Perfectly imperfect chocolate cakes

Saturday, 8 December 2007 by akatsukira

Don’t you hate it when you bake a cake and it turns into a dog’s breakfast by the time a few folk have tried to saw through it with plastic knives? I thought I’d preempt that by making lots of bite-sized cakes for that mega-lab party I’m committed to attending tamara. Perfect for buffets and such. Just pick a mini-cake up, satisfy your chocolate urges, and not feel like a cannon ball has dropped into your stomach for the rest of the night. And I thought a silicone mini-muffin tray would be the absolute perfect way to get this done without mini cake cases, which I could not find in Ralphs last night.Ah. It would have been perfect if I’d only realised how wobbly the silicone tray was in the metal rack it was sold with. A previously purchased silicone madeleine tray made perfect madeleines when placed on a cookie tray. My mistake was not repeating that… But hey, it’s a casual affair, I’ve not been stressed about it, and if you’re going to pop a whole muffin or mini cake into your mouth, you’re hardly going to care if it’s lop-sided

So, I present to you my perfectly rough-shod, shove-in-face mini chocolate muffins:

No, I am not embarrassed. Because they taste great!

The piss-easy recipe recommended by Chotda also suffered the same warped silicon tray fate. You’d think I’d have learnt from the muffins, eh? But hey. The taste, though, was awesome, and the more pathetic looking ones will be stuffed in the freezer for desperate times when we have no sweeties in the house. Fortunately, that was merely half the mix. The other half went into the regular muffin tin. Where they rose and fell. What is wrong with me today? Ach well. They were shoved aside while the dog and I took our evening exercise.

We returned to tackle the chocolate mousse. It was all going so well: the 70% chocolate melted well, the whites went into their soft peaks nicely, then glossed up some with the addition of sugar. But either my slapdashness during yolk/white separation or slackness in choice of bowl must have introduced some water to the yolks, and blow me if they didn’t half seize my lovely melted chocolate. Bugger. Something is seriously wrong with me today. But who cares; it’s chocolate! A quick zap of heavy whipping cream in the microwave to warm it up to roughly the same temp as the seized chocolate and some stirring over a warm pan gave me…. Ganache! Which was perfect for spreading on those tasty-but-ugly little chocolate cakes.

If I’ve learnt anything today, it’s that I need to bake more often. I’ve lost the knack of baking with precision – something I do without thinking in the lab. I can set up my work bench to get through a crap load of work without a mistake while juggling two other experiments. But I can’t make a simple chocolate cake or mousse without messing up. Something’s screwy with my priorities… :p

P.S. Do you think I can get away with using this as the excuse why nobody received any Christmas cards from us last year?

chocolate it is

Friday, 7 December 2007 by akatsukira

Righty then. It’s only 7 days into my month of daily posting, and I’m already flagging. Work is interrupting my plans for a chilled December¹. But it also brings fodder for posting in the form of the mega-lab party. My two labs are having a joint party on Sunday, which kind of interrupts my working weekend, but can’t complain and all that. And I’ve offered to provide some dessert. Normally, I’d spend the whole week before making a range of cakes and biscuits. This time, I have Saturday afternoon to complete the task. And the finished product must be transportable by bus because my chauffeur will be away camping in the mountains².

So, thanks very much to Chotda for her suggestion, which will take the shape of variation 1 on a theme of chocolate mini-cakes. For the other variations on a theme of chocolate³, I turn to the other woman who can cook: Delia for a very chocolatey mousse, red-nose chocolate muffins, and another of her chocolate mousse recipes (using eggs AND whipped cream) that I’ve scribbled in my recipe book.

Tomorrow will be Temptation Day, where I try my best not to eat all the creations before the party on Sunday.

¹ Excuses, excuses…
² The things people will do to avoid the mega-lab party… One colleague has even flown to Japan to escape us all…³ I realise some people don’t like chocolate. Well, tough. I’m tired of catering for everyone’s little food likes/dislikes and allergies. Well, maybe not the allergies.

