Operation Rolling Pin - Gingerbread

And yea verily, the gingerbread was made, and lo, Operation Rolling Pin is no more.

Lessons in cookie cutting optimisation were learnt:



I rolled the dough out a bit too thin, so my gingerbread is really more like ginger biscuits.

There were stars and trees and angels and santa shapes:



They cooked (perhaps a bit too long) and are indeed quite delicious - the perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea.



These will remain undecorated because I am a menace to society once I get my hands on royal icing and a piping bag.

Recipe: Gingerbread
Source: Martha Stewart

Operation Rolling Pin - Cranberry Kipferln

This was the sight that I awoke to this morning.



After a bit of dancing around with excitement, I got down to business; Cranberry Kipferln - phase two of Operation Rolling Pin.

After my issues with the wet and sticky Linzer Sterne dough, these were a doddle. The dough comes together quickly and is rolled into a couple of long cylinders, wrapped in cling film and put in the fridge to cool for about an hour. My half moon shapes lack some consistency, but I can live with that.



After 12 minutes in the oven, the house smells divine and I have 60 or so cranberry kipferln to dust with icing sugar.

A perfect way to spend a snowy morning. What's going on at your place?

-----

Recipe: Cranberry Kipferln
Yield: 45 (I must make them particularly small because I got about 60 from the recipe)
Source: chefkoch.de


Ingredients:
50g dried cranberries
200g light butter/margarine
3 packets vanilla sugar
70g sugar
2 egg yolks
280g plain flour
100g almond meal
icing sugar for dusting

Method:
Finely mince the cranberries (I put mine in the food processor and gave it a good whizz).

In a bowl, cream the sugar, vanilla sugar and butter/margarine.

Add eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition.

Add flour and almond meal and mix. At this stage you will have to knead the dough to bring it together. Add the finely chopped cranberries and knead them through the dough.

Form the dough into a couple of long, thin cylinders and wrap in cling film and put in the fridge to cool for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 175 deg C (160 fan forced)

Cut 1cm thick slices from the cylinder and form into crescent shapes.

Place onto a prepared baking tray and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Once out of the oven, dust the kipferln with icing sugar and allow to cool thoroughly. Store in an airtight container.
-----

So, there you have it. Snow + baking = WIN.

Up next....Gingerbread.

Operation Rolling Pin is GO

In an effort to induce an attack of Christmas Spirit ™ , I started Christmas baking yesterday - code name Operation Rolling Pin.




So, I grabbed the biscuit cutters, a recipe for Linzer Sterne and cranked some seasonally appropriate music and I was off and running baking.

Linzer Sterne dough is wet and a bit of a challenge to work with, but with enough flour on the pin, it rolls out eventually.



A dollop of Rote Johannisbeere Gelle (red currant jelly/jam) and creative hole making with the apple corer and in the oven for 18 minutes.

A quick dusting of icing sugar, being careful to avoid the jam centres and you are DONE. Package nicely and give away.

Recipe as follows:

Linzer Sterne
Source: Brigette.de

Yield: recipe says 75, but I only managed to get about 60

Ingredients:
250g plain flour (plus extra for rolling out dough)
0.5 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
150g sugar
1 pinch of salt
lemon zest from 0.5 unprocessed/organic lemon
200g almond meal
1 tsp cinnamon
1 knife tip (ie less than a pinch) ground cloves
1 knife tip ground nutmeg
250g margarine
175g red currant jam
icing sugar for dusting

Method:
Mix flour and baking powder.

Add eggs, sugar, salt, lemon zest, almond meal, spices and margarine and mix to a smooth dough.

Wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate for an hour.

Heat the oven to 175 deg C (or 150 deg C fan forced)

Roll the dough out thinly on a WELL FLOURED surface. (This step may induce rage)

Cut star shapes. In half of the stars cut a hole in the centre (I used an apple corer). Dollop red current jam on the stars without holes and place the hole-y stars on the top and gently press the two stars together.

Place the stars on a prepared baking tray and put into the oven and bake for around 18 minutes.

Allow to cool and then dust with icing sugar (avoid the jam holes).

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

...up next: Cranberry Kipferln.

Poor Planning

After a flawless Halloween campaign which entailed dispensing chocolate bars to:

• 4 witches
• 2 vampires
• 1 ghost
• 1 generic superhero

I awake to find myself the victim of poor planning.

