

OLLY: Bark!

LOTTY: A skewer.  Very useful tool. Okay, I think that is my cake done. So

HANNAH: Please hold while I make the dog an activity.  Ah. What could we do for an activity, Olly? Eh? What should we do?  Actually, this is very fitting.  So, this is some pumpkin yoghurt. I've literally blended up pumpkin rind.

LOTTY: Nice.

HANNAH: He’s sitting very patiently, like a good boy. And put yoghurt in it. It's really good for dogs’ tummies. And I've just frozen it. I'm just gonna tilt the camera down, you can witness this... [TO OLLY] Sit.  High five. Oh, hi baby.  There you go. Is that yummy? Oh. [TO CAMERA} You can all witness my dog.

LOTTY: He is so good.

HANNAH: If I put it down, he'll pick it up and run off.  Or not.  And now you can't see him.

LOTTY: Alright. Icing sugar.  Vanilla extract. Are you making the cream cheese frosting?

HANNAH: Yes.

LOTTY: Yeah, I'm just gonna make standard vanilla...

HANNAH: But with orange in it.

LOTTY: well, what I'm going to do is make this into sort of an orange drizzle, like drizzle the orange juice onto the cake, and then like drizzle the icing on top once it's cool.  So, while the cake is cooling, I'm going to just stab it, basically. (I love stabbing things!)

HANNAH: But while you do that, I'm gonna just make orange icing.  This smells amazing though.

LOTTY: bet it does. I love the smell of freshly dusted on.  Alright, now that I've stabbed that all over...

HANNAH: Right, gonna start recording me making the icing as well. I need to put it on a bit. Oh, wow. Can I put it here? Ta da! Okay, love all the shop talk I’m doing in this. So, 200 grams of cream cheese.

LOTTY: Cake reveal. Not bad!

HANNAH: Smells good. I'll leave the container because the dog will lick it.

LOTTY: Right, I'm going to keep that on the greaseproof while I drizzle orange juice

HANNAH: Add in my orange zest... which I've realized you can't really see what I'm doing because I've left the box of icing sugar right in the way.

LOTTY:  I am going to make a nice simple icing.  So, I've got 125 grams of icing sugar. I will be sifting this because that's kind of lumpy. I've got Hannah's vanilla extract. There's a recipe on one of our previous episodes, if you want to make that, it's in the description. That was amazing. It was so good.

HANNAH: To make it in time for Christmas, you need to do it now.

LOTTY: what Hannah said.  I got some milk.

HANNAH: it takes time to ferment.  I don't even know if that's the right word, but that's what I'm going with.

LOTTY: I guess? Ferment? Infuse? One of those.

HANNAH: Infuse might be better. But it is fermenting because you're putting it in alcohol.

LOTTY: Yeah, I think fermenting,

HANNAH: that took me a long time to come round.

LOTTY: it isn't fermenting like making alcohol. The alcohol is already made.  So, I think it's infusion. anyway, this and that, semantics. I need a little bit.

HANNAH: That didn't work.

LOTTY: So, we will have both So, options, I think, on the recipe.

HANNAH: Yep, I'm about to use a whisk,

LOTTY: this might be Actually, while we're doing this, it might be a really good thing to, like, just add what we're talking about with the dots. I don't know. We can just Yeah, this is how it's made. So now I'm gonna add .... Two to three tablespoons of milk. I’ve just got half a tablespoon here, so I'm just going to add a bit at a time. So that won't burn my fingers.

HANNAH: I am back, peoples. After coating myself in icing sugar.

LOTTY: There's no other way to do it.

HANNAH: By putting it on too high. There you go.

LOTTY: Right, I get the feeling I might need to make this a little bit thicker.  But we'll go with that for now.

HANNAH: I always find however much icing sugar it says to include is never enough. Also, look at my counters.

LOTTY: Ah! No! Sorry... I spilled some of your vanilla extract, I'm really sad now. [LAUGHS]

HANNAH: You spilt some?

LOTTY: Yeah, I spilled like half of it. I'm sad now.

HANNAH: Oh well, I mean I can't see the future or anything but I can see more in your future so...

LOTTY: Oh, okay.

HANNAH: So I wouldn’t be too upset about it.

LOTTY: I mean, I will admit it does, it does smell good. Like, of all the things I could have spilled, that's the, possibly the nicest smelling, so, yeah

HANNAH: it will sanitize the surface for you.

LOTTY: I suppose? Yeah? A win is a win.

HANNAH: Right, I'm gonna tip one of these out of the tin for now.  Haha, it came out in one go.

LOTTY: Wayyy! Very nice.

HANNAH: I mean, that’s the wrong way up now.

LOTTY: I think I'm gonna just add a couple more spoonsful of icing sugar. Can I be bothered to sift icing sugar?

