Your regular Friday update

Part 32 - Not your Housekeeper!" of "The Adventures of a Consulting Time Lord" has been posted to the 13th_sherlock DW community and to FF.Net. Still quite a lot of canon stuff, the unaired-pilot-version of it, with Mrs Hudson making her first appearance.

Enjoy!

Baking for Easter - Easter Bunnies of Puff Pastry

This one is cheap and very simple. The original idea is from the chefkoch.de website, but I've modified it a bit.

INGREDIENTS:
- 1 package of ready-made puff pastry dough
(mine was frozen, which made it a bit difficult to work with; try to find the fresh version)
- 1 egg
- some leftover jam (mine was apricot, but it really doesn't matter, any sort of jam would work just as well)
- a few raisins, cut in tiny pieces (for the eyes)
- eventually some icing sugar (not stricktly necessary)

How to make it:
1. Pre-heat the oven to 170°C and cover the baking tin with baking paper.
2. Roll out the dough and cut little bunnies or other Easter figures out of it.
3. Paint half of them with beaten egg.
4. Put a small amount of jam in the middle.
5. Lay another figure over it, press the edges closed, or else the jam will leak out (it happened to me, despite all my efforts, alas!), paint them with beaten egg again and make them eyes from the raisin pieces.
6. You can sprinkle them with icing sugar, either now, or when they're done but still warm. I didn't do it.
7. Bake them for cca 10 minutes until golden brown and risen to double thickness.

And that's basically it. I got 39 small bunny-shaped cookies out of one package of pastry - so much that we shared with all our neighbours. The small kids were very excited about the bunnies.

Photo as promised:

Baking for Easter - Quick & Simple Cheesy Buns

Another quick and inexpensive one. I baked this with the schoolkids recently, and although we made 2 batches, the whole thing was done within the hour! (And let me tell you, it isn't a fast process when you work with 15-20 children between the age of 10 and 12.)

Ingredients:
400 gr white flour
250 gr margarine
2 dl (1/4 l minus a tablespoon) sour cream
30 gr fresh yeast (not the dried and pulverized version!)