One of today's cards: The St. Paul's Church in Malacca (built in 1521) with a statue of St. Francis Xavier.
Thanks nisnoopy3!
Thanks nisnoopy3!
What a wonderful thing is the mail, capable of conveying across continents a warm human hand-clasp. ~Author Unknown
Monday 31 January 2011
Sunday 30 January 2011
Éclair
I've been thinking, and as long the poll on the sidebar is running, I'll be combining both my postcrossing and cooking 'exercises' in this blog. I've added a new tag - * cooking / recipes - there you'll be able to find recipes, tips and my other ideas about cooking. As soon as I decide to start a cooking blog as a section to this one, I'll repost everything there.
By the way, I have a travelling notebook about cooking that should be returning to me soon. If it's an interesting one, maybe I can turn it into something fun. So, who knows...
Today's topic are the éclair cakes I promised to do today in my previous post. Cooking them this very moment - the fist batch is in the oven (and smells heavenly ^___^). I think I should post the recipe and some other useful things about the cakes. As it's something you can find in every bakery or at almost every grocery shop, I think that it's tastier, cheaper and more fun to make them at home.
Éclair cakes
The dough
It's a typical scalded dough you can fill with creams and other fillings after cooking. As the dough tastes neutral, so the filling can be sweet or something salty, for example.
Ingredients:
250 ml water
100 g butter
a bit of salt
1 teaspoon sugar
250 ml flour
4 eggs
Cooking: (time: about 15 minutes to cook the dough + time to form the cakes + 20 minutes to bake)
Pour water into a pot, add sugar and salt. Then add the butter and melt it on medium heat. After the butter has melted turn down the heat, gradually add flour and stir well. Keep cooking on low heat and stirring the mass till it thickens and doesn't stick to the pot anymore. Turn off the heat and leave the mass to cool down a bit.
Add eggs one by one, mixing the dough well after each egg. Preheat the oven to 200-210C (390-410F). Put the dough onto the baking paper and bake for 20 minutes. Don't open the oven till done! Let the cakes cool, fill and decorate.
Advice and tips:
- The dough is quite thick, so be prepared to have some fun with it, as it will be sticking to pots, spoons etc.
- Do watch the dough and stir it well, it can easily burn.
- Remember to cool the dough for at least 5-10 minutes before adding eggs. Mix in the first egg very fast, as it can get cooked because of the heat and you won't be getting a good result.
- If you're using a mixer/blender that hasn't a covered top, be sure to mix in the egg by hand first. Or you'll be having a good time cleaning the eggs (separately) and the mass (separately) from the walls of your kitchen. ^^
- If your baking paper is cheap, you might want to cover it with butter a bit to be sure the cakes don't burn.
- You can put the dough on the baking paper using the pastry bag (which is more beautiful) or with a spoon if you have no pastry bag or something similar.
- The baked cakes are fluffy and hollow inside. To get this result you definitely must follow time and heat requirements! A preheated oven is good as the cakes start baking at a definite temperature right away.
- Don't ever open the oven (even if you're really curious) for the first 15 minutes! Ideal is 20 minutes - by that time the cakes are able to hold the form and are actually ready. The color of the cooked cakes - golden with a slight bit of brown.
By the way, I have a travelling notebook about cooking that should be returning to me soon. If it's an interesting one, maybe I can turn it into something fun. So, who knows...
Today's topic are the éclair cakes I promised to do today in my previous post. Cooking them this very moment - the fist batch is in the oven (and smells heavenly ^___^). I think I should post the recipe and some other useful things about the cakes. As it's something you can find in every bakery or at almost every grocery shop, I think that it's tastier, cheaper and more fun to make them at home.
Éclair cakes
Today's result: About 40 pieces of small vanilla and chocolate cakes. ^^
The dough
It's a typical scalded dough you can fill with creams and other fillings after cooking. As the dough tastes neutral, so the filling can be sweet or something salty, for example.
Ingredients:
250 ml water
100 g butter
a bit of salt
1 teaspoon sugar
250 ml flour
4 eggs
Cooking: (time: about 15 minutes to cook the dough + time to form the cakes + 20 minutes to bake)
Pour water into a pot, add sugar and salt. Then add the butter and melt it on medium heat. After the butter has melted turn down the heat, gradually add flour and stir well. Keep cooking on low heat and stirring the mass till it thickens and doesn't stick to the pot anymore. Turn off the heat and leave the mass to cool down a bit.
