Gearing up!

As you know, Rob and I are a bit excited about the Olympics being in London this summer. Since I last wrote about it we have acquired Diving and Swimming tickets as well!!! We really cannot wait to start going to events next week! In fact, we are so excited to see 'The Games' that we're going to begin some of our own tomorrow while watching the Opening Ceremony! With the help of friends and some Indesign skill I created this Opening Ceremony Drinking Game with a few simple rules. We've also decided to add the neat twist of bringing a bottle of booze from the country you were born in, or State or whatever! Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

Olympic Fever!

So just in case you didn't hear... Rob and I are going to the olympics! Now it's even more official as we have our tickets!! We are going to see some Table Tennis, Hockey (team GB men's first round!), Diving and Athletics (mens 4x100 metre relay!).

London is pretty dressed up for the Olympics and with only a month to go you can really start to feel the city's excitement. We even have banners with the 2012 logo lining the road near our house!

Though, in true UK-style, there are plenty of Olympic nay-sayers who view the games as nothing but a burden, waste of money and complete waste of time. I find it infuriating that they are so negative but hey-ho... to each their own, and besides... it really wouldn't be a UK Olympics if it did have World-Class Moaning to go with it!

As for us, we are excited and feel so lucky to be a part of such an amazing event I can't wait to report back with all the details of our events... watch this space!

Cupcakes for several occasions

I'm back on cupcakes and have been baking quite a bit recently. I thought instead of bombarding you with a series of posts about them all I would simply collate them here. 

First we have a new recipe... Lemon cupcakes with Lemon Icing. I made these adapting the recipe for vanilla cupcakes below. They look at bit odd but they are definitely funcation/taste over form. I was very hesitant when I made them at first but I've grown quite found of the look now... like a frosted mountain peak just above some clouds. I need to find something to add to the peak to give just a bit more... character. Thoughts? I'm trying them out on a my softball team tonight... he's hoping they're yummy! Here is the recipe: 

Lemon cupcakes with Lemon Icing

Makes about 12 large cupcakes

1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh squeezed lemon juice

zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup oil (vegetable, canola or extra light olive oil)
1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 cup milk plus 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar or lemon juice- add acid to the milk then set aside for 5 minutes before using)

For the icing

fresh squeezed juice of 1 lemon (about 3 tablespoons)

1-2cups sifted icing sugar

Preheat oven to 350*F.

In a medium bowl, add cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir together with whisk, and set aside. 

In the bowl of an electric mixer, add eggs and beat 10-20 seconds. Add sugar and continue to beat on medium speed about 30 seconds. Add the lemon juice, zest and oil, beat.

Reduce mixer speed to low and slowly add about half of the flour mixture. Add half of the milk, then the rest of the flour and the rest of the milk. Beat until just combined. Scrap down the side of the bowl.

The batter will be thin. Pour batter into a muffin pan prepared with paper liners. Fill liners about 2/3 full.

Bake cupcakes in pre-heated oven for 12-14 minutes.

Cool in pan 1-2 minutes, then remove cupcakes from pan (carefully) and finish cooling on a wire rack.

While the cakes are cooling, make the icing. Add icing sugar to the lemon juice until it forms a very think but still runny icing (it should coat a back of spoon very thoroughly). I whisk this so that there are no lumps but you can work it with a fork and get the same result. 

Once the cakes are cooled just a teaspoon to spoon on the icing, ensuring that the entire cakes is lightly covered and that the remains run into the sides of the cake wrapper. The icing will drink down into the sides of the wrapper and cake will be come saturated with the very lemony icing. 

Eat! 

Next up is a batch made for a Bridge night. Rob has complained that the frosting I normally use is much to rich for him so I have been experimenting with different toppings (see above). These are just  normal chocolate cupcakes with a new meringue frosting that was light as feather! I used the Martha Stewart Seven Minute Frosting recipe which was delicious but did not keep as well as others. If you use this I highly recommend eating all of it on the same day or making smaller batches and frosting the cakes as you go. I used blue food colouring to make a very light blue topping which I think goes well with the dark cake... delicious! 

