Entries from February 2007 ↓

One does have to be careful about the fonts used for signage (especially when they’re on flags that are blown around). Today, I was driving by a hardware shop and was wondering why they had a sign that said “Keys Out There”. Needless to say, it was supposed to be “Keys Cut Here” but it did have me puzzled for a few amusing moments.

While I was whipping the cream for the tiramisu, it reached the most lovely consistency early on and I had to note it down to remind myself so that I can do something with it later. I think it would make a delectable sauce for fresh fruit (berries and stone fruit, something with a little bit of tartness to offset the sugar).

Whip 250ml plain/whipping cream and 2/3 cup sugar until it starts to thicken and has the consistency of pumpkin soup (best way I could think of to describe it, sorry if it’s crap!).

Also if you have the misfortune of over-beating your cream and it starts to curdle, don’t throw it out! Rejoice at the opportunity you have been given, continue beating it and you’ll find that you start making butter. There will be a lot of liquid produced but once you drain it, you’ll have the wonderful satisfaction of having homemade butter. It tastes better too (a lot of salted commercial butter has water added which is why many recipes specifically ask for unsalted butter).

Had a bit of fun last night with the electrical storms knocking out half of my electrical boards. I also realised (again, happens every time something goes wrong with the electricity… I forget again soon enough) how pathetically dependent I am on power. Not only all the fun things like TV and the Internet but I went to clean up the house when I was looking for something to do while waiting for the electrician and I couldn’t do it. Because I couldn’t play a CD (obviously it must be an integral part of my cleaning up rituals). Very sad. Still with all electrical black clouds there’s a silver lining. I went recipe searching and found an absolutely delicious recipe for chocolate tiramisu. It’s from “Everyday Italian” by Giada De Laurentiis who is an impossibly attractive Italian on the US Food network (at least I can giggle at her name though… I can’t help adding an extra vowel…. hmmm maybe not the best subject for this post… just ignore this aside).

Chocolate “Electrical” Tiramisu

This is a little complicated in that you have to prepare the chocolate zabaglione, but it’s not very hard. Also if you are more a traditionalist then just leave out all mention of chocolate, it will still make a damn fine tiramisu.

First make up a batch of Chocolate Zabaglione with the following ingredients:
1/4 cup cream (the whipping variety rather than the whipped versions)
1/2 cup good quality dark chocolate chips
2/3 cup sugar
8 large egg yolks (freeze the whites to make a pavlova later!)
pinch of salt

Put the cream in a small saucepan (preferably a good quality one with a heavy bottom) and heat until it almost simmers on a medium heat. Take it off the heat and stir in the chocolate until it melts and there are no lumps. You can stick it back on a low heat very quickly (10 secs bursts) if needed or if it hardens before it’s needed next.

Bring an inch or two of water to simmer in a large saucepan.

Whisk the sugar, Marsala, egg yolks and salt until mixed in a metal bowl, preferably sized so it can sit on top of the saucepan without touching the water (ie an improvised bain-marie… if you have a proper bain-marie then this is irrelevant, just use that). Sit the bowl (I ended up using another smaller saucepan because no adequately sized metal bowl was on hand) on top of the larger vessel and whisk the eggy mix until it is “thick and creamy” (I found that a good deal of it became very frothy with the whipping… this ended up being a good thing because it gave the necessary air and lightness to what could be a very heavy dish).

The recipe says to mix until it reaches 160C but who uses a thermometer in the kitchen? (shhh… all you professional sweet makers!) I was happy with it when most of it was frothy and the underlying syrup felt heavy and thick. Once it’s done, take it off the heat and fold in the chocolate mixture with a spatula or similar flat instrument. The trick is not to beat it because then you’ll also beat the air you’ve lovingly whipped in, thereby destroying its ephemeral body.

It is in itself a worthy dessert. Giarda suggests keeping it in the fridge for at least 8 hours or serve it hot and straight away. Either way do it with lots of strawberries.

