It’s a Skyrim themed take on a fairly old meme and it’s my office desktop wallpaper.

I originally got it here because I’m always on the lookout for vaguely nerdy, pop culture reference themes that still make it possible to find my programs in a sea of icons. It probably helped that I have been slightly obsessed with Skyrim, but it sort of resonated with me at the time.

But anyway. This is my wallpaper, and I see it every day, working in a high stress environment. It didn’t occur to me how good the damn thing is until today, when quite a bit of extra stress was piled on my plate. I’m talking bureaucracy, deeds of ownership, painfully large sums of money and autographs that need to be collected from longtime absent boyfriends and sent to exotic foreign embassies . It’s a mess, and by all accounts I should be very upset.

And despite all my best efforts to either blow up or collapse in a soggy heap on the floor, I’m fine. Possibly a ‘calm before the storm’ type fine, but still, fine. Not in the least because I have an improved piece of wartime propaganda on my desktop. The ‘keep calm and carry on’ posters were supposedly an intended way to keep up British morale in the Second World War.  People find them kind of silly, because, let’s face it, you don’t just keep your stiff upper lip when bombs are falling all around you. But they forget what an incredibly powerful message it is. There’s nothing you can do about it, the posters say, so you might as well keep going and take things one at a time.

The dragon just makes it better, because dragons make everything better.

Is there such a thing as self induced propaganda? If it is, it’s working.

Keep calm. Kill the dragon. Take on the world.

A date that’s burned in my mind.

The day that the next part of the story will be unfurled…

The day the dragons are released…

The day that dawns in fire!

…

Good thing I got a chance to play it at this year’s Eurogamer Expo then.  Here we go again!

As soon as the doors opened, I launched myself in, rushing towards my goal.  With my two NPC companions, Friend A and Friend M, battling beside me, we rushed towards our prize!  20 minutes of Skyrim were all ours for the taking!

…And again.  And again.  Three times I queued up for Skyrim, and I would have queued up even more if A and M didn’t drag me away to get some food and at least glance at some of the other games on display.  Although, to be honest, queuing up for 20-40 minutes each time wasn’t exactly a burden.  As you can see below, we had all these lovely screens to watch while we waited.  I watched as people fought wolves, explored dungeons, and quite frequently I watched people murder innocent villagers, dogs, and chickens.  One particularly athletic hero actually managed to kill one of the super-speedy rabbits running around.  Another person actually found a familiar-looking black skull-carved door, but evidently did not have the correct password to get in.  A third decided he would rather kill a child’s dog in front of their eyes, then murdered his mother and stole her carefully-tended cabbages – an action that actually changed the plant to show that it had been harvested – before attempting to sleep in her bed.  All this just made me even more eager to play.

On my first go, I decided that I was not going to head to Riverwood.  Instead, I was going to find the nearest town that I’ve not yet seen videos or screenshots of.  After creating a female Khajiit, I set off on my goal…only to whine to A about my inability to get out of the cell.  Turns out that I just missed the rather large tunnel at the other end of the cell in my excitement.  I don’t think it helped that this was the Xbox version, and since I’m an evil PC person I had no clue what I was doing, causing my poor Khajiit to go face-first into a few walls.  Eventually, I got some control over the controls, and ventured forth into Skyrim!

Two words.

Bloody.  Beautiful.

There really were times that I just had to stop and gape.  The water, the mountains, and the view from said mountains! Absolutely brilliant.

Alas, I had to quickly shake off my awe, as time was running out.  I decided to  quickly bring up the map which, as those who have seen it know, is a marvel.  No static map this time, instead the view zooms out until you can see the surrounding land. Trying not to squeal in delight again, I quickly chose my destination, a town somewhere to the south-west of me.  I can’t remember the name, only that it began with F.  So I headed off, wondering what it will look like.

Only, I never got that far before I ran out of time.  This game is huge!

Instead, what I did find included a skeleton trying to kill me with his Ancient Nord Sword, (which my inventory kindly showed me was better than the iron dagger I had equipped), a conjurer next to his sacrificial alter who tried to feed me to some kind of spirit wolf, and a lovely shrine to Talos which was covered with the blood of all the dead worshippers surrounding it.  Oh, and I almost got a chance to talk to a wandering hunter, but then he got distracted by a fox and ran off after it.

