As happy as pigs in an artery clogging cake - the anti benecol

Upon coming across a nice looking recipe in the Sunday papers, I decided to persue some baking that didn't involve sweets or covering my camera in batter. Of course the moment I walked into M&S this idea was scuppered. The gloriously tasty Percy Pigs were by the cashier. I instantly jumped upon the notion that as they were large and foamy rather than gummi, they might not melt in such a counter productive as mini teleporting gummi bears. Surely a few pilot piggies wouldn't hurt an already unknown recipe? Plus the ringbearer looked positively delighted when I left the health food shop with Macademia nuts and nothing that looked like fruit or tofu, so I thought I could use that good currency to keep him guinea pigging.
Stage 1. Following the recipe I masterfully separated eggs (OK one bit of shell got in) and ground the nuts into a fine pulp. Just coz they were looking at me funny! Yeah! On a side note nuts are expensive, in future I might try mixing them up with something cheaper, like hazelnuts..... or sawdust.Stage 2. I then made the ovely gooey chocolatey, nutty mess. And found a problem. Its the old how to fold in sweets with beaten egg whites scenario. Would adding the piggies at this stage effect the airyness of my folding? I decided not to find out and elegantly folded away.

Stage 3. Shlomped the goo into a lined baking tin. The consistency was approximately that of blue tack. Definitely more elastic than viscous. If only I could have put it in a rheometer and found out more! With this punch resisting consistency came problems. How to insert the pigs? I tried putting them in sideways and hoping they would sink below the goo leaving one pink trotter dramatically held aloft. But no such luck (see the photo at the top). These piggies didn't seem to like chocolately, nutty mud and were trying to run all the ways home. So I forced their little heads under the mixture by he vicious application of a cocktail stick.
Stage 4. Baking was successful, although as you can see form above there was piggie rupture. But at least I knew where to look for them this time.

The ringbearer snaffled a chunk of cake before I could even point out where the piggies were. He helpfully offered the review, 'Tastes better than it has any right to'. Personally I didn't know cakes had rights and was a little concerned about how I had been violating them. In my opinion the piggies, which were still whole and tasty added a certain something without tasting artificial to an otherwise terrifyingly dense and rich cake. (The ringbearer was delighted with this causer of instant obesity and continued to wade through the cake with scary commitment.) After a 3cm^2 piece I was forced to have a lie down to try and clear my arteries.

Importantly I have now discovered that Percy Pigs are a key ingredient in sweetie/cake fusion baking. Under cake conditions they don't teleport, they stay pink and they taste nice. Trust M&S.

Suggestions for further baking always welcome

Pritt stick decides to enforce a stereotype - my first rant post!

I love pritt sticks. They, more than any doll, car, lego set or teddy bear made me a very happy child. Which is why I was so disgusted to spy the above item on WHSmiths' shelves. It appears pritt stick is no longer unisex, no longer a simple tool to aid the creativity of developing children. No, we now have pink pritt stick: 'Just 4 girls'. Pink is a colour that is thrust upon young girls as 'their' colour by marketing and old fashioned idiots from a very early age. I know some researchers come up with notions to say otherwise [1], but I refuse to believe that it is healthy to declare one colour suitable for 'girls only' and then market it to them and their parents indiscriminatingly. It is as unfair to little boys as to the little girls to declare them separate entities who can have little in common.

Why do we need a pink pritt stick? I doubt girls need encouraging into the arena of 'sticking things'. Why don't boys have a pritt stick 'Just 4 boys'? Why can't boys use pink? Is it in any way correct to tell boys to use the grown up pritt stick whilst telling the girls -that as they are girls- they should use something childish and frivolous?

So thank you pritt stick, for removing another unisex activity from those available to children, you were once my dear dear friend. I expected this rubbish from Mattel and Toys R Us but not from you. If you had just marketed coloured pritt sticks, I would have totally bought a purple one.

