White Chocolate Caramel Oat Cake

If I had to pick a favourite cake, this would be it.
I remember when I was about 5 or 6 Mum and Dad would take me out to this place called Evan's for lunch and we would always share a piece of an oaty, caramely cake with sour yoghurt. When Evan's closed I thought I would never get to eat my favourite cake again :(
About ten years later I found this recipe in a Jo Segar cookbook. It looked very similar, and when I baked it I was amazed to discover it tasted exactly how I remembered the cake from Evan's tasted.
Everyone who has tried this cake loves it too. It's kind of like a really nice Anzac biscuit with caramel.

INGREDIENTS FOR CARAMEL:

• 1 x 400g can sweetened condensed milk
• 2 tbsps. golden syrup
• 150g butter

INGREDIENTS FOR CAKE:

• 1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour
• 3/4 cup flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar (firmly packed)
• 3/4 cup desiccated coconut
• 2 eggs
• 250g butter melted
• 1 tbsp. vanilla essence
• 1 cup white chocolate buttons/white chocolate pieces

Caramel:
To make the caramel, place all the ingredients in a small saucepan and still over a medium heat until well combined and smooth. Allow to cool. (If there is too much butter and some is floating on top, just carefully tip of the extra butter.) Don't worry if your caramel seems to catch on the bottom a little so long as it doesn't taste burnt.

Cake:
Preheat your oven to 180C.
Line a 25-26 cm spring form tin with baking paper.
To make the cake, place all the dry ingredients except the chocolate buttons in a large bowl and mix well. Beat the eggs, melted butter and vanilla together, then mix into dry ingredients. Press three-quarters of this mixture into the prepared tin (so there are no gaps).
Pour caramel over base, then crumble the remaining cake mixture on top.
Bake for 45 mins until golden brown.
Cool completely in the tin.
When cold melt the white chocolate in the microwave or stovetop, and drizzle over the top of the cake.

Keep cake chilled in fridge or serve warmish.
Serve with thick yoghurt, whipped cream, ice-cream or all three.
ENJOY
(From Jo Segar, The Cook School Recipes, Random House, New Zealand).

And no, the Ready Clingwrap is not a subtle product placement, I just forgot to move it.



Tea Time Apple Spice Cake

I found this cake one day while I was looking for something to make with apples, but I have changed the recipe slightly since.
(source: http://nzfavouriterecipe.co.nz/recipes/desserts/228-tea-time-apple-spice-cake)
It's a really moist and delicious cake, as well as being one of the easiest cakes I have ever made because you basically make it all in one bowl.
One of my favourite cakes of all time.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 large Granny Smith Apples (you can actually use whatever apples you like and put more in, like 3 or 4 especially if they are small).
• 1 cup of sugar
• Milk
• 100g butter
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp cinnamon (put more in if you like, I always do, all of the spice measurements are just suggestions)
• 1 tsp of nutmeg
• 1 - 2 tsp allspice
• 1 - 2 tsp ginger

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 180C
2. Line tin with baking paper.
3. Peel and thinly slice or dice apples and place in a mixing bowl.
4. Sprinkle sugar over apple.
5. Melt butter and beat egg into it (you should wait for the butter to cool down a little bit and then whisk the egg in fast, don't let it go stone cold or something weird happens when you pour the egg in.)
6. Pour butter mixture over apple (I recommend doing this as soon as you have mixed the egg and butter).
7. Add flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice to the mixture.
8. Mix well
9. If too dry add milk (I always have to add milk when I make it), mixture should be quite moist.
10. Bake for 1 hour at 180C or until cake is golden

ICING (sorry this isn't very specific):

• Butter
• Icing sugar
• Hot water
• Vanilla essence

Put some butter in a heatproof bowl, like a couple of tablespoons.
Pour some hot water over the butter, stir until it melts.
Add a teaspoon or so of vanilla essence.
Add icing sugar until icing is a still a little runny but not so runny that it will soak into the cake.
Drizzle onto cake.