Meanwhile, A had already managed to get herself killed by necromancers hiding out in a cave, while M had found a half-submerged ruin called Iltenda’s Deep, which was breath-taking.  Fish, of both the non-attacking kind and the slaughterfish kind, swimming around, beautiful waterfalls, and the remains of a corpse shackled to a cross right in the middle of it.  Yep, more necromancers.  Like A, he was killed as well.  At least before he died, he managed to rid the world of the few slaughterfish he found.

In any case, time was called and we had to leave.  After refreshing ourselves, I decided to head back and try again.  Maybe this time I’ll actually learn to handle the controls effectively.

—

This time while in the queue, I got a chance to look at some of the loading screens.  Like in Oblivion, there’s a handy little snippet of information on each loading screen.  From these, I learned that Khajiit have the Night Eye ability and use their claws in hand-to-hand combat, Argonians has the ability ‘Histcloak’ in order to heal themselves rapidly, Dunmer can bathe themselves in a cloak of fire, and Nords can use Battlecries in order to make enemies flee for a short while.  A mentioned later that she saw that Bretons have the same abilities that they do in Oblivion.  Yet another loading screen told me that there is a Guardian stone that gives you the ability to raise the surrounding dead to fight for you.

I also got a chance to watch one guy get pulled over a waterfall due to the water currents in the river, noting as he did so that the underwater section has vastly improved.  You can actually see stuff on the bottom now! Another person choose the Heavy Armour perk of Jugganaut, which raises the armour rating of all heavy armour worn by the player.  Yet another ‘hero’ managed to get the entire of Riverwood baying for his blood and chasing him around the village waving maces.  I also noticed someone try their hand at lockpicking.  Apparently, it’s identical to the system in Fallout 3. There were also mudcrabs.  There are always mudcrabs.

Second time around, I gave up on going to the previous place, and settled for exploring Riverwood.  Having managed to actually get my female Argonian out of the cell with no mishaps this time, I ventured forth to Riverwood, bashing a few wolves over their heads with my shield along the way.  Apparently the magic in this is awesome and extremely effective, but I’ve always been partial to just hacking and slashing.  One thing that I did approve with the Xbox controls is how much easier it makes it to block with a shield.  Having had my fill of wolf entrails and blood I grabbed some hides, noting that after looting there is now an ‘empty’ sign when I place my cursor over the corpse, and headed off to town, where I decided to first greet that crazy old woman screaming about dragons.  She told me that she had seen a huge black dragon fly over the mountains, then wandered away muttering to herself.

So I decided to do the most hero-like I can think of – head to the tavern!

Along the way, I heard an elf talk about some man trying to steal the woman he loves away from him.  After I got to the Sleeping Giant tavern, I decided to go check out the guy playing an instrument in the corner.  After requesting Rudger the Red – “A great Nord tale, that one!” – I noticed a dialog option involving the woman the elf mentioned.  Here was the other man!  I decided to help this guy out with his love troubles, and he gave me a letter to take to the woman, supposedly from the elf.  I had to take a peek at it, and I started laughing.  These are not the exact words, but it’s close enough.

“My dear <Name>,

While I know you are a lovely woman, I just can’t sully my ancestor’s bloodline with Imperial mud.  While I may not love you, I hope that we can be friends – as long as you know your rightful place in the upcoming Altmer Domination.

Yours, <Name>”

Ahhh, so nice.  I headed to the woman right away, and once I got there, I had two options.  Lie and say it was from the elf, or tell her that the bard had told me to lie to her and say it was the elf.  I chose the first option, and she started screeching and screaming that Elf will die before he sets foot in her shop again.  My job done, I headed merrily back to the tavern, where the overjoyed bard paid me 25 gold.  I was ready to listen to another of his songs, but then a member of staff called time.  I left, already planning my next approach.