I should have twigged yesterday at the supermarket, where it seemed that the entire population of Mainz was shopping in preparation for the Apocalypse. I failed to take the step in logic that states: after All Hallows Eve, comes All Hallows Day (Allerheiligen) - which is a public holiday here in Rheinland Pfalz.

Luckily, I always have a few batches of soup or some such on hand in the freezer for times when housewifely ennui strikes and I'd rather poke myself in the eye with a fork than cook dinner. We are saved (by pea and ham soup). Huzzah!

Halloween

Despite the fact that Halloween is not part of my cultural heritage, I thought I'd get into the spirit this year and carve a pumpkin lantern thingy. A couple of hours of scooping, scraping and cutting yielded fairly pleasing results.

 

Once illuminated with an old LED bike light it looks spookily festive. (I really need to work on my night photography skills.)

 

Fingers crossed that I get some small people in costumes trick-or-treating this evening, as I have an unseemly amount of chocolate to distribute.

On a side note - roasted pumpkin seeds are unexpectedly delicious!

Did the earth move for you? - Valentine's Day

Magnitude 4.4.

Really, just a short jolt, but enough to make me get up and go outside and check things out. According to the people who know, this was the largest in a series of 4 tremors since yesterday.

There was another tremor just before Christmas (magnitude 3.5) which woke me up. I initially put this one down to a large slab of snow coming off the roof.

The last time I experienced an earthquake, I was thrown across the bathroom and nearly hit my head on the toilet. I had just gotten out of the shower and the only thing my self-obsessed 17 year-old self could think of at the time as the house juddered and shook, was the headline in the paper the next day "Naked Girl found Dead in Rubble".

42 lines

After living in this fair city for over three years, it is a little embarrassing to admit that Saturday 8th January, 2011, was my first visit to the Gutenberg Museum. Visitors have such a lovely way of encouraging one to get out and about.

I had visited the print workshop for a language school excursion last year and had thoroughly enjoyed inking, rolling, rubbing, type-setting and pulling levers to transfer designs and words onto paper (see some of my handiwork below).




The museum is quite impressive - there were demonstrations of a Gutenberg-style press and an old school newspaper cylinder press, exhibits on books from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, printing presses throughout the ages and sections on paper making and book binding. The jewels, of course, are two copies of the Gutenberg Bible, (one complete copy and one old testament - vol. 1). These 42 line wonders of the 13th Century are quite beautiful works of art as well as a stunning technological advance.

So, thank you Herr Gensfleisch, I can't imagine a world without the printed word.

our home is girt by sea*

What is one to do, when one finds oneself in a foreign land on the occasion of one's National Day?

One attempts to whip up a batch Lamingtons, of course.

In the process, I discovered a new found admiration for old-school, no mixmaster/kitchenaid cookery. Creaming butter and sugar by hand is a bitch.

How I longed for my old trusty Sunbeam Mixmaster (ca 1960). Ours was a multi-generational machine. When we left Australia I bequeathed it to my sister, so along with the family silver it has become a bit of an heirloom piece.

There was something about the way it sounded when it was cranked up to 10, something about the way it smelled - like machine oil and burning sugar - it always reminded me of a fairy floss machine. Most importantly, there was something remarkably pleasing about the way it creamed butter and sugar together without me getting a tired arm.

I'll admit, they are not the world's best Lamingtons, but not a bad first effort.



*Possibly the most ridiculous line in any national anthem - ever.

Snow

Blossoms in the snow
Originally uploaded by heliospheric

It is well below 0°C and forecast to remain that way for the next few days.

The novelty of snow has definitely not worn off.

Perfect weather for curling up on the couch and reading a book and drinking cups of tea.

Heavenly.

Resolution Round-Up

Way back on 2 January 2008, I penned my manifesto for the year.

It is now time to have a look and see how I did.

Item 1: The Body

• Enough with the smoking already - it will kill you. Stop it.
  Result: WIN - although not without some hiccups and obsessive washing-up.
  
  
• Exercise and fun are not mutually exclusive. Get on your bike, back in the pool, join a team. Anything. Make sure it is fun.
  Result: WIN. Longer rides in the summer, and a year of biking around town.
  
  
• Moderation is not a dirty word.
  Result: FAIL. Bugger.

Item 2: The Mind

• For your own sanity, try harder to learn to speak German. Sign up for more classes.
  Result: WIN. Apparently language acquisition is very good blogging fodder.
  
  
• Write every day.
  Result: FAIL. For proof, check out the online castigation I cop from my blogging friend, jb, over at Mainz Daily Photo (in the side bar under the heading "introducing").
  