No time for a full-blown rant

Thursday, 6 December 2007 by akatsukira

Bereft of inspiration for today’s mindnumbingly boring post, I give you… Mini rants:

How on earth can I possibly know by webinfiltration of my brain that Ewen MacGregor is Iago in a new production of Othello and not know who is playing the title role¹?
Does Wendy Alexander really think she can detract us from the dodgy donations by calling for a review into Holyrood’s financial accountability? (Or if you’re anti-independence or pro-Labour, you might instead be ranting about why she’s being targeted on the Donorgate affair…)
What’s the weird metal thing on the mouse’s heid? It had better be vernier callipers or some such.
Should MSM give loonies the attention they crave? I guess there’s a small amount of interest in Mitt Romney due to his Welsh significant other, but to highlight some loony’s criticism of her is bigging up a minor issue.
And my final bitter rant. Why are American passport photos a different size from everywhere else in the world? And why do we always come out looking especially ugly in them?

Incidentally, if anyone foody is reading this, I could do with some suggestions of a simple (REALLY simple) recipe for a tart/cake that I can make for a work X-word party this Sunday. I’ve done variations on shortbread for far too long when stumped for time. And it’s a bit late for a fruitcake, although I’m tempted by Delia’s super-fast fruitcake recipe. But I’d have to start tonight. And I can’t because I’m going to see Evelyn Glennie in concert at the Royce Hall…

¹ Having finally clicked the link, it has finally been revealed that the gorgeous Chiwetel Ejiofor² is Othello. But it still grates…
² He was the absolute best in Kinky Boots, wasn’t he? And Serenity…

akatsukiraisafanoftravis

Wednesday, 5 December 2007 by akatsukira

This post sat as a draft for a wee whiley, with the thought of a new behind-the-scene migration prompting publication before my confessional was lost for good. It was written one slightly tipsy evening in early December.

Two weeks ago, I was the happiest I’ve been for a long time.

Contrapunctal Bach may be stimulating, Dave Brubeck can keep on going for another 80-something years, Evelyn Glennie and her golden jacket may mesmerise me, The Shins could well play in my living room, but there is no band in the world that makes me dance like Travis.

No band in the world has that much on-stage energy and charisma¹. They can play the cavernous SECC in Glasgow like it’s the Barrowlands. They can play a cold-old crowd like it’s a jumping hive of randy teenagers. They are the ONLY band on Earth who can run in to the blardy Rocky theme tune and not get shouted down for being tossers. They are the ONLY band anywhere in the universe that can get me to pogo in public. But more of that later.

Showmen to the last, even if their style has not changed in a decade. I think P is a bit jealous of Dougie Payne’s slight cocksureness, picking away at his bass. And we’re both ever-so-boggled by Andy Dunlop’s intimacy with his guitar (and also a little bit more than awed at his talent, natch). Hidden at the back, but never forgotten, I think we both subconsciously bop our heads along with Neil Primrose. Are all drummers always that relaxed? And of course, frontman+songwriter Fran Healy is not only easy on the eye but also the ears.

We’re long time fans of the band, post Glass Onion days. Good Feeling and The Man Who were both soundtracks to our undergrad and postgrad years in the lab. Which made it SO hard to listen to them for a few years after thesis submission. Fortunately, The Invisible Band came along and cheered us up again. I challenge you to find anyone who hates Sing on first listen (20,000 times later might give a different outcome). 12 Memories was.. different. A little more raw, a little more emotive, and chimed perfectly, yet again, with how we were feeling at the time: uncertain, frustrated, a little angry at the world in general. And their latest album, The Boy With No Name is another keeper. Somehow, the marketing over in the US is not very penetrative. If I hadn’t sought the album out, I’d never have heard the poppy masterpiece that is Selfish Jean.

