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  • Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cake

    A slightly altered version of Smitten Kitchen’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake, for Kirsty’s birthday.

    I cooked it in three 8-inch square pans, rather than 8-inch rounds (because I’m always happy to find new uses for the wedding cake pans.) It is a very soft cake and definitely requires freezing before constructing and icing, but I didn’t have any problems with it breaking or sinking.

    As I was taking the cake to work, I decided the chocoate peanut-butter glaze was too difficult. Instead, I iced the cake with the peanut butter frosting (a gloriously rich concotion of cream cheese, butter, icing sugar and peanut butter), and decorated it with chocolate buttons. Incredibly rich, but a beautiful combination of flavours (unless you’re strongly opposed to the idea of chocolate and peanut butter). It didn’t suffer from the absence of the chocolate glaze – in fact, the cake is so rich I think the addition of another layer of chocolate would have been a bit too much.

  • Read & Watched in March

    This March:

    – I watched one and a half seasons of The Tudors for the first time, and am enjoying its lush and lavish scenery.  The frequent nudity is amusing –  I’m sure Cardinal Woolsey often enjoyed nude massages by his mistress.  Henry is now getting a wee bit tired of Anne, and Jane Seymour has just hove to on the horizon.  I expect a tragic beheading by the end of Season 2.

    – Connie Willis’ Blackout, which I was awaiting with much anticipation, was rather disappointing simply because it is one book that appears to have been just chopped in half by the publishers.  The last page helpfully tells me to keep an eye out for All Clear which will be published later this year.  Yes, thanks ever so much for that – it would have been nice to know prior to plunging my way through Blackout and being brought up short at the ending.  I will read All Clear, of course, because I think Connie Willis is marvellous, but Blackout is not really a book in itself, nor is it part of a series – it’s a poor half-book, stuck in a pair of covers all by itself.

    – I have discovered, rather belatedly, the world of podcasts, specifically those to do with sci-fi and fantasy.  Galactic Suburbia, which I am impatiently waiting for a fourth episode of, is an Australian podcast by three women discussing all aspects of sci-fi and fantasy (or speculative fiction, which is a nice categorisation for all sorts of things that I love), and particularly feminist aspects of speculative fiction.  Great stuff.  And their most recent episode, with a couple of snippets about SwanCon, has made me wonder about the attraction of conventions, which I’ve always figured are more for the… I don’t know, costume-wearing fans, rather than myself.  But perhaps this deserves re-thinking, particularly with AussieCon4 in Melbourne this year.

    – Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy is another cool podcast, featuring interviews each week with a bunch of different authors.  I like the wide variety of its topics, from Tolkien to robots used by the military.

    – I also watched the fourth season of Weeds, which was an interesting transition from a show in which Nancy is a sympathetic character, dealing weed to keep in her kids in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed (and somewhat clumsily navigating the various drug cartels along the way) to the Nancy of the fourth season, who is employed by drug traffickers, and whose children are involved (however peripherally) in the drug trade.  With her determined blindness to certain aspects of the organisation she’s involved with, she is a much less sympathetic character, and the whole show spirals into a darker place, in which the humour that fitted so well in the earlier seasons seem a little misplaced.

    In April, I’m looking forward to some more Tudors, a new Robin Hobb book, and a couple of novellas by Australian authors about outer space and unicorns.

  • Mangosteens

    Mum was kind enough to send down a box of mangosteens for my brother and I (with a few rambutans thrown in) – she has a much lovelier photo of the fruit here. I have never seen mangosteens for sale down here, and very few of the people in Brisbane I’ve offered one to have heard of them.

    They are an exotic treat, something I never appreciated enough when I lived in Daintree – someone described it as a mix between a lychee and a custard fruit, but I think they have a distinctive flavour all of their own. Sweet and smooth.

    The last Christmas we were up in Daintree, in 2008, we had cocktails with mangosteen juice – terribly decadent and very delicious.

  • Ukulele

    A month or so ago, after being inspired by a choir member who plays, I bought a tenor ukulele – a lovely mahogony Kala with a beautiful mellow and sweet sound. I have never been able, or sufficiently motivated, to learn to play guitar, although I have always liked the idea of being able to accompany yourself on an instrument while singing. But whenever I tried to play guitar, I found most of the chords too difficult and never persevered long enough to strengthen my hands.