Serve alone or with ice-cream or cream

SERVES: 6 -8
COOKING TIME: 50 - 60 minutes
PREP TIME: 12 minutes

How I Became a Whovian



I didn't grow up watching Doctor Who, in fact I didn't grow up watching television at all. The only TV shows I can remember watching before the age of 12 was the Magic School Bus and Little House on the Prairie.
The first definite memory I have of Doctor Who is reading about the Amy and the Doctor in my Nana's TV Guide, which, for some reason left me with the impression that he'd crashed the TARDIS into her car instead of her shed. At that point I probably assumed that this Doctor was a member of the medical profession and therefore lost interest.
It didn't help that until last year I hated, loathed and despised all things Sci-fi.
I saw the show advertised on TV a few times after that but, the real blame for my descent into the madness and awesomeness that is the Doctor Who fandom goes to two of my friends Vida and Liv.
We all went to orchestra together, and after ignoring each other for a couple of years we finally discovered we had heaps in common and became instant friends. We would always have intense discussions during break about LOTR and Ranger's Apprentice, but there was one subject they would always talk about that I couldn't relate to, Doctor Who.
After a few months, I got so fed up with my utter ignorance in this area that I went home and watched Christopher Eccleston's first episode - Rose.
Due to my hate of sci-fi I was convinced that it would be rubbish and that I would hate it.
First impressions were not the best - I thought the theme music was, well a bit weird. And who was this random girl, where was the doctor? Why was I even watching this, maybe I should just go and watch Sherlock again.
I decided that it would be pathetic to stop watching after the first five minutes so I kept going.
It was the moment when The Doctor said 'nice to meet you Rose. Run for your life' that I knew there was absolutely NO going back.
I think it was the way he smiled evilly while he brandished his sticks of dynamite that did it, but whatever it was I was completely hooked and not even the living plastic rubbish bins had the power to dissuade me.
My subsequent obsession can be pretty well summed up in 'Let It Go' from Frozen.
For the first few weeks I didn't really want to mention I liked the show to people other than my Who-mad friends in case they shunned me in disgust. I mean, I'm homeschooled, wear glasses and read as though the world is about to end, I really didn't need any more weirdness in my life.                                                                                                                                                          At some point I just decided didn't care anymore, being a nerd was awesome, so I just let it all go.
Two years, 104 episodes, two pinterest boards, one concert, four tee-shirts and other assorted memorabilia later I am a MASSIVE fan and EVERYONE knows it whether they wanted to or not.
Oh, I also love Sci-fi and sing along to the Doctor Who theme song whenever I hear it.
I still haven't got around to watching Classic Who yet, but it's defiantly one of my goals.

BONUS- MY TOP TEN DOCTOR WHO EPISODES.

1. The Empty Child (this was at that point, literally the most terrifying thing I had ever seen)
2. The Girl in the Fireplace (this episode was beautiful and sad)
3. Blink (DON'T BLINK)
4. The End of Time part 1&2 (I cried my eyes out for the last 15 minutes)
5. Silence in the Library (books, man-eating shadow and River Song what could be better)
6. The Time of Angels (I didn't need to sleep anyway)
7. The Big Bang (Something old something new, something borrowed and something blue)
8. The Wedding of River Song (Doctor Who?)
9. Partners in Crime (DONNA!!!!!!!!!)
10. The Angels Take Manhattan (Cried for about half an hour afterwards and was depressed for the rest of the week)

Let me know your favourite episodes in the comments?
How did you start watching Doctor Who?

The Lord of Silver Fountains...

This weekend I was overcome with an uncontrollable urge to do something creative with my time instead of just of just scrolling through Pinterest until my eyes glaze over.
I decided to embroider something to frame for my wall. Ironically, the idea for my embroidery pattern came from Pinterest.

Original Source: http://the-hobbit.tumblr.com/post/70056394742/i-made-this-as-i-fell-in-love-with-bards-poem

The poem is recited by Bard the Bowman on The Hobbit Desolation of Smaug, and I completely fell in love with it when I first heard it.
It is a prophecy about how The Lord of Silver Fountains (Thorin Oakenshield) will return to his throne under the mountain. I still get shivers every time I watch it!
You can watch the clip from the movie here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxKjrJZ3Is0

To turn this poem into an embroidery pattern, I just printed out a copy slightly smaller than the size of my square of calico and then traced the words onto the fabric with a tailor's chalk pencil (you shouldn't use a standard pencil as I learnt the hard way.)
I didn't want to do all of the words in the same colour thread because I thought that would look a bit bland and boring. Instead I thought it would look pretty cool if I embroidered each word in a colour associated with it, i.e. mountain in green and fountain in blue.

Sorry the picture quality is not the best :(

Some word, like emotions i.e. sadness, were a bit harder to colour match so I kind of just made them up as I went along. All words like at, in and the I embroidered in plain black thread.
When it was finished, I ironed it, trimmed the edges and then spent about half an hour trying to stretch out all the crinkles while I taped it into a frame.
In my opinion (although I am definitely biased after spending about 6 hours embroidering it) the finished product turned out well.