[1] Disputed here

Strudel Surprises - when mars bars, tootie fruities and cherries collide

I had intended to limit my strudel experiments to just mars bars. Standing in the newsagents perusing the selection, it became clear I needed to push the pastry envelope and I came home laden with Fudge bar, Mars bar, Munchies and a packet of Tooty Fruities. I decided against normal strudel and instead went for strudel packets (typically full of crushed lady fingers, almonds, marzipan and cherries), which allowed me a dazzling rainbow of sweetie experimentation. The report:
1. Ring and finger crisis. I forgot to buy lady fingers! Clearly these would be needed for moisture absorbtion, sweetness and bulk. I therefore decided to use party rings instead. Because they are sweet, they matched the theme of my experiment and I like eating them. So as not to appear prejudiced, I carefully decided to crush one party ring of each colour, instead of limiting myself to the orange ones.2. Pastry preparation. Not from a packet. Nooo. Lovingly made according to Dr Oetker's recipe and then rolled and stretched out on a tea towel.3. Filling decsions. The inside of the pastry squares was then smeared with ukky egg mixture in preparation for the filling. At this point I realised how foolish I was to have so many options. All the parcels needed to contain the almond/ party ring biscuit mix but would Marsbar go with marzipan, would Munchies go with cherries? I eventually decided on a list of varying fillings following the basic combinations shown below (notable exception being tooty fruities andthe fudge bar, which were always combined with cherries)

Sweetie + Cherries +marzipan
Sweetie + Cherries
Sweeties4. Parcel construction. This was very messy and in the process my careful planning came apart. Soon I could not remember what filling was in what what packet! Disaster? Not for the stout of heart, I decided instead that I had invented strudel roulette and the mystery(like that found in a packet of Revels) would add to the fun.
5. Baking The parcels were lovingly baked with only a few marsbarish ruptures. They were then messily dusted with icing sugar and served with a helpful warning about the contents.
Results!It didn't prove entirely impossible to tell the packets apart. To me, Munchies were pretty similar to marsbar and fudge. However, tooty fruities were very distinctive. Offering the cherries a strange fake-fruit after-taste to what was blatently real fruit. Fascinating. Anything chocolatey and cherries went well and even the marzipan seemed to work. The ringbearer complained bitterly when he got a normal cherry packet instead of a chocolatey one and offered extensive further insights into the strudel saying 'The experiment was successful', 'Munchies were the nicest' and 'Leave me alone, I'm watching the cricket'. So it's nice to know his assesments have reached 2 sentences instead of 1. Ultimately, I like fruit, so I'm not sure adding mars bar was a success, but I am apparently in the minority in this preference. But where next? An enormous Altrincham-Marsbar strudel? Or an upside down cake replacing pineapple rings with gummi snakes?

If Chins Could Kill -how to inspire the would be B list

I recently finished If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B movie actor by Bruce Campbell. Hopefully Mr Campbell is known to most people as the King of the B movie (Especially the Evil Dead series) but is also a veteran of that other 'B' media: TV, in this case Xena and Hercules. The book chronicles his childhood and his erratic career, which has allowed him to cross paths with many well known names as well as be a first hand witness the elevation of colleague Sam Raimi to Hollywood 'A' director. However, as Mr Campbell is forever pointing out, his book is about the people not seen in front of the screen or at premières. It seems a shame therefore that most of his anecdotes still revolve around the more famous names (with the exception of his Evil Dead comrades). That isn't to say he panders to the Hollywood elite in any fashion. His book is both funny, insightful and quite inspired me to keep making amateur films. His tone cheerfully allows him to acknowledge his critics and his failures with both humour and honesty and it endears him to the reader. Bruce may be many things, but a writer he is not. I found the memoirs rambled around with space dedicated to not always relevant moments, anecdotes and opinions. I also found several sections quite flat, if not repetitive. The addition of photos, diagrams and lists hid quite a few of these faults and allowed the book to maintain it's cheery, non-snobbish outlook.

I enjoyed chins. It made me laugh and as the very kind person who gifted it to me hoped, it inspired me. As even Bruce would put it, 'If these idiots, can make a film and sell it, why can't I?[1]'. So, if you like films, read this book. Don't expect a literary masterpiece but rather a scrapbook of humorous anecdotes and nuggets of knowledge about the antics of Hollywood's middle-class and you won't be disappointed.

[1] Who needs 'Man with the screaming brain'? 'Woman plagued by teleporting gummi bears!' - a Chemie production!