  
• Take photos every day.
  Result: Technically a FAIL, as I didn't take photos everyday, but I give myself an 'honourable mention' for my babysitting of Mainz Daily Photo while jb was away.
  
  
• Read something every day.
  Result: Technically a WIN, as I didn't go around with my eyes closed, but I'm ashamed to say, I still haven't finished this book.
  
  
• Get a job. The life of a Hausfrau can be somewhat tedious.
  Result: FAIL. I promise to try harder next year...

Item 3: The Soul

• Travel, travel, travel - you live in the middle of Europe, you can go to France to buy cheese if you want - do it.
  Result: WIN. Surprisingly, my travels didn't really get a guernsey on the blogging front, but I can assure you there were trips to Paris, Berlin, a brief Belgium drive-through just for the hell of it, Strasbourg and of course the world's loveliest honeymoon in Scotland.
  
  
• Try 3 new things this year.
  Result: Technically a WIN, but really a FAIL. You can't really count; not smoking, speaking better German and learning to love bike riding as three new things, can you?
  
  
• Make a new friend.
  Result: WIN. Internet, you'll be pleased to know that I still meet up with my language school friends nearly every week. Also, mr & mrs jb are ace and I'm looking forward to having dinner with them tomorrow.
  
  
• Write more letters to Dad.
  Result: FAIL. I have thought about this issue and have decided that it is the whole writing with a pen and paper that just is not doing it for me. I'm much more likely to type a letter than to write it. Does this make me a heathen?
  
  
• De-lurk.
  Result: WIN. You know what, Internet - you're really nice.
  

Given a gaussian distribution, I'd give me a passing grade.

Stay tuned for the 2009 edition.

Christmas Ham-ster

On Christmas Day as we were heading out the door to visit some friends, I noticed that the neightbours had constructed a makeshift enclosure, complete with a little wooden hut - the perfect size for a hamster.

My internal monologue went something like...

"The kids next door must have got a hamster for Christmas, how cute."

Closely followed by...

"It's a bit weird that there is no top on that enclosure - free range hamsters, how cute."

Closely followed by...

"Oh My God, the cats are outside."

Closely followed by...

"We really need to get some of that 'just in case your cats eat the neighbour's kids' Christmas hamster' insurance that everyone in Germany recommends you have."

Certifiable

I wish I could blame my protracted absence from this blog on madly studying for today's big test - Zertifikat Deutsch.

Unfortunately, I can't, because I didn't.

I wish I could wax lyrical about the Grammatik and how effortlessly I penned that reply to my 'friend' - full of coherent advice about what she should do with her lazy, football watching brother.

Unfortunately, I can't, because I didn't.

I wish I could regale you, beloved Internet, with hilarious stories about how I deftly steered the stilted set of 3 conversation exercises with my fellow Prüflinger in the speaking exam, giving each of us the opportunity to display our verbal wares.

Unfortunately I can't, because I didn't.

Did I pass? Probably.

By much? No.

You live and learn, Internet - you live and learn.

In da hood

I have developed a bad habit of listening in on people's conversations on public transport. While eavesdropping is not considered a polite hobby, I justify it to myself by thinking that it is good 'hörverstehen' practice.

Normally, I don't understand a lot of what is said, but yesterday I had the pleasure of listening to two 14 year old boys whose mother tongue is 'Merkin.

It was all 'dawg', 'motherf@#$er', 'bitches' and contained very little agreement between subject and verb with respect to number or tense.

I managed to keep a straight face for most of the journey, but after a particularly colourful passage of conversation, I couldn't hold in my laughter anymore.

They got off at the next stop.

Which was a shame, really - the conversation was just getting interesting.

The movement of fresh air is deadly

So say the majority of my language class. They are convinced that my recent bout of the common cold was brought about by not dressing warmly enough and all that poisonous fresh air to which I am exposed whilst riding my bike.

I missed a couple of days of school last week due to feeling utterly awful. When I returned to class, there was a firm consensus and a fair bit of tut-tutting about my general disregard for just how deadly moving air can be. I was half expecting someone to suggest a course of leaches to rid my body of its ill humour.

I have my own theory on how I fell victim to this pernicious illness. Shall I tell you? I got sick because for the last couple of weeks I sat in a stuffy classroom surrounded by a couple of people who thought it was appropriate to come to class when they were sick. One in particular, I’ll just call him Typhoid Mary, sneezed, sniffed and coughed his way through the past two weeks of lessons.

