30 Day Lolita Challenge – Day 13

Day 13 – A Picture of your favorite Sweets

When I visited my grandmother at the weekend I made that actually first marble cake in my entire life (shocking,  I know!). I’ve made plenty of cake, but never the one I’ve loved so much since I was a child…

And so that this post isn’t all useless, I’ll write down the recipe for the marble cake above for you, too. It’s nothing special, but I think it might be quite useful.

Marble Cake for a Bundt Form (or some other sort of ring-shaped cake pan) or Breadpan

You’ll need:

250g soft butter
1 pinch of salt
175g sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar ( or real vanilla, but then you’ll need less)
4 eggs
300g flour
3 tbs baking powder
150g crème fraîche
2 tbs cocoa
50g dark chocolate (coarsly grated)
3 tbs milk
butter and breadcrumbs for the pan

1. Stir the butter until creamy, then add salt, sugar and vanilla and mix in the eggs. Mix flour and baking powder and add it to the dough, together with the crème fraîche. Halve the dough and mix one half with cocoa, grated chocolate and milk.

2. Put the light dough on the pan’s base (which should be greased and crumbed) evenly and put the dark half on top. Marble the layers with a fork.

3. Bake with 175°C (ca. 350°F) for one hour. Let the cake cool for ten minutes before turning out the cake.

4. Enjoy the cake! It’s best still warm and with a glass of cool milk.

Wellington and Another Project

Finally it’s March and I’m allowed to consume some sugar again (if you don’t remember, my mother challenged me not to eat fine sugar for a whole month) which means I’m also able to bake again!

And so I tried a recipe we’ve had for the con: a ginger cake. Only without the frosting.

The cake is incredibly heavy with molasses and spicy with ginger, clove and nutmeg and we named it Wellington after the Duke who defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo as the cake tried out to climb out of its tin and conquer the rest of the oven. I think next time I’ll give him a larger tin as well as less spices. It’s just too much of an explosion on the taste buds to eat more that a tiny bit at once!

And so, Wellington became the first entry for my new project, seen under the bowl with the cake and the glass of milk. It’s a note-book I bought around Christmas time, adorned with air ships, compasses, stamps and the like, and until yesterday I didn’t really know what to do with it. And now it became my Steampunk recipe book!

Lilibeth already started such a project some months ago with a fellow from the Rauchersalon forum and I think the idea is splendid! She also showed me a wonderful blog, Steampunk Cookery, which is truly worth a click.

Steampunk cookery is a field that’s not so present with all of us, and there’s so much to be discovered yet! Do you practise a form of Victorian or other steampunky cookery? What are your favourite recipes for an alternate history-inspired feast or picnic? Tell me in a comment!

Tagged Again

This time by the lovely Lilibeth.

1.What is your favourite flower? The wild rose. I love the scent, the colour, the fruit
2. What is the first thing you get rid of when you come home? Probably my backpack.
3. Have you ever read a book more than twice? How often exactly? Oh. I don’t know anymore, but there are books I’ve read about four to six times. Life on Seacrow Island is one of them.
4. If movies were real in which you would like to take part in? Maybe an adaption of a Jane Austen novel or Anne of Green Gables… or a historical inspired film with lavish costumes.
5. Do you have anything like a talisman you always keep with you? I guess the amber that looks like a honeydrop around my neck counts…
6. What is the silliest purchase you ever made? Oh, I really don’t know. Maybe that jacket that I wanted to alter later (which I didn’t, obviously). At least it was on sale. ^^
7. What is your favourite style/music of/for  dancing? That’s a hard one. I like dancing as a whole, so it’s pretty much every music I can dance to.
8. What is your favourite gateau? Marble cake doesn’t really count, does it? I think it would be something with amounts of chocolate and several soft, spongy layers.

This time I won’t tag anybody else. I think there’s been enough tagging lately here.

Great Expectations

No, not the book. This weekend somebody who is really special to me will come to visit me. It’s my pen friend Lilibeth. This is by the way the beautiful last letter that she wrote to me plus a wonderful gift she sent me:

It will be the first time that we meet each other in person.

We had a nice (and long!) phone conversation some weeks ago and I think she is truly a kindred spirit. ^^ Our correspondence so far has been a very pleasant one since we met at the Natron & Soda bulletin board via the Lolita thread last year.

