The Making of a Heartfelt Gift

I love giving things to people, but most of the time, those things are a bit edible. Because I bake, and stuff, so...yeah. So it was my friend Claire's (who is a phenomenal woman of God, just saying...) birthday...and I couldn't think what to give her. Another friend and I are clubbing together to get her this CD she really wants, but I wanted to do a little extra.

So I decided to make her cookies.

Because everyone love chocolate chip cookies. Psh. Not even an option not to.

I used this recipe I found online...looong ago, I can't remember where, but if I find it, I'll so link you. The cookies are like. Wow. And then some.

So, first, there was the messing around with the eggs (because it's not my fault there was a sharpie in the kitchen. So not my fault.).

This is Egg1 and Egg2. Egg1 wasn't formed quite properly, and something went wrong...not Egg1 is slightly...different. Egg2 is just a sour-puss.

But then! They were magicked away from the eggtray and put into a biiiig plastic bowl. They weren't sure what was happening, but Egg1 just wanted to have fun.

Until the magic came back...

Then, shortly after Egg1 disappeared from Egg2's view, Egg1 was returned...but IT WAS A MERE SHELL OF WHAT EGG1 HAD BEEN BEFORE!!!

Shock-horror.

Also, this was chocolate that had been sitting in my cupboard for a few weeks now, and because I wasn't eating it, I chucked it in the recipe. I give you permission to do the same with any excess choc in your hoard.

The recipe:

Ingredients  250 grams unsalted butter at room temperature   1 cup granulated sugar   1 cup brown sugar [ I just used 2 cups of brown sugar here]  2 eggs  1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract [because I love vanilla, I made it 2 tsp]  1 tablespoon freshly squeezed juice from an orange [might have upped the dosage on this one too...]  2 cups cake flour  1 cup bread flour  1 teaspoon salt  1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda  1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon   100% cocoa bar, chopped fine   70% cocoa bar, roughly chopped   60% cocoa bar, roughly chopped [together, the chocolate has to be about 1 1/2 cups full]  Pecans (1 heaping cup whole), roughly chopped  Walnuts (1 really heaping cup whole), roughly chopped  1 1/2 teaspoons zest from an orange

Instructions  1. Preheat a conventional oven to 170C.  2. Cream the room-temp butter and sugars together in a bowl.  The      mixture should be light and fluffy.  3. Add each egg one at a time, mixing well after adding.  4. Add the vanilla and juice from an orange. Mix well.  5. Add the flours, salt, baking soda and cinnamon to the     bowl and mix until the batter comes together.  6. Before adding the extras, mix the nuts, chocolate and zest well     in a bowl. This ensures the orange zest is even distributed.  7. Add the extras (nuts, chocolate, zest) to the batter and mix     in until it is evenly distributed.    8. Place tablespoon sized blobs of cookie dough on to a baking     sheet lined with baking paper.  9. Bake for 10 to 11 minutes until the cookie is golden.

The dough:

The result:

Now, the cookies were done. What to do, oh how to package? It's cheap handing over a tupperware and then asking for it later...oh! I think I have a cake box still... [yes, I'm a loser and I buy cake/cupcake boxes].

This is the part where you draw things on a plain white box in hopes that you can make it look less...plain.

And this was the end result. I promise this won't turn into a baking blog, because that would be boring.

Hello, I've been Gone.

And so I've been AWOL for a couple weeks. Life has been hectic, crazy, and so much fun. In June, I wrote exams (till my eyes wanted to fall out of my head and I felt like I was peeing pure energy-drinks and coffee) for three weeks flat out, every day. It was crazy, but...memorable. I've not yet gotten my results back, but hey, there's that for being a paralegal. I made it through the course! If nothing else, I'm proud of that fact.

July is here, and it has been incredible so far. I'm volunteering at church hey, generally just on Sundays, but we do rehearsals and things and get togethers (coz my team is like family) in the week and stuff. I'm on production--which is a big deal for me, given how lame I am at a lot of things. But I'm learning (fast) and having a tonne of fun getting to know different OSes, which cable goes where, how to do the graphics and words, and a bit about camera work too. It's madness, and I love it. Yes, I'm a nerd that way. Wouldn't have it any other way, than to be on the AV team. :B

July also held the Encounter Conference. It was phenomenal and inspired, and inspiring.