—

Finally dragging A and M back for a final time, I was greeted by the staff who by now recognised me.  While we waited, we saw even more valiant explorers attempting to kill as many people as they could, but I also got my first glimpse of Rohan.. I mean Whiterun!  With my mind mentally playing the Rohan theme, I decided that was where I was heading to next.  So once I got seated, I was off, this time with a female Nord.  With my axe in one hand and my sword in the other, I pity the poor wolf that met me on that path as I sprinted to Riverwood and out the other side.  Only stopping to speak with a courier and examine some guards taking some prisoners somewhere, I eventually reached Whiterun.  However, as I was crossing one of the bridges, I suddenly noticed a familiar ringing sound.  I looked underneath, and lo and behold, a Nirnroot.  You can actually hear them this time!  Pocketing it, noting that the roots were left behind, I continued my journey, only to spot a giant attacking some guards.  Alas, it was dead by the time I got close enough, so I shrugged, walked past them, and headed towards the gate.  Once I was there, I was stopped by a guard, telling me that the city was under lockdown due to a Dragon attack at Helgen.  I could either bribe the guard to let me in, or persuade him that I have important information regarding the attack.  I chose the latter, as I didn’t have much money, and wandered into town.  Alas, I didn’t get much chance to explore and note the architecture, due to that pesky member of staff, but I did get to hear an interesting conversation between someone and the local blacksmith, which alerted me to the chance of a blacksmithing-related quest.

Regretfully placing my controller down and taking my headphones off, I, A, and M parted.  It had been a long, wonderous day, and I thoroughly enjoyed this day.  Try as I might, I couldn’t find any cons with the game, save for the unfamiliarity of the controls and the fact that twenty minutes just isn’t enough.  When I left, the staff summed it up perfectly for me.

“We won’t bother hoping that you’ll enjoy the game, because we know that you will!”

…Okay, a trip to ye olde tavern may have been involved as well.

Create A Sim

First up, the CAS. It’s pretty much similar to the CAS of Sims 3. You can choose clothing, facial features, and hair exactly the same way as in TS3, except for a few differences. Firstly, there are four different voices to choose from, and like in TS3 you can change the pitch of each voice. I have to admit, the voices immediately strike you as medieval, with a sort of decorum and pacing in the Simlish that you don’t find in TS3. Secondly, there are only three options to change hair colour – Base, Highlights, and Roots. Thirdly, not all clothing options are immediately available to you. Depending on which Hero character you are creating, different outfits appear. So you’re not likely to find Blacksmiths and Bards wearing the same gowns as the Queen. Fourthly, there’s two new sliders – Blushed and Skin Age. As you move these up and down, they change how your sims look. High Blushed Sims have rosy-red cheeks and freckles, while Low Blushed Sims are pale, much more suitable for a member of royalty. The Sims age slider adds and removes age lines and wrinkles as you move it up and down the bar.

Finally, instead of choosing five Traits, you have to choose two Traits from the list below, and one Fatal Flaw. Below is a list of the Traits and Fatal Flaws that I discovered ingame, along with some notes aside those that I used.

Traits

- Adventurous.
- Chivalrous.
- Creative Cook. – (More likely to create better quality food, thus earning better moodlets.)
- Dedicated. – (Sims Medieval version of Workaholic.)
- Earthy. – (Earthy Sims like being outside, and are more likely to find rarer ores and plantlife.)
- Eloquent.
- Evil.
- Loves Family.
- Solitary.
- Vain.
- Excitable.
- Friendly.
- Fun Loving
- Good.
- Greedy.
- Haggler.
- Hopeful Orphan.
- Jokester.
- Scholarly.
- Unkempt. – (Has a positive moodlet when they get dirty and start to smell.)
- Whale Ate My Parents.

Fatal Flaws

- Bloodthirsy. – (Gets a bad moodlet if they don’t get to fight every so often. Gains a positive moodlet after they have fought someone)
- Cowardly.
- Cursed.
- Fool.
- Insecure. – (Has occasional bouts of Nerves, which causes a negative moodlet.)
- Licentious.
- Morose.
- Compulsive Gambler.
- Cruel.
- Drunkard. – (Needs to have a drink every so often. A brewing barrel in your home is recommended.)
- Glutton.
- Hubris.
- Misanthrope.
- Puny.
- Uncouth.
- Weak Constitution.