Zombie outbreak mathematically modelled

A Canadian group of researchers has scientifically analysed the living's chances against a zombie horde. They made some interesting assumptions to do this, especially that Zombies would be the slow moving stupid kind, would only want human flesh and the timescale of the outbreak would be short. This may irritate survivalists who have prepared their well armed rec-rooms with enough microwave meals and ammo for several years. The paper then compares the spread of zombies as a mathematical model is to the spread of ideas and political parties. Does this mean that if you run fast enough from a new idea or hit any sign of 'infection' with a big bat, you can save humanity from it? Well that didn't work so well for the Spanish Inquisition but it's a damn shame my pacifistic nature disallows me from trying it on the BNP. I can see it now, last known non-fascist, anti racists hole up in the Trafford Centre to face off the hordes of BNP supporteers with nothing but golf clubs and fabulous shoes from Selfridges.
pdf of research

Currywurst museum - taking the sausage?

(Picture from Spiegel online)

Berlin has a new currywurst museum. Why does all the best stuff open once you've left? I loved the month I lived in Berlin but I have to admit to only having one decent currywurst whilst there and never during my 3 years in the Rhurgebiet. For those of you unaware of this German delicacy, currywurst (or curried sausage) is essentially a chopped sausage with tomato ketchup and curry powder (German standard curry powder, so not hot atall.) I always preferred a good standard bratwurst im broetchen (sausage in a breadroll), especially when the bratwurst is 3 times the length of the bun, making the whole thing comedic.

I know about currywurst from reading The Invention of Curried Sausage by Uwe Timm. It's a nice novella and Lena Brueker's tale of wartime romance and survival is a touching way to introduce the birth of Berlin's culinary masterpiece. Plus any book based on the invention of fast food snack has a certain uniqueness anyway.

The question remains however, why don't we have a Fish and Chips museum? I appreciate fish-and-chip's rise to fame is not quite so linked to post-war development and east/west clashes in a symbolic city, but there has to be some information worthy of an exhibition. The kids could play on the chip-frying simulator or giant map depicting mushy pea trends across the UK, whilst the adults consider the display on changing portion size and listen through vinegar bottle shaped headphones to interviews on the environmental impact of banning newspapers as wrapping. I'll write to the national lottery for funding shall I?

The great gummi mystery - more adventures in baking

A girl can only take too much chocolate brownie, so instead of continuing the brownie experiments, I decided to try with orange cake. The ringbearer was not so pleased, he considers fruit based cakes to be 'girly and healthy'. How a cake consisting of almonds, sugar, eggs and oranges could be called 'healthy' is beyond me. One way almondy heart attack if you ask me. So everyone knows chocolate and oranges go, so I thought I'd add some minstrels (crispy shell possibly adding texture, or protection from chocolate oozing) and some gummy bears (because they're fruit flavoured too).

Stage 1. Orange and almond cake preparation. Having started on the task of grating 3 oranges, I was forced to put on a very feminine apron. This combined with my fashionable T-shirt/dress leggings combo, gave me the appearance of a medieval baker (or chorus member in the Pied Piper). Under such feudal conditions it seemed fruitless to complain about how the oranges were turning my hands well...orange.

Stage 2. Folding issues. My recipe required the eqq whites to be folded into the main mixture or almonds, eggs and sugar. How was I to add the minstrels? Would the weight of the minstrels somehow interfere with my gentle folding of the egg whites? Would all the air be lost? Could minstrels act as nucleation sites for air loss? (unlikely, I know)

Stage 3. I opted to gently insert the sweeties into the cake, with absolute minimum of stirring. Minstrels in one small sector. Gummi bears in another right next to the minstrels.

Stage 4. Baking and removal of the cake. Cake was then pierced numerous times with a kebab stick and the orangey syrup poured over. The piercing was very soothing in a machine-gunning-a-cake fashion, I might recommend it as a stress handling technique.
Stage 5. Serve

And so the mystery began. As you can see the minstrels were easy to find, although they added little to the cake eating experience, not being rich enough next to the oozy-almondy-cakieness. (Dark chocolate may be the answer). However, the gummi bears were never found. Never. They weren't where they were placed - can gummi bears swim in cake mix?. We couldn't taste them or see them (and they were pretty obviously green and red). We searched every mouthful of the cake for a gummy bear and came up with nothing. What happened? Did the gummi bears evaporate? Did they get abducted by aliens? Were they rescued from the oven by Haribo the super-gummi? Did they become one with the cake? - so great was their love for all things orange? A complete mystery so suggestions on a postcard please.

