Proud to Be A Part of Cybher 12

On 12th May, in the most beautiful, most central venue in London, a female-centered blogging conference was ready to kick off. Welcome to Cybher!
Once just an idea of Sian To (aka geekisnewchic/mummy-tips), now a reality – and I was very proud to be a part of it. Conferences are difficult to get the balance right, especially for bloggers, trying to please hundreds of people – all with strong opinions – who then write about it. But to me Cybher was different. All of the panels, sessions and sponsors were relevant, inspiring and informative.

Before it all kicked off, we blew off some steam at Top of the Town, as pictured with Melaina25 and BumpWearClaire.

And after a tense morning of organising badges, Cybher was finally underway.

It was a pleasure to be announcing some very interesting panels, such as Jo Gifford’s innovative session for blog design. She could not be in attendance due to illness, but still presented via a video and Twitter Q&A.

The subject of kids and online security is something that is important to me, so the session with Jill Hunley from AVG discussing the Digital Diaries programme was very interesting. The key message I took from this one was that parents need to be educated in online security/awareness just as much as the children do to keep them safe.

I’ve been photographing to some extent for 32 years. I’m not great, I haven’t retained everything I’ve learned over the years, but I do love it. So given the opportunity, I will always participate in a photography session, no matter how basic or advanced as there is always something to learn. I started out shooting 35mm film with a no frills SLR. I still use an SLR when I can. Digital photography is something I am still trying to get my head around. I have a great bridge camera, but probably do not use it to its full capability. Anyway… Back to Cybher… Mario Cacciottolo (yes, I had to practice saying that and still got it wrong when I introduced his sesssion!) has a photography based blog/website called ‘Someone Once Told Me’ where he captures a subject holding a quote of something memorable someone once told them. During this session, he focused on how to capture interesting portrait photography no matter where you are. The key things are lighting, background and a prop. If you don’t have a prop use the hands… hands are very expressive and can add personality to a seemingly static (or boring, even) situation.

I personally like more candid ‘portrait’ shots, so here’s one I took of Tara in action.

After a long day of introducing sessions, chatting with other bloggers and generally running around. Cybher was over and it was a success! If you were there, do you agree?

Here’s to Cybher and to Sian and to new friends and most of all… here’s to next year! Bring on Cybher 13…

Silent Sunday 6th May

Pass the Mic and Make Some Noise

I haven’t blogged in a while due to life, well you know, being life… busy, what not.
But tonight, I feel compelled to put some words down and broadcast them to the world.

Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys passed away today after a battle with cancer. In my musical travels, I unfortunately never had the pleasure of meeting him. Even though I never met him/knew him, his death has hit me a bit harder than the average celebrity.

I grew up with the Beastie Boys and nearly every formative year has a Beastie Boys reference and memory associated with it.

I remember when Licensed to Ill came out in 1986. We had it on cassette tape. ‘Fight For Your Right’ was all over MTV. ‘No Sleep Till Brooklyn’s’ guitar riff was played via air guitar. Many a night in 7th grade, I would stay up listening to it on my pink Walkman rewinding and re-playing ‘Paul Revere’ until I knew every single word. I remember lunchtime at Eich Junior High the beats of ‘Brass Monkey’ blaring out of the hi-fi across the quad.
Paul’s Boutique’s ‘Hey Ladies’ was a favourite with the cowbell and disco video. When Check Your Head came out my senior year in high school, I remember Jeremy pulling his hat down and imitating ‘Whatcha, whatcha whatcha want…’ outside of Marshall’s house.

I met Brian at Lollapalooza ’94 watching the Beastie Boys at Shoreline Ampitheatre. He would later become a serious boyfriend and we would go see them again with Bad Brains at Cal Expo in ’95. I remember driving down 2nd Avenue in Seattle with Stacey in 1998, listening to Ill Communication singing along with Q-Tip in ‘Get It Together’. Having joint listening parties for Lo-Fidelity Allstars ‘How to Operate With A Blown Mind’ and Beastie Boys ‘Hello Nasty’ at a lounge (that I can’t remember the name of) in Seattle when I was Sony College Rep. And even last year in 2011, eagerly anticipating the release of ‘Hot Sauce Committee, part 2′ then going to buy it at Rock a Boom in Leicester.

I can’t think of a band who has seen me through 26 years and is still relevant to my life. And even though I never personally knew Adam Yauch, I will still mourn the loss of someone who has played such an important role of creating a lifetime of memories.

Thank you MCA from downtown Brooklyn, for being part of my life.

Three Layers of Chocolate Indulgence

What do you get someone who has a sweet tooth for their 90th birthday? A giant chocolate cake, that’s what!

Martin’s pop turned the big nine-oh last weekend and to celebrate family and friends gathered from across the globe (all the way from Canada!). I needed a cake that would serve the crowd and knock the socks off as well, so I turned to my new favourite baking book – Baked In America. Those David’s really know what they’re doing.

I had a tough choice narrowing which layer cake recipe to make and finally decided on Coke Layers. Coca-cola and chocolate? You can’t get more indulgent, really…

So here goes, my adventure in a triple layer chocolate indulgence.