Gameplay

So I’d named my Kingdom, created my Monarch, and then settled down to play the game. To start with, I played with Hysterical the Yarn Master of Socialia, whose traits were Friendly, Fun-Loving, but with the unfortunate flaw of being Bloodthirsty. The first thing that I noticed is that when I started playing, a prefix was automatically added to the Sim, so Hysterical ended up Lady Hysterical. In order to suit Lady Hysterical’s traits, I decided a revamp of the throne room was in order. Out went the old throne, in came the lion-headed throne, the blood-red walls and floors, the dark red pillars, the random skeletons chained to the walls, the Hunger and Punishment cages scattered about the place…and a Yarn Trestle placed upon the wall next to the throne. Alas, I couldn’t see a Spinning Wheel, but then again it could have been hidden away somewhere I couldn’t see it. Good news is that Kaching is still in the game, so I was able to afford this.

Next, I ended up doing the Tutorial Quest to start things off. Questing in this game is similar to WA quests, except with all the dull bits cut away and the good bits expanded on. The plot is communicated to you via the top righthand corner, however it’s possible to ignore them and to imagine your own responses and descriptions to your tale.

Hysterical’s quest started off with having to go Gussy Up before talking to her subjects. A queen must look her best at all times, after all! With her primping done, Lady Hysterical went off to speak to her Master Builder about creating new buildings in the land. Upon hearing that more wood and stone were needed, Lady Hysterical went off to the Forest in search of Lumber. It should be noted here that there’s a new handy Quick Links button, which brings up a list of places such as the Forest, the Beach, the Graveyard, etc, thus taking the camera to those spots automatically. Once she got to the woods, Lady Hysterical cheerfully picked wildflowers and frolicked about…until a bandit attacked.

Big mistake.

Hysterical, being a Bloodthirsty wench, gladly fought the bandit, causing said bandit to limp away in fear. Interestingly, injuries obtained ingame last for some time, depending on the severity of the wounds. Later on, I would have a Sim be attacked by a bear, causing injures that took days to heal, going down in seriousness until it was just a flesh wound. If I had a Physician, I think that I could have been able to go get those seen to, thus quickening the healing process. Another random thing is that Injured Sims can’t take baths, leading to some very smelly Sims.

Having scared off the bandit, Lady Hysterical rejoiced and then went off to complete the rest of her tasks, including finding stone in a rabbithole cave, hiring an advisor, sending a bully to the stocks, and flirting with a new visitor to her court.

At the same time, she had two tasks given each day in order to complete. They vary from day to day, and each one has a time limit. Doing these tasks in time bring rewards, whether it’s money, items, increased relationship with others, and much more. Not doing these tasks in time can lead to punishments such as being placed in the stocks or even being thrown into the Pit of Judgement. Tasks that Lady Hysterical had to do involved Proclaiming an Edict and Hunting a Great Bear. My later Sims had different tasks depending on which Hero they were. For example, my blacksmith Silent the Drunk had to find ores, pay taxes, fix broken weapons, and make specific items for customers such as Crude Plate Mail or Blunt Broadsword. My bard Emmy of the Bucket often had to search for inspiration, play the lute, write poems, perform for other Sims and, unfortunately again, pay her taxes.

Sounds like a lot to juggle, but it’s not as hard as it appears. It helps that the only bars in the game are Energy and Hunger, however there are still chamberpots, baths, and other furniture for Sims to use if the Watcher (that’s you, you lousy maggots!) so wishes.

Overall, I found the game extremely immersive. Whether the overall Quest I was on involved searching for lumber, performing before an art critic, or defending the land from the dreaded Dire Chinchillas, (and no, I am not kidding about that last one), there were many things that drew me into the game. From the way all the NPCs had titles and positions in their names, such as Sara the Assistant Pigkeeper, Brewer Baldwin, or Beastslayer Godwin, to the way the cooking system worked. There was no Cooking Skill, instead what you could make depended upon the ingredients from your inventory. Emmy of the Bucket often ate Seed Porridge made from seeds found while foraging, Lady Hysterical enjoyed Bear Soup made from the meat of the bears she ruthlessly slew, and when Silent the Drunk wasn’t setting fire to herself or drinking her breakfast, she made the non-ingredient-using Gruel. Other interesting bits included Nightmares while you were sleeping that gave you a choice similar to the Catacombs from TS3, being able to ‘Ask About Religion’ and getting a response back (Agnostic was high in Socialia due to the lack of either church at that time), and an improved lighting system within the buildings.