Next time, either minstrels brownies (Booooring) or mars bar strudel.

[Edited for my bad typing and grammar - pretty sure I didn't catch all of it either :( ]

Nude penguins and fetish foxes

I love silly season. I also adore penguins and am therefore very concerned about poor little Ralph the penguin, who lost all his feathers and has to wear a little wetsuit to stop him getting sunburn. Fortunately all his penguin friends are still letting him join in the penguin games.

Of course over in Germany the Sommerloch, is also bustling with animal antics. The wild boars, instead of attacking churches or breaking in to hardware stores are partying on the autobahn, a fox has developed a footwear fetish ( If he was in Berlin he could attend specialist sex parties for that) and hedgehogs are becoming some sort of rescue statistic in Nord Rhine-Westphalia. Why the police are required to deal with hedgehogs is a mystery. The boars I will grant are scary porkers in desperate need of a harshly written ASBO.

Moon - keeping it retro on the dark side of

Last night I saw Duncan Jones's film Moon. Set on -you guessed it- the moon, it follows single astronaut Sam (Sam Rockwell[1]) as he finishes up his 3 year contract drilling for Helium and prepares to head home. Of course nothing is quite as it seems and soon Sam is faced with the sort of booming questions that echo across thousands of sci-fi tomes. Who or what is he? Sam is accompanied by GERTY, the as-standard talking robot who earns the audience's instant mistrust by being the same race as HAL, but the film remains for the most part a one-actor film. Moon was clearly cheap to make (by Hollywood standards) and the bouncing models and limited set nicely reflect the 70s thinking-man's sci-fi such as Silent Running or Dark Star the film attempts to emulate.

Whilst Moon doesn't really have twists, you can easily spoil the plot by knowing too much about it. Unfortunately, I had sussed out the situation about 30 minutes before Sam began to get close to it and felt a little cheated. Have I read or seen too much Sci-Fi? I suspect that a gentle exposition was more in tone with the film's slow pace and implication that time was dripping past and subsequently I wasn't meant to be surprised. I loved the retro set, the inherent claustrophobia it brought and the crumpled mess of marker pens, duvet suits and post-its that was Sam's 'home'. I was also very impressed by the decidedly Amstrad looking GERTY, who managed some fine acting with nothing but emote icons.

My greatest problem with Moon is that whilst it is a beautifully shot, well acted, much needed antithesis to recent blockbuster sci-fi films such as Transformers, I can't bring myself to like it. I never liked Silent Running or it's ilk. Deep thinking Sci-fi books have annoyed me more than interested me for years and I have always wanted to fire photons whenever Star Trek brought up a philisophical episode. This somewhat dulled my enjoyement of Moon, I had a real sense of 'seen it before - got anything new to say/do?'. If you don't have such strong feelings about Sci-fi pondering, go and see Moon. Even if you do, go and see some fine film-making . Just don't think too hard about the antagonist's motives they, unlike the big philosophical questions posed by the film really don't stand up to lengthy consideration.

[1] I met a lovely man called Rockwell Flint once. Possibly the most awesome name EVER.

Penguin papers

(Picture from Spiegel online)

When you see a man with penguins, what do you do? Call the police obviously. Only in Germany would someone be carrying the necessary papers for their penguins, whilst frolicking in a lake. Mostly I am delighted that one can take penguins out for R&R. When I'm a billionaire and can afford my Penguin wonderland, I shall take my penguins on many lovely trips to cooling lakes. And they'll be much better behaved than disgusterous jumpy dogs.