Add eggs one by one, mixing the dough well after each egg. Preheat the oven to 200-210C (390-410F). Put the dough onto the baking paper and bake for 20 minutes. Don't open the oven till done! Let the cakes cool, fill and decorate.
Advice and tips:
- The dough is quite thick, so be prepared to have some fun with it, as it will be sticking to pots, spoons etc.
- Do watch the dough and stir it well, it can easily burn.
- Remember to cool the dough for at least 5-10 minutes before adding eggs. Mix in the first egg very fast, as it can get cooked because of the heat and you won't be getting a good result.
- If you're using a mixer/blender that hasn't a covered top, be sure to mix in the egg by hand first. Or you'll be having a good time cleaning the eggs (separately) and the mass (separately) from the walls of your kitchen. ^^
- If your baking paper is cheap, you might want to cover it with butter a bit to be sure the cakes don't burn.
- You can put the dough on the baking paper using the pastry bag (which is more beautiful) or with a spoon if you have no pastry bag or something similar.
- The baked cakes are fluffy and hollow inside. To get this result you definitely must follow time and heat requirements! A preheated oven is good as the cakes start baking at a definite temperature right away.
- Don't ever open the oven (even if you're really curious) for the first 15 minutes! Ideal is 20 minutes - by that time the cakes are able to hold the form and are actually ready. The color of the cooked cakes - golden with a slight bit of brown.
Julie, Julia and Julija
I'm not a person who watches all movies that come out, so I only know the names of the movies that run in theaters. But I really want to thank sofiangie for also recommending me the "Julie and Julia" movie as an idea for the 'to do list'. If you haven't seen it yet, make free time some evening, grab some tasty snacks and enjoy!
By the way, the whole idea for the list sounded as following (I know I'm repeating myself a thousand times, so please just bear with me):
"Follow the example of the main character of the "Julie and Julia" movie."
Now comes a spoiler/very short summary to explain the idea a little better. Julie Powell, a character of the movie and a real person as the movie is a double-biographical one, aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's cookbook in 365 days and writes a blog about it.
The idea isn't new, but I love it as (A) I do love to cook and (B) cooking blogs, especially the good ones, always find their readers.
But - like in any good story there's a 'but' - I'm not sure I'll be doing this idea. At least not this year. And there are several reasons for that.
- I don't have a cook I admire and don't have a good cooking book to cook.
- It takes a lot of money to cook great recipes and to cook a lot.
- It takes time (but actually time right now is not the issue, I can always sleep less to do the things I like).
- Nowadays good blogs need also visual content and I'm not sure I can take photos of every dish I do.
- Maybe there's something else, but it doesn't come to my mind right now...
Well, still, maybe someone reads me and thinks I should start a parallel cooking blog? I'll be setting a vote (see sidebar), so try to persuade me, if you do think so. ^^
And now some words about the fun calendar.
Yesterday we had the... -oh, my bad memory- the leisurely braiding day, so no idea if it counts, but I did a new confetti postcard. Will be uploading some time in the future. And I'm planning to do a set, so as soon there are enough postcards in the set, I'll start trading and sending.
As for today, we're belatedly celebrating my birthday, my mother's name's day (which was 10.01 or 25.01 (as Orthodox have it as a separate holiday and the Day of Students)), my sister's name's day (24.01) and my grandmother's name's day (which is today or 30.01). I'm planning to cook the éclair pastry and get my beloved family members some gifts. For the ones who have no idea about the pastry, here's a picture:
By the way, the whole idea for the list sounded as following (I know I'm repeating myself a thousand times, so please just bear with me):
"Follow the example of the main character of the "Julie and Julia" movie."
Now comes a spoiler/very short summary to explain the idea a little better. Julie Powell, a character of the movie and a real person as the movie is a double-biographical one, aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's cookbook in 365 days and writes a blog about it.
The idea isn't new, but I love it as (A) I do love to cook and (B) cooking blogs, especially the good ones, always find their readers.
But - like in any good story there's a 'but' - I'm not sure I'll be doing this idea. At least not this year. And there are several reasons for that.
- I don't have a cook I admire and don't have a good cooking book to cook.
- It takes a lot of money to cook great recipes and to cook a lot.
- It takes time (but actually time right now is not the issue, I can always sleep less to do the things I like).
- Nowadays good blogs need also visual content and I'm not sure I can take photos of every dish I do.
- Maybe there's something else, but it doesn't come to my mind right now...
