Easter Cakes

Today I made Easter Cakes with some tiny people (4 yr olds) and I learned how to melt chocolate. It was surprisingly difficult! There are special cooking techniques and also common pitfalls to avoid. These 'secrets' of the chocolate world are actually very well known. Apparently.


The first lot of chocolate turned into nasty, dry, powdery lumps of chocolate-like stone. I stirred it but the little rocks just jiggled about in the bowl. There was no melting and no smell of lovely chocolate. A strange chemical reaction had taken place. Interesting, but it was a bit stressful with a dozen little ones waiting to make their chocolate nests. Luckily, there was enough chocolate for me to start all over again with a new bowl.

Here are the finished cakes.

My top tips for successful chocolate melting are:

• don't use too hot a setting on the microwave


• or do that thing with the chocolate over a bowl of hot water


• stir the chocolate gently but often
  

Here is some information (below) which I found on this website:

http://www.chocolate-source.co.uk/how_to_melt_chocolate.htm

How to Melt Chocolate:

Chocolate is very sensitive to overheating and will develop into hard, grain lumps if heated above 44 degrees C or 111 degrees F . . . if chocolate does overheat and develop into lumps then it is very difficult to reverse.

Risk assessment

Do you remember this big old crevice in the floor of the Tate Modern Art Gallery? I went here in November 2007 and almost fell down into a vast subterranean world of monsters and trolls.

Well . . . I went there again today and was rather disappointed to see all of these large and conspicuous signs. I assume that someone didn't look where they were going and actually did fall into the ditch. So now they have to have all of these silly warning signs. Oh dear.

The earth moved

We had a little earthquake in the UK and I actually felt it. After having slept through previous quakes in California, I had assumed that I was somehow immune to their effects. But this quake woke me up! I wasn't really sure what it was, but just went back to sleep anyway.

I'm glad that this was such a minor tremor. I'm grateful that I don't live in one of the many other parts of the world which experience far more powerful earthquakes.

London Zoo

I had a lovely day out at London Zoo today. Click the logo for more zoo info:

There were all kinds of creatures there, and many of them were in spacious, natural-looking enclosures rather than the tiny little barren cages which have been left over from the zoo's lengthy history.

The gorillas have a large, brand-new living space. They can choose to approach the glass and get really close to the visitors, or they can move away freely into other areas of their enclosure.

This gorilla came over to the glass and stayed close to me for a long time, looking directly into my eyes for a few intense stares. Quite a crowd gathered.

There was such a lot to see. I had time to the explore the jungle . . .

. . . and even go scuba diving!

I saw the famous 'feeding time for the penguins'. It was great!

Penguins are so cute! It must be almost time for me to watch 'Happy Feet' again!

Healthy food

A local primary school had a 'healthy food' week and one of the activities was a model making competition. The children had to make a model using only winter vegetables. Here are just a few of their excellent creations:

Richmond Park

We had a lovely day out at Richmond Park.

Or, more accurately, we had a tense couple of hours struggling to navigate through a partially closed transportation system and then finally we had a lovely couple of hours enjoying the park - before it was time to go home again. Next time, we'll check with the London tube website first!

The very small brown speck in the middle of the field is a deer. They were really big and were reasonably unconcerned by people, so it was possible to get quite close to them.

The name of the game

I learned to play a new game today. You move the seeds around the board and try to capture those which belong to your opponent. It's easy to learn and is tons of fun to play.

I think some people call it Oware (rhymes with 'safari') and it's a variation of the group of games know as Mancala.

Probably.

I used this board ( above ) but I'd love to own one in this lovely warm reddish wood. I don't know what kind of wood it is, but I like it anyway.
I thought this picture, which I found on the internet, was really interesting. I wonder how big this board/table actually is?

Mexican food?

Of course, you've heard of Mexican food?

Then there's Tex-Mex food, and lovely Californian-Mexican food . . .

Well now there's a new cuisine in town - say hello to Tesco-Mex!

Bon appetit!