Send Me a Venn Diagram

Earlier this month, RD said something like, "Did you know that part of Ireland (Northern Ireland) is in the United Kingdom but that another part (the Republic of Ireland) is not, and that Great Britain is comprised of several countries that are part of the UK?"  

I had never really bothered to learn the geographic details of this matter although I did wonder why England and Ireland share the same country code (+44) even if they were different countries.  I knew that GBP is the SWIFT code for the pound sterling but wasn't sure which countries aside from England used this.  And up until RD mentioned it, in my mind the UK and Great Britain were interchangeable terminologies.  (Am sure London Eye would have promptly showed me the error of my ways.)

RD continued to rattle away countries and subsets of countries belonging to Great Britain, the United Kingdom, the British Isles, etc. that were beyond my mental comprehension so I said, "You have to send me a Venn Diagram."

He gave me something better, he shared me this link, which was really informative.

In a nutshell (or if you don't have the patience to watch the video), this illustrates what goes where.

May I just say that I am glad I don't have to take geography tests anymore.

Zapped!

I could not resist getting this racket for the house.  Admittedly bug zappers are not as needed here as they are back in the home country.  I had been wanting to get one since I saw them being sold at the Parklea Markets but at $10, Sadly I could not justify the purchase at that price.  It was a totally different story when I found a smaller version at the Reject Shop at half the price.  So I am now ready for those nasty critters, 

We got to test it out as we were watching the Australian Open game between Djokovic and Wawrinka today.   It works even if it doesn't give the signature zap when the bug is hit.  

Call me crazy but these bug zappers really remind me of home.  We would have at least two of them in active duty and one of them charging.  They were always very useful and the zapping sound was always a sound of victory.  I can actually imagine Z packing one of them in her backpack if she were going to go on a camping trip or a picnic.

The Birthday Baker

MyGirl turned 14 today and we baked a cake for the occasion yesterday. I wanted to try a recipe from one of Nigella's cookbook that I had borrowed from the library some time back.  

After the cake was done, I asked MyGirl if we would make icing for the cake.  She replied with an enthusiastic "Yes" so naturally we proceeded to prepare the icing.  After the second cup of powdered sugar, I was already cringing at the thought of how sweet the icing would be.  But what the heck she only has her birthday once a year.  Besides, we didn't have the required 4 1/2 cups of powdered sugar. We used up whatever we had on hand, about 3 cups, but it was still a LOT of sugar.

The recipe instructions were to use one 9" square pan or two 8" or 9" round pans.  We opted to use a single round pan and the cake rose so high that we had to trim off the top so that we could ice it.  Yes, I know, the pan sizes were there for a reason.

The cake recipe was excellent.  Since we had to cut the top of the cake off so that we could ice it, we were able to taste the cake with some of the icing last night. We will definitely use this for future birthday cakes.

The icing is another matter.  The icing looked like the icing on the cakes they sell at the cafes at the mall.  It was good but super SWEET!!!!

Here is the birthday cake before taking the first slice of cake.

Coffee Buttermilk Birthday Cake  

1  2/3 c all purpose flour
1  1/2 t baking powder
   1/2 t baking soda  
   1/4 t salt
   3/4 c + 2 T buttermilk
1 T  instant espresso powder
1  1/2 t vanilla  
3/4 c sugar  
1/2 c soft butter    
3  large eggs

Preheat oven to 350F
Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt together in one bowl
Combine buttermilk, coffee and vanilla in a separate bowl
In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and the butter until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at time beating 30 seconds after each addition.
Add the flour and the milk alternately into the butter-sugar-egg mixture blending well after each addition.  (Takes 3 to 5 minutes).
Pour batter into line pan/s.
Bake 40 minutes (30 minutes).
Cool 10 minutes on a rack.

Buttercream Icing

1 1/3 C  (150g)   butter
4 1/2 C  (250g)   confectioner's sugar
1 t     vanilla
2 T     milk


To make the buttercream icing, whisk the butter with cleaned electric whisk blades and then add the sifted icing sugar a tablespoon at a time. When icing sugar has all been mixed in and the mixture is smooth, add the vanilla.  Add milk as needed to make the buttercream spreadable but fairly solid.

Not Quite 30 Minute Rolls

I finally convinced Eldest Sis to bake bread (sort of kinda).  OK.... Let's just say she finally decided she wanted to try and bake bread so that they could have bread with some dipping oil they have at home.   The fact remains ... Eldest Sis successfully baked some bread during the Martin Luther King holiday!  (One more convert.  Hurrah!)