HANNAH: I’m gonna do each cake slightly differently. The first one I’ll wait for it to cool properly and ice it.  So, they will both be slightly different, mostly because I want to eat some of this while it's warm, because it smells Incredible.  I'm just gonna put a big old glob on top, and this is definitely melting as I said, and it'll kind of absorb in slightly as well to the cake.

LOTTY: I think I'm a little bit happier with the consistency of that, but I'm going to add one more.

HANNAH: I'm gonna grab the other board, tip this out onto, that’s hotter because it's glass so it holds its heat better.

LOTTY: Just realised I forgot to turn my oven off. So, best to remember to do that. In my defence, I didn't know whether the cake was going to be ready, so I thought I may as well leave it on for a bit longer. The cake's good?

HANNAH: Right, that’s come off, but with a big chunk of the cake coming out with it.

LOTTY: I mean, you've got to have a cheeky little taste

HANNAH: Alright, that is my icing. I don't know whether you saw that or just the bowl, but I didn't want to pour it out.  Alright, you'll see it anyway, so I'm going to add it to my cake now. If you see lumps in my icing, no you don’t.

HANNAH: I’m just gonna put a couple of my little decorations that I bought.

LOTTY: you have decorations? Oh, I didn't think of that!

HANNAH: I bought little Halloween ones.

LOTTY: I’ve got Christmas ones, and it is far too early to be having that kind of conversation.

HANNAH: You keep mentioning the C word. And every time I'm not happy about it.

LOTTY: I used to be an orchestra kid, okay? It's hard wired in my brain!

HANNAH: true!

LOTTYl Because this is the time of year where you would have a carol plonked in front of you, and your music stand. And you'd be like, “right, well, it's far too early for this, but I guess we're doing carols now.  It's just, yeah.” Okay, this is,

HANNAH:  No thank you.

LOTTY: hmm.  This ain't pretty, but it smells good.

HANNAH: It smells incredible. I am so excited

LOTTY: Next time, Hannah, next time I say, oh, can I be bothered to sift the icing? Yes, I can.  I can always be bothered to sift the icing, because I couldn't be bothered to sift the icing.  And right now, I've got icing sugar lumps

HANNAH: I'm just trying to get into my decorations so I can decorate.  then I can have a slice.  Which is the most exciting part. My little ghostiest. And bats.  And pumpkins... Oh no! I’ve just dropped them on the floor.

LOTTY: Careful.

HANNAH: But there we are! I am so excited to try this. With the bats and ghosts. And the pumpkins on it.

LOTTY: I’m just going to transfer mine onto a chopping board.

HANNAH: i'm just gonna grab a knife. So, I can give it its first cut.  So, I can give this a go.  You ready? I've cut mine already.

LOTTY: Okay, fine. Hang on.

HANNAH: just ready to try it.

LOTTY: I think mine's gone very gooey because of the glaze.  But I'm quite intrigued to see what the texture of this is going to be like...  Yeah, okay, this is very gooey. I added too much icing.  Ah!  Oh, no!  ...Okay, I've got an avalanche. This is a problem!

HANNAH: Out of the list of problems to have, that one sounds pretty good to be fair

LOTTY: Look at, yeah, but look. It's oozing.  I added too, I added too much glaze! Oh well, I'll just have to, like, pick that up.  I guess.  Yeah, this isn't coming into the office tomorrow, it's fine.  Oh, but it tastes - Oh my god. You know what?

HANNAH: I'm so happy.

LOTTY: It's so messy, but I'm in love with this cake.  I'm gonna have to remake this to see if I can get the proportions right, the icing. And, you know...  It's literally just oozing. But it tastes phenomenal. Oh, my lord. You know what? My mum's birthday's coming up soon. I'm gonna make this into a birthday cake.

HANNAH: It's good, isn't it?

LOTTY: She's gonna love it.

HANNAH: This is so good. Better than last year

LOTTY: Yeah. Oh my god. This slow-moving avalanche that's going to go onto my worktop in a minute.  The stuff that's not over saturated with icing and glaze has an amazing texture to it. It's, it's got a similar texture to carrot cake, but it's like, it’s got that lovely natural sweetness from the pumpkin.

HANNAH: So good. I am in love with this cake.  Last year it didn't have orange in it, whatever recipe I used I could not tell you.  And the orange makes an actual really big difference, especially in the icing.

LOTTY: Yes, and it does, it just,

HANNAH: turns out, putting the wet and dry in in opposite orders does not make a blinding bit of difference. So -

LOTTY: It does also turn out that you really have to be able to trust your oven.

HANNAH: Anyway, we have been Flour Power. Can find us on our Instagram at flour power podcast or our website www. flour power podcast. com where you can find episode transcript, recipes and bonus content.  episodes are released in batches via Spotify, YouTube, Samsung and on the Flower Power website.  Thank you for listening and happy baking!