    The ukulele, happily, is much easier than a guitar to learn to play. Not only is it smaller, both in width and the distance between the frets, but it only has four strings and its tuning means that there are many simple chords, several with only one or two fingers. I have found it very easy and tremendously enjoyable to pick up and play. In fact, the hardest part about the ukulele for me (apart from most of the four fingered chords which I still find difficult – E! Bm!) is learning to strum and finger pick, which are all new to me. I have played violin, and a little flute and piano when I was younger, but nothing strummable. It’s particularly hard to keep up a strumming pattern and sing at the same time (something which I haven’t mastered, yet continue to inflict on all within earshot).

    I’m getting nice rough finger pads on my left hand, and hopefully soon the side of my index finger will toughen up a bit so I can do bar chords, where you press the entire length of your finger against the neck of the instrument. I find them incredibly difficult for some reason, despite the small size of the ukulele, but presumably one day my fingers will learn to stretch that far.

    I am so tempted to head up to Cairns in July for the Ukulele Festival (if I combine a parental visit with the festival it doesn’t sound quite so frivolous). Check out James Hill, who’s attending and doing some workshops – not your stereotypical ukulele.

  • Cherry & Almond Muffins

    These are gorgeous muffins – sweet and light. I almost wish the cherries were a bit sour, so you’re surprised by them. They’re lovely nevertheless, and be generous with the topping – the crunch of the almonds and sugar contrasts beautifully with the soft cherries in the middle.

    ingredients:
    2 cups + 2 tblsps plain flour
    1 cup white sugar
    2 tsp baking powder
    1/4 tsp salt
    2 eggs
    1/2 cup milk
    1/2 butter, melted
    1 tsp almond or vanilla essence
    2 cups of fresh or frozen and defrosted pitted cherries

    topping:
    2 tblsps sugar
    1/2 tsp nutmeg
    2 tblsp slivers almond

    In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Whisk up the eggs and milk in a bowl, add in the melted butter and essence. I’m not a big fan of almond flavoured cakes, so I changed the almond essence in the original receipe to vanilla.

    Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture, and add the cherries. Stir together gently, until all combined. As with all muffins, the less you stir them, the lighter and softer they will be. However, with this amount of flour the mixture does require a little stirring before it will all come together.

    Spoon the mixture into a lined muffin tin, and sprinkle a little bit of the topping on each muffin. Bake at 190C for about 25 minutes.

  • Date, Chocolate & Rum Muffins

    This is a lovely dark and rich muffin, reasonably heavy with all the dates. It’s one for afternoon coffee rather than morning tea, I think.

    ingredients:
    75 grams butter
    1/2 cup of honey
    a good slosh of rum (up to 1/4 of a cup)
    1 1/2 cups chopped dates
    half a block of dark chocolate, chopped
    2 eggs
    1/4 cup milk
    1 1/2 cups plain flour
    2 tsp baking powder

    Heat the butter and honey in a small saucepan, and stir in the chopped dates and rum. Cook gently for a little until the dates have swelled up, and the liquid has reduced a little. Whisk the eggs and milk in a small bowl.

    Put the flour and baking powder into a large bowl and stir it together. Make a well in the centre, and stir in the date and egg mixtures, along with the chopped chocolate. As with all muffins, stir gently until just combined.

    Spoon into a lined muffin tin, and bake at 200C for 15-20 minutes. Eat warm, and enjoy the combination of the rum and gooey chocolate.

  • Frozen elk

    I went to visit the Asia Pacific Triennial at the Gallery of Modern Art on the weekend. This was one of my favourite exhibits, a stuffed elk, completely covered in glass globes.

    I also loved this huge mushroom-cloud-shaped sculpture of discarded metal – there’s even a trumpet stuck in there near the top.

    I’m pretty sure I don’t appreciate art as it’s supposed to be appreciated – for example, this installation comments on Chinese history and conformity and so on, but I just think it looks cool.

    Also in the it-looks-cool basket – this wallpaper. I think I may need to paper an entire room in the house in lurid blue paper.

