Halloween Cake, Part I

I know it's still 3-and-a-bit weeks to go, but I'm already planning Halloween. To be fair, it's not really that far in advance given that Christmas decorations are already on sale in supermarkets...

Anyway, I need to try and one-up my cakey offering from last year, which to remind you was the following (can you believe I've been here a year already?):



So here's the concept sketch for this year's effort. I'm thinking of two whole cakes stacked on top of each other to get the height and then cover it in royal icing or marzipan (or both). I might even put some of the rumtopf fruit in it for good measure.



Watch this space for progress...

Going too far

So you've probably all worked out by now that I have a bit of a geek streak running through me. I play to it sometimes and most people seem to know when I'm joking and when I'm serious.

I might have gone a bit too far today though. Someone at work asked me if it was my birthday last week (which it was) and I said yes. They asked how old I was and without batting an eyelid I replied:

"35. I'm really excited because it's a multiple of two primes, and next year is a square number."

To be honest *I'm* not sure if I was joking or not.


P.S. And the year after *that* is a prime, too, but then it goes downhill for a while...

Chocolate Brownies

Something I've been meaning to try for a while is to bake some brownies. I found a recipe on Thursday that looked pretty good so I gave it a go...

Ingredients. Strangely I couldn't find anywhere that sells Cookeen any more so I got some weird "Stork for Pastry". Whatever that is...

Melt the fat then add quite a lot of cocoa.

Mix!

Add sugar. I hope this is right - it looks a bit 'odd'.

Add some vanilla, eggs and a bit of salt. Mix again!

Bake. I made one batch with some chopped walnuts and one with chocolate chips. This is the walnut, but I think the chocolate one was better by a long way.

Architect's Conundrum

So you're designing a new building, but the one at the existing location has some sort Listed status / preservation order on the street-facing wall.

What to you do?

a) Find a different site to erect (pffft) your masterpiece.

b) Get the building de-Listed then tear it all down in one go.

c) Shore up the Listed wall with scaffolding and some serious steelwork, tear down the rest of the building and then tuck a new one in behind it.

The answer, of course, is (c).

Street view. Just another load of scaffolding in the City?

Side view.

Crazy stuff. (Click for bigger).

I saw this on the 149 on the way home from my brother's flat the other week and hopped off the bus to take these. You can see the monument at, er, Monument in the background of picture number 2 - it's also up in scaffolding while they clean it.

Smoke On!

No, not the cigarette sort of smoke. The sort that's trailed out of a canister strapped to the tail of a light aircraft flying at about 200mph, 20 metres above the River Thames.

I went to the Qualifying Day for the Red Bull Air Race, London leg today (well, Saturday), and "smoke on" is the instruction given to pilots to switch on the smoke trail at the start of their run.

It was a fab day - the planes were shockingly fast, and it's hard to describe just how amazing some of the flying was. I didn't get any photos, but there was a random guy there who had a camera with a zoom lens bigger than my forearm, so I asked him if he'd mind emailing me his flickr url once he's uploaded some pictures.

In the mean time, here's some from another flickr account I found from last year's London race. Last week's Rotterdam leg will also be on the Channel 4 Catch Up site for another 4 days (there's a bit at 03:30 that shows how fast it all is)...

http://www.channel4.com/video/brandless-catchup.jsp?vodBrand=red-bull-air-race-2008

Office Olympics

I don't know how I end up doing these things (probably a combination of sheer dumb luck and not saying no very often) but I've just got back from an afternoon competing in the Office Olympics in the mini-ampitheatre at Broadgate Circus.



It was organised by a charity called Richard House - they're the chosen charity for 2008 for a company I work for. Events included:

• The Floppy Discus. Spinning round on an office chair and chucking floppy disks in a bin.


• Post-it Fencing. Stick Post-it notes on your opponent before they to it to you.


• Recycling Rowing Relay. Bucket-brigading sheets of used paper down a lengthways line of rowing machines.


• Office Chair Relay. Running round the arena with an office chair.

All under the watchful, curious, yet somehow disdaining eye of the early-afternoon pub-goers.

Still, I got a medal and we had an ice cream afterwards. It was like school sports day all over again...

Rumtopf

A while ago I found another traditional German recipe I thought I'd give a go. It translates literally as 'Rum Pot', because you basically add rum and fresh fruit in a stoneware pot and leave it for 4-6 months.

Originally fruits would be added in batches as each variety came into season, with more sugar and rum added each time. Modern supermarkets have kind of rendered that unneccessary, but I decided to follow the stage-by-stage approach anyway.

Ingredients: Rum, fresh fruit, sugar and a 3-litre rum pot.

The first fruit to be added (that's strawberries, if you're agriculturally challenged). The first batch gets double its weight in sugar; the remaining batches only get 1:1. Coat the fruit in the sugar for about an hour before adding it to leech out some of the juices.

A couple of weeks later I added some blackberries. A bit early for the real season - the ones in the wild brambles next to my house are only just coming out now. Blackberries should be added sparingly because they can discolour the rum, and they're normally a little bit bitter (or so I read).

The rumtopf so far...

My dad used to grow raspberries in the back garden when I was a kid. They're my favourite fruit, so I added a shed-load about 2 months after the strawberries.

The rumptof so far, again. The colour is being drawn out of the fruit into the rum so the strawberries look a bit pale now.

Store the pot with something holding the fruit under the rum to stop it spoiling, then cover with clingfilm. You can see how red the rum has become so far.

Still to add later are cherries, pears and plums, although there's not much room left for them. My plan is to make a trifle with some of the fruit when it's ready, then puree some more to make a coulis and serve with the rum as an after-dinner liquer.
*smacks lips*