Finally, these were made for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Celebration day which you can read about here. It was not all it was cracked up to be but at least these cakes cheered up the day well. These are vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting. The frosting was just something I threw together as I didn't really feel like following a recipe. I used one part unsalted butter to two parts icing sugar and beat until it was the right consistency then added a dash of milk to bind it. The frosting was VERY good and kept well, I did half of it in blue just for the hell of it! They turned out well and went great with fresh cherries! 

Jubilee... without the jubilee

Ok, so let's flashback several weeks now, as I think the trauma of the event has settled and I can properly discuss it. 

For a bit of background information, in the UK, the bank holidays are always rainy... without fail. I don't know why anyone would have expected anything different. Still, the UK geared-up hardcore for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee packed with events that took place entirely outdoors and the population got excited for not just one day off, but TWO... and Monday and Tuesday at that! 

So, as usual, we prepared for the long four-day weekend by stocking up on junk food and booze. We spend Friday night out with a friends and all seemed well. The weather was fine... not warm but fine. Saturday Rob and I met a friend at Walkabout and watched the Socceroos play Denmark (the biggest game of the day, for Rob... despite England playing two hours later). Spending the day at an Australian themed bar watching the Socceroos get beat really put us in a joyous mood. 

On the way to watch Australia lose :(

I had every intention of spending the next day at the river bank watching the Queen's Flotilla pass by, the thought of literally THOUSANDS of 'decorated' boats was genuinely entertaining for me. However we woke up Sunday to the most dismal dreary rainy day ever! It was awful. So instead of watching at the river we decided to shack up all comfy on the sofa and watch it on the BBC.

Now I have never seen a floatilla, but I have see a Southern Boat Parade at Christmas in Savannah and I was expecting THOUSANDS of boats lit up and decorated elaborately with lots of fun cheesy Union Jacks. Disappointingly this is what a floatilla actually is...

WOW... amazing!

What on Earth is fun about that?! It was the Queen's 'people' (aka slaves) literally rowing past her, in her opulence, while they froze in the rain on a dirty river... no decorations, no lights, no fun music, just rain, miserable people and boring ordinary boats... nothing jubilant about it at all! 

People watching the AMAZING flotilla.

After nearly and hour of watching it on the BBC I had only one thing to do...

Oh and bake theses delicious Jubilee coloured cupcakes which you can read more about here.

And tried to make beer can chicken but there was lots of GnT in me at this point and the picture below is really all I can say about that. 

Beer cans do not fit all chicken bums! 

The rest of the weekend was spent by everyone in the UK recovering from the rain and complete emotional/mental breakdown of the failure of the entire Jubilee celebration. Here's looking forward to her 70th! 

Let the softball games begin!

Last year Rob and I were very warmly welcomed on to the Tornados softball team. We really enjoyed playing and had so much fun with the people, it made us more active and gave us yet another excuse to visite the pub. The Tornados ended the 2011 season with only one win and were relegated to a lower league but despite such poor stats, everyone decided to come back this year and we're all at it again.

We've already had three games and true to last years form we have 0 wins and 3 loses! However, we are having fun and team losses don't mean that individual players having played well or the games weren't good. Our team lost our star pitcher and we are struggling to fill the place. Everything else is top notch and we are looking good, so hopefully individual successes can come together for a win soon. My coach keeps pushing a positive mental attitude, good, if not cheesy, advice which I often scoff but have been trying to take on board nonetheless. 

Speaking of individual successes... Rob and I have started out with a very decent season indeed! In two games Rob beaned the ball out of the park for a home run and a grand slam! He's had two amazing catches in centre-right field and has even had a quick go at pitching! 

