March 29, 2009

Sunday Six - 29th March 2009


as if you had a choice | Blast Beach


1. Outstanding photography by Tony Duran. NSFW at all, lots of nudity!



2. Marcus Ohlsson for Velvet Magazine (above). I really like the tones.

3. I like these MAC desktop wallpapers from Temptalia.

4. Camilla from childhood flames works the Swacket.



5. I love The Scribble Project. I enjoy seeing how different artists interpret the same piece of paper. It's moved to a tumblr now, so don't forget to check the archives.

6. Where's Cool is a new, budget travel community where people share cheap, interesting places in cities around the world that you might miss otherwise. Check it out and contribute!

March 27, 2009

Interesting animation


SlagsmÄlsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.


This animation is an interesting interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood. I thought it was cute, so I thought I'd share.

March 25, 2009

My favourite brownie recipe

This is another baking post. I seem to be on a roll!

Anyone who has tasted my brownies has hailed me Brownie Queen. My secret is Nigel Slater's Very Good Brownie Recipe. It is by far the best brownie recipe I have ever made and tasted. The result is crumbly, fudgy, rich and ultra-moreish brownie. I don't bother trying other recipes since finding this, I just don't think it gets better than this.



Nigel Slater's Very Good Brownies


Ingredients
300g/1 ⅓ cups golden caster sugar
250g/9oz unsalted butter
250g/9oz chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids)
3 large eggs plus 1 extra yolk
60g/⅓ cup cocoa powder
60g/⅓ cup plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt

How-to
1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/355F. Grease and line a 9 x 9" baking tray with baking parchment.

2. Chop 50g of the chocolate into small, gravel-sized chunks and set aside. Break the remaining 200g of chocolate into pieces and put rest in a bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water. As soon as the chocolate as melted, remove it from the heat.

3. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. It's best to use a food mixer/hand whisk for this.

4. In a small bowl or cup, lightly beat together the eggs then slowly add to the butter and sugar, with the food mixer still running.

5. Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder and mix in a pinch of salt. Remove the bowl from the mixer to the work surface, then mix in the melted and the chopped chocolate with a large metal spoon. Lastly, fold in the flour and cocoa, gently and firmly, without knocking any of the air out.

6. Scrape the mixture into the prepared cake tin, smooth the top and bake for 30 minutes. The top will have risen slightly and the cake will appear slightly softer in the middle than around the edges. Pierce the centre of the cake with a toothpick - it should come out sticky, but not with lots of raw mixture attached to it. The middle should be soft but not uncooked and will solidify when cooled.

7. At this stage, take the tray out of the oven. Cool for 30 minutes in the tin before taking out to cool on a wire rack. When fully cooled, cut into 12, delicious brownies.

March 24, 2009

Inspiration - Chadwick Tyler



I'm a big fan of Chadwick Tyler's work. It's what I'd describe as haunting fashion photography. He does a lot of editorials and portraits, but the end result is something very striking in comparison to alot of editorials. His photos are creepy and really very interesting to look at.













This is only a small sample of his incredible work. To see more, visit www.chadwicktyler.com. (NSFW!!)

March 18, 2009

Muffins

I made muffins yesterday from a recipe in BBC's Goodfood 101 Cakes & Bakes. I have to say I'm a little disappointed with the results. I think the base could be sweeter or more chocolatey or maybe it should have asked for more chocolate so you get more in a bite. If I try this recipe again, I will probably make adjustments to it. The original recipe is below.



Triple Chocolate Chunk Muffins
Makes 11 muffins


Ingredients
250g/9oz plain flour
25g/1oz cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
85g/3oz each dark and white chocolate, broken into chunks
100g/4oz milk chocolate, broken into chunks
2 eggs, beaten
284ml carton soured cream - (In reality, soured cream comes in 300ml tubs. Take a tbsp of it out and you should have roughly 285ml left.)
85g/3oz butter, melted

How-to
1. Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6/fan oven 190C. Butter 11 holes of a muffin tin. (Or make life easier for yourself and use muffin cases.)

2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and chocolate, In a separate bowl, mix together the eggs, soured cream, sugar and melted butter.

3. Add the soured cream mixture to the flour mixture and sitr until just combined and the mixture is fairly stiff, but don't overmix. Spoon the mixture into the holes to generously fill.

4. Bake for 20 minutes until well risen. Leave in the tins for about 15 minutes as the mixture is quite tender. Remove from the tins. Enjoy while warm or leave to cool on a wire rack.

If anyone has any good chocolate muffin recipes or tips to improve this one, do share.

