Still alive ...

... but buried in dragons.


Self-imposed deadline is approaching - and I'm completely freaking out. Still need to write two whole chapters (argh!), and some of the research has turned out to be very time-consuming (like counting different editions of one text on google books and abebooks, or trying to find out when specific textual variants were used for the very first time).

Please keep your fingers crossed that I'll manage to finish the dratted diss in time!

Cake Experiments

I love cake experiments! They're so wonderfully soothing and relaxing. And you end up with lots of cake. What's not to like?

So today I decided I'd give the wonder dough from "1 Dough - 50 Cakes" a try. So off I went to buy eggs, egg liqueur, juice, and milk (I always in danger of running out of milk - I love the stuff!). Forgot the coconut milk. Never mind, I still had desiccated (oh, look! I've just learnt a new word!) coconut hiding in the depths of my kitchen cabinets.

I used muffin pans (easier to clean) and the stir-dough-by-hand method (less stuff to clean) and baked four batches of muffins: 1x egg liqueur cake, 1x exotic (orange-mango-pineapple juice + desiccated coconut) cake, 2x chocolate-almond-orange cake. I'm very happy indeed with the results, especially with the first two. The egg liqueur cake muffins are unbelievably fluffy, and the exotic cake tastes fresh and lovely.

I iz happy. :-)

Reading, Cake Experiments, & 16th-century Romance

Dratted diss update: Happily (or not so happily) scribbling away on 16th-century romance. Definitely racy reading. Sometimes also giggle-inducing reading. There's love, monsters, ghosts, evil nechromancers, even eviller enchantresses, mystery, murder, and mayhem.

In the third chapter our worthy hero, St George, kills a pair of lions in a most unusual fashion: he first

rent the curled tresses from hys head, that was the colour of Amber [the hair, one supposes, not the head itself], the which hee wrapped about hys armes against the Assault of the Lyons, for he greatly suspected them to be the ministers of hys Tragedie, which indeede so fell out, for at that same instant they descended the dungeon, being brought thither by the Guards of Ianasaries, onely to make a ful period of the Champions life: But such was the inuincible fortitude of Saint George, and so polliticke hys defence, that when the starued Lyons came running on him with open Iawes, he valiantly thrust hys sinnewed Armes into their throats (being wrapped about with the haire of hys head) whereby they presently choaked, and so he pulled out their bloody harts.

Take that, you bad, bad Lyons, you!

Isn't it charming? Of course, after you've read the whole book, your English will probably be ruined forever. So naturally, I had to take preventive steps. I wouldn't want my English to be ruined forever, would I? No, of course not. So, ladies and gentlemen (and Lyons), here's preventive measure No. 1:

Kerry Greenwood's The Castlemaine Murders is my current fun read and my first Phryne Fisher mystery (bought it because the title and the cover are so intriguing). And so far, I'm loving it! It's got an unusual setting (1930s Australia), an unusual heroine (upper class, likes sex, has taken a Chinese lover), and an unusual murder (mummified murder victim). Nice!

As far as the romance reading goes, I'm very partial to Wild Rose Press at the moment, which has quite a lot to do with how their website is set up. I like how they have divided their books into different categories according to theme, setting and time. This makes it very easy for the eager reader to find a whole bunch of, say, contemporary westerns. Very nice if you like cowboys. Very, very nice indeed. 'cause cowboys certainly count as preventive measure #2. :-)

Last week I bought a couple of books by Cindy Spencer Pape, like this one:

The hero of Always a Cowboy isn't just a cowboy of sorts (well, you probably wouldn't call him a real cowboy as he doesn't do much cow-related stuff in the course of the novel) (actually, I don't think he does any cow-related stuff), but he's also a really nice guy. And he's got a bad leg. Poor thing. And the book is a from-friends-to-lovers story. What's not to like?

And then, I also bought this book:

Crazy for the Cowboy. Who could've resisted this sweet cover? Not me. *g*

And now on to preventive measure #3: cake. By now you all know how much I love baking. And how much I love my new Nordic Ware pans. So yesterday I bought this little book:

It's title translates "1 Dough - 50 Cakes." It's a rather neat concept: they give you one basic recipe and then present variants of the same recipe - which basically screams for experimentation. I love baking experiements! So this is what I've got planned for the next few weeks:

1. Cake with egg liqueur (okay, that's not much of an experiment, but it's been a long time since I last made egg liqueur cake)


2. Cake with coconut milk and white chocolate


3. Cake with orange juice, cocoa powder and molten dark chocolate (the combination of cocoa powder and molten chocolate gives you fantastic results when you're making ice cream; I hope the results for cake will be just as fantastic)

Sandy Tweets

You can now also find me on Twitter. With mini updates about craving tea cakes, counting books on google books, reading racy 16th-century romances, and lusting after tea sets. Enjoy! :-)

ScribblingSandy's Tweets

Almost Better than Cowboys

Susan Boyle on Britan's Got Talent

I've already watched this three times today, and each time I had tears in my eyes at the end of the clip. If this is not a powerful lesson on not to judge people by appearances, I don't know what is.

Country Living

No, I haven't moved to the country to be with cows and cowboys (unfortunately, we don't have cowboys here in Germany; I'd have to move across the Big Pond to be near the cowboys). Instead, my first issue of Country Living arrived today (very relieved; I always worry that the magazines I've subscribed to might get lost on the way to me). Even though it's not quite as nice as Homes & Antiques, I still enjoyed skipping through the pages while I had lunch.


