can't kill the creature that you made

I am likely dying in the Dallas sun when this goes live, so have a week of music filler posts.

cold concrete on my back

I've been hearing his other song, Jesus in LA, at a loooot places recently. Glad he is getting popular :)

fox

Let's take a moment to appreciate the beautiful chisel toe on these Foster & Son ready-to-wear shoes. If only they made women ;o;

The almond toe on a penny loafer is beautiful too

Victoria Sponge v2

I made too much strawberry jam and basil infused cream, so here's a even bigger victoria sponge (8"):

The real benefits of making a bigger cake is having enough batter (double the previous cake's quantity) that it mixes well in the mixing bowl. The cake turned out lighter in texture because of the better aeration when creaming butter and sugar, and also I upped the baking powder. I also learned my lesson and not put the whipped cream in the middle. It could be better if I had diced up the strawberries leftover from decorating the top and sandwiched it with the jam, but that requires more planning...or just more strawberries.

braised pork

I think I behave more like concrete compared to steel?

Victoria Sponge

August's cake of the month: victorian sponge

I followed the classic ratio of the same weight of eggs (in shell), flour, sugar, and butter. This batch (6") was made with 2 eggs, and I used a heaping teaspoon of baking powder. I think I could up the leavening a little since the cake is still quite substantial, and also because my baking powder is quite old and have reduced leavening capabilities. There is also a dash of vanilla extract in the batter.

I made strawberry jam from fresh strawberries, and eyeballed the sugar (also to taste, since the strawberries weren't very sweet) and added a squeeze of lemon juice. It took a while for the jam to reduce to the right consistency, I stopped cooking it as soon as it could leave dry streaks in the pot. While the jammy strawberry flavour works well with the cake as its quite a rich and buttery batter, I'll try using fresh macerated strawberry in the next iteration.

One mistake is using freshly whipped cream as a filling. It got squeezed out between the cake layers when cutting the cake. Something with more strength, like a buttercream of some sort, would be better. However I do like the fresh and light taste of whipped cream compared to buttercream, so maybe I'll just have the jam in the middle and have the cream on the top. This time the cream was infused with basil, which pairs wonderfully with strawberry. I found this flavour pairing through Eric's ice cream.

Overall I'd say this is a success, as it is quite a bit better than most victoria sponges you can buy in UK, and at least on par with the good ones sold there. Also a very simple cake to make (and decorate).

Fuji C200

Shooting film is fun! I see how people are into this now.

Much thanks to Eddie for lending the camera and film (plus processing and scanning), as well as modelling and words of encouragement.