  • Hannah & the cats

    Hannah, our friends’ two and a half year old daughter, was visiting with her parents last weekend, and enjoyed playing with the cats. I’m not sure that they really enjoyed playing with her – she liked to chase them, rather than patting or scratching.

    It’s interesting to see the difference in six months, when we last saw her – she’s much more vocal of course, and much more self contained. Her inner life and imagination is much more apparent (to me, at any rate) – in this photo, she and the cats are afloat on a giant boat, and she is using the rope to steer.

  • Raspberry & Rosewater Muffins

    I was inspired to make these after reading Kerry Greenwood’s latest, Forbidden Fruit, in which a baker describes rosewater as bringing out the flavour of the raspberries.

    I adapted this recipe from a strawberry muffin recipe, and as a result it was fairly tart – a dense, cakey muffin with bite. The rosewater does go wonderfully with the raspberries, giving a slight floral flavour that complements the tangy berries.

    1/2 cup softened butter
    1/2 cup sugar
    2 eggs
    1 cup greek/plain yoghurt
    1 cup frozen rasperries, partly thawed (so they don’t all fall apart when you stir them in)
    grated rind & juice of 1 lemon
    1 1/2 tsps rosewater essence
    2 cups self raising flour

    Preheat the oven to 180C, and put muffin papers in your muffin tin. You can either make 12 huge muffins with this receipe, almost overfilling the tins, or about 16 reasonably sized muffins.

    Blend together the butter and the sugar, then beat in the eggs, yoghurt and rosewater. Gently fold in the raspberries, lemon rind and juice to avoid crushing the fruit, and spoon the mixture into the muffin tins. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

    These would probably also be nice sprinkled with a mixture of sugar and lemon rind before baking.

  • Book Round-Up for 2009

    I read 135 books in 2009, much less than the previous two years (183 and 173 respectively). I’m not sure why the numbers have dropped so much – I definitely read less in the second half of 2009 than I have in previous years, and I was less careful in keeping track of what I was reading, so perhaps that accounts for a few books.

    Best Faux-Nostalgic Books

    For some reason, I never read the Anne of Green Gables series when I was younger. I made up for that during my winter holiday this year, when I found Anne of Green Gables at a friend’s place in Darwin, and then followed that up with the rest of the series gathered from second-hand bookstores in Tasmania. I loved Anne & Gilbert, but became less interested in the series as they became adults and the stories focused more on their children.

    Best Newly Discovered Classic

    I have loved Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies since I read it as a teenager, and I listened to Decline & Fall for the first time this year (which is an earlier novel, and vaguely related). Decline & Fall is hilarious, in the same dark way as Vile Bodies. I feel that I should read Brideshead Revisited now, but I think it’s a very different style to these two books.

    Most Trashy Books of Which I Read Far Too Many

    A tie between the equally addictive Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris (source material for the True Blood tv series), and JD Robb’s In Death futuristic-detective series.

    Best Non-Fiction

    I don’t read that much non-fiction, so there’s not a lot to choose from – a tie between Ingrid Cummings’ The Vigorous Mind, about the benefits of life-long generalised learning, and Mary Roach’s hysterical Spook, over which I shook with silent laughter on public transport.

    Best Book About Antarctica

    Possibly the only book about Antarctica I read in 2009, but definitely the best – Geraldine McCaughrean’s The White Darkness, a truly terrifying and creepy YA novel, which inspired me to read more about Lawrence Oates, of the “I am just going outside…” quote.

    Best Dystopia

    While it’s not a really believable dystopia (which all the really terrifying ones are), Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games was as fantastic and compelling as everyone was saying, and I enjoyed the sequel, Catching Fire, as well. However, hands-down-best dystopia of the year was Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey – a fantastic fable-like story about boxing and what it means to be human.

    Best How Have I Not Read This Author Before?

    I can’t believe I had never picked up a John Green novel before – king of quirky teenage characters. (I know quirky is really overused as a descriptive word, and I think I’ve used it twice already here, but I mean it as a compliment. I like quirky.) I read Paper Towns, An Abundance of Katherines, and my favourite, Looking for Alaska, which I loved and wept over.

    And my final two Honourable Mentions to books that I loved but can’t think of a particular category for – Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, for all of us who read and loved the Narnia books as children, and wished that one day we could step through, and AS Byatt’s Possession, for everyone who loves.