July held a lot of things, now that I think. And it's only halfway done.

You never know hey? The best...it's yet to come...

xx

To Aruba and Beyond!

To be completely honest, I don't think I'd even heard of it until I was trying to find the dates for the African Fashion International 2011. Aruba, as far as I was concerned (until three minutes ago) was a place as far off and unattainable as ...Fiji. I know more about Fiji than I do about Aruba though. Well, so do most people, I suppose. But. Aruba. Is hosting it's first Fashion Week this coming November. Tickets to Aruba will cost me R14 000. Then there's the event's actual tickets, which, as it's a newbie, you can probably bet that a lot of designers are going to be going over there to help 'discover' the place and its abundant talent.

Which leaves me in a conundrum. I want to go. So badly. I'm sure I can convince oneof my friends to go with me. Perhaps. My conundrum lies in the fact that... I'm supposed to be working then. Mature, responsible me... Sure, just a week or two...

Well. We'll see. Stranger things have happened, who's to say I won't get to go?!

Look here, a LINK.

Indelible Cupcakes

I backed cupcakes with a few friends over the weekend. This might be the beginning (oh the deja-vu) of some amazing things. You never know.

These are Oreo Cupcakes. They got complimented. A lot. :)

The Good News

No, I'm not going to begin a sermon.

Have you ever noticed how news--the media's news, that it--is always (a fairly accurate generalization) bad news? Sure, now and again we read about the little old man who found his cat, or the kid next door who found the neighbours keys (alright, we never read those stories), but you know, news, is very, very mostly always bad.

We go "oh, shame, the poor Japanese", or "oh no, look at what's happened in Rwanda", or "tsk, tsk, those Libyans...the poor civilians", or even "well, Osama should have known, live by the sword, die by it..."

I'm a terrible pacifist. I threaten bodily harm to only my closest friends with whom I am comfortable--but aside from the playful punch, I do not, at all, do violence. I disagree with it. It kind of disgusts me. Sure, I like action movies (with hot guys) as much as the next girl, but in real life, violence begets violence, and it saddens me to see humans, and our alleged intelligence, resorting to it. It's petty, and seldom even necessary.

Yes, I know, there are times it is needed. But most times, you and I both know, it is not.

Well, here's a discovery I made: Humans are sick, twisted, disturbed ... sickos. Because the market only stocks what sells--the TV only shows what's watched--and what is watched? The news. We get a kick out of seeing our fellow man suffer. We tut and hum and aah, and we then continue eating our diner, as if the sight of injustice at our very doorsteps does not concern or bother us.

We make the mistake of forgetting that it can happen to us. We make the mistake of thinking we can do nothing to stop it.

I hate watching the news because it depresses me. Death, violence, injustice--those are the headlines, and there's nothing beside them. There's no happy stories about wonderful things that wonderful, beautiful people are doing. There's no good causes being shared, not at the prime-time news hour. Oh no, when everyone has gathered at the table, we'll play the sad stuff--the wars, the attacks, the terrorism. Why? Because we crave it. Think about it. Twin sites, FML and GMH are polar opposites, and illustrate my point perfectly. How many of you have heard of the FML site? Probably everyone who surfs the net. Who's heard of GMH? I've yet to meet a person who knew it before I did. There are 780 pages of little hopeful stories of the good of mankind. There are 1087 pages of people whining and complaining and sharing the moments in their lives when they wished that a black hole would swallow them. See, it's psychological too--we know it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown and scowl, but do we smile in the misty early mornings on the busy trains? Do we smile at the vendors we pass every day? Do we smile at the receptionist, the librarian, the teacher, the stranger? No. Why? Because misery loves company.

I want to be the one to change that.

So, tomorrow, I'm smiling at everyone. A little secret smile like the Mona Lisa, a geeky grin, or a full on, toothy smile that will have everyone thinking I've forgotten my meds or something.

Whatever. I think I'll stop caring about what people think, no matter how hard that is. I'm not living for them, anyway.

...Smile. :)

Feature Video

Because it's like, the best video ever when you're crushing on someone. Who ever said when you grow up you stop having crushes?!

Kate Nash is also really cool, okay? I like her accent.

Child's Play

Collection of pics of kids.