Well, still, maybe someone reads me and thinks I should start a parallel cooking blog? I'll be setting a vote (see sidebar), so try to persuade me, if you do think so. ^^
And now some words about the fun calendar.
Yesterday we had the... -oh, my bad memory- the leisurely braiding day, so no idea if it counts, but I did a new confetti postcard. Will be uploading some time in the future. And I'm planning to do a set, so as soon there are enough postcards in the set, I'll start trading and sending.
As for today, we're belatedly celebrating my birthday, my mother's name's day (which was 10.01 or 25.01 (as Orthodox have it as a separate holiday and the Day of Students)), my sister's name's day (24.01) and my grandmother's name's day (which is today or 30.01). I'm planning to cook the éclair pastry and get my beloved family members some gifts. For the ones who have no idea about the pastry, here's a picture:
USA: Cookies
Continuing with the food theme, today's recipe card is
Harvey's Little Big Orange Cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons orange extract
1 teaspoon grated orange peel
1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cooking:
In a large bowl cream together the butter and sugar. Add the egg and the remaining ingredients. Drop by the spoonful onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in a 375F (about 190C) oven for 10 minutes.
Makes 2 dozen.
- Harvey Bullock (writer)
Saturday 29 January 2011
Sweden: Recipe Card
Actually, cant's say that there's only one 'card of the day', because a day is something very irregular in my life. Like I go to bed way past midnight (which is already a new day) and after sleep I'm ready to post something again (and it's still the same day as in the post before going to bed, but has a feeling of a new one).
So, here's another postcard from my collection. As I received three recipe cards yesterday in my mail, I think I should post at least one from the collection (not one of the three though).
Thanks to Miki for doing a detailed translation and explanation of the card (could've done myself, but you really saved me some time ^^).
Here's the recipe, if you want to try it out:
Crispy morning buns ("What would life be without crispy morning buns?")
Ingredients:
50 grams yeast
4 cups water
1 teaspoon aniseed or fennel
1 teaspoon salt
10-12 cups flour
Cooking:
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Crumble the yeast in a bowl and add the lukewarm water. Mix in the remaining ingredients and knead the dough till it's smooth and supple. Put the dough out on a floured table, knead it with a light touch, covering with the flour. Divide the dough into 16 parts. Let the buns grow in size for 15 - 20 minutes covered on the table. Then move them on a baking sheet at bake immediately for 8-10 minutes. Let the buns cool down uncovered, so they retain the crispy surface.
Enjoy it!
So, here's another postcard from my collection. As I received three recipe cards yesterday in my mail, I think I should post at least one from the collection (not one of the three though).
Here's the recipe, if you want to try it out:
Crispy morning buns ("What would life be without crispy morning buns?")
Ingredients:
50 grams yeast
4 cups water
1 teaspoon aniseed or fennel
1 teaspoon salt
10-12 cups flour
Cooking:
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Crumble the yeast in a bowl and add the lukewarm water. Mix in the remaining ingredients and knead the dough till it's smooth and supple. Put the dough out on a floured table, knead it with a light touch, covering with the flour. Divide the dough into 16 parts. Let the buns grow in size for 15 - 20 minutes covered on the table. Then move them on a baking sheet at bake immediately for 8-10 minutes. Let the buns cool down uncovered, so they retain the crispy surface.
Enjoy it!
Greece: Views
I decided to post this four view card from Greece, because it's very beautiful. Never been to Greece before, but looking at this postcard really want to.
And again some smalltalk
As the readers (if there are any ^^') can see, I try to keep this blog a postcards related one, but still post some of my personal thoughts, experience, other with post and the postcrossers' community related things. So there'll always be something that you might find not as interesting as the postcards and geography lesson I try to do here. ^^
By the way, I decided I should do a disclaimer at least once in my posts (I do write the author's or photographer's name sometimes, but too lazy to do it always) and here it is:
I do not own any of the pictures that are posted in this blog, only the postcards with the pictures on them. :] And really happy of the fact.
Of course, except for the pictures that are marked as 'handmade' - I do own rights to those, so please tell me if you want to use them somewhere (I doubt anyone would want to, but still).
Some of you probably noticed that there's a new picture named "Today is..." on the right sidebar. If you speak Russian and click on the picture, you'll find a fun calendar where every day is a holiday, so to say. I'll try to keep the translated sidebar version updated, but if I'm away for several days, I'll either inform or just click and check if the date is correct.
