The americans always go on about these in blogs, so I decided to make some today to see what the hype was about.
I made it up as I went and the recipe was:
Plop 3 tablespoons of smooth peanut butter in a bowl, then microwave until more pliable.
Mix with 1 tsp honey, and 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder.
Add enough rice crispies until it seems about reasonable.
Roll into balls about 2cm in diameter. (there were about 12 for me)
Put in the fridge to set.
Points:
Housemate envy: 9/10 (Their size and childhood-appeal definitely saw these disappear. I think it would be 10/10 but we don't have a full house today to judge by)
Presentation: 6/10 (They're cute, but I really need to start making pretty things!)
Yummy Points: 10/10 (These are DANGEROUS. Small, great textures, fab taste. They are all gone!)
We didn't get any snow in plymouth, so we went to dartmoor to find some....
And I made that gluten free cake. It was a bit dense, and sour (since I did a lemon drizzle topping)
Recipe:
Soak 500g of dried fruit (mix of whatever you like - I had apricots, sultanas, peel, dried raspberries, currents) in a big bowl with 600ml of boiling water and 3 tea bags. I used 2 PG tips and 1 oolong tea bag.
Leave overnight. Go to the pub, don't worry about baking hungover; it's easy as hell, go have some fun.
In the morning, remove the tea bags, and mix in 200g of sugar. I used granulated because I am poor.
Crack an egg in, and mix.
Spice it up with whatever you have in the kitchen. My weapons of choice were cinnamon and lemon rind.
Mix in 250g of gluten free flour. I didn't see the need to sift.
Bake at 170 C for about an hour. Test its 'done-ness' by inserting a metal skewer/knife and see if it comes out clean.
Give it 5 in the tin, but while it is warm, stab it a fair amount of times, then drizzle on the icing - juice of one lemon mixed with about 100g of granulated sugar. Using granulated gives it a great crunch.
Points:
Housemate envy: 6/10 (There isn't any left, but that might have been because there was a lot of us, and the snow makes you want to eat lots of cake. People thought it was an interesting thing - lots of questions)
Presentation points: 8/10 (Forgot to take a bloody pic of it whole. It was a bunt cake, which makes cake easier for picnics as there's no wispy bit in the middle to crumble.)
Yummy points: 7/10 (It's hard to judge as it was a bloody weird cake. But I had a fair bit as it was good enough for me.)
I also went to Exeter last night to see my friend Mary play, which was fab.
Thar be snow!
Had a play with photoshop to collage this great jump...
...and this one.
find out more on http://wordsbymaryjane.wordpress.com/
I am really excited about my architecture project, which you can read about on my blog here.
Meanwhile, it is snowing in about every place EXCEPT Plymouth. Which totally sucks! However, I'm going to the moors tomorrow with an architecture buddy, and so I am making a cake. Of Course.
It'll be a gluten free fruit cake, and it's the first time I'll be working with alternative flour. I'm a bit nervous!
Fruit before soaking in tea - sultanas, raisins, peel, apricots and dried raspberries.
I had a great dinner tonight - goats cheese and veg on toast.
Instead of doing floor area schemes of an opera house (uni project, which can be read about here), I did my first collage-type-thing since college. How strange.
Also, this blog has got an astounding 79 views so far today.
Oh dear, it's been a long time since I posted a blog. I've been having some computer nightmares.... anyway, here's what I've been doing:
An architecture project
This is the one I talked so fearfully about in another blog post, but it's over now. For submission, I took 3 photographs of my elderly relatives, showing them as they are, with a bit of text saying who they are. I wrote the supporting text and all references on my type writer. I love it so much!
All wrapped up!
A Carrot Cake
This was baked for a coffee and cake chat with my friend Mary (who sings amazingly, check it out!)
New Point System:
Housemate Envy: + 9/10 (There is a reason that I don't have a picture of the whole cake!)
Presentation Points: 6/10 (The top icing was quite thin and runny, so I constantly felt like the fairies in sleeping beauty when they make the birthday cake, see below!)
Yummy points: 9/10 (It was beautiful, three different kinds of icing in it, moist, good crumb. The bottom was a smidgen overdone though)
By the way, this film is the way to my heart. It is definitely my favourite film EVER.
A Shirt Skirt (with tutorial)
I have definitely seen this before, but I didn't save the link so it cannot be credited :(
I was super happy with this, and wore it out on friday.
Take a shirt
Chop off the arms, collar and cut across the chest (cut across the chest at the part that matches your waist measurements)
Then sew up the sides as necessary, hem the top. I then cut the collar in half, and sewed it on to the top as a strange belt loop.
I have a deadline coming up soon. Two in fact, in quick succession.
So of course I baked a cake this evening, whilst watching the iron lady.
It's a strange kind of coffee cake. Again a little made up, but surprisingly sucessful:
200g butter
200g sugar
3 eggs
Coffee (made super strong coffee in cafetiere, then boiled this on the hob until it was super concentrated)
about 200g self raising flour - enough to make it cake batter looking
Then there's a cheeky hollow in the middle with coffee buttercream in - but you can't really see it in the photos... then coffee glace icing on the top.
New point system:
Housemate envy + 5/10 (it's kind of safe, but everyone loves coffee cake it seems)
Presentation points + 1/10 (big fat mess - top layer may or may not have broken in two when removed from tin...)
Yummy points + 8/10 (light sponge, but not enough coffee taste)
Today I experimented with icing - I made 12 lemon infused cup cakes (Ruddy good sponge if I say so myself!), then played with icings. There was a chocolate and brandy ganache, a lemon glacé icing, a lemony cream cheese icing, and then a few were made into lemon drizzles. They don't look like much, but they were pretty perfect, I'm proud.