The Night of the Open Churches

If there is one thing that Mainz has plenty of, it's churches.

Friday evening was the second "night of the open churches", and being a bit of a sticky beak and a non church-goer, I thought it would be a rare chance to visit some of the many churches in town.

As good fortune would have it, I was able to catch up with mr and mrs jb and we wandered around admiring the architecture, soaking up the culture, enjoying the music and art, and generally having a great time.

My favourite was the completely over the top, crazy baroque-a-rama of St Peters.

Also, the 'one-night-only' wine bar in the St Ignaz garden was great. It is a shame that the garden isn't open more often (especially as a wine bar), because it is such a beautiful place, hidden away from the hustle and bustle of the Altstadt.

Stoned

No, not in the University Cigarette way, either.

begin note to self:

A stone -

in the old measure

in neigh on 3 months

must be a new world record.

Bloody hell.

Get back in the pool.

Put down the cheese and back away slowly.

Also, stop being such a lush.

note to self ends.

Tour Der Deutschland

I happened to be in town today when the field whizzed through. There was an endless parade of motorbikes, then a quick flash of lycra and muscle, then an endless parade of support vehicles. Each support vehicle carried about 8 bikes, which I'm pretty sure would cost more than the car carrying them. It is a whacky world.

I checked out who won today's stage:

André Greipel narrowly pipped our Robbie McEwan in a pack sprint at the finish. Poor Robbie, first a less than spectacular Olympics, and now this. Chin up though, there is always tomorrow.

Of course, I didn't have a camera with me today, so no pictures of men in lycra - awfully sorry 'bout that.

Conference Crashing - a guide

Scientific conferences may, on the whole, be fairly boring, but one must be aware that from 4pm to 6pm most conferences provide delegates with free booze and food as an incentive to stick around and look at the posters after a gruelling day of sitting still and listening to boring talks. This is the prime crashing time.

It is helpful to have the inside running on what conferences are happening in your vicinity. In order to keep on top of this, I recommend you marry an academic.

On Thursday afternoon we travelled to Frankfurt to 'attend' the 9th Kimberlite Conference. As rocks go, Kimberlites are fairly rare, obscure even, but since they host most of the world's diamonds, a conference discussing the latest research is bound to attract impressive sponsorship dollars.

Sponsorship dollars = lots of beer.

Hooray.

Step 1 - ensure you blend in, again your academic husband (TM) will prove very useful at this point - if you can encourage him to grow a beard, all the better.

Step 2 - head straight for the bar, this will ensure that you look like a conference delegate.

Step 3 - browse the posters. You will only be able to stand this for 20 minutes before crimes against good graphic design become too much for you to handle. Whoever thought that an A0 poster with a thesis printed on it in 10 point font was an effective means of communication has a lot to answer for.

Step 4 - find some friends. Ideally these will be actual people that you know and like, but this is not essential. Your academic husband (TM) will be able to chat to anyone on any number of not particularly interesting subjects.

Step 5 - once the bar is closed and you have been physically removed from the venue, gather together a posse and head out for dinner.

Congratulations, you are now officially a conference interloper.

Your next mission, should you choose to accept it is the 'conference dinner' - a higher degree of difficulty, but with a higher payoff - dinner and drinks! Be warned this is a high risk strategy. You may get stuck at a table with some of the most boring people imaginable.

As you can see from this post, my 'inner student' is strong and is often unsupervised.

Sunday rides - Budenheim

View Larger Map

Distance - 22 km
Stops for lunch - 1
Number of hills - 1
Number of Pils - 1
Once again calories burnt < calories consumed
Schnitzel size - larger than my head

Personal Shopper

Today I tried my hand at being a personal shopper. My language school buddy, Wagner, is attending a wedding this month and needed to buy something to wear. We discussed at length what he wanted - some black (or similarly dark) pants, a belt, a shirt, some shoes and a pair of socks. Also high on the list of desirable attributes was inexpensive. Cool. I love a good bargain shopping expedition.

So off we traipsed to C&A.

Here is where we hit our first hurdle - I can't for the life my me work out how the folk here size their gents trousers, and neither can Wagner. He has an excuse in that he is blind and can't see the swing tags, but I have no such excuse. After a few random size trying ons, we stumbled across a pair of trousers that fit and then I went a bit Carson Kreesley with the shirt and accessories. 

All in all, a fun afternoon.