That was a brilliant song to start the concert with. Really gets you up and jiving. (Sorry, I used the word “jive” in the 21st century.) Only two other songs from the 5th album were played that night, with the rest of the concert filled by the extensive back catalogue. A few rockers, a few plaintive, but all brilliant. And one truly acoustic acoustic, slightly marred by over-zealous security guards. The finale, WDIARON, remains the only song I will ever willingly jump up and down like a headless chicken for.

The set list as stolen from the website and copy-edited:

-Selfish Jean
-Eyes Wide Open
-Writing to Reach You
-Love Will Come Through
-Re-Offender
-As You Are
-My Eyes
-Pipe Dreams
-Beautiful Occupation
-Side
-Driftwood
-Good Feeling
-Closer
-Sing
-All I Wanna do is Rock
-Turn

E: 20 -unplugged
E: Flowers in the Window
E: Humpty Dumpty
E: Why Does it Always Rain on Me?

So there, I’ve outed myself. I pogo in public.

¹ Well, you may beg to differ. I’m not budging.

² Looking through some of the photos posted on the tour archives, does the band ever take photos with anyone other than pretty girls? Just curious, like…

cHanukkah

Wednesday, 5 December 2007 by akatsukira

Hanukkah, a Festival of Light™, began at sundown, and it would have passed me by if I hadn’t noticed the unusual emptiness of the lab corridors this evening. I must confess an atheist’s ignorance in not noticing religious holidays come and go. There were so many while I was growing up in a multicultural, multi-religious country. As far as I was concerned, the only ones worth joining in were the ones of benefit to my grubby little self. Food has always been the sole draw to any religious gathering¹. Nodding my head along to whatever sermon, hymn or prayer was on offer, I conned many a church out of countless biscuits and cups of tea. Christmas Eve, which I think of as their Festival of Light™, was another such time, with non-alcoholic mulled “wine” and fancy German kuchen replacing the bog-standard biscuits.

When I was a child, the Festival of Light™ in our country was Deepavali. As with all Festivals of Light, it celebrated the triumph of good over evil, light over dark. And there were melas. And at the mela, you could gorge yourself senseless on the pure goodness that is sweet dough, deep-fried, and then caked in even more sugar. I refer, of course, to gulab jamuns.

And while Hari Raya Puasa, the local name for Eid, was not strictly known as a Festival of Light™, it might as well have been for all the strings of multi-coloured light bulbs all over the city. That was indeed a celebratory time of ketupat and satay. Ah, ketupat… Its sole purpose in my life was as a medium of transferring more satay sauce into my mouth after the satay was done.

And now that I am living in a city with a fair number of Jewish folk, I’m kind of hoping someone will show up to work tomorrow with some sufganiyot. I’m not fussy; Krispy Kremes or Dunkin Donuts will do.

Update: Having asked my one outwardly Jewish friend about sufganiyots, I was informed that American Jews don’t have doughnuts at Hanukkah, preferring latkes instead. So. Now I know…

¹ I am clearly not a dyed-in-the-wool, rock-hard atheist. Unlike Christopher Hitchens, I have no scruples about playing along the religious folk to get at their baked goods. Baked goods…

A teddy bear named Darfur

Tuesday, 4 December 2007 by akatsukira

Sigh of relief on behalf of Mrs Gibbons as she returns to the UK relatively unharmed. If I may put the tin foil hat on for a second, I’d suggest that there was a brief moratorium of criticism of the Sudanese government by the British press during negotiations for Mrs Gibbon’s safety and release. Now that she’s back, the gloves can come back off, and we can remind ourselves just how bad things are in Darfur¹. As accusations fly about whose fault it was that the teddy bear affair was blown out of proportion, we should take stock of the potentially positive developments. The spotlight has been turned once again to the lack of cooperation of the government in Sudan for a peacekeeper presence. Ten days before the teddy bear affair surfaced, the UN was making pessimistic noises about the feasibility of the joint African Union (AU)–UN peacekeeping force being demanded by the governors of Sudan. And as is often said, fresh fighting has broken out in Chad².

