Obsession

Today beckons the week that my exams lie... Friday afternoon to be precise. I just feel so *ARGH* *tear hair out* and all that malarky. It's the THIRD time I'm going through the question bank and that's quite extreme, even for me. Which is probably why I look at the questions and just blank in some cases. Either way, after going downstairs, eating my body weight in oatcakes and rich tea and watching some Diagnosis Murder, I'm going to officially take the next hour off. No study. Tidy room. Maybe go bask outside in some sunlight for a bit before beating the cr@p out of something. One things I thought might be interesting - an art/weird stuff blog Oh and I read the Daring Bakers bitty again. You have to "unveil" on the same day. With me in a different county most weeks I think I may have to bow out and just force myself to bake something once a month instead. Off to dive off a cliff. (Since we live in a valley that can't even get Channel 5 there are very sp

Thanks to my friend I now have an addiction to a Korean girl band. Think Girls Aloud. Think PussyCatDolls with less gynecological cameramen. This is as sexed up as mainstream Oriental pop acts have ever been. I love the cartoon dancing (it's slightly reminiscent of dances in videogames) and evidently the fact they sing in Korean does not make a bit of difference to me. Meet.... the WonderGirls . And now to food... or reading anyway! First read of the day was National Geographic in the bathroom. That was interesting, especially when you consider the copy was from October 1980!! Apparently sis went to the second hand shops and bought a few to look at. Had to say I was mainly looking at the adverts. The height of designs that year for Cartier watches and Nikon cameras! My how twenty odd years changes things. It is amazing though. Tempted to buy some more and frame the adverts. Reading part 2: Waitrose magazine downstairs whilst I was eating my cornflakes. As a time saving option,

I've actually had a relatively good day's study. Four hours at five o'clock in the afternoon is pretty decent. Of course I'm not entirely sure I've learnt anything. I'm doing the questions again (third? time) and it's like... yes I am still getting X wrong. Least I know what it is and I've got precise notes on what the answer SHOULD be. I have this weekend to do the questions and then four whole days to memorise the missing elements. Cake moment. Have I mentioned the Daring Bakers ? I'm still in debate on whether to join. This month's challenge was almost off-putting. Gluten free crackers? Is that my future? Spending a Saturday a month making dishes I won't really eat? Hmm. Given I've found a new love in Scottish Oatcakes when I was I was in Aberdeen perhaps I shouldn't be hasty. We shall see. But I am beginning to make a HUGE list of recipes I MUST try. Things I found reading the two books I bought yesterday - the biscuit one really

Think as you know I've been going a little crazy online shopping, but I was looking at baking tins on Amazon today and as usual you get a few things which are tagged so they show up in the search despite having little relevance at all. This however, made me crack up. An Optical zoom for mobile phones. Way to take on those food bloggers with their DSLR's ;)

Amazon delivers! And whilst I was being a lazy bum they were downstairs... Book1: Better Homes and Gardens: The ULTIMATE cookie book looks like something I will definitely cook many recipes from, pour over and make lots of fat friends from :D Book2: The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook was the one I bought to make the £15 threshold for free delivery (that's a skill, you aim to get £15 and then you spend £17 extra) I know I shouldn't have. Heck I remember being in NY, not loving the cupcakes, and coming back finding a few on the internet and still... mmmm I don't know. But there it was. A big coconut cake on the cover. With stiff icing. And a rich, deep devils food cake next to it for contrast. I don't think I'm sending it back somehow! It is the priciest book I've bought for ages and low value in fairness. It's relatively slender and doesn't have the multiple pictures that I've gotten so used to. Still, if I make a good chocolate cake, a good coconut cake an

My books will arrive today... Scored myself 48-56 on my mock. Not bad with a week to go and my ruthless marking. It is precisely 7 days now. NEXT FRIDAY!! Also kind of freaky that the BBC Food forums shut down after a certain time *blink* *blink* It's as if you've woken up in a deserted ghost town. Eerie!!

Right. Quick blog as yesterday I didn't blog. But didn't study. Pathetic. Here is somewhere I really, really want to go to. I've been lusting after it for ... approximately five years? They advertise quite regularly in our local free magazine Optima and thus I've been wanting to go on the basis of two pictures. The fact it isn't really local at all and I have to beg a lift from my brother is probably why I haven't been. Plus every birthday I've had in the past two years (er that's two then) I've either been - unable to eat hard foods, or just not up for a big meal. The picture has that certain "I'm so beautiful, look at me, eat me, you want to eat me!" quality to it. Hence I've actually blown it up a bit. Here's another little teeny tiny problem with it though. There's a taster menu there. So if I eat a taster menu, will I have room for this little baby? Problem part two. There's a chocolate version... admittedly not the