March 15, 2009

Sunday Six - 15th March 2009



1. Balloons! A creative editorial from Vogue China via mixologies.

2. Blip.fm is the latest internet bandwagon I have fallen prey to. If you have a twitter account, you can connect the two and twitter your blips. Got to love internet phrases! My blip.fm name is macaroons.



3. Octopus Chandeliers! (via)

4. It Girls. Interpret how you like.

5. Insanely pretty dresses at this Etsy shop. This is a bit too advanced for my Grade E Textiles.



6. I honestly love this video way more than I should. Robert Webb has AMAZING legs.

March 12, 2009

Epic tack



Holy hell! There are no words (except for 'I NEED ONE' possibly)! Found via Fur Coat, No Knickers and from here at Q-Pot.

March 10, 2009

Excessive amounts of bananas in my house = baking time

I'm not really keen on bananas but there were a load of really ripe bananas in my house that weren't going to be eaten and a packet of walnut pieces that claimed to be going out of date this month, so it was only right I didn't let them go to waste. The recipe below is from BBC Goodfood's 101 Cakes & Bakes which is a great little recipe book that cost me just under £4. You can expect more recipes from this book in the future seeing as I want to make nearly everything in it. Anyway, they call this 'Banana Teabread,' but I'd go for Banana and Walnut Loaf, myself.




Banana and Walnut Loaf


Ingredients
175g/6oz plain wholemeal flour
50g/2oz medium oatmeal - Sainsbury's did not have this, I just used Scottish porridge oats instead. Works fine.
100g/4oz butter, softened
100g/4oz dark muscovado sugar
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
2 eggs, beaten
3-4 ripe bananas, about 350g/12oz, peeled and mashed
100g/4oz walnuts, roughly chopped

How-to
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/fan over 160C. Butter and line the base of a 1kg/2lb loaf tin with baking paper.

2. Put the wholemeal flour, oatmeal, butter, sugar, baking poweder, cinnamon and eggs into a large bowl and using an electric hand whisk, beat together until evenly mixed. Stir in the bananas and walnuts, taking care not to overmix.

3. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 1¼ hours or until a skewer inserted comes out clean (cover the cake with foil halfway through cooking to prevent the top from overbrowning). Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then carefully turn out, peel off the lining paper and cool completely on a wire rack.

For 10 servings, each serving is (allegedly) 309 kcalories. (I got 11 slices out of this, so it depends how much you want I guess.) Enjoy!

Colourful cuteness

This may be best thing I have ever seen:


Minilogue - Animals from ljudbilden on Vimeo.


Click the link to watch it at Vimeo in HD. It needs to be seen in HD to really be appreciated.

March 08, 2009

When I was young I had to wear special shoes



1. Forrest Gump in one minute, in one take. Watch in HD.


2. Lula is my favourite magazine ever. See 'This Side of the Blue' here



3. NIN: Wish live with The Dillinger Escape Plan - Perth, 3.02.09 [HD] from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo

I'm a big Nine Inch Nails fan and their vimeo account is full of HD goodness filmed from onstage. The quality is incredible. The video above is just all kinds of epic.

4. These Super Mario Cookies are so cute.

5. This dress from Versace's RTW Fall collection is delightful:


6. I've just started reading Lolita by Valdimir Nabokov and I have to say the first paragraph totally blew me away.

'Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.'

I'm not sure I shall continue ~Sunday Six~ because even with bookmarks and LJ memories and del.ici.ous, I am absolutely useless at keeping track of my internet discoveries. Instead, to keep me posting regularly I'll just post things as I come across them or remember them.

March 07, 2009

A quick post

Apologies for the lack of updates recently, I'm not feeling so good at the moment and seem to be getting a lot of headaches so haven't really been able to concentrate too well.

I will bring goodies soon, but a quick post for now of something I found via Gala Darling and thought was too cute to not share.

The Periodic Table of Cupcakes!


From Woman's Day. Each square has a recipe. Slightly geeky and cute all at once. Lovely.

Hopefully be back posting more soon.

March 01, 2009

Sunday Six - 1st March 2009


Laughter & Cake by tompalumbo.


1. Paris 1962 - A stunning set of candid photographs from Paris in 1962. The image above is from this set.

2. Remind Yourself is a fantastic tumblr with a wonderful purpose of reminding the reader of things people often seem to forget. The reminders are great and I love how they are presented.

3. Calligraphique via fakingfashion are some cool black and white portraits. The second photo is crazy/awesome.



Ms.Poppins & umbrellas


4. Well known movies re-enacted by animated bunnies in 30 seconds. What's not to like?

5. Classy, Marie Antoinette-ish photoshoot from French Playboy.

6. I can't believe I've never stumbled across Geek Sugar before!

P.S. Happy first of the month!