This was the recipe she tried : http://www.yourhomebasedmom.com/30-minute-rolls/

We were on Skype today and I said I'd try it out as well.  Of course between the to-ing and fro-ing from the kitchen counter to the PC, things did not really turn out as I had intended.  I thought the original recipe had too much yeast and too much sugar.  So I decided to half the yeast and half the sugar amounts.  What I did not realise is that I had used a half cup extra water from what the recipe called for (no wonder the dough was so sticky!), so naturally I needed to add more flour.  

Anyway, I was halfway through kneading when I realised I had used too much water.  And while we are in the topic of using the wrong amounts,  the rolls were already out of the oven when I realised that I had used 1/4 c of oil instead of the recipe's 1/3 c.  (Is it my eyesight or my memory that is going?)

I ended up making 15 rolls instead of the recipe's 12.  In other words, I didn't really follow the recipe with the exception of using the right number of eggs (1) which was kind of hard to get wrong.  I shall call them tweaking the recipe (some quite unintentionally) 

The bread was nice and soft.  It is definitely a keeper.   This is essentially the pizza dough recipe we use with the addition of an egg.  

Ingredients

• 1 ½ C warm water
• 1 Tbsp active dry yeast
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 egg
• 4 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1½ tsp salt
• 4 ½  - 5 C  flour 
• melted butter (optional)

Instructions

1. Heat water in glass pyrex.  Sprinkle yeast over water.  Add in sugar.  Mix to combine and let sit until foamy (5 to 10 mins).
2. In a big bowl combine about 4 cups of flour and salt.  Make a well.
3. Pour in yeast mixture. Add egg and oil.
4. Mix together (use fork to combine if too sticky at the onset). 
5. Add flour as you knead to get dough into elastic ball (about 8 to 10 minutes).  
6. Heat oven to 400 degrees. (Can be your step 1 but starting the oven here will give dough extra time to rise)
7. Form dough into 12-15 balls and then place in a greased 9 x 13 pan and allow to rest for 10 minutes (until oven is right temperature). 
8. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes at 400 degrees or until golden brown.
9. Brush the rolls with melted butter when they come out of the oven.

Angel Place

I finally discovered hangs along Angel Place.

Forgotten Songs is what the artwork of birdcages is called.

It commemorates the songs of fifty birds once heard in Central Sydney.

Looks Really Familiar

After poking holes on our pizza dough,
I saw something that looked vaguely familiar.

We caught Sunshine on Skype and as I was walking around the house with the laptop,

her son caught sight of the SkyFlakes box on top of our microwave oven.

Apparently, they sell SkyFlakes in the Asian grocery stores in the Netherlands, too.

Enough Said

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words.

McDonald's seems to think so.

They didn't even have their logo in this ad at the bus stop.

Ohhhh ... French Fries.

In case you haven't heard the good news, 

Potato Corner has just opened a branch in Australia.

I repeat.   Ohhhh.... French Fries.

(That's because we don't normally go to McDonald's 

and if ever we get frozen fries, we bake them.)

Cookie Corners

There were several FB posts which showed what other things could be done in a waffle iron.

I wasn't about to try any of the ones that involved making scrambled eggs in the waffle iron 

because of the hard clean up but making biscuits or cookies seemed promising.

I decided to try it on some cookie dough.

So this is what cookies look like when they have corners.

A Loaf of Bread, A Container of Milk and a Stick of Butter

I caught Slash-M on Skype today. He was busy working on something.

It seemed as if he was making a ransom note or something.

He explained that they were refrigerator magnets for their grocery list.

There were Swedish words on the magnets and he was sorting them.

I could not help but laugh.  Is this fridge magnet grocery list a GUY THING?

Check out our grocery list care of MacGyver. 

He printed out the grocery list and glued them on refrgerator magnets

which he later cut up to size.

The theory is stick the grocery items we need onto the blank GROCERY LIST

when supplies run low and move them back to the side once they have been purchased.

And as you can see, GI had his own idea of what should be in the grocery list.  

He has added PIZZA into the grocery list (permanently).

Bear Hugs

I had to stop and take a photo of these colourful bears because they reminded me of the Care Bears.

And the Care Bears remind me of my younger sisters.

Sunshine, Jersey Girl and Mindy had a Care Bears poster in their room when they were young.

H A P P Y   N E W  Y E A R,  Everyone!

Bear hugs from across the miles.