Okay I think I'm so desperate to write things that this has steered away from a baking blog to ... a blog. But much excitement - my ipod dock/alarm clock arrived!! Very happy. My laptop was designed for business use and so the speakers are abysmal. And this is coming from a girl who listens to tapes recorded from the radio on a Panasonic tapedeck still!! I feel the lack of pictures though and so here's a picture from William Curley 's in Mayfair. One of the more recent additions to my cake walk in Green Park, it's slightly more hidden away, they do cakes at John Lewis on Oxford Street too. When we went it was for the dessert bar where they make the dessert in front of you (really more of a construction job, but kind of cool watching people who actually know how to pipe stuff). It was really an effort for me to try and recreate the experience I hoped to have in NY, but since we had cool desserts every day, making the effort to find an out of way dessert bar fell to botto

Hehehee.... just bought a cookie book and a Magnolia bakery cookbook today and just got the warm vibe on impending pretty pictures and recipes. I'm silly but it makes me happy.

Okay I have a slight... obsession with wedding cakes. In fact my friends have reached the point where they just expect me to be incredibly critical about their wedding cakes. I'm well...I keep my opinions from the bride and groom naturally but I always think a cake should reflect them and boring cakes don't hit the spot. (There is a difference between boring and classic mind!) I am happy today (despite now rainy weather) because a mate of my sister's is getting married and my sister is bridesmaid (we think - the offer has been extended and retracted before as there is a certain indecision regarding the matter.) We've known this for awhile, but basically the CAKE and the decisions surrounding it have entered my sphere. Consultancy here I come!! :P First off, it's GREAT when someone cares about the cake. My friend's couldn't give a monkeys and she was told the morning of the wedding that they got a cake arranged by dad (I'd like to say, she did get married

Studying a bit better - got two questions under my belt today. Laziness factor is this, was making myself some humous on toast (humous from M&S and I didn't even buy it myself!) and was in the process of spreading when knife lingers over cup of fresh tea. *plop* in goes humous. Surprising bit is the fact my tea tastes fine and given the oil based nature of humous, I guess I shouldn't be that surprised that it didn't stay solid enough for me to fish out with a spoon. Ah well.

I'm still wondering about what to make for pimpthatsnack.com as it's been something I've been wanting to do for agggggggges. Trouble is, most things have been done and in a spectacular fashion. Bearing in mind I'll probably do my exams and it will be forgotten as I get my life back again - kind of like wanting to learn to "crank" ala Soulja Boy whilst I was on sabbatical. It does seem wrong to write what should be a food blog without pictures - so here's a picture of some chinese egg tarts I made a long time ago. Only they're not really chinese - I cheated and used puff pastry and since I don't like to waste the trimmings, there are some in there that look like they've been through a nuclear fall-out as my friend put it. There is a chinese recipe for puff pastry which does the folding marlarky but instead of layer of butter, it's actually TWO types of pastry folded, one water-based and one oil-based. Unfortunately the oil is lard, although

I choose to blog instead. Ai. Two weeks to go. Then it's ALL OVER. For a year at least before I chose to inflict myself with this again. Enough of the life story, may as well get with the good stuff. Over the year I've picked up several new cookbooks - not least because my brother has a book club deal with work and therefore gets cheap cookbooks. Hence I got Delia's " How to Cheat" in my cookbook collection (and inexplicably the ready made mash in the freezer which I didn't buy!) I'm not for slating her, she made money out of it and she CAN cook. Plus one of my favourites as previously mentioned, Silvano Franco is the queen of quickie food. More interesting books however are the now very popular cupcake ones. I bought two. Not on purpose mind! I actually bought one, lost it, so bought another one (because I can, can, can...) The first is "The Crabapple Bakery Cupcake book". Personally I found the mixture too sweet and they made too many. Normal

Forgot that I wrote so much last time! Basically facebook took over and most my pictures are posted there as it's so easy, but in the mood to pick this up again. First of all, I've realised that I've grown attached to a few bloggers - namely the pictures, not the words - but they are somewhat amazing and very regular with their posting! Therefore it is worthy of mention. http://tartelette.blogspot.com/ Other than that my baking has pretty much gone along the same train although "Chinese Cooking Made Easy" came on the BBC for six weeks, which made for more love to hate tv. Taiwanese smiley girl dismisses takeaway food as the devil incarnate and proceeds to burn her own version on tv. Great. Check out the BBC website for some forumite bashing. Same goes for the British Born Chinese version. Speaking of which though, I have been on a hell-bent to find more chinese baking to make. As it was Harvest Moon festival for Chinese people recently (not that I could celebra