In the end, I played for over three and a half hours straight, and barely scratched the surface. In that time, I’d only managed to do two and a half quests, create three Sims, and added a Blacksmithy and a Tavern to Socialia. At the same time, I’d fought off bandits, set fire to myself, done a poetry reading, starved myself on purpose, flirted with a pretty merchant, crafted several poems, sentenced people to the stocks, thrown rotten eggs at them, killed a bear, got attacked by a bear, saved Socialia from Dire Chinchillas, got drunk several times, seen an NPC Sim willingly jump into the Pit of Judgement only to have the Pit Beast fall in love with them, and even ended up pregnant to boot.

T’was fun, and like my non-TS3 playing friend I took with me, I woke up this morning wanting to play even more.

You know your obsession with Cute has become problematic when you start putting smiley faces on a bowl of mashed potatoes.

Yes, I do that… They are very happy potatoes.

To get the rest of it out of my system, I figured I’d make some things that are actually meant to be cute: cupcakes.

I always keep a bunch of cupcakes in the freezer, in little baggies. This is mostly because cupcake recipes tend to be way too much for just me and the boyfriend, and usually they’re too good to waste on my extended family. (I love you!) But it’s also handy for immediate craving kinda situations, and if inspiration suddenly strikes for an omg adorbz sort of decoration.

So yesterday I got hold of some leftover green marzipan that my dad had made and didn’t need anymore. And the rest of the day, I had ‘It’s not easy being green’ stuck in my head. An excellent time to grab those three sad little pumpkin cupcakes I made in december and put some life in them.

Because they’re pumpkin spice cakes, I made some simple icing out of cream cheese and maple syrup. Literally just that. It’s stable enough to smear into a little dome.

Now, grab your greenish marzipan. This one has colouring in it, but I’m pretty sure you can use matcha if you are so inclined. Knead the marzipan till it’s moldable and make little balls for the eyes, about the size of a hazelnut. You want them to be able to protrude a little, to make that typical froggy shape. Place them on in the icing, a little to one side.

Then throw some powder sugar onto your work surface and roll out the rest of the marzipan. I made mine very thin, so that it’d go over the eyes smoothly. Cut rounds out of the marzipan. You want them to be a bit bigger than your actual cupcake. I used a big glass to help me. Then drape the round over cupcake, and pat it down a little.

My next stop is eyes. For this you melt a bit of chocolate, about one or two pieces will do. Being a lazy bugger, I tend to just use the microwave. Be careful not to burn it though. I put it in about half a minute. Then leave it to melt a little. Another half minute of microwaved power and you can stir it till it’s all melted.

You could use the chocolate and just draw on the cupcakes, if you have the self confidence and steady hand needed for that sort of thing. I do not.

I use parchment paper. And a toothpick. If your chocolate isn’t too runny, you can sortof mold it into simple shapes on the paper. And importantly, you can mess up as many times as you want.

Make sure to mold some extra’s, in case you’re as clumsy as I am putting them on, and put the paper into the freezer for a few minutes, to let the chocolate harden.

You can then take it out and carefully stick your eyes and whatever else to the cupcakes. I used another toothpick and some very syruppy maple syrup. The chocolate will melt again almost instantly, when you handle it. Just sayin.

Since I assume most of you don’t know this, I have had the weekend from hell. The combination of lots of hard work, three dead hard drives in one day, and a harsh wanker course co-ordinator has resulted in my spending roughly 24 hours straight panicking. I’m now on a train, having reconstructed the most urgent lost work, and I’m attempting to get to Amsterdam to meet with some friends. It’s Sinterklaas day in Amsterdam, it’s a Sunday so every other route is down, and the NS route planning website is shit. I’ve been vaguely floating around the Dutch rail system since about 9am, getting, I think, wanderingly closer to Amsterdam (having saved an hour on the first leg by ignoring the NS website I figure I needn’t rush), and it’s actually quite nice.

If you’ve ever travelled on the Tube – or any part of the UK rail system really, but the Tube sticks out – then you will be intimately familiar with turnpikes. On a few occasions, you’ve probably been more intimate with them than you’ve ever desired to be. I have a problem with turnpikes – but not the turnpikes themselves, rather the big hungry ticket machines attached to them.

I like the Tube, and I don’t mind the turnpikes there at all – I Get the Tube, it’s simple and sensible. Seriously, it’s got to be the simplest rail system in the world – each colour on the map is a line, you can go in either direction on any line, and trains come every five or ten minutes in the centre. I don’t understand people who find it so confusing.

