mbaking (9 out of 25)

Coconut chocolate cake

I think CHI submission reviews coming in tipped me over the TODOs edge, I developed a powerful cake craving, but didn't want to leave my apartment/pyjamas so the natural outcome is... procrastabaking!

This was improvised, and I don't normally have much success with full-size cakes, but lack of other baking dishes left me with little choice. It turned out great! Maybe using US units of measurements is the secret after all.



All measurements approximate:

• 1 1/4 cups wholewheat flour
• handful of cocoa powder
• handful of coconut sugar (I have small hands and not a sweet tooth, you might want more)
• handful of coconut flakes
• teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (I would have used melted coconut oil but I didn't have enough)
• juice of one small lime
• enough warm water to bring to cake consistency, about 1/2 cup I guess

Combined dry and wet ingredients separately, then mixed together. Baked for 40 minutes (with poking breaks at 20 and 30) at 350F.

For the chocolate coating:

• 1/2 cup melted coconut oil
• whatever drizzle of soy milk I had left.. uh 1/4 cup?
• half a handful of cocoa powder
• half a handful of coconut sugar

Stir vigorously over a very low heat to make it foamy and wonderful. When it cools it separates, so as soon as the cake is cooled, pour it over and immediately refrigerate. Still separated a bit, but tastes great.





🏷 cake chocolate coconut mbaking procrastabaking raspberry recipe vegan

Thu 19th of November 2015 at 2:17am (+00:00)

Amy wrote about vegan, chocolate, mbaking, & procrastabaking

I should be packing.







🏷 chocolate mbaking procrastabaking vegan

Tue 29th of September 2015 at 2:45pm (+01:00)

Honeycomb apple cakes

I made honeycomb! Strictly bee-exploitation free, of course. It was way easier than I expected, and didn't result in my entire kitchen becoming sticky. Just most of it.

• 100g caster sugar
• 4 tablespoons refined sugar [golden] syrup
• 1.5 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

Mix the sugar and sugar syrup together and heat until bubbling and golden brown. Lots of people seem to have trouble with this (burning it etc), but I never have when making caramel in the past and didn't this time. Just gotta not take your eyes of it. It doesn't take long. The fun part is removing it from the heat and quickly mixing in the bicarb, when it bubbled up spectacularly. Poured into a lined tin to cool:



I have to deal with this later..



It took about 20 minutes to cool fully:



And was amazing. Pretty much like the inside of a Cadbury's Crunchy:



I crunched some up and added it to vegan apple cupcake mix:

• 130g caster sugar + 100g dairy-free margarine
• plus Three small apples very finely chopped
• plus 190g self raising flour + teaspoon baking powder
• plus ~140ml caramel rooibos, which I had brewed earlier (any liquid will do until cake batter consistency reached..)
• plus...



Equals:



(Icing was icing sugar, chopped apple and margarine).

The exposed honeycomb in the cakes burnt though, so watch out for that. The icing is a coverup. Nobody will know.

🏷 apple cake honeycomb mbaking recipe sugar vegan

Wed 5th of August 2015 at 5:09pm (+01:00)

Amy wrote about http://vocab.amy.so/blog#Doing, http://vocab.amy.so/blog#Doing, mbaking, parrot, & Tigo

Making parrot toys out of cardboard, twine, and... mostly parts of old, dismantled parrot toys.

🏷 tigo http://vocab.amy.so/blog#Doing http://vocab.amy.so/blog#Doing mbaking parrot Tigo

Sat 25th of April 2015 at 5:00am (+01:00)

Day twenty four to twenty seven: Quests and silliness (Melbourne)

Friday: Arrived. Slept.

Saturday: Shoe shopping. Got distracted by something. Posh meal and casino.

Sunday: Botanic gardens, but nothing open. After Earth. Fort. Wrath of Khan.

Monday: Sleeping in Fort. Gardens, souvenirs. The Purge. Took fort down.

🏷 http://vocab.amy.so/blog#Done http://vocab.amy.so/blog#Done after earth australia blanket fort botanic gardens cupcakes fort irn bru cupcakes mbaking quest sleep thornley family travel

Mon 24th of June 2013 at 9:34pm (Z)

Last modified: Thu 4th of July 2013 at 9:34pm (Z)

My First Bread

Could have been better.

I based it on this bread recipe, but amended according to my mother's advice.

Thus, I made a batter with 1/3 of the flour (strong white bread flour; 6oz), all of the yeast (one 7g packet) and all of the water (415ml) and the oil (30ml), and left that covered in the airing cupboard for an hour where it bubbled away merrily.