Wicked - Girl power in Oz

Taking place mostly before Dorothy skipped across Oz, Wicked is the tale of the wicked witch of the west and her one-time friend Glinda-the good. You really should have heard about it, there are long running productions all over the world. And last Saturday as part of an extra special birthday treat I went to see it in London. I really enjoyed myself, it offers everything you expect from a west end musical, slick choreography, great performances, good laughs, expensive interval sweets, hum-along songs and lots of magic. The Oz magic even begins before the curtain goes up (and the incredibly sweet giant dragon begins to fume) as the underwater themed Apollo Victoria theatre is bathed in green light.

I have no knowledge of the book (the Oz series or the prequel the musical is based on) but I really enjoyed the change of perspective that Wicked provided. I was terrified the first time Glinda sang (No-one mourns the wicked), so high and squeaky was she that I couldn't distinguish the words. Fortunately all later songs were sung at a more comprehend able pitch and were generally awesome. The easily recognisable quotes from the Wizard of Oz that were included in the musical, really made me giggle. Glinda's comedic character makes it easy for her to steal most scenes, but I was rooting for Elphelba, which is a testament as to how she is written and performed.

Oz is apparently well known to be something of a pro-women novel and it follows through in 'Wicked'. How often are musicals written about the relationship between 2 women, with the love story in firm second place? It was no accident that all the best numbers were between the two witches rather than the love-interest(s) or the wizard. Whilst I appreciate that the film and musical never really cross , I felt that the end melting sequence was a bit of a let down. Played in silhouette on a quickly drawn across curtain, the scene seemed like a high school worthy dodge and not worthy of an otherwise very resourceful set design. But this is a small quibble, I loved the rest of the musical. Sure it only has a few numbers that really stick in the brain but the fact that I tried to sing 'defying gravity' for the rest of the evening after hearing it only once is quite a credit (And I'm really bad with music). I was also utterly dejected that I couldn't take the dragon home.

Indietracks - A brownie pack holiday with real ale and amps

Indietracks is a small indie-pop festival held at the Midland railway museum. It pricked my interest thanks to it's unusual combination of steam trains and indie-pop ( although it has been postulated that the link is related to either a fascination with usable 'vintage' or real ale) and exhibiting some bands at the bargain price of £35. It is undoubtedly the first festival I have attended where I arrived by antique train, spent breaks in bands chatting to a lovely volunteer about his model railway 'My granddaughter goes to Glastonbury, she says it isn't like this' or bopped away in an engine shed. Indietracks is mercifully noncommercial (home-made is something of a theme) and not only are the sandwiches, buns and real ale (courtesy of the local CAMRA society) reasonably priced, they taste good too. Indietracks is the place for the vintage dress clad, broadsheet reading music nerd. It was possibly the only festival I have attended where children and pushchairs seemed appropriate, safe and welcome (I loved the baby ear defenders, I want some). The workshop featured jewelery making from Tatty Devine and talks on 'how not to run a music label' as well as bunting making and corsage construction. All vital indicators of the humble, twee, home-made nature of the event.



There were 3 stages, outside, the engine shed and the tiny tin railway church. Hair bow, ballet pump wearing indie fans trotted happily between the three, waiting to hear many bands who were suitably obscure. Such is the intimacy of indietracks you often found yourself corsage making sitting next to bands who had just finished playing, however this was also an indication of the lack of 'big name' bands. The names that drew us to Saturday were Emmy the great and Camera Obscura, perennials of Radio 6. Emmy the Great, following an apparently nightmarish journey gave a performance that was functional but added nothing to her recorded work. Camera Obscura were surprisingly upbeat, endearingly apologizing for one slow depressing number, as they had expected people to be sitting and chilling on the grass rather than standing and bouncing. Surprises to us were the impressive enthusiasm of Cats on Fire, and Sucrette who proved to be bubble sweet and managed to make music that sounded like it belonged on a Miss Kitty video game, pleasant summer listening. An honorable mention is deserved for Butcher Boy who utilised everything from cello to an accordion, whilst entertaining their small band of faithful fans. The Lovely Eggs also managed a strange mix between comedy, loud punky music and twee musings about fruit, cowboys and dinosaurs in the church stage. I'm not sure they have much to offer other than novelty - but they were like the entire festival, warm, unique and reminiscent of an indie band searching for a big break at a girl guide sing-a-long.