The Sugar Bar

Is there a stench of rotting and damp in this blogspace? The Sugar Bar has gone all postmortem wrinkly, cold and lifeless. But o’ joy! I am back! And happy to be back. 

A few updates. I am quite bedazzled by my own efficiency. I have printed my language paper and my dissertation – which I printed 2 copies of and had bound at the bindery today after handing over £40!!! oh my life! – 2 days before the deadline! What a relief. I am also happy to say that I intend to revive this blog (whenever I have the time) despite the exams drawing near…wait for it….(drumroll)…because I now am equipped with a new swanky beautiful goddess of a camera. It’s not much, but the Canon Powershot G10 is like a small dream come true for me. It is the yummiest camera I’ve ever ever had in my 21 years and I can’t wait to start fiddling about with it properly to see what this girl can do. So, watch this space. I may not have a lot in the cupboard that’s edible, I may not have a lot of time or disposable income (what income?) to gallivant about the supermarkets for fresh edible food or the sanity left to cook and bake when dire times are just around the corner, ie. final year exams that count massively towards my undergraduate degree, but I do hope to post up as much as I can. Especially since quite a few birthday celebrations are heading my way.

So anyway, important thing is I want to thank all of you who have sent me such nice messages and left comments that really made my day. It was nice to know that there were others out there who were just as upset as I was when I lost my camera. What a grey day that was! Also, cheers to all who also sent me words of encouragement. I can’t believe there were people who bothered at all when all I did was moan, and moan, and then moan a whole lot more, about my dissertation and my sad life (it really isn’t sad at all. I just quite enjoy being melodramatic). 

I’m really glad that’s done and out of the way. I think I experienced 2 little deaths over Easter, from over-eating chocolate, and from my dissertation. And gosh, was I a pain to live with. Crabby, irritable and plagued by dehydration headaches. No doubt, I feel a little lost now that I’m ‘sort of’ finished. But in between handing these essays in and the exam revision, I can’t say if I feel just a little sleepy, a little hungry, a little like I’ve been resuscitated from the dead and so, quite liberated or just not quite with it. If I’m making any sense at all, I’m probably ‘with it’ then, barely. I need to catch up on some sleep. That’s probably it. 

Right, so I really just did drop in for a quick ‘hello’. A revision plan is a must and a top priority for me now. Nevertheless, I will food-post for sure. In fact, I am starving right now. Stay tuned. It may not be party time for me right now, but you can be sure the party times will be around preeeetty soon.

Hope all’s good with you lot. And that Easter was a really good one this year. If anyone, like me, died a little from all that eating, drinking and chocolates – good on ya! Death by chocolate is something I welcome any day, any time. And this is just for Steph: let’s go get ourselves a Party in Our Tummies!!! Fun times…

Je ne suis pas mort.
I am not dead. Well…yet.

And why the photo of my face (who wants to see that anyway?) instead of a nearly delicious-looking edible entity? Let me explain.

I am still alive and kicking, writing and reading, drinking and eating, partying and laughing but like the sinking feeling that’s often paired with a splitting headache of a hangover, my heart sank the night I lost my camera. Actually the night I lost it, I was a wee bit ‘happy’ getting piggy-backs off a friend. The morning after, realization hit and oh, the horror the horror! What have I learnt?

1) Stop taking your camera out for nights-out or at least designate one for nights-out and one for the foodblog! 
2) Do not force good friends with weak knees to flippin’ piggy-back your 8 stone self home on a down-sloping road, you’re bound to go crashing into a curb and lose a limb, two limbs, your wrists and possibly more by so doing. The end result is your self losing your mind cause you’re too poor to get a new camera and you’re too much of a wally brain to ever stop losing ‘em.

It shall be a while before I get a fairly affordable camera to replace this one. The ironically sad thing about it was I’d been meaning to save up for a Canon digital SLR camera. A couple of weeks after (which is NOW), I have gone right ahead to lose the 3rd camera my Dad had begrudgingly lent me. Get an amazing camera for my 18th – lose it. Get a mediocre replacement a while after – lose it. Beg for a very shitty old school camera – lose it.

Sad times, I know.

Can you blame me for being depressed?

Panicky not. Good things have happened to me. Eg. I’ve won a cookbook: Dinner at My Place by Tyler Florence from a taste of seduction. I really love Tyler Florence and his simple, down-to-earth recipes so when the task was simply to to describe what we did on Valentine’s Day over at a taste of seduction, I couldn’t be more happy to try my luck at it. JOY! Very excited about getting this book through the post. A little Tyler Florence lovin’. 

Whilst I’m waiting for that to arrive, I shall attempt to make arrangements for a new camera. So, watch this space. I will do my best to set The Sugar Bar back on the road! That means: no more weird pictures of myself! I’ll drink to that.

Because I’ve been too carried away bitching about sludge, addicted to drama episodes and struggling to fight the urge to purchase the pink SS09 Vivienne Westwood brooch, I’ve kinda not been able to begin my dissertation. I have thus started today  (so far, 164 words into it) and replied to Mum’s email that basically transmitted this pregnant message to me:

“Have you completed your thesis?