Got the calendar idea from a fellow postcrosser, it's also on my 'to do list'. And now I'd like to share some experience I made with it. :]
Started following the calendar on 26.01 - the random directions day. The idea was to take a random walk in the city, get some fresh air, get some postcards I needed in case I come across some. The walk was a success, because I got an sms from a friend suggesting to check out a new (and first of it's kind here) muffin café. As I was in the neighborhood, though planning to go in the opposite direction, I randomly changed my mind and went to see the place. For Latvians and guests who love sweets - I recommend "Muffins and More", Gertrudes 9 (right behind the church on the right side walking from Brivibas Street).
Next day - the dance with your shadow day was also completed as I went to my first salsa lesson right after finishing my birthday party with friends.
And (already) yesterday was the awakening your inner child day. Me and a friend of mine randomly grabbed two packs of cotton candy (which I haven't eaten since childhood) and went to see another person (I'm not giving names not to offend the people; if you, the heroes of this story ^^ want to be named - please tell so) and have some fun together.
That's all what I have to tell you for now. More thoughts coming soon...
And of course the postcard of the day, so 'stay tuned'. ^___^
By the way, I decided I should do a disclaimer at least once in my posts (I do write the author's or photographer's name sometimes, but too lazy to do it always) and here it is:
I do not own any of the pictures that are posted in this blog, only the postcards with the pictures on them. :] And really happy of the fact.
Of course, except for the pictures that are marked as 'handmade' - I do own rights to those, so please tell me if you want to use them somewhere (I doubt anyone would want to, but still).
Some of you probably noticed that there's a new picture named "Today is..." on the right sidebar. If you speak Russian and click on the picture, you'll find a fun calendar where every day is a holiday, so to say. I'll try to keep the translated sidebar version updated, but if I'm away for several days, I'll either inform or just click and check if the date is correct.
Got the calendar idea from a fellow postcrosser, it's also on my 'to do list'. And now I'd like to share some experience I made with it. :]
Started following the calendar on 26.01 - the random directions day. The idea was to take a random walk in the city, get some fresh air, get some postcards I needed in case I come across some. The walk was a success, because I got an sms from a friend suggesting to check out a new (and first of it's kind here) muffin café. As I was in the neighborhood, though planning to go in the opposite direction, I randomly changed my mind and went to see the place. For Latvians and guests who love sweets - I recommend "Muffins and More", Gertrudes 9 (right behind the church on the right side walking from Brivibas Street).
Next day - the dance with your shadow day was also completed as I went to my first salsa lesson right after finishing my birthday party with friends.
And (already) yesterday was the awakening your inner child day. Me and a friend of mine randomly grabbed two packs of cotton candy (which I haven't eaten since childhood) and went to see another person (I'm not giving names not to offend the people; if you, the heroes of this story ^^ want to be named - please tell so) and have some fun together.
That's all what I have to tell you for now. More thoughts coming soon...
And of course the postcard of the day, so 'stay tuned'. ^___^
Thursday 27 January 2011
Full to do list
And I'm closing the lottery as well as posting the whole ideas of things to do this year list.
And the winners!
Randomly chosen: #14 ekolter from USA
And two more for good ideas:
sofiangie from Russia for the fun calendar idea
Isabella from Brazil for the kisses, one week trip without telling anyone and the one day as a character ideas
Some stats about the list: there are 242 entries made by 41 person from 21 country.
And the winners!
Randomly chosen: #14 ekolter from USA
And two more for good ideas:
sofiangie from Russia for the fun calendar idea
Isabella from Brazil for the kisses, one week trip without telling anyone and the one day as a character ideas
Some stats about the list: there are 242 entries made by 41 person from 21 country.
Write a book (you can start with a story you imagined).
Write a fan fiction story and post it (it's free and a perfect way to express yourself as a fan of a book, movie, drama, etc.).
Write a scenario for a movie or imagine an alternative ending of a serial or a movie.
Try to think what unicorns eat for breakfast and tell this story to your friends.
Write a story about your life so far.
Keep a personal diary (write it by hand and decorate the notebook for it) or an online journal.
Read a lot of books!
Read at least one book considered 'classic'.
Read a book of poetry.
Read a foreign language book (for example in English, if it’s foreign to you).
Start reading Chicken Soup for the Soul: Campus Chronicles.
Make a list of the books you have read and every month compare it with your friends and talk about them.
Learn a poem.
Write on a paper the 20 things you are good at.
Make a list of crazy things you always wanted to do, and this year to do all things on the list.
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