Next I mixed in the rest of the flour (12oz) and some salt and a handful of sunflour seeds, poppyseeds and pumpkin seeds. Contrary to what my mother promised, it was very sticky. I stirred vigorously and kept adding flour until I could cope with it, and kneading began. I kneaded for fifteen minutes, having discovered that sometimes punching instead of regular kneading is much more enjoyable.



I turned it into six balls and one long bit, and arranged them on a tray and in an ad-hoc loaf tin, and they went back in the airing cupboard for about two and a half hours (I went out). I covered them, as instructed, and that was where things started to go wrong..





The bits that didn't get stuck to the tinfoil rose great. But the bits that stuck pretty much didn't get to rise. They rose outwards loads, but upwards was constrained. Rubbish.

I baked them anyway (30 minutes, 220 degress celcius).



Tastes great, textures is okay, appearance is disappointing. Next time I won't cover them quite so securely while they're rising. Far more holey than I was anticipating too; I'm not sure if under- or over-kneading causes this.

🏷 http://vocab.amy.so/blog#Done http://vocab.amy.so/blog#Done bread food diary food for jenny food jenny mbaking mum procrastabaking recipe

Sat 13th of April 2013 at 6:47pm (Z)

Last modified: Sat 13th of April 2013 at 6:47pm (Z)

Tigo tablet cover (crochet)

Lovingly crocheted over a couple of days. No pattern, all approximated, with scraps of wool of the appropriate colours I just happened to have.

I started with a chain the length of the width (shortest side) of my Nexus 7, and single crocheted in each stitch down both sides, and carried on round; so I did the very bottom first and worked my way up in a flat rectangular spiral. I dunno if that makes sense, but it immediately begins to take shape.





When I got to the right height, I carried on across the back, then just chained across the front, and continued as before, to make the opening.



Though it may look deliberate that the 'tail' sticks out a bit at each side, I actually made it too wide. So I had to decide whether to carry on making it too big and pad it on the inside, or tuck the ends in and make it tighter with the green. I chose the latter and it worked far better than I anticipated.



Most of it is just double crochet for no particular reason, but his fuzzy lil' chest is a pattern of alternating front-post triple crochet and back-post triple crochet (triple to compensate so it stays level with the 'normal' double crochet around the triangle, as front- and back-post double crochet are slightly shorter than regular double crochet).



His feet and wings are just chains; his eyes made just the way you'd make small circles, but skewed a bit to be ovals (I can't remember, I probably chained three, then [sc, hdc, hdc, tc, hdc, hdc, sc]x2, then sc in each stich around. Don't hold me to that though). The black centres are literally just threaded through and through until they looked right, and the loose ends used to attach. I shaped the beak by periodically crocheting two together. I'm surprised it's as remotely symmetrical as it is, because I didn't count anything.





The resemblance is uncanny!

🏷 tigo http://vocab.amy.so/blog#Done http://vocab.amy.so/blog#Done crochet mbaking nexus 7 case parrot Tigo

Fri 8th of March 2013 at 8:12pm (Z)

Last modified: Sat 13th of April 2013 at 8:35pm (Z)

Large handwarmers (crochet)

One of the first useful things I crocheted were these extremely masculine handwarmers.



The extremely soft and fuzzy wool was from Age Scotland I believe.



I used no pattern and had never made handwarmers before, so they came out far too big. Not to worry, at least you can fit a Tigo in them!



I just repeated dc ch1 around, dc-ing in the gap left by the chain each time. I reduced a bit around the wrist area to shape it, but it wasn't particularly effective. I chained about four, instead of carrying on, to make the gap for the thumb, then continued as normal. One of them is shorter than the other, because I didn't count anything.

They serve their purpose though, and the lucky owner has even gone so far as to wear them in public in the chilly heights of Appleton Tower.

🏷 http://vocab.amy.so/blog#Done http://vocab.amy.so/blog#Done crochet handwarmers mbaking

Thu 28th of February 2013 at 8:38pm (Z)

Last modified: Sat 13th of April 2013 at 8:47pm (Z)

Morrissquirrel (crochet)

As a farewell present to Beth, who was vacating sunny Scotland for the harsh and unforgiving shores of the US, I made a squirrel. But not just any squirrel.

A Morrissquirrel.

That's Morrissey-squirrel. Don't question it.

I largely followed this pattern for the normal squirrel parts, then improvised to Moz it up.



















🏷 http://vocab.amy.so/blog#Done http://vocab.amy.so/blog#Done amigurumi crochet mbaking squirrel wool

Wed 9th of January 2013 at 4:15pm (Z)

Last modified: Sat 13th of April 2013 at 8:35pm (Z)