Running With Scissors
Sunday, October 24, 2004
I spent 2 hours this weekend tasting 10 different varieties of orange juice. I love doing taste testing...it feels very futuristic, having food samples pushed at you through little hatches whilst sitting in a small white cubicle. I amused myself between samples by peering through the gaps around the edges of the hatch...I could see people in green shirts bustling about, washing glasses and checking questionnaires, and what looked like a giant carton of Golden Circle chilled juice on a shelf against the far wall.

I had never really thought about it before, but I can now say that I definitely prefer juice with a medium to dark colour, higher level of sweetness than bitterness, thin texture, and low pulp content. So at least I accomplished something this weekend.

I spent most of the bus ride home from Orange Juice World dreaming up designs for Halloween petit fours...I just hope I have time to make them before Nicholas's party next Saturday. The rest of the afternoon was spent baking banana bars to take to my musicology class tomorrow morning (I have to present my mediocre essay, and need something to distract the audience) and chopping up soup ingredients. Wonderfully domestic.


Fiona expressed these musings at 1:54 AM
Synopsis
The life and times of a girl who likes cake.

The Cast And Crew
Fiona: A genius musicologist with a giant brain, who loves cake, pies and aeroplanes. Captain of Skybed 2.
Rob: Fiona's gentleman caller, also owner of a giant brain, and captain of Skybed 1.
Vanessa: Sister of Fiona, recently returned from a jaunt around the Continent.
Timothy: Friend of Fiona and gentleman caller of Vanessa, currently swanning around in Paris.
Nicholas: Friend of all of the above.
Helen: Platonic wife of Fiona, artist, and senior lecturer.
Mother: Self-explanatory.

Links to Alleviate Your Boredom
www.engrish.com
home.iprimus.com.au/ncarvan/
Other Blogs
News, Rants, Soliloquies and Reveries
Seventeenth

Recipe Of The Week: Orange and Raspberry Cake
Ingredients
125g margarine
3/4 cup (165g) caster sugar
2 eggs, or egg replacer equivalent
1 1/2 cups (225g) self-raising flour
1/2 cup (125 mL) orange juice
3/4 cup raspberries. If you use frozen ones, don't thaw them, please.

1.Grease deep 20cm round cake pan, line base with baking paper, sprinkle with sugar.This helps your cakey to rise, as the mixture clings tenaciously to the sugar as it climbs up the sides of the pan.

2.Beat butter and sugar in medium bowl til all light and fluffy.

3.Beat in eggs one at a time, beating til just combined between additions. Or, if you are using egg replacer, divide it in half, pretend it's eggs and do the same.

4.Fold in flour and juice, in 2 alternate batches, ending with a flour batch.

5.Fold in 1/4 cup raspberries, gently now..

6.Now, assemble your cakey. Spread 3/4 of cake mixture into your pan, sprinkle with remaining raspberries. Spread with remaining cake mixture.

7. Bake in moderate oven (180 degrees) about 1 hour. Stand cake in pan 5 min,then cool on a wire rack.

8. Ice your creation. Orange or passionfruit icing would be nice with this one, I think. I usually just sift some icing sugar until I get sick of it, then add enough orange juice or passionfruit pulp to make a nice consistency.

9. Share with your friends and bask in praise (it'd be nice if you mentioned me, but if you don't, I'll forgive you). Or,
consume alone.