The Isle of Man

I have no idea why it's taken me so long to post these photos. But it's perfect timing for a quick post. And getting off the subject of cake while I'm up to my ears in it, would be great. In fact I'd really like to be around savoury food, salty or spicy maybe...? Someone mentioned chilli recently. Oh wow! I'd LOVE a bowl of that! While I dream of awesome, nourishing, flavour bursting dishes I'm not likely to make anytime soon, I'm just going to admit I think I've quite possibly bitten off more layer cake than I can necessarily chew...

Which is why you are going to google the Isle of Man and get back to me. I just took the photos. Whetted your interest's appetite, so to speak. 

Both photos are taken in the morning, but a number of hours apart (on different but consecutive days) from opposite sides. Above we are looking north-west, below, south-east. 

I was so surprised to get such clear views, and so happy to catch this moment in the second photo - just the way the clouds and sun reflect on the Irish Sea, making it seem mystic and unearthly. 

Because I must always compare, not to be unjust or spiteful, but simply for understanding and quantifying: the Isle of Man is three times as big as Salt Spring Island, and the population is more than seven times greater!!! 

If you do decide to give it a wee google search, check out it's islet - the Calf on Man. Seriously. I did not just make that up. It's too good. Also, their noted ethnic group and language (apart from English people and speaking) is Manx. If you totally thought that was a sort of tailless cat, you are not alone. It is. And it just happens to come from the Isle of Man. 

Meow

Random and Predictable [Lemon]

The Random:

This is the coolest, most peculiar representation of young love that strums those same warm heartstrings and desperate notes Moonrise Kingdom represents (to me), but in less than 10 minutes. I happened upon it while mid best-country-songs-of-summer-2015-streaming on You Tube. Please, while you go listen to 'Loving You Easy' by the Zac Brown Band (current fav) just search 'Cornetto Love Stories - Two Sides'. It's weird and awesome, and probably sub-culture-chick-flick, in a totally my-real-life-is-a-dance-party kind of way. Okay I'm kind of going overboard, but just watch it. It will make you smile :) Promise.

You might even watch more of their episodes... 

We are finally going on our Passau to Vienna mini bike adventure in 18 days!!! I've been talking about doing this seriously for at least five years - now it's finally booked and going to happen! We start in Munich (Freising) visiting with my best friend and end near where the map says S6 visiting my lovely family. We are only riding the 300+ kms along the Danube, though... and eating weißwurst, eating and drinking various versions of elderflower, sampling some wine in the Waschau area, and topping it all off with kurbiskürnöl. Time to think about speaking german... 

Ummm... Happy Parade Day? Just trying to be politically correct here. So I stayed home since it was pouring anyway and I was probably just going to get myself in trouble and baked a cake. It's a holiday, why not? If someone is going to incinerate this:

I think I'm entitled to make, yet another, cake. (With multiple layers!) Oh and I found out the UK actually partially funds this cause as some kind of a religious heritage that should be maintained. Ummm... hello UK? This is more of a pagan ritual of barbarism in case you weren't aware. Just checking in. Letting you know. You're welcome.

The Predictable:

Because I need sunshine in my life - more than the measly rations of NI - I made a lemon meringue cake. That is an excuse. Some excuses are better than others. 

What is a lemon meringue cake anyway? Well it's a lemon cake with lemon curd filling, with yellow, lemon Swiss buttercream with yellow striped meringue swirls on top, designed to make you feel full of happiness and sunshine! Is it making you feel sunshiny? It should turn any frown upside down.  

Something about being in the UK means lemon curd is a must. Even if your strainer is probably meant for tea, and there are no decent pots (well ones that don't leave black shreds of 'non-stick' all over your food). It's that BIG of a must that I managed. Because store-bought is kind of yucky. (But then again I am the number one pickiest person, ever, when it happens to suit me.)

The moist air here does play havoc with the smooth glossy sides of the meringues, and as you can see they aren't really all that smooth or glossy anymore. I meant to add crunched meringues in between the layers but I forgot. I must have been getting so excited about putting them on top or just plain dazzled by the happy sunshine colour of the components, and it completely slipped my mind. 

I'm afraid these last two shots make it look like autumn has arrived... I sure hope it hasn't just yet. I bought those flowers because they look just like ones Jordan would have chosen for me. I'm not sure if he just likes that colour combination, or if he is actually aware I seem to like decorating in these colours. I mean not that a person couldn't notice colours by being in my home, but he is a man so one cannot be too sure he would notice such details. But maybe he does. He's sweet like that. 

For now, every time I open the fridge where the cake is waiting, to sample more lemon curd (yes it still tastes the same as it did five minutes ago) or salami or cherries, soft clouds of lemon-sugar infiltrate the whole essence of my being. Ahhhhh :))))

I'll taste it tomorrow...!

Mini Wonders in July

Coffee is great. Like chocolate, only different. For example, it's only an indulgence if you have say, more than two or three cups during a 24 hour period. And like I was pointing out just the other day, it's a great source of calcium. If you drink your coffee milky like me, that is! Try the purple and black bag of Tesco's finest fair trade ground coffee - Guatemalan, spicy and fruity. You will be happy you did! 