This isn’t its destiny today, however, we still have a (little) way to go. We’ll have to collect some more ingredients though:
1 normal container of mascarpone (will have to update this)
3/4 cup plain/whipping cream
1/3 cup sugar
Chocolate Zabaglione prepared earlier (supposed to be cold but I didn’t bother, it worked fine cooled for about 15 minutes)
2 cups of Hot Chocolate made up thickly (2x or 3x normal) and with water not milk (you can also use coffee here if you prefer, I don’t, if so remember to sweeten it. You can also try some varieties of cocoa, I’m tempted to try it unsweetened to emphasis the bitterness)
Cocoa powder (I just used the hot chocolate from above
1 packet Savoiardi biscuits (also known as lady fingers)

In a large bowl, stir the mascarpone two or three times until smooth (be careful not to mix too much, apparently it can make it hard… yuk!). Meanwhile, in another bowl, whip up the cream and the sugar to soft peak stage (ie it will hold its shape a bit but not so that you can tip the bowl upside down and it will stay in it… that’s hard peak stage). Fold this cream mix into the mascarpone and then fold in the chocolate zabaglione.*

Finally we are at the assembly stage (and I’m falling aslepp so ignore any ty3pos Sic!), get yourself a nice little dish and layer the goods as follows (if it’s smaller, you’ll have more layers, if it’s wider, you’ll have less):

Layer 1: Dip biscuits into hot chocolate/coffee and place, side by side, so that they fill up a layer of your chosen container.
Layer 2: Cover the biscuits with the cream/mascapone/zabaglione mix

Repeat until you get to the top of your container. It’s then best left overnight in the fridge so that the flavours soak into the biscuits, but you can serve it once it has been refrigerated for a few hours and it a bit more set.

*I thought that you could also serve the zabaglione as a separate layer to the mascapone/cream mix. I would probably go biscuits, zabaglione and then mascapone/cream mix. Also when I was folding in the chocolate zab, I thought (too late) that it would be nice to only very roughly and very slightly fold it in so that it kept a swirly marbled look. Two ideas for next time as I will definitely be making this one again.

Up way too late again, playing with a new blog. But the upside is I get to hear cool songs on Rage. They have kindly provide me with a playlist, it would be cooler still if they had links to the artists’ sites or mp3 snippets.

These were particularly good:
Get What You Want – OPERATOR PLEASE (Virgin)
Love You – LITTLE BARRIE (Creative Vibes)
Girlshapedlovedrug – GOMEZ (Shock)

And I love the video for Ruby – KAISER CHIEFS (Universal), it has these little model scale people (like the kind you find on architects’ building models), so cute. I love model people.

One of these will be the winner of the greatest medical breakthrough of the last 166 years according to voter on the BMJ site:

Anesthesia
Antibiotics
Chlorpromazine [an anti-seizure drug, perhaps better known as Thorazine]
Computers
DNA
Evidence based medicine
Germ theory
Imaging
Immunology
Oral rehydration therapy
The Pill
[The discovery of the] Risks of smoking
Sanitation
Tissue culture
Vaccines

I’d say germ theory, anaesthesia, or antibiotics. Or even sanitation… though I was reading that unsanitary habits were becoming problematic in hospitals again. Staff just don’t wash their hands any more, apparently. Gross.

Anyway, this story was via Wired BodyHack which is a great little blog of interesting science-y things. Here’s a recent selection:
Hand Sanitizer Can Make You Drunk
Inbreeding: Bad for Kings, Good for Fish
Vaccines Don’t Cause Autism
Great Moments in Research: Psychologists Are Humble
Brits: Who Needs Orthodontic Braces?
Study: Treatment Possible for Mad Cow Disease

If you still are wondering (or care) how to do the Japanese t-shirt folding featured previously. Here’s a slower version in Chinese. Suddenly, it all becomes clear…

A commenter called nabinabita had this to say:
It is an idea in Japan.
Japan imported ” the T shirt ” from the Europe and America.
Japan exported ” an idea ” to the country in the foreign country.
I am glad.
Popularize ” the idea in Japan ” more.

Cool.

I swear this chair must break the laws of physics. The big question thoush is “Is it questionable?”. Ha, I AM tired. Let’s try that sentence again… The big question though is “Is it comfortable?” I think thoush needs to become a word.

Much like this these AMAZING Fletcher Capstan Tables [via BoingBoing] and this freaky walking table:

Poor moosey…
Drunken Swedish moose drowns after fermented apple binge » Netscape.com

A moose that became inebriated after binging on fermented fallen apples in northern Sweden drowned when it fell through the ice of a frozen inlet, a Swedish tabloid has reported. “The moose appears to have eaten too many fermented apples and become confused out on the ice,” Luleaa police spokesman Erik Kummu told Aftonbladet on Thursday

[via IPKat]