Baking: Coffee Streusel Cake

 

Difficulty: Medium

 

Ingredients:
For the Sponge:

• Butter, for greasing
• 275g of plain flour
• 1 tablespoon of baking powder
• 75g of caster sugar (this isn't a lot and the cake isn't sweet, so if you want to add more to suit your sweet tooth then go ahead!)
• 150ml of milk
• 2 eggs
• 100g of butter, melted and cooled (it's very important that the butter has properly cooled!)
• 2 tablespoons of instant coffee mixed with one tablespoon of boiling water (or add more coffee if you want the taste to be stronger)
• 50g of almonds, chopped
• Icing sugar for dusting

 

For the topping:

• 75g of self-raising flour
• 75g of demerara sugar
• 2 tablespoons of butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 teaspoon of ground mixed spice
• 1 tablespoon of water

Method

1. Grease a 23cm/9 inch loose-bottomed roud cake tin with a little butter and line the base with baking paper
2. Pre-heat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5
3. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl and then stir in the caster sugar
4. Whisk the milk, eggs, melted butter and coffee mixture together and pour into the dry ingredients
5. Add the chopped almonds and mix lightly together until a cake mix is formed
6. Spoon the mixture into the tin - don't put it into the oven yet!
7. To make the topping, mix toether the SR flour and demerara sugar
8. Add the butter and mix together with your fingers until the mix is crumbly
9. Sprinkle in the ground mixed spice and the water
10. Bring the mixture together into loose crumbs - this is the tricky bit, and you might have to use a knife. Don't worry if the mix is too stodgy, just keep adding small amounts of SR flour until the mix is less stodgy. Mine wasn't really dry, but as long as it's a little crumbly in texture it should be fine
11. Sprinnkle the topping evenly over the surface of the cake mixture in the tin
12. Bake the cake in the pre-heated oven for one hour - keep an eye on the topping and if it's browning too quickly, cover it loosely with tin foil
13. After it is baked, leave to cool thoroughly in the tin, then turn out - don't forget to take the greaseproof paper off the bottom of the cake!
14. Dust with icing sugar to finish

FF + iPod = Hours of Amazingness

About two weeks ago SquareEnix - the company behind the Final Fantasy series - made the first two games in the franchise available to buy in the iTunes store. This prompted a lot of comments like "I had no idea these were coming to iPod" and "this is the best game I've ever bought for my iPod". It also had some angry, rather ungrateful people saying "£5.49? What a rip off!" Well, consider that these games take hours - possibly 50+ hours - to complete, and then think about the amount of time it takes to complete any other games on the store. I think that might just be value for money, if you stick with it.

Anyways, it was a pleasant surprise: I bought them as soon as I could get my hands on a gift card (hey, you wouldn't dare let me loose on there, would you?) and neither of them have been a disappointment. Some people have complained about the controls but I think they're seamless - my only criticism is that some people might find the battle and menu text a little too small but it's definitely not unreadable. The improved save feature lets you save your progress whenever, wherever (except in battle) so you could even just have a quick battle or two when waiting somewhere and not lose any data. This is definitely not coming off my App List for a loooong time.

Kick-Ass: The Pre-Release Speculation

A lot has been made of the upcoming release of comedic, ultraviolent comic-book flick Kick-Ass (particularly in Empire: subscribers have been bombarded with images of the eponymous hero - pictured above - for months now). But will it live up to the wacky premise when the film is released on April 2?
It stars Aaron Johnson as Dave Lizewski, a hapless teen who decides to try and be more of a man by fighting crime as a costumed vigilante named Kick-Ass. He becomes an internet phenomenon and quickly finds that being a superhero can get you into some serious bother when he gets on the wrong side of a ruthless mobster. Luckily, he meets two genuine superheroes, Big Daddy (played by Nicholas Cage) and his eleven-year-old daughter Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz).
Just how hilarious and enjoyable it is remains to be seen but for those of us who have been battered with messages and advertising for Kick-Ass will be relieved when its release comes around - even if it's just so we can get around to the next big thing (Iron Man 2 or Clash of the Titans, anyone?)! Perhaps Kick-Ass will turn out to be Kill Bill with more laughs. You know, so OTT that it doesn't matter how violent the action is and so obviously a parody that it's oddly satisfying (even though it really is based on a real comic book). No doubt it will be one of those marmite films - true fans of the comic book genre will probably hate it for being so wildly different while others will love it for its bare-faced audacity. I hope I fall into the latter category, since I'm not overly convinced with the whole comic-book thing (it's a bit like the film versions of video games: will they ever make a good one?)

Stand by for more come April...

Beige: Not the New Black?

Nude is back. Luckily this is nude shades and not the other more chilly kind. Nude can be described in many different ways: tan, sand, stone, camel, skin-tone, magnolia and, of course, beige. Yes, beige. How would've thought it? It's certainly not vibrant and it's certainly not, as they say in the fashion world, "editorial" (this means completely bonkers, in case you were wondering). It's really rather safe, as you can see above.