Window seats are also wonderful. (I'm not talking about sitting in the back of a plane, but about the ones in houses. Or apartments - like mine. Probably best when they have cushion material on the seat part, but when they don't just drag your couch into position for a comfy place to relax and have a view. When looking out from the low position on my couch, the car park is just out of view, leaving only the best parts of the pretty green hill visible. It brings in so much daylight (hence the terrible photo). 

Cheers to that! Now, shall we sit and have a drink? Please join me for a wee bit of craic. 

What's the difference between melted chocolate and cocoa powder in a cake recipe? I tried both ways and ate the results, (obviously, otherwise how on earth would I know?). According to my experiment you will have a lighter, fluffier crumb with cocoa, and a more dense, silkier texture with melted chocolate. Now what about grated chocolate, eh? 

Clear skies over Europe. 

It's just too bad photos out of a plane never do the actual view justice. 

But the clouds were giving us a gift yesterday, so I'll share that with you! 

East London and the river Thames. You could actually pick out the parliament/Big Ben area, Westminster Catchedral and bridge over to the London Eye (more to the west). However the refraction off the moisture in the air with the angle of the sun made a proper photo of that area impossible. 

The mouth of the Thames into the North Sea is on the left, and the shortest gap in the English channel straight ahead. It's only about half as far again as it is from Tswassen to Active Pass, (in case that reference means anything to you). Totally swim-able! Lol

This is the north coast of France, looking south west. The cities of Outreau and Boulogne-sur-Mer are below. The inlet approximately in the center of the photo is at Étaples, and the larger one further along is La Baie de Somme, Dieppe is basically unidentifiable in the distance beyond that. 

This farmland outside of Lille looked like a painting to us. 

The Alps were the most impressive part. Zurich is off the other side of the plane so you mainly see Vierwaldstättersee and the Swiss Alps. Could we add this area to the list of best places to live??? I think so. We flew past Davos, a small town of elite fame including an annual hockey tournament as well as the location of the annual congregation of leading power houses in economics and politics, plus it has a renowned ski resort. If you were so rich and influential as to go to the Davos conference, I think you'd arrive by helicopter. Otherwise you'd have to drive like the rest of us earthlings. 

Or parachute? 

Venice is that brown blob in the middle. A strange city arrangement and incidentally not very bright at night. 

Feeling a bit like we were on the Truman Show, I tried to capture the texture of the sky in this photo. 

It looks like paper mâché. About 48 degrees north, about 11pm local time, mid Europe. 

Noctilucent - Mesospheric Cloud, Type 2

There is little information about this type of cloud formation as it occurs only in summer, when cooling in the mesosphere (approximately ten times the altitude of cirrus cloud - the highest cloud in the tropopause where our weather exists) is the lowest. What's special about a Noctilucent formation is you can only view this cloud during twilight, and here we were lucky enough to see it! The condensation nuclei are said to be particles of meteorites. 

I took a walk on a path called Dungonnell Way. It's up toward the north east. I think I must have read the miles as kilometres so it ended up being longer than I'd expected. Over three hours is a long walk. Therefore I should have had lots of time to take pictures with my phone to show you, but I only brought my camera... So we will have to wait for those shots. What's definitely worse is I walked the full distance in Wellyboots, due to two otherwise impassible stretches, so I'm still feeling my poor tootsies three days later. But like most things, there was a silver lining. I was thinking of walking with my dad, so I started singing some of the silly songs we used to sing on walks such as this. Do you know 'Good Ol' Mountain Dew'? It's an old favourite. My rendition certainly keeps the bears at bay, banjo or no banjo (bear country or not). Anyway, as tradition had it, and all that time(!) I made up new verses. Six to be exact. One may just be about you. ;) 

Ice cream cake. Chocolate-coconut ice cream cake. 

I wish you could see the edible gold dust I added as a finale. 

Citrus crazy! 

Happy Canada Day!

That means red, right?!

So... I had to retry this whole red velvet cake thing for the occasion. This time with more cocoa.

As it turns out (unsurprisingly) more chocolate makes for better flavour. Unfortuneately, the red colour goes a bit more brick with the additional dark brown ingredients. 

Looks cute, I think! 

I'm afraid I veered away from the land of Sweetapolita, because I was in search of two things: 

All oil and more chocolate. 

I found a suitable recipe, tweeked it and though it may not be the best recipe for red velvet out there just yet, it worked well. My Canada Day is now complete with red cake!

RED VELVET CAKE

Whisk together:

2 1/2 cups Flour

5 tbsp Dutch Process Cocoa 

1 tsp Salt

In separate bowl, (the bowl you'll end up having all the batter in) mix until combined:

1 1/2 cups Sugar

1 1/2 cups Oil

Add one at a time, mixing thoroughly:

2 Large Eggs

 

Mix in:

1 tbsp Red Velvet Emulsion

1 tsp Vanilla

Add flour mixture and buttermilk, alternating flour/buttermilk/flour/buttermilk/flour:

1 cup Buttermilk

In a small cup combine:

1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda

2 tsp White Vinegar

Then mix into the batter (about 10 seconds)

Split between three 8" pans or two 9". Bake at 350 degrees F until done. 

 I wanted to cover the whole cake in icing, meanwhile I wanted a light enough texture throughout. I chose to fill the cake with a stabilized whipped cream and cover the outside in cream cheese icing - then add a bit of crunch on top. Honey comb and chocolate = Crunchy bar.

The texture is important! 

Oh Canada, it was delectable!