God be with you,
love Mum”

So. You can imagine how the hairs on my neck just shot straight up and I got all stressed out and worried and frazzled! Some manage with a can of Diet Coke (that usually does for me but I’m beginning to find the carbonated bloaty feeling very unattractive), others with a bag of Haribo, a few eccentric others with a game of hide and seek in a 5-storeyed campus library. For me, these de-stressing methods aren’t really working for me, and neither do they help me focus my energies on the task at hand. This added dilemma was definitely taking its toll on me as I felt the skin between my brows start to tense up into a frown. EEEK! We don’t want that happening now do we? Instead, into the kitchen we go to whip up something sweet, delicious, zesty, refreshing and de-stressing. What better than a yellow lemon to wake one up from a dribbly stupor, writers’ block, literary cul de sac?

Hence, I give you my Anti-Wrinkle, all-time favourite Lemon Poppy Seed Cake. I posted the recipe for this years back but I’ll post it here again since that’s so far into the archives, it’s not fair to leave it to age in that dusty ol’ world wide web cabinet. This is a most-trusted recipe for lemon poppy seed bread actually. It’s a über moist yet firm cake that’s perfectly balanced between sweetness and lemon zestiness and has my elder sister Abby’s vote every time. In fact, she once got quite upset with me for not sticking to my promise of baking it over the weekend. A lot of recipes I have found tend to use quite a lot of butter and full-fat milk. This one, using very little butter and skimmed milk, I believe delivers without cutting back on the taste or visual appeal. It was wonderful to see my housemates light up at the sound of lemon poppy seed cake, their hands itching to get a slice of it (Ms. Smith you know I’m referring to you!) and the worries of the day forgotten momentarily as we gushed about cake. University worries, credit crunch problems, skin aging and wrinkle anxieties – you lot can all f*** right off! Lemon poppy seed cake is here to save the day. You can find the recipe for that at the end of this post.

Kellogg’s – the Pleasure Bringer

Another exciting thing to happen today, other than my discovery of the anti-wrinkling effects of a lemon poppy seed cake, was the massive parcel that came knocking at my door. It’s not my birthday, it’s not Christmas but it certainly felt like it when I found 4 boxes of Kellogg’s Nature’s Pleasure muesli, an adorable little wooden bowl and a fancy spoon all nicely packed into a huge wooden box. I do not go a day without muesli, nuts and rolled oats. Some people have bread or rice for staple foods, I, on the contrary, have panic attacks if I run out of muesli so this was a real treat and I could not wait to try all 4 flavours – Apple & Blackcurrant, Apple, Pecan & Cashew, Raspberry & Cherry and Almond, Pecan & Raisin.

Nature’s Pleasure is a baked muesli. You could probably call it a deviant muesli because it’s been coated with honey and raw cane sugar, then baked to get that lovely golden brown toasted look. It also says on the box that it’s crunchy and Kellogg’s isn’t lying. This is the crunchiest, party-in-your-mouth muesli I’ve ever had! It is a whole lotta fun to eat although I have to be careful not to hurt my jaw from all that crunching (I have a weak jaw that sometimes gets stuck). Because I love berries and a little sour to most things, the Raspberry & Cherry is by far my favourite and you certainly get a generous portion of fruit in the muesli. Apple, Pecan & Raisin is my next favourite and a great energy boost if you’re looking for a power breakfast.

I am really impressed with this muesli. Before Nature’s Pleasure, it was quite a chore finding the right muesli at the supermarket because the flavours were always so generic, the packaging lack-lustre and none had the crunch I was looking for. To get the best stuff, you had a to pay a little more and feel the pain of parting with that extra cash. Nature’s Pleasure is affordable and quite addictive. I find myself mixing this in with my Kellogg’s Just Right or Fruit n Fibre in the morning; snacking on a handful mid-afternoon; mixing heaped tablespoonful of it into my evening pot of Activia yoghurt. I can’t get enough! Another plus point is that this muesli does not go soggy! Brilliant isn’t it? Crunch all the way to heaven. Except if you have a weak one like mine, take extra care when chomping away.

If you’re curious about this new product, go check it out on the Kellogg’s website: www.naturespleasure.co.uk or go grab yourself a couple of these fancy smanshy boxes. Come April, Nature’s Pleasure will be available in Waitrose and Sainsbury’s, retailing at an affordable £2.49! I recommend stocking up on a few at a go cause these will go in a blink of an eye.

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake
Ingredients

1 1/2 cup flour
5 tbs unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup milk
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
zest of 1-2 lemons, depending on desired strength
3 tbs poppy seeds
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt

For the lemon glaze:
juice of 1 lemon
icing sugar
a bit of semi-skimmed milk (optional)

Preheat oven to 170d Celsius.
Sift the flour and combine with the lemon zest, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Combine the poppy seeds with the milk and let macerate for about an hour before use.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar til light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Then add the flour mixture to this wet mixture in 3 parts, alternating with the poppy seed-milk mixture so that you end with the flour mixture addition last. Beat until just incorporated.

Grease and flour a cake pan or loaf tin. Pour the batter in, smooth the top down with the back of a spoon or spatula. Bake for 55-60 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted comes out clean.

For the lemon glaze, simply mix together the lemon juice and desired amount of icing sugar (and a little milk if you want to whiten it but not use a ridiculous amount of icing sugar). Once the cake is cooled completely, drizzle over the top and let the cake soak it all up. Serve.