As with all these things, you’re left feeling numbed and helpless. Aside from getting all ones friends on Facebook crackshot lessons and heading over to the Darfur/Chad border, there’s SFA one person can do. Campaigns such as the Save Darfur and Fund4Darfur will not get the SLAs, Jems and janjaweeds to sit down at a table to negotiate a new ceasefire. And I even doubt their ability to get aid to Darfur if even large aid agencies like Oxfam are finding things tough. What will help is to put sufficient pressure on the Sudanese government to stop objecting to a minority of non-African UN peacekeepers so the AU-UN alliance can start to do their job. So that all the aid agencies can get in and do their jobs safely. In the meanwhile, time to cough up the money. Give it to whoever you want. I prefer Oxfam, MSF and the Red Cross, mainly because they’re already there. Those will also be going on the X-word wish list.

And please, let’s not involve the US government this time. They and their friends have done enough for world peace this decade already.

Update: If you’re wanting to get something back for your money apart from that warm glow, why not buy the Causes 1 CD and know that all proceeds will be off to MSF (Doctors Without Borders), Human Rights Watch and Oxfam America.

¹ And Chad. Shouldn’t forget Chad, though not of the hanging variety.
² Just out of curiosity, how fresh must the fighting be to be classified as such? Is it stale if it’s sat on the countertop for a week?

Have you done your X-word shopping yet?

Monday, 3 December 2007 by akatsukira

If not, stop for a moment to consider the latest pail of cold water on this season of gift-giving. It’s happened to most of us, no doubt¹. We’ve either bought something for the sake of giving something or received a gift, no matter how well-meaning, that we just have no use for. I don’t just mean those petrol station flowers and chocolates; at least those will look nice for a day or get scoffed when the other goodies have been finished. I’m thinking more on the lines of unwanted jumpers and costly gadgets that lie in a cupboard just because you’d feel bad about throwing away a present from your favourite aunt. The ones that get moth-eaten or go rusty in a few years and get thrown out anyway.

Some of my friends practice the “white elephant” method of gift-recycling, where they give unwanted presents to someone else the following year. I guess that goes round and round until someone who actually has a use for the item keeps it. Or someone like me, who is still bound by the culture of my childhood to accept graciously and find some use for a heavy crystal decanter² even though it’s not my style at all.

Another method of gift-“disposal” I have observed benefits the charity shops. From gift-wrapping straight to Oxfam. You might even get a warm glow from “giving” to charity at this time of year. But think how little the charity shop will actually get from selling this second-hand item. Even a almost-new shirt goes for less than half its purchased value. Wouldn’t it be more cost-effective to cut the middle man and give straight to the charity?

That’s the suggestion put forth in said article, with the finding that £2.3 billion is wasted each year on such unwanted gifts. That said, the research was commissioned by World Vision, who might have a vested interest in triggering some guilty feelings, which can be quickly assuaged by purchasing a cowpat stove on behalf of a Nepalese family³. This is not an entirely new concept. Both World Vision and Oxfam have offered such charity gift-giving in previous years. The goat went down very well with P’s parents’ neighbours; as part of the farming community, they understood the difference an animal could make to the livelihood of a family. We’ll probably follow-up this year with the vet care kit, which in hindsight should have been offered as an add-on from the start. Who knows whether that goat has survived the three years since we “bought” it. That said, not everyone will appreciate getting SFA other than a warm glowing feeling in return for a very fancy jumper that took them 6 months to knit, for instance. So we usually give a box of chocolates as well⁴. Since those early days of a choice between an expensive water tank, a goat and a chicken, the options have grown. For a casual friend, you might want to consider getting condoms. I’m putting AIDS prevention education on my wish list this year. I’d also really like a pair of llamas, but I suspect they won’t take too kindly to my diverting them from Bolivia to my backyard…

As us ex-cheapo students also know, another way of giving a present that will be truly useful, but low in monetary expenditure, is to offer certain certain favours, like of car washes, to ones parents. I think my brother tried that unsuccessfully one year. Yeah, great deal for my parents: give a Sega Mega II, get a car wash in return that would probably result in scratched paint anyway. While I’ve never been given such a favour-gift, even from brother, I once gave away a chequebook of kisses. Not a single one was cashed though. Funny, that.

