Thread 9 - TalkLair: “Russell's teapot goes on being round”

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous threads (thread 8).

The new lair of JTT escapees is all cosy and homey; we have truly settled here. Outside, the garden is blooming with summer flowers - should bloody well be, what with all that rain. Inside, the hearth is glowing, pictures are up on the walls, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them).

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4883204-school-reports-for-everything

That is great, Kuc, I could stay up all night, but I'd better not! 😀

Gonners, we used a traditional recipe in the end, with no oil, buttermilk, or vinegar. Decoration will commence shortly...

Oil, buttermilk and vinegar - what she had there was the ingredients for an American recipe for Red Velvet Cake.

ISTR that red velvet cake is quite tedious to make and the result not really worth it.

Yes, 340g sounds about right as it’s supposed to be an equal ratio of eggs to fat to flour I think? Good luck!

I submitted my dissertation this morning. It would’ve been last night but there was a problem with the submission website, which almost led to me having a breakdown. It also meant not getting to open the bottle of bubbles I bought to celebrate, but at least I have that to look forward to this evening. The deadline is midnight so I’m going to be twitching all day thinking about what I might have missed or could improve.

Well done on @CyanCrystalViolet! You've worked so hard on this, you'll definitely deserve that glass of bubbly tonight 🥂

Re: mistakes in theses, I recall getting so utterly sick of writing mine, and so desperate to submit, that I reached the stage where I knew I had typos and errors but just couldn't be arsed to trawl back through the text to fix them. I reasoned that the mistakes would give my examiners something extra to highlight.

Thanks @Kucinghitam. That’s basically where I got to. I know some of it could’ve been better but I couldn’t stand to look at it anymore. I found the discussion particularly gruelling because I couldn’t find any other study like mine (probably because no one else would be so daft!), so a fair bit of thinking outside the box was needed to relate my findings to other research. I felt like I could’ve used up the entire word count on the limitations alone 😳 I was losing my mind writing the abstract at the end because it meant having to trawl through it again.

My poor brain is broken.

Congratulations @CyanCrystalViolet . I'm sure it will all go through without a problem.

Congratulations @CyanCrystalViolet - hope you enjoy your well earned bubbles this evening!

Well done @CyanCrystalViolet !

You won’t know how to fill the time now!

Gonners · Today 11:19

Oil, buttermilk and vinegar - what she had there was the ingredients for an American recipe for Red Velvet Cake.

Ah right - she said it was red velvet, which was the same as a sponge cake... Good job we decided on the Vicky sponge route. After much weeping, wailing and buying new ingredients, it's finished.

She was going to put red and black flowers on (buttercream) and my wife helped by smearing black buttercream all over the bloody fondant icing. (I'd already run away to hide, by that point). That came off and she made some concoction out of Philadelphia and sugar - didn't work too well.

That came off and was replaced with new fondant icing...

Well done, Cyan!

Philadelphia and sugar works OK as the start of a cheesecake, but using it for decoration would be a bit odd.

I'm a firm believer in the 'weight of an egg' recipe.

1 egg, 2 oz sugar, 2 oz butter, 2 oz self raising flour. Increase everything in proportion for larger quantities.

Put it in a cake tin and bake for a sponge cake.

Mix in a handful of fruit and put it in a pudding basin on top of a dollop of jam (steam for ages or microwave for 3 mins) for steamed pudding.

Swap the SR flour for ground almonds, pour into a pastry case (jam or mincemeat under, or fruit on top) and bake for a frangipane tart.

@SinnerBoy how did you get the buttercream icing black??

Worcester Sauce, perhaps?

I found the whole idea of cake baking baffling until I got the hang of just weigh your eggs and use the same weight of flour, sugar and fat. From there I’m happy to guess if I want to add in some ground almonds or something.

Black buttercream does sound improbable. Squid ink?

Or, as my first cookbook told me “First weigh your eggs” (then add the same weight of everything else).

Charcoal?

Cream cheese frosting is the classic American icing for both red velvet cake and carrot cake. https://handletheheat.com/best-cream-cheese-frosting/. Very tasty. Highly fattening.

@Britinme - from your link: Use a regular full-fat cream cheese brick at a cool room temperature. Do NOT use whipped or spreadable cream cheese made for bagels.

I don't think I've ever seen non-spreadable cream cheese in Europe. Spreadable is what cream cheese means to me!

@Gonners - over here the non spreadable type comes in a silver foil pack and the spreadable type comes in a plastic tub.

I remember a time when Philadelphia came in a foil-wrapped block but don't know the last time I saw it. It was much more planet friendly than the tubs, they should to back to that.

What would happen if you used whipped/spreadable? I thought that’s what Philadelphia was.