I don’t like overground National Rail. There are all these complicated rules about how you’re allowed to get where you’re going and what time you’re allowed to do so, and it worries me. What if a turnpike eats my ticket? National Rail staff aren’t known for being sympathetic; I’d probably have to buy another ticket. Must not miss my stop. Must not get on the wrong train. Must not get off too early either.

Now, maybe it’s just the general confusion and haphazardness of this particular day in Dutch rail history, but I’m not getting that vibe at all. There are no turnpikes, anywhere. People choose their routes by saying “Is that the train? I dunno, it might be. Well it’s about to leave, let’s get on.”. I’ve so far been on four trains which list Amsterdam Centraal as a destination, and not one of them has got there (yet) – but I’m not really worried. I can always just catch another train if I get lost. Hell, why not try it and see, etc. Maybe I’m just coming down from the endless hours of “Oh god fuck what the hell do I do now shit ass fucking cunt”, but I’m finding the Dutch rail system remarkably freeing.

This isn’t a treatise on how all Dutch are laid-back and relaxed, though. They’re not. Just ask my tightarse course co-ordinator.

P.S. Yes, smartarse, I know it’s a Tuesday. There be no internet on trains.

P.P.S. Did you guys notice that I don’t get emails when comments need approving any more? Yeah… neither did I. Sorry ’bout that…

When life gives you cherries. Make pie!

My gran has some very prolific white cherry trees, leaving me and the rest of the family with lots of cherries.

Pictures: Lots.

So after experimenting with cherry aqua fresca (not too great) and cherry icecream (I should really get an icecream maker for that stuff), my most succesfull project was this: baby cherry pies, without actual babies.

Recipe (adapted from here)

• Four and a half(ish) cups of cherries (about 450 g, unpitted, but just accept that you’ll have batter left. It’s ok, it’s still yummy)
• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ cup almond meal or shredded almonds (if you don’t have this, just add another ¼ cup of sugar)
• 3 tbsp maizena or cornstarch
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp butter (softened)
• 1 tbsp milk

Step 1

Wash and pit your cherries.

This is the long part (unless you have fancy cherry pitting machinery)

Step 2

In a small bowl, mix salt, maizena, sugar and almond meal with a fork. Add the softened butter and squish with a fork until you have tiny little balls.

Add lemon juice and vanilla extract to cherries and carefully stir with a spoon. Now fold in the sugar mixture and, lastly, add a splash of milk. Use your spoon to mix well.

Ok, so it's not gonna win any beauty contests. Just you wait.

Step 3

Get yourself some crust dough.

Yes, this is a cop-out, but really, it’s 36° outside, it’s not like making it yourself is gonna work.

You might as well buy this, or get a recipe you know will work.

I’m using leftover linzer dough, for the rather simple reason that it’s omgdelicious. If you must make it yourself, try this http://www.joyofbaking.com/LinzeCookies.html

Roll out dough, grease up a muffin pan and slice circles out of the dough (a big ass cookie cutter works wonders here). Make sure to have circles bigger than your muffin holes. You need to get the dough to the top of the pan.

Step 4

Spoon cherry mixture in the pan. You’ll probably have some left for one more little tart.

If you have dough leftover, you can make little strips for random creativity.

All this goes in a 200° over for about forty minutes (make sure to check the recipe or package of your dough).

Don't you just want to *hug* them?

Or eat them. That too.

Which leads me to banana bread. I’m 29 and I have just discovered this. I was instantly, and utterly, hooked. Where have you been all my life, delicious banana bread?

The recipe I ended up with has a high ‘granny’ factor and is not so much bread, as it is a very heavy, moist, cakelike substance. Also: it’s incredibly delicious. My very opinionated housemates finished this off in half a day. I had to cut off a piece and hide it to be able let my actual grandmother taste it. It’s that good. But apparently, everyone but me already knew that.

Banana bread

(adapted from, um, a number of recipes on allrecipes.com)

• 3 ripe bananas
• 2 eggs
• 220 g flour
• 200 g sugar (2/3 brown, 1/3 white)
• about a tablespoon applesauce
• 100 g butter (softened)
• teaspoon of vanilla extract
• half a teaspoon of baking powder
• half a teaspoon of salt
• half a teaspoon of cinnamon (optional)
• raisins, walnuts (also optional)

Preheat oven to about 175° (I baked mine in a 192° oven, but I’m using a weird oven).