She’ll arrive here at about 8 PM on Friday and will stay during the weekend at which I’ll show her my favourite places here in Marburg. We will be a little creative, too, but just like her I don’t want to spoil you with information and rather show you the results.

Maybe I’ll finally get the chance to wear my Ugly Duckling dress! Reminds me of the fact that I lack matching accessories…

I am pretty excited and got to admit that I’m a little bit nervous, too. Maybe Lilibeth is the bosom friend I’ve waited for my entire life… Yes, our relationship is pretty affected by Anne of Green Gables (we’re planning to watch the mini series together, as well ^^).

And now I’ll go and bake a cake for the role-playing evening we’ll have today. Be prepared for some more nerdy character stuff tomorrow! :)

10 Pleasures in May

1. Treasure Hunting. As I’m reading Treasure Island at the moment, the fever has caught me, too. I remember a time when my mother used to hide something small in the woods, like a marble, in the moss by the enchanted well…
2. The Old Botanical Garden. Not very far from our darling home it is a green retreat with lawns for combat training, trees for climbing, places for picnics and a scent-and-touch garden. Most of the time the lawns at the riverside are bursting with folks when the weather is good enough so I’ll be spending a certain part of my summer time rather in this early 19th century park.
3. Clean Bedding. There’s something special, nearly magical, about freshly changed bedding. To lie down in the cool linen, using your favourite bedding, to cuddle in and then sleep better than at any other time…
4. Sing with the Sirens. A song by Ahead to the Sea, a German folk punk band, that reminds me of pirates, Neverland, upcoming storm winds and nautically inspired tattoos.
5. Sari Fabrics. The sheer cotton, that luxurious silk, the trimming with metal treads and fragile patterns are quite fascinating. I earnestly think about sewing a dress (western pattern, the Burda magazine brought me a nice one last month) using a sari…
6. Justaucorps. I especially like those from Brotherhood of the Wolves. I still need one.
7. Rising Early. Well, most people seem to be alienated by this idea, but I rather like it. The knowledge that I’m the only person awake in the flat, that I’m not forced by pressure of time concerning my breakfast, that I’m able to finish a project, write a blog post or continue a painting before I leave for university is kind of uplifting to me.
8. Garden Cress. You know, the stuff that grows on the window sill and that is gone as soon as you sit down there ’cause it’s simply too tasty and well, there be vitamins, too… ahem.
9. Clearing Out. It’s just a great feeling to get rid of things that are bound to negative memories or that you simply don’t need anymore. Plus, it gives space for new stuff (especially in the closet). And spring is just the time for it.
10. Marble Cake. Every time I travel by train I’ve got to check the vending machines for those small packs of over-the-top sweet, laden-with-chemical-preservatives slices that are the best thing against hypoglycemia that I personally know. But finally, the marble cake my grandmother bakes is the best one I know. ^^

Intermezzo: Desktop Icons

After I found a stunning package of steampunky desktop icons on clockworker.de, I had to search for some new folder icons, too. I finally decided to go for these. As there were many more that I thought cute, pretty, nice or cool, here’s a little assortment (entirely from this site):

1. La Patisserie. Something for sweet lolitas, lovers of cake and chocolatiers.
2. Legendora. I used the airship icon for my Firefox. Isn’t the dragon just cute?
3. Smashing Royal and Crowns. For your inner king, queen, prince or princess. Jules, isn’t that for you? :)
4. Ravenswood Revisited. A little bit gothic but still cute (I had to add something black!).
5. Indiana Jones. You are either an archaeologist or you just use some of the icons for your steampunk/ history desktop.
6. Doctor Who. Again, Daleks are quite steampunky. Well, and I’m a fan.
7. Trick of Trash. Halloween is long gone, but I had to spread the word of this ingenious coffin trash.
8. System 5 and Hats. I think they might make a quite good team for a private eye or journalist theme.
9. Going Postal. First of all, I love the reference of Terry Pratchett’s book of the same name ^^ and second, I used it for my university folder.
10. Lord Icons and Applications. I guess one can use application symbols for folders as well. Nevermind.
11. The Attic. Some kind of scary, but I like the antique feel about it.
12. Scary Monsters. They didn’t match my desktop, but they’re too cute.