However, while I was happily reading the magazine and equally happily munching my salad, I quickly realised the disadvantages of subscribing to a magazine from a foreign country. I mean, look at that:

Pretty! Pretty! Pretty!

But - oh nohhhhs! The pretty bedlinen is from JCPenney. Which means I can't get it here in Germany. And even if I could, it probably wouldn't fit my duvet and pillow. *sigh*

But it's sooooooo pretty! *sigh-sigh* [Note to self: the next time you're in the USA, DON'T GO to JCPenney. You might end up buying the whole shop.]

One the other hand, I also quickly realised the advantages of subscribing to a foreign magazine: this:

International cuisine. Yummy, sweet, gorgeous-looking international cuisine. Now I just have to figure out what vanilla wafers are and whether I can substitue them with the common Leibniz Butterkeks. :-)

Pictures from Country Living and JCPenney

The Easter Bunny Loves Cake Stands

It's true! Not only does the Easter Bunny love baking with Sandy, no, the Easter Bunny also loves cake stands! How extraordinary! Obviously, the Easter Bunny and I, we understand each other. So he was very happy indeed whe I found this on ebay:

Isn't it pretty?

I was looking for a cake stand to go with my "Wiesengrund & Bergeshöh'n" china (Meadows & Mountaintops - the name never fails to make me smile. It's such a happy, cheerful name, just perfect for this pretty series!) as I've discovered the joys of itty-bitty mini tea cakes (hehe), and the best way to display these is on a cake stand, right?

Right.

Now I've already got a white, 3-tier cake stand, which you've seen here, but obviously it doesn't really fit the egg-shell coloured, gold rimmed china. But this new cake stand - ooooooh! It will look so pretty with the Wiesengrund & Bergeshöh'n tea set:

Hmmm... *dreamy sigh*

I see ...

I see ...

... many tea parties in the future. (After all the horrible dragons have been killed, that is.)

Writing the Dratted Diss: The True Story

I wanted to spare you this, I truly did. But it might serve the uninitiated as a dire warning what will happen to you when you're doing a PhD. So, ladies and gentlemen, take a deep breath and brace yourselves for the awful horrors of academia.

On Saturday morning, the world was still a lovely place. Sandy and teh Kitteh were happy.

So happy, in fact, that they were surrounded by butterflies and flowers. (When I took the picture, the butterflies flew away, 'cause they're shy. This is why you get to see only the flowers.)

See how happy we were?

We laughed ...

... and kissed ...

... and played peek-a-boo ...

... and had a really good time.

Yes, we had.

And then I sat down to work on the dratted diss.

Fast forward to 5:00 p.m. ...

(See? I've told you it won't be pretty!)

Need sugar.

Hatez all dragons.

It's a mean, mean world. Full of prepositions and complicated English words. And I've just realised that apparently I don't know the difference between "subtle" and "supple".

Going through proofreads is torture. It's like stripping neikkid and running through the streets while wearing your panties on your head.

I also don't know the difference between "illicit" and "elicit". Well, I do know, but then I sort of don't. If you know what I mean. Stupid English language.

Fast forward to 9:00 p.m. ...

Still at it.

Still terrible.

Tea doesn't help.

I'm a fraud. Who can't speak English.

It's now after midnight ...

What did I mean by "difficult interrelations of jurisdiction"?

I have no clue.

Dragonz have etz me brainz.

And that's the truth.

Amazon Rank - Three Times a Charm

And this is a google bomb: Amazon Rank.

Amazon Rank

Amazon Rank - amazon is systematically removing sales ranks from books with gay/lesbian content, from erotica, from selected romance novels, and from Foucault's "History of Sexuality." As a result these books are removed from front page searches.

If you like to see the result of the whole Amazon Rank fiasco, go to amazon.com, search for "homosexuality" and see what kind of results you get.

Charming, isn't it?

Amazon Rank

Dear amazon, since when have you been responsible for world-wide censorship? Making customers happy - U R doing it wrong: Amazon Rank

Baking with the Easter Bunny

And look! The Easter Bunny is also an Easter egg! All at the same time!!

Easter Bunny is an Easter egg is an Easter bunny is an Easter egg ...

It's almost ...

... almost ...

... almost philosophical!

But more importantly: there's not the tiniest trace of a dragon tail in sight! Whew, lucky me! :-)

So let the baking begin!

I decided to do it all "by hand" today. There's something so satisfying about stirring the butter and the sugar and the eggs with your own hands. Something almost primeval. It's how Cook would have made cake in your Regency hero's country estate. And he in turn would have fed those dainty morsels to the heroine while whispering sweet nothings into her ear. During those blissful moments they would have lain in his big, big four-poster bed, of course. And if she would have made a mess, he would have picked up all the crumbs afterwards.

With his lips.

Oh my!

Eh ...

Where was I?

Ah, here: the flour, the cocoa, and the cinnamon.

Now take a look at the next picture and tell me what's wrong with it:

Hmhm.

Exactly. The itty-bitty container look almost the same. But only in in one of them is cinnamon... And let me tell you, the itty-bitty container which contains the chicken seasoning looks very, very similar, too. So it's generally a good idea to check whether you've got the right spice pot.

I call this "drowning the dough in red wine." :-)

From dough to cake in 15 minutes:

The other half of the dough went into regular muffin moulds:

And that was it. Baking with the Easter Bunny 2009. And now let the tea parties begin! :-)