letizia bake off 2011
23 Jul 2011
The inaugural Letizia Bake Off was last year (named for the original buyer of the trophy) and it all started over a Lemon Drizzle cake. It quickly turned into an all out war between Jon and Meeta in a baking competition of three rounds: The Competition Cake (Lemon Drizzle), Chocolate and Freestyle. Meeta was the triumphant winner and hosted the 2011 Bake Off. I competed along with Tammie and Tim. We had three rounds too: The Competition Cake (Victoria Sponge), Citrus and Freestyle.
Meeta's spread before the judging
The Letizia Cup
MY ENTRIES
The Competition Cake: My Victoria Sponge with Vanilla Bean Double Cream and French Cherry and Strawberry Jam
Citrus: Lemon and Blueberry Yoghurt Pound Cake
Freestyle: Mojito Cupcakes
TAMMIE'S ENTRIES
The Competition Cake: Victoria Sponge with Chambord Cream and Strawberries
Citrus: Mojito Pound Cake
Freestyle: Guinness and Chocolate Cake
TIM'S ENTRIES
The Competition Cake: Victoria Sponge
Citrus: Lemon Trifle
Freestyle: Salmon Mini Quiches
Scoresheet
Poor Tammie had an oven crisis the morning of the competition and had to run to Jon's house to finish baking and I managed to travel an hour across town on several tubes and a bus with 3 cakes. There was a complicated score sheet and the final standings were:
Letizia Cup Winner 2011: Tim (the dark horse! His savoury strategy for the Freestyle round and Citrus round gave him the edge)
1st runner up: me
2nd runner up: Tammie.
Yes, I was a little disappointed I didn't win, but there's talk of special mini Letizia Cup challenges like The Chocolate Bake Off.
eating out // york & albany
19 Jul 2011
Ceviche of organic salmon, avocado, chilli, lime and coriander
When my parents were in town, they took me and two of my best friends out to lunch at Gordon Ramsay's York & Albany. C & J took me in for three months when I first moved to London and they really are like my brothers from another mother. Mum and Dad thought it was the least they could do to say thank you.
Jon was using his iPhone to give me a little more light for my photos, haha. I like having my own lighting team. He did it again when we went to Heston Blumenthal's new(ish) restaurant Dinner!
Roasted sea trout, braised fennel, olive
Roast beef
Rice pudding
Gosh I can hardly remember... I think it was a vanilla bean panacotta with pear and blue cheese ice cream (delicious!)
music // two door cinema club @ the roundhouse
15 Jul 2011
This is from back in March. We were right up the back but it didn't matter. I was having a BALL.
single girls guide part 7
14 Jul 2011
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I love HelloGiggles. The contributors post so often I just let the posts build up in my Google Reader and then pick the ones I want to read. This struck a chord with me today. Something us girls are always reminding ourselves and our girlfriends, but it never seems to stick. Repetition must help! (Obviously these are not my words at all. Click on Erin's name to read the rest of her Single Girls Guide on HelloGiggles.)
SINGLE GIRLS GUIDE PART 7
by Erin Foster
I feel like a lot of girls out there like to complain about all the losers they’ve dated in the past, and about what awful luck they’ve had in relationships. I’d like to address this issue directly to you ladies with the disclaimer that I used to be one myself.
The thing you seem to always overlook is that the common denominator in these guys is YOU, the girl who put up with them! You’re the theme that runs through them. You picked them. You begged them to pose for photo booth pictures with you, and to put hearts next to your name in their iPhone.
You saw the warning signs early on, but chose to ignore them. It’s because as women we think we have the ability to change someone. We think it’s our DUTY to change them. We make excuses for why they aren’t treating us the way we want to be treated, while simultaneously letting them know we’ll put up with anything. We don’t see these warnings for what they are, we see them as personal challenges. It’s why I’ve noticed a surge in guys playing “The No Game Game”.
If a guy comes to you and says he’s not really looking for a relationship, and he doesn’t want to hurt you and he thinks sleeping together might complicate things, you are in shock. The idea that he’s being honest and willing to lose possible nakedness as a result doesn’t fit into everything you’ve grown to understand about men. The awareness that he’s not trying to sleep with you, kinda just makes you want to sleep with him.
You feel compelled to prove that you can have fun and not fall in love. You also immediately assume that you can change his mind. Once he sees you in that one dress, and meets your friends, and eats your famous spaghetti bolognese, he’ll be hooked. He’ll obviously feel what you already feel. The sincerity of his intentions is almost offensive actually. You’re so accustomed to giving a guy a list of reasons why you shouldn’t sleep with him, and now he’s not even trying?
Your dad never warned you about this tactic. So you end up submerging yourself in a bubbly bath of denial and forging ahead with the plan that at some point you’ll come up with a plan. And then when he doesn’t want to be in a relationship with you, you’re pissed and you only have yourself to blame! The guy is stoked, he got laid and has nothing to feel guilty about because he did everything right. He didn’t play you, YOU played you! This is my point; stop blaming the dude for all your problems and take a look at how you got yourself here. While you’re whining about how terrible your ex boyfriend was, we’re wondering why you chose to stay with him for two years. We don’t believe it when a guy says something we don’t want to hear. We just turn it into what we assume he’s trying to say.
Someone once told me the simplest way to get into a good relationship is to believe what the person is saying to you. Ok fine, it was my therapist. But it’s true. He says he isn’t ready for a relationship? Believe him. He says he never wants kids? Believe him. We make things so much more complicated than they need to be. How many women do you know who have a big complaint in their relationship like that he doesn’t want to get married? And how many of those women admit that he told them he wouldn’t want to right from the beginning? Like, all of em! You don’t need to tap dance and rearrange your life to get someone to fit into it. Stick to your guns. Take responsibility for your choices. There are no victims, only volunteers. My friend Josh said that to me tonight and I thought, that’s the perfect ending to this post!
link me
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it's that time again... when i've bookmarked way too many cool pages and compile them here.
- patti smith's 25 lessons for creative types
- my friend sophie's beautiful post after her grandmother's passing.
- sarah wilson gets some photos analysed by colour specialist chris brazal
- another sarah wilson blog post on toxin-free cosmetics. it freaked me out so much, i've switched my shampoo, conditioner, body wash and deodorant to natural products.
- iphone app, the good guide, to help you pick which products are natural
- cosmetics database to help avoid high toxicity products
- booki.sh is an ebook library, stored in the clouds (i recently found out about cloud computing and love saying it. cloud. cloud. clouds...)
- lauren manning documented the food she ate for two years and turned the data into 40 beautiful graphs
- the evolution of the book cover design for design*sponge
- as an ex-bookshop-girl i can vouch for some of the crazy things customers say! here's jen campbell's list.
- martin solveig feat. thomas mars - the night out.
- bumble & earwig make beautifully intricate animal heads... on brooches!
- gotye feat. kimbra - somebody that i used to know. amazing video clip with body paint!
- joel penkman's food art makes me hungry.
- 2008 wimbledon final between roger federer and rafael nadal... in paper form.
- i love the transformers movies, but when you think about it in this light, my feminist side starts to come out and i start getting angry.
- wonderful detail to recreate a starbucks store in the woods for this gorgeous proposal.
- and bieber boomers: why older women love justin bieber.
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