Cut bananas into pieces in a (flat) bowl and use a fork to mash them.

Put flour, baking powder, soda, salt and cinnamon in a bowl and run through it with a fork to mix.

Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs and whisk til your mixture is fluffy.

Add about half of your flour mixture and whisk. Add milk and vanilla, whisk, add rest of flour mixture and whisk again till it’s all nice and smooth.

Finally, mix in applesauce and bananas.

Pour batter into cake tins and shove in the oven for about forty minutes to an hour. You’ll need to feel if it’s firmed up enough to see if it’s done. Banana bread should not be jiggly!

Tip:

I coated this cake in apricot jelly to stop it from drying out, but that was kinda unnecessary. It never had a chance to. Instructions on apricot jelly coating here.

Tip:

In the pictures you see a brown line in the middle of the cake. You know what that is? Molten cocoa marzipan. I had some leftover from my chesscakes, rolled it out and put it in there. It’s exactly as awesome as it sounds.

I may have come into my Experimental phase, where I’m not content with just spending half an hour recalculating American recipes to proper European measurements. Noooo, now I must Improve and be Creative and use lots of Capitals.

It’s all going downhill now.

So in the course of making these I’ve been doing Science! to food.

Pictured: Science!

But anyway, I’ve been thinking about cake balls a lot. The humble cake ball is Awesome, and if made by Bakerella, it’s also Gorgeous. And if you have too many, it will kill you, which may or may not be worth it. What I’ve been trying to come up with, is a slightly healthier, or at least slightly less fatty cake ball.

The end result is rather nice. These things are incredibly moist. Also: they bounce off the plate a little, if you drop them. Awesome.

And I’ve failed horribly, too, of course. The downside of my semi-healthy cake balls is you can’t make pretty duckies out of them. I’ll need to work on that part. The original plan was to coat them in pink poured fondant. But when you try that, you get this.

Failball

Candy melts might work better, but I haven’t actually seen those in a store here.

So, healthier cake balls. These use quark, which has about the same fat consistency as yoghurt, but is a bit firmer. Greek yoghurt might also work.

Healthy-ish cake balls

makes about thirty

• 1 cake (250 g) I used an old pound cake, but any firm cake will do
• 250 g quark
• 5 gelatin leaves
• 60 g powdered sugar
• half a cup of strong coffee
• pinch of cinnamon (optional)

Coating

• 400 ml apricot jelly (or more, depending on how thick you use it)
• shaved almonds, chocolate shavings, sprinkles etc.

Step 1

Soak gelatin in cold water for five minutes. Meanwhile, crumble your cake into a large bowl, using a large kitchen grater.

In a smaller bowl, mix quark with powdered sugar (add more or less to taste) and cinnamon.

Make half a cup of strong coffee.

Step 2

Take out gelatin leaves, wring them out and drop them in the hot coffee. Stir till dissolved and keep stirring till coffee has cooled down until it has cooled down to lukewarm.

Mix coffee with quark and whisk until smooth.

Step 3

Stir quark mixture into cake crumbs. I used a whisk to get the whole thing smooth.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl, pat your mixture down and shove it in a fridge for about half an hour to firm up.

Step 4

When your cake ball mixture is moldable, take it out of the fridge and roll into little balls of about 3 cm across. Put them on a larg plate, cover in plastic wrap (or with a lid) and put in the fridge again.

They do look a lot like meatballs, don't they?

Step 5

If you want to use almonds, toast them in a non-stick pan on high for a minute, stirring constantly, until they’re nice and brown. Let cool and crush, using your hands, into a round bowl. You want the pieces to be very small (but obviously not powdered).

Put apricot jam in a bowl in the microwave, on low wattage, for about two minutes. Don’t let it boil! Stir occasionally, and add a bit of water to get a dippable liquid.

Using a fork, dip your cake balls in the apricot jam til fully covered, and let the excess drip off.

Then drop them in your coating, rolling them around until they’re covered on all sides.

Done!