Having a wish list can also cut down wasted spending on unwanted pressies. That said, no one has ever bought me anything off my Amazon wish list, which has been in place for donkey years. Admittedly, P is not a very internety person, my brother has been skint for donkeys too, and my parents, while perfectly capable of purchasing books from Amazon, just can’t navigate to my wish list nor my Flickr account. All other relatives are also not internety people. Which means that every year we all have to guess at what we’d each find useful or desirable. Fortunately, they all really like getting books, socks, chocolates, music, chocolates, my baking, scarves, gloves, rugby DVDs, handmade jewellery, chocolates… And they usually give me equally useful things like books, socks, chocolates, scarves, gloves, rugby tickets, chocolates… Both sets of families are practical people and give largely practical gifts. And chocolates. Everyone like chocolates. Give chocolates⁵.

¹ At least those of us who participate in the wintry shenanigans of over-eating and over-spending, which would be a substantial percentage of the first world.

² As seen in a previous entry, finally put to service decanting a full-bodied Russian River red wine.

³ As I understand it, you’re making a donation of a specific amount of money, which will pay for the “gift”, which I think they promise to deliver. Anyone know otherwise? On my cynical days, I think these could be donations of money to the charity, which end up in a big pot.

⁴ I can just hear the crafty people cringing at the thought of a box of chocolates being the equivalent of 6 months of knitting. But perhaps they’ve not had chocolates from Hotel Chocolat. And maybe what I intended was for them to have a good source of energy foodwhile they were knitting… At any rate, for the lazy amongst us, Oxfam even provides a tick box for an additional gift of fair trade chocolate so your recipient has something to unwrap. Holy cow. They’ve really thought this one through. But I still like my Hotel Chocolat, who make an effort to pay fair prices for their chocolate too.

⁵ But not to the dog.

Winter is upon us

Sunday, 2 December 2007 by akatsukira

It rained two days ago. The ambient temperature plummeted to 15ºC. The dog was found shivering in our bedroom, whining from the thunderous sound of rain falling on the roof. I didn’t have to water my plants. There were puddles of dirty water on every street corner. On the basis of these meteorological phenomena, one could say winter had arrived in the desert that is LaLaLand.

Further proof that winter was truly upon us was the sighting of woolen overcoats, hats and scarves on campus. Soft sassenachs…

And if you were in any doubt that winter had finally arrived, such hesitation would be instantly dispelled by the icicles hanging off most house roofs. Hold on. Icicles? In Southern California? Nah, just these¹.

It’s sad that “winter” is here without first going through autumn. The foliage outside our front door is still green. The tomatoes are continuing to flourish. And the azaleas have gone mental and produced several weeks worth of flowers.

Ah well. Back to summer next week with temperatures in the mid-20s.

¹ While I can just about stand “white” icicles on every house in the desert, it’s the multi-coloured monstrosities that make me gag. Is there even such a thing as tasteful multi-coloured christmas lights? Euch.