My first two games were both nerve-wrecking displays of incompetence, but then, after one practice, I showed up to the third game with a positive mental attitude and a new batting stance. The game was intense with an opposition that was both obnoxious and overly-competitive, a dangerous mixture that leads me to constant shouting, goading and over-excitement, my three best personality traits!

I was put in as catcher and I made a few great catches and aided in one or two outs. My fielding also involved a shouting match with a batter about how close I could stand to the batter and I was knocked over by a runner quite heavily which almost lead to an all-out brawl! I was very fired-up and cheered (shouted) throughout the game at full capacity. When it came to batting I was three for three, three hits, three at base... the best I've done since I started playing, the new stance really help. The final score, or the fact that we lost on the 'mercy rule' doesn't really matter, I had a good game and people had a good time! 

All this hard playing and shouted ended up with me being voted 'Babe Ruth' (MVP) at the pub after the game. Something I found surprising and flattering, I've never been MVP at anything! One of my fellow teammates voted for me because I was a 'The voice of Britain!' referring to my loud cheering. I felt great about the game and also felt a tad bit more British at the same time. Here, here!!! 

A ballot for me declaring me 'The voice of Britain!', a very proud moment! 

Piñata Cookies!

As mentioned before, this year we celebrated Cinco de Mayo with a lot of lovely Mexican food, flan and these amazing piñata cookies.

My adapted version of piñata cookies!

A colleague found this recipe for me and I had to try them. The recipe is deceptive, the cookies end up HUGE (This recipe only made 9 or 10 full cookies) and it is extremely difficult to cut the middle cookie out without breaking the edges. There is also a lot of wasted cookie edges, but you can always just eat them, cause they are delicious! However, the end result is completely worth all the intricate work, they are super fun!

Original cookies, web photo

Here a few tips to explain the differences in my cookies and the original, both pictured on this post. The original recipe calls for cookies cut out in a traditional donkey shape but I was not able to find a donkey-shaped cookie cutter on such short notice so I used a flower shape. Also, the food colouring I used ended up a lot lighter than the originals. I think they use 'gel paste' I don't know what this is and couldn't find any so I just used normal food colouring, however I had to use a lot of it, about 4-5 teaspoons per batch of dough. I also only used five colours as black was not necessary for my flowers. Finally, the original recipe fills the cookies with mini M&Ms, again, hard to find in the UK on short notice so I used small little crispy white, dark and milk chocolate bits that are normally used for decorating cupcakes. They worked well and considering the size of these cookies worked well  as they are a lot lighter and more manageable to eat then a bunch of M&Ms, the crunch is also quite a nice contrast.

Filled with chocolate crispies.

Cinco de Mayo with Bridge and sugar!!

I'm writing this a few weeks late but it's simply because two things have happened... softball season started and work has been crazy!

Cinco de Mayo is not really one of the major holiday's on the Scott-Clark calendar but this year it was on a Saturday and also overlapped with a pre scheduled dinner party/bridge night so I thought I'd make an occasion of it. We spent the whole day shopping for the necessary accessories and ingredients then came home and baked our little socks off!

Dinner was Quorn tacos, which didn't turn our as good as the chilli or bolognese that I have made in the past, I will make sure and post the recipe for this as soon as I perfect it. However, the desserts, of which there were two, came out amazing and were a real success.

Rob made a vanilla flan, with jersey milk, fresh eggs and vanilla beans from the Dubai Spice Market, while I attempted the impossible... piñata cookies! Please follow the link to see the recipe, they deserve their own post.

Unfortunately, like everything he does, Rob completely ad-libbed his flan and I don't have a recipe to share, though hopefully he can put one up here soon because, as you can see, it really was impressive!

After we were sufficiently stuffed with tacos, flan and cookies, we spent the rest of the evening playing Bridge. We taught our fourth friend how to play and we are certainly starting to gather up a large group of bridge players... you might say we are starting a club, some sort of bridge club <can you sense the sarcasm>? 

However, bridge is going to have to cool off for a bit, maybe not every weekend now, as softball season has officially started! You check out how the season is going here.