Sunday, October 31, 2010

Barrack St, 8am.


26.

Last weekend was my 26th birthday.  Gosh, I'm getting old!  I had some friends round for lunch, and we ate and ate and ate.

I didn't manage to get any good pictures of my guests, but here's the cake..

Cake.

It's Elizabeth David's chocolate almond torte.  I make it every year and it's never failed me!

To make it, you do this:

Preheat the oven to 375F (190C), and line a 20cm springform tin with baking paper.

Separate 4 room-temperature eggs, with the yolks in one bowl and the whites in another.

Melt 200g dark chocolate (the best you can get, and at least 70% cocoa solids) with 150g chopped unsalted butter in a stainless steel bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.  Remove from heat and cool.

Beat the egg yolks and 100g caster sugar until pale and thick.  Beat in the melted chocolate/butter mixture and a teaspoon of vanilla extract.  Fold in 100g blanched almond meal.

In a clean, dry bowl, whisk the egg whites until foamy.  Add 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (I usually omit this, it's not really necessary) and continue whisking until soft peaks form.  Sprinkle in 50g caster sugar and whisk until stiff peaks form.  Fold about 1/4 of the whites into the chocolate batter to lighten it.  Quickly fold in the rest of the whites and mix only until just incorporated.

Pour the batter into the pan and bake for about 45 to 50 minutes or until ready.  Remove and cool.  The cake will rise during baking but falls during cooling, leaving a crisp and cracked crust.  Once cool, run a spatula around the inside of the pan before undoing the tin.  Dust with icing sugar and serve with strawberries and thick double cream.

Bicentennial Park.

The rain stopped, so we went for a little walk up the hill this evening before the sun went down.

Bicentennial Park.


Bicentennial Park.

Monday, October 11, 2010



Henry Talbot, Wooloomooloo girl, 1952-1953.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Bouquet.


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A terrible photo, but I wanted to share what I found when I got home from work this afternoon.  Yes, that's a thermal coffee mug.  My boyfriend is awesome.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Snow day.


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From a month or so ago.  The first and third photos are from my Pentax K1000, and the middle one is from an Olympus Trip 35.

B&W.


(Apologies in advance - this is a very image-heavy post..)

I shot my first roll of black and white film in ten or so years, and I'm pretty pleased with the results!  

These photos are from all over - Sullivan's Cove, Salamanca, Long Beach and Kingston Beach.  

What do you think?  I love how they look but it's so expensive these days to buy and develop black and white film that I won't be doing it too often.

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