Things I’ll do different next time

• Gelatin numbs down most flavours, so I might get something stronger to put in next time
• Better handling skills. I need them. I had to scrub apricot jelly from behind my EAR.
• Need an alternative for fondant, or a base coating. Chocolate? Again?

I’m nothing if not a follower of trends. And you can’t swing a whisk around on the interwebs without hitting pictures of pretty, geeky cupcakes. I feel a project coming up.

There’s at least two problems with me making cupcakes. Especially pretty ones.

1: I’m not a big fan of artificial colouring. Blue frosting reminds me of chemicals, not yumminess.

2: I have, like, no drawing skills, let alone piping skills.

Righto then.

Step 1: Planning

Yes. I’m trying to keep the improvisational bit to a minimum here.

The colouring problem I can get round by using black and white themes. For this first one: chess! I figure I can use white chocolate for the white background, and dark for the black background.

The piping I’m just going to avoid altogether. My pieces will be made in marzipan, because that is one hell of a forgiving confectionary. If I screw up with the shaping or cutting, I can just roll it all up again and start over.

The white pieces are easy: plain marzipan. The black pieces will be more brownish, coloured with pure cocoa powder.

Step 2: Earl Gray Cupcakes

The recipe I’m using is one adapted from Martha Stewart’s Vanilla Cupcakes.

This is for about sixteen to eighteen cakes.

Earl Gray Cupcakes

• 150g butter
• 236g flour
• 170g white sugar
• 130ml milk
• 3 eggs
• pinch of salt
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• contents of one teabag (as aromatic as possible, Earl Gray is great, Lady Gray is better. I’m using Lipton’s Persian Earl Gray)

Put the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir so they’re blended. In a big bowl, cream the sugar and butter together. Whisk in the eggs one by one, then sift in half of the flour mixture, add half the milk and beat till smooth. Repeat with the other half of flour and milk.

This was my first time making actual cupcakes and I’ve learned the hard way that you need a muffin pan to put your paper liners in, or some very firm cups. Paper liners alone don’t work.

So, fill a muffin pan with paper liners and divide your mixture over the different cups.

Put in a 190°C oven for about twenty minutes.

I'd love to say that the oval shape was my intention, but it kinda wasn't.

Let them cool before going to step 3.

Step 3: Chocolate!

Half of my cupcakes are going to be white, and half black.

So get about 150g of white chocolate, put it in a glass bowl and shove it in the microwave.

You want to be careful here. Only put it on for half a minute or twenty seconds at a time, taking the bowl out and stirring every time, until the chocolate is nice and smooth.

I took a spoon and drizzled the chocolate on my cupcakes. The paper cups stop the chocolate from spilling over. If your cupcakes didn’t fail like mine, and actually muffin topped out of the paper, it might be easier to just dunk the head in the chocolate instead.

Rinse and repeat for the dark chocolate.

Step 4: White marzipan

Working with marzipan is, as mentioned, rather forgiving. So get out a piece and roll it between your hands, kneading until it’s warm enough to work with.

Then get a rolling pin and some powder sugar. The powder sugar will keep the marzipan from sticking to your table, making the rolling a lot easier. You use it the same way as flour when kneading dough. Sift some on your working surface, and on your piece of marzipan, then start rolling. Add powder sugar whenever things get sticky.

Now cut out your shapes. I have some random tools to make things go faster, but most shapes can be made with just a knife and your fingers. Also never underestimate the power of toothpicks.

Hmmm. Needs more cute.

If you’ve been rather lavish with the chocolate, like I have, it’ll still be runny enough for you to just stick the marzipan on. If not, use a dab of honey or syrup as your ‘glue’.

Step 5: Brown marzipan

My natural colouring for the brown marzipan is cocoa powder. This has the advantage of making rather tasty marzipan, and the disadvantage of looking vaguely like poo. Oh well.

Take your leftovers from the white shapes, and maybe some additional fresh marzipan and work it again until it’s soft. Then add cocoa to the marzipan, one teaspoon at a time, and work it in until you have a single dark brown colour.

Roll the marzipan flat again and cut out your shapes.

Pictured: moar cute.

Tip:

All the added chocolate does make these cakes rather heavy. Which is a shame, cause the earl gray teacake is definitely a winner.

If you don’t feel like overindulging, they’re very nice without topping, and should be delicious with a lemon glaze, too.