Entries Tagged 'Bake' ↓

Since I was little I wished that I could have a pool party for my birthday. Since its in the middle of winter, it’s a bit unpractical, and over the years I’ve learned to accept that I’d never have a summer party unless I moved to the Northern hemisphere (Which I did for a year and LOVED). This year the weather in the Southern hemisphere was no exception when my birthday dawned, and Mother Nature dished up the coldest day of this winter so far. The max temperature was about 15 degrees Celsius, accompanied by wind and rain. Good for me I didn’t even go outside on my birthday, and just stuck around the warmth of my heated home. There are still a lot of fun things that you can do in winter, I keep telling myself. Like staying indoors, snuggling up with a blanket, some hot chocolate and a good book. However, on my birthday, I decided to cook & bake since I had some guests over in the evening.

I bought a cake mix because I didn’t want to spend my whole day in the kitchen. My big mistake however, was when I decided on baking cupcakes instead of the usual cake. Cupcakes are really fantastic! Most reason people tend to like them more? I’ve witnessed this weird phenomenon a couple of times. With my husband’s birthday I used the same cake mix, and baked cupcakes until I ran out of time, and then used the left over batter to bake a cake. At the birthday party the cupcakes were finished before anyone had even touched the cake, and people were rather reluctant to try the cake.

The problem with cupcakes is that they take you about ten times longer to bake. I only have ONE muffin tray, and ONE oven rack… And since the batter made SEVENTY cupcakes I had to go through the baking process six times, where a cake would’ve been done in one round. Now I’m not sure I’ll be baking cupcakes anytime soon – regardless of whether my guests prefer them. I suddenly have much more respect for people who buy cupcakes instead.
Anyway, what I was actually getting at. The reason why I stayed indoors on my birthday wasn’t merely the weather. I picked up a bad case of flu somewhere between Pick ‘n Pay and home, and I’ve been battling to get rid of it. At first I thought I could manage to scare it away with some Vitamin C and pain killers, but when my voice started sounding like that of a goose, I decided to give up and visit the doctor.

I got a whole paper bag full of medicine, which – wonder above wonder – seems to be working. I got antibiotics, which I usually HATE, because even though they relieve the problem at hand, they seem to break another hundred things. My voice is still not 100%… I try to sing along to songs on the radio, and I sound like a bad mix between Bonnie Tyler and Jimmy Hendrix. Good news is that my throat is not as sore anymore, and I don’t cough too much anymore. Also, I’ve been shunned to a life indoors, and I’m not even allowed to stick my head out the door after four in the afternoon (which is probably not a bad thing, since that’s when the icy cold settles over Pretoria).
For now, I am resting since the doc booked me off till tomorrow, plus my meds make me extremely drowsy. I’m sipping my hot chocolate while sitting in bed, and enjoying the warmth of my bean bag by my feet… Reading when I’m not sleeping, and sometimes finding myself drooling on my magazines from pure exhaustion

For millions of sleep-deprived mothers around the world, this woman’s findings could be a miracle! Priscilla Dunstan, a mom from Australia with a special gift, says she’s unlocked the secret language of babies.

When Priscilla was a toddler, her parents discovered she had a photographic memory for sound. At age 4, she could hear a Mozart concert on the piano and play it back note for note.

Priscilla says her gift has helped her hear a special “second language” beyond English, allowing her to detect moods and even diagnose illnesses! “Other people might hear a note but I sort of get the whole symphony,” Priscilla says. “So when someone’s speaking, I get all this information that other people might not pick up.”

That mysterious second language took on an astounding new meaning when Priscilla became a mother to her baby, Tom. “Because of my gift for sound, I was able to pick out certain patterns in his cries and then remember what those patterns were later on when he cried again,” Priscilla says. “I realized that other babies were saying the same words.”

Here is the short version:

• Neh=”I’m hungry”
• Owh=”I’m sleepy”
• Heh=”I’m experiencing discomfort”
• Eair=”I have lower gas”
• Eh=”I need to burp”

Those “words” are actually sound reflexes, Priscilla says. “Babies all around the world have the same reflexes, and they therefore make the same sounds,” she says. If parents don’t respond to those reflexes, Priscilla says the baby will eventually stop using them.

Priscilla recommends that parents listen for those words in a baby’s pre-cry before they start crying hysterically. She says there is no one sound that’s harder to hear than others because it varies by individual. She also says some babies use some words more than others.

The Dunstan Baby Language DVD is currently available. Visit www.dunstanbaby.com to order your copy.

And NO, I do not have children, I just find this extremely interesting. I was an au pair for a while, but for babies who were talking / starting to talk. It’d be interesting to try this out though, so those of you with babies, let me know if it works please?

Sources: Oprah

My weekend started last week Wednesday, hence the reason I didn’t blog much lately.
I took the three days off word because my boyfriend had to go in for an operation, and thus it wasn’t really a holiday, but I’m still glad I took the time off. I’d have hated to go through something like that on my own.
He had a minor foot opp – just mending the ligaments again, but he’s foot is in a cast for six weeks now! Pity, cause its exactly in the time that Fall Out Boy and UB40 are in South Africa! (Damn it!)

I spent Wednesday & Thursday in the hospital with him, but on Friday he came home, so then I could actually do something more than just sit. I made Turkish delight! I’ve been planning to do so for a while now, and finally got around to it. The first time round it wasn’t as nice as I’d hoped for. I used a recipe, and I must say I was not impressed. I sprayed the pan with Spray ‘n Cook, and the Turkish delighted tasted like it so much, that I missed the real flavour. I hate Spray ‘n Cook. It was also a bit rubbery.
Take two was better, though not completely successful. I replaced half the gelatine with strawberry jelly, which made it taste MUCH better. I also used margarine instead of Spray ‘n Cook, which made it taste like sweets instead of some poisonous gas. The consistency was similar to that of the Turkish delight used in chocolate bars. It was soooooo sticky. Actually to the point that it was messy. It couldn’t be cut into squares, so instead we tried to roll it into balls (with our hands covered in margarine). We then covered the balls with a mixture of corn flour & icing sugar, but they didn’t stay ball-shaped… Instead they went flat
Eventually we decided to roll them again, and immediately cover them with melted chocolate, which worked OK, and tasted awesome – exactly like the stuff you buy in the shops!
I would not recommend it to anyone though – it is a huge mess – lots of dishes, and not worth it if you can buy a 200g slab in the shops for R10!

I also baked. 48 Bread rolls with fillings in – yum. Bacon & Onion, Bacon & Cheese, Feta & Olives, and Plain Cheese – aren’t you proud of me? If you’d like the recipe, please ask me – I just can’t post it here, else I’ll bore the non-bakers

Because I was not at home this weekend, and instead with my boyfriend, I didn’t check my e-mails or blogs for the whole time, and when I checked my old Wordpress blog, I discovered that it had been removed. It was suspended due to violation of terms & conditions. I tried to find out why, what I had done wrong, and got a fairly quick reply, saying that paid posts are not allowed on Wordpress. So for those of you who were thinking about it, don’t even go there. I might get my blog back, but at this stage I’m not really worried about it, as I have this new one, with all the original posts. I’m just thankful that I had exported my posts in time

For now I have to finish up, I’m exhausted.