To get started, I melted butter with coca-cola in a bowl over simmering water.

Then added three types of chocolate – plain, milk and super dark 81% chocolate. Seriously chocolatey… oh yeah… and marshmallows. (I think I gained 10 lbs just writing that sentence.)

Once the chocolate, butter, cola and marshmallows were all melty and gooey, I let it cool to room temperature and sorted the dry ingredients. Oh yeah, there’s more chocolate.

Once the chocolate, butter, marshmallow and cola mixture cooled, I added it to the eggs and sugar. It’s key to let a hot chocolate mixture cool to room temp, otherwise you’ll get scrambled chocolate eggs… yuck.

This mixture makes 3x 9 inch layers.

As recommended, I used a chocolate fudge frosting, which combines sour cream and melted chocolate.

And voila! A frosted triple layer chocolate cake!

Pop loved the cake, as did everyone at the party. He had a few helpers to blow out the candles.

Happy birthday, Pop! Here’s to 90 great years and more to come…

Silent Sunday 18 March

Silent Sunday 11 March

Dreamy Clotted Cream Cheesecake

There’s so much to catch up on! Feb has been a VERY hectic month. And by hectic, I mean I didn’t even get a chance to enjoy a baking/cooking project since Valentine’s day. Thankfully, it’s now March and I have been able to slow down a bit and get back in the kitchen.

I love entertaining and throwing dinner parties, so whenever my husband’s family from Canada come to town I always make sure we put on a good spread.  This time we went with Tex-Mex for the meal – serving carnitas, black beans, fresh salsa, mexican rice, corn salad and homemade tortillas.  To follow, I thought a cheesecake would be the perfect foil.

I recently purchased a new baking book called ‘Baked in America‘.  If you didn’t know already, I am an American living in the UK.  This book is written by two Americans living in the UK. Perfect!  I am smitten with this book and am going to try out as many recipes from it as possible. But, before I get ahead of myself, let’s start with the first one. Enter the clotted cream cheesecake.

This was the second time I have ever attempted to make a cheesecake and I was pretty pleased with the results.  I poured over the cheesecake chapter taking in all of the two Davids’ tips and recommendations. So, here’s how it went:

I used a springform tin, as you do with a cheesecake, but I wrapped the bottom with foil to make it easier to remove the base to serve. This was a great tip from the book. Also, the cheesecakes I grew up with had a graham cracker crust. It’s difficult to find graham crackers in the UK and when you do find them, they are like £7 a box in specialty shops like Selfridges Food Hall. Anyway, digestives are the next best alternative, but mixing brown sugar into the digestive and butter mixture makes the crust taste like graham crackers. Top work, sirs!

There is a lot of cream in this cheesecake recipe. Don’t be afraid…

I don’t know the difference between a baked cheesecake and a non baked cheesecake. I suppose since I lived in New York, I am more partial to a New York Style cheesecake, which is baked in the oven.

The cheesecake looked like a souffle when it came out of the oven.

And then looked like an alien when it cooled. It has a rustic look, which went well with the Tex Mex fiesta.

And once it was sliced, it didn’t matter what it looked like because the texture inside was perfect.

There was nothing left on anyone’s plate.

This cheesecake serves 12 people easy. There were six of us and we sent our guests home with a second helping each.

This cheesecake recipe will definitely be in high rotation when it comes to desserts. The clotted cream added a flavour and texture that reminded us of ice cream from Cornwall. Since this recipe came out so well, I cannot wait to get started on my next baking adventure out of Baked In America. I just hope it doesn’t make me miss back home too much.

Silent Sunday 4 March

Baked with love – (Red) velvet cupcakes

English Mum is hosting a ‘Baked With Love Bakeoff’ and now that Owen, my brand new oven, is in full effect, I had to get involved.  I like making Valentine’s day treats for my sweeties and wanted to do something new, so I tried Red Velvet Cupcakes.  I have seen many recipes for Red Velvet Cake, all of which use quite a bit of red food colouring, but the one from Eric Lanlard’s Home Bake is one that does not.  It’s an American style recipe which relies on the chemical reaction between baking soda and white wine vinegar to create the ‘red’ effect.

It was more like a science experiment than baking, but that was part of the fun.

It started out like your everyday cake mixture using the creaming method: butter, sugar, cocoa…

Then alternately add buttermilk and flour…

But with this mixture you combine baking soda and white wine vinegar. Vinegar in cupcakes?! okaay…

Then keep mixing until it becomes a glossy mixture…

I filled each cupcake cup halfway and popped them in the new oven. (Affectionately named Owen thanks to the suggestion of Leah and Phil).

Et voila… Cupcakes! They didn’t come out as red as I anticipated, but they taste amazing and are actually really velvety in texture.

As these cakes are celebrating Valentine’s Day, I decorated them with marshmallow topping (mini G’s favourite) and heart shaped sprinkles.

And they went down a treat with the little love of my life – mini G…

Silent Sunday 12th February