World AIDS Day

Saturday, 1 December 2007 by akatsukira

Today is World AIDS Day; a day to raise awareness that Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome is still around and remains a global problem. That it remains an epidemic is distressing. Education is critical. Knowing that the disease is caused by viral infection is a necessary first step: the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV;in all its nasty variations) is the transmissible agent. The next step is to make everyone aware of the virus’ three routes of transmission:

Sexual transmission
Through blood
From mother to child

The first two mechanisms of transmission can be prevented by safe sex, not sharing needles, screening of blood donations and good (i.e. sterile) surgical technique. As mentioned in the well-written AVERT article, cultural taboos hinder progress on these fronts. The third, mother-to-child, transmission route is more difficult to address. It’s a multi-factorial problem, with cultural problems (stigma again rears its ugly head) and funding problems. It requires primarily access to medical care, followed by drug availability and also needs infrastructure in terms of clean water supplies. But it’s not insurmountable, just expensive and with difficult logistics.

Sadly, in the void left by unaffordable treatments, there are many who defy years of properly controlled experiments by peddling their “quackery”, as rounded up by the always-alert Ben Goldacre. Words fail me at some of these “alternative” so-called treatments. Music to treat a retroviral infection: where do these people come from? And while it is quite possible that, one day, a potent anti-viral will be found in some as-yet-unstudied flower, bloody “flower essences” will only make you smell better while the virus rampages through your body and destroys your immune system. It’s amazing that these people are not told to cease and desist. While doing a rough search on whether any of these quacks have led to HIV-infected people ditching their AZT cocktails, I came across another piece of lunacy, which was essentially a two page rant on how the HIV does not cause AIDS, an attack on the “self-serving interests of the few” (read: the medical community) and quotes something about “The Ostrich’s View of Medicine”. Too right it’s the ostrich’s view: Head. In. Sand.

Writing as one who is part of the “self-serving few”, although not directly involved in HIV research, I’d like to point you to some more rational links. For very recent advances in HIV research, Coturnix has the low-down on the special issue of PLoS Medicine special issue with the latest on transmission, detection and treatment of HIV infection. The PLoS family of journals are all Open Access, which really means open access, given an internet connection. A good place to start with an overview of where things stand with prevention and treatment is the PLoS editorial, which highlights recent failures and successes with a variety of prophylactics and behavioral modification programs to protect the most vulnerable as well as the difficulties in fighting against a constantly-changing virus.

Another way of finding published work that costs zilch is to perform a search using PubMedCentral, a database of either open access articles or articles for which the full-text has been provided by the journal: e.g. a search for HIV on PMC. PMC uses Boolean terms, so if you’re interested in studies on the transmission of HIV, merely add “AND transmission” to the search query.

For a graphical, but mainly accurate, portrayal of the infection and disease process, have a look at the BBC’s Biology of AIDS.

More linkage can, as always, be found on the wikipedia pages.

Should you wish to take some action, you could do worse than make a pledge to talk to someone who needs to know about AIDS, campaign for access to treatment or take the easy way out and donate some dosh:

In the case of HIV infections, prevention really is better than cure. Even if you’re a lucky soul living in a developed nation and have health insurance of some sort, do you really want to be taking a host of antiretrovirals for the rest of your life? Prevention is easy for those of us living in clean and safe environments. It’s simple. Don’t share needles. Make sure your tattoo artist sterilises his equipment. And have safe sex. Get a condom. Use it. As Death herself puts it: “Which would you rather be? A little embarrassed or a lot dead?”

Happy Turkey/Tofu Day

Thursday, 22 November 2007 by akatsukira

Andrew reflects my opinions on the mysterious need of Americans for TWO successive family feasts that almost always end in tears. While I enjoy a celebration to cheer us all up in the darkest days of winter¹, it really depends on who you spend it with. Don’t get me wrong; I like spending time with friends and family. Mainly because we have no expectations of each other and the occasion. I’ve heard tell of families (first-hand, mind you. not friends of friends etc.) where EVERY big holiday ends in tears, usually because of highly romanticised notions of what these occasions should be like². And even after their disappointment of Thanksgiving, they still go into Christmas all-guns-blazing and expecting it to be perfect. It’s like expecting to find turkey and trimmings on the table, but getting turkey vulture instead: