Nice Buns!

My Year of Baking continued today with a rather splendiferous, Easter-themed foray into Hot Cross Buns.  Now this was a drama in three parts:

Act I:  The Cast (and a little creative workshopping)

Gathering all of the ingredients before me on the kitchen bench, I proceeded to make the dough and you know what that means - yeast!  I have not worked with this little devil since a disappointing bread-making incident in Year 7 Home Economics, way before the world actually had breadmakers called Kenwood, Panasonic and Morphy Richards.  Nor was I about to be put off by some diametrically opposed instructions: the recipe called for the yeast to be mixed with water whilst the completely contradictory and carefree directions on the yeast packet informed me to basically just toss it in with the flour.  Anyway, after getting in amongst it and ending up with mighty sticky/dough-y fingers, my little mound of yeasty goodness went down for an hour's kip in my sunlit front window.  As did I.

Act II  Rehearsals (and a little Diva-ish behaviour)

Roused by the insistent beeping of the 'timer on the stove', it was time for a little more kneading before separating the bigger-mound-of-dough-than-it-was-before into 12 equal (so they say) balls and fitting them nicely on to my greased baking tray.  However the incising of the cross (without which these would merely be 'Buns') was more than these poor darlings could take and they downed tools (or was that me?) and went off for a slightly long-ish 30min, window-warming power nap. 

Part III  Opening Night (for one night only)

The final act was to move these bigger-than-they-were-before mounds into the less temperate environs of the oven.  And just 15mins later they appeared in the wings for their curtain call, ready to be iced and glazed before appearing in front of their adoring public....

...and quite frankly, I couldn't wait to get myself an autograph!

Happy Easter everyone

The Joy Of Eggs...

Being Easter Sunday, I have been thinking about what sort of Easter post I should write...and bonnets and bunnies were just not inspiring me at all.  But sometimes inspiration comes from the most unlikely places and while I was meandering through my list of favourite blogs, I came across an absolute gem from adbroad (the oldest working writer in advertising or so she says).

Apparently this episode of 'I Love Lucy' got the longest recorded laugh in television history (no canned laughter for these bastions of situation comedy)...

I laughed out loud (the neighbours must be wondering what is going on) and thought it was a perfect way to bring a little joy into a sunshine-y Easter Sunday.

And let's face it, it brings a whole new hilarity to the phrase 'walking on eggshells'.

Enjoy and have a wonderful Easter!

ps...if you liked watching this episode, click here to head on over to adbroad's latest post and watch some more!

Part Of The Plan?

I am reliably informed that today, aside from being Good Friday (and a good Friday it is here in the English sunshine), it is International Mother Earth Day.

Established in 2009 by the General Assembly, its aim is to:

"...promote[s] a view of the Earth as the entity that sustains all living things found in nature. Inclusiveness is at the heart of International Mother Earth Day; fostering shared responsibilities to rebuild our troubled relationship with nature..."  General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann

 ...and it was this 'troubled relationship with nature' that I was thinking about on my commute home last night.

In the first four months of 2011, we have seen nature at her most fearsome - earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, tornados just to name a few - and many reports suggest that these events are random or at least illogical in nature.  We don't expect them and particularly given the catalogue of tragic events during the first part of this year, we can't understand how and why everything is happening 'at once'. 

Is it really our impact on the environment, changing the climate, that unleashes nature's fury?  Is Mother Nature really coming home to roost?

But, I thought, what if we turned this thinking around? What if this is all part of some greater scheme?  That Mother Nature is so much bigger and grander than we can ever contemplate and we, despite all of our blinkered self-absorption, are just tiny pieces of a much, much greater puzzle?

What if it's really just all part of the plan?

Something to think about...

Ask and Ye Shall Receive...

Today is Tuesday, the day that Dr Alan Zimmerman's Tuesday Tip gets delivered to my Inbox.

And today's tip was all in the asking:

"Asking is the beginning of receiving. Make sure you don't go to the ocean with a teaspoon. At least take a bucket so the kids won't laugh at you."  Jim Rohn

As kids, we always took multiple buckets to build our respective castles in the sand so the teaspoon and bucket analogy really hit home.

So I am unearthing a bucket or two and am off to query the world at large - after all, I could do with a little receiving.

Just ask me!

ps... and since this whole post has been inspired in the spirit of ASKING, if you are enjoying my random musings, why not follow me or better yet, you can subscribe and get a little piece of me delivered right to your Inbox, just like Dr Zimmerman!