But "safe" does not necessarily translate in to meaning "wearable". Think about it: despite the many shades of beige that are on display above, the only model who doesn't look washed-out is the one second to the left. Now, models are classically a lot paler than average people because it's easier to work with a blank canvas, so you might say "so what?" Well, I think that beige will have the same problem as yellow - unless you've had more UV exposure than recommended, it's just going to make you look sallow and strange.

Beige trousers may be your best bet if you want to follow this trend - teaming it with something more colourful on the top will help to balance your complexion and not make you look like a ghost walking down the high-street. Unfortunately, I'm probably too pale to do this too! Shock!

Beige will not be the new black - everyone feels good in black, and anyone who says they don't must be lying so they don't look like they're following the crowd. Even pale little old me feels good in my black cocktail dress, whereas I'd just feel bare and need a bottle of fake tan to make me feel even half as good in beige, or magnolia, or sandstone.

Decide for yourself whether this trend is the best thing to ever happen: I know a lot of people hate bright colours with a vengeance so no doubt there'll be loads of peeps out there who'll feel comfortable wearing sand-coloured clothes. Just don't expect to see me stepping out in beige.

Saturday Cooking: Welsh Cakes

I've made these Welsh Cakes a few times now and they've always turned out perfectly. Sorry that this is on a Saturday: I made fish cakes yesterday but had no battery in my camera so couldn't take a photo to show that the recipe actually works! Don't worry, I'll post it in the near future when I make them again. In the mean time try these, they're absolutely gorgeous and the recipe makes around 15-18 for the thickness you can roughly see in the photo.

Ingredients

250g of plain flour

1.25 teaspoons of baking powder

125g of butter cut into small pieces

112.5g of caster sugar (I worked this out from a conversion but don't be exact, I never am and it's always okay!)

Sultanas - as many or as little as you want but don't go overboard or the mixture won't clump together

1 beaten egg

2-3 tablespoons of milk

Method

1. Sieve the flour, baking powder and caster sugar into a large mixing bowl
2. Add the butter and rubb together with your fingers
3. Add the sultanas
4. Make a well in the dry ingredients
5. Add the beaten egg and the milk and using a bread knife 'cut' the ingredients together
6. Flour a cool, hard surface and place the mixture on to it
7. Roll out to your desired thickness and cut out using a cutter. Keep repeating steps 6 and 7 until you can't get any more cakes out of the mixture (we don't want any waste!)
8. Dry cook on heavy bottomed griddle with a low heat until nicely browned on both sides. If you're unsure of when they're cooked, split one open to see if they're cooked through. Also, don't worry if they look a little burnt on the top and bottom - it doesn't make an ounce of difference to the taste!
9. If you want, you could add a little cinammon or nutmeg for an extra kick. It's more traditional to dust them with caster sugar though!

Well I hope you'll be successful with this recipe as I have been!

Razzies: Time For the Anti-Oscars

The Razzies have been going for years now, "celebrating" the very worst of cinema, naming and shaming the worst offenders in many different categories. The Razzie Foundation has named 2009 "a banner year for terrible movies" and, judging by their nominations for worst film they're probably right. Here's their list, loving compiled. Have a bit of fun and see if you can guess just which one of these is truly the most awful film of the year.

Worst Film of 2009

1. All About Steve
2. GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra
3. Land of the Lost
4. Old Dogs
5. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Personally I would like to see Transformers "win" in this category - you don't even have to watch the movie to see that it's a shoddy attempt to get some explosions and rubbish jokes on screen. Of course, some people might really love Transformers and the first one isn't supposed to be that bad...

In a double-whammy of awfulness, Empire readers have also named Batman and Robin the worst movie of all time - it's strange how a film with such a lot of talent could turn out so... wrong. This is what Anthony Lane of The New Yorker said of the film:

"[The cast] is quite a line up, boasting a broad range of dramatic styles, and what lends the movie cohesion and intergrity is the fact that all those involved have come up with their worst imaginable performances... You sit there feeling brain-damaged and parying for the mayhem to cease."

Ooh, that's quite damning....

Baking Friday (On A Sunday)

This photo I took makes my buns look like they're just floating in space, doesn't it? Admittedly, these little cakes are nothing special and were the result of panicking after a batch of flapjacks had gone seriously wrong (I over-buttered the tin, and my mixture was too sticky and watery to solidify). Still, this isn't too bad of a result for panic-baking - it felt like an episode of Ready Steady Cook with the annoying music and the audience doing the countdown from ten to one. I don't think it's bad, considering I can't bake to save my life.

Even though I'm blogging about this on a Sunday, it will actually be a Friday feature (er, I finished these at an awkward time on Friday night and didn't upload the photo until yesterday, so let me off the hook!). I was going to post the recipe, but I'm sure most people can bake a very simple cake mixture.... I hope. The real reason is that I've forgotten the exact amounts of S.R. flour, sugar and butter needed, even though they're written down and I improvised the technique without a recipe book.

When I get the recipe properly, I'll edit the post so you know.

Next week, Orange Biscuits. Hopefully.