This project was quite easy. In fact the hardest part was probably trying to get it into the frame.
All you need is:

• Patience
• The ability to do line-stitch embroidery
• A piece of calico or any other white fabric
• Embroidery threads in the colours of your choice
• A tailor's chalk pencil in any colour other than white
• An embroider hoop
• A frame
• A needle
• Some scissors

You could do this kind of thing with any poem, bible verse or movie quote etc. of your choice.
I am also embroidering a picture of Wash's dinosaurs from Firefly, I will try and remember to post pictures of that when I'm finished (remembers Firefly is no more and sobs in corner).
I would also like to say thanks to all of the people who are subscribed to/read my humble blog, you guys are awesome :)

Photos From a Car Window

On the way back from the previously mentioned West Coast trip, the scenery was beautiful! It reminded me of some of the locations from Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit; which I suppose, is no surprise considering the Southern Alps (past which we were driving) were used as locations in  the Lord of the Rings movies.
I pretty much spent the entire drive from Greymouth to Christchurch hanging out the open window taking pictures (and getting yelled at by my sister because she couldn't hear her music due to the wind).
I thought I'd share some of the pictures, (the ones that didn't turn out as grey blurs that is).

Far over the Misty Mountains...

West Coast Wonders

During the Summer school holidays, I went on a road trip to the South Island (of New Zealand) with my family.
As part of our trip, we went to the West Coast, where we stayed in a town called Greymouth for a couple of days.
The West Coast is one of the most remote and sparsely populated regions in New Zealand and is home to some of New Zealand's most impressive natural features, such as the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks and blowholes, Mount Cook and the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers.

The drive from Christchurch (where we were staying) to Greymouth is about three - four hours and takes you through some very spectacular and rugged terrain.
With the Aachen Motel in Greymouth as our base, we went out and did several day trips, visiting Shantytown, The Punakaiki Pancake rocks and blowholes, Franz Josef Glacier and Fox Glacier.

Shantytown is a Heritage Park located just out of Greymouth and is set up like a gold mining town in the 1800s.
At Shantytown, you can experience panning for gold, ride a working steam train and catch a glimpse of what life might have been like for the early settlers of gold mining towns.

Shantytown's steam train 'Gertie'

'Main road'

Inside 'Coronation Hall' 

 

 After Shantytown we made the drive to the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks and Blowholes.
The rocks get their name due to the distinct layers in the rock, which makes them resemble stacks of pancakes.




Pancake Rocks

 

The day after Punakaiki and Shantytown, we visited the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers.
These glaciers are some of the most popular attractions on the whole of the West Coast.
Due to the enthusiasm of my parents, we visited both glaciers in the same day. As a result of the glacier receding over the past few decades, it is necessary to make a 30 minute trek (or what the signs claimed was 30 minutes) up to Fox Glacier and a 45 minute one up to Franz Josef. I am heinously unfit so this basically amounted to torture for me (especially as it was mostly up hill). Despite this, the views of glaciers were truly stunning.

A distant view of Franz Josef

Franz Josef close up

Waterfall on the walk to Franz Josef

Overall, I found the walk to Franz Josef pretty easy.
I found the walk to Fox a bit more traumatising, mainly because there were a LOT of massive boulders and rubble perched on the mountain just above the walking track.
They were accompanied by helpful signs warning you that straying off the path could result in DEATH.

Beware of all the rocks

Fox glacier

You could get guided tours onto the glacier itself, note the stairs

River which runs from the glacier
 



If you are ever in the West Coast, I would recommend visiting these places. They are amazing, and well worth any effort taken to get to them.

 

Spicy Noodles

Instant noodles make a quick and easy meal, however plain noodles and even noodles made with the packet flavouring can become a bit boring.
When I feel like noodles for lunch, I make what my family calls spicy noodles. It is still easy to make but is far tastier than the alternative.

• 1 small onion
• about a tsp of garlic paste (less or more depending on your preferences)
• about a tsp of ginger paste
• about a tbsp of soy sause
• about a tbsp of Worchester sause
• Sweet chili sauce
• Salt and pepper

Cut the onion in half and then cut each half into thin slices.
Heat a medium sized pot on a low - medium heat with a little olive oil in the bottom.
When the pan has heated, put in onions and sauté with salt and pepper to taste.
When onions are soft, add garlic and ginger. Stir.
Add soy and Worchester sauce. Stir.
Continue to stir until ingredients are well blended.
Add as much chili sauce as your taste-buds can handle. Stir.
When ingredients have reduced a little and are well combined, add instant noodles and enough hot water to cover your noodles. Cook on medium - high heat until noodles are al dente (not to soft, not to hard).
When the noodles are cooked, you can either drain them or leave the liquid in.
It's not fine dining, but it's both cost and time effective.
Enjoy

Lunch and a good book