I am an individual!

This week’s cake is chocolate and apple cake. Very nice and egg free. Thanks to Emily and Donna for the recipe.

Recipe

Cake:

• 4oz butter (softened)
• 8oz caster sugar
• 1lb stewed apples (so about 1 1/2lb uncooked before  peeling and coring)
• 8oz self raising flour
• 1/2 oz cocoa (I think I doubled both cocoa quantities!)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• Some cinnamon and nutmeg (I just guessed)

The original recipe also suggested raisins, but the person I got this from said that it is better without but it is personal opinion

Icing:

• 5oz butter
• 4 tbs cocoa (again I used 8!!)
• 5oz icing sugar sifted (I used fondant icing to make it smoother)
• 3 tbs milk

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170C.
2. Grease a tin (doesn’t really matter what size or shape, but you may want to double quantities if it is a big tin).
3. Peel and core apples and put in the microwave until stewed (about 6 mins in mine).
4. Cream butter and sugar.
5. Add flour, cocoa, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg to butter and sugar (don’t think you need to mix this particularly but it can go in the same bowl).
6. When apples are stewed and have cooled slightly, add bicarbonate of soda to them and stir whilst it grows, then add to the other ingredients and stir until smooth.
7. Bake for about 30-40 mins (I would check it isn’t getting burnt at 30 mins).
8. Slowly melt butter in a pan.
9. Add cocoa to butter, turn up heat a bit and cook for about a minute.
10. Add icing sugar and stir so there aren’t any lumps.
11. Very soon the texture will go yucky and you will think that it has gone wrong. Don’t worry – this is where you add the milk.
12. Stir until it is smooth and remove from heat to cool.
13. Don’t ice the cake until it has cooled as the icing is quite runny and it won’t stay on the cake!
14. Om nom nom nom

This year’s resolutions are: go to the gym and bake more.

I will start with the baking. This week it is a plum & almond crumble slice:

I can has cat?

After three weeks in Cambridge I am settling in nicely. Last weekend I had a nice surprise when I returned home from some shopping. Sitting on the couch was this creature. My house mates call her “Bandita”. She comes around often.

ARM Christmas party

The ARM Christmas party is a rather special occasion where people dress up rather nicely. Here I am wearing my best attire.

The actual party is incredible. There were three rooms, each with a different theme. Japanese room had sushi and geisha ladies on stilts. In the Chinese  room there was Shineese food and casino tables you can loose the £10,000 of money you are given at the entrance. Thanks to some good luck I managed to get that up to about £90,000 before loosing it all. In the Indian room there was more food and Bollywood dancing.

Above is Andreas and Matt’s (now pregnant) wife, Laura.

The drink was insanely plentiful. Champaigne available all night long, wines, beers, cocktails, vodka shots through an ice sculpture…

I suspect I will get some stick from friends in Manchester for becoming a Champagne Socialist, but it was worth it.

So, day two. Today was the 20th anniversary of ARM so it was a rather special day. Morning, received a free iPad. Afternoon, got free beer, cake and fireworks. Was a reasonable day I think.

It is a lot heavier than the Newton, but I think I will upgrade to it.

I have now boxed up pretty much all my belongings ready for the move next week.

There is quite a bit, even after the purge in which I threw away many things I no longer use.The things that turn up are incredible. For example a Red Hat7.0 CD (didn’t work, too scratched)

Here is the bag I am taking for the first week. Just the bare essentials. It really looks like forever alone guy. As well as that, I am also taking my bike, on the train.

Before I left, the APT group said their goodbyes. This was kind of emotional for me as it will be my first time away from the University for 12 years. There was a whip round. I was kind of shocked at the scale of the parting gift. This is an Asus EEE (my fav laptop range), but it is actually the really posh Nvidia Ion, dual CPU and high res 12″ screen one. I have never received a present this nice in my entire life. Thank you so much to everyone. I am using it right now and it is fantastic.

As well as the computer, there was a crate of chocolate cherry beer I like.

As usual there was the visit to the pub where I bought the traditional first round. The turnout was incredible, not to mention expensive.

I will miss everyone in the group very much and hope I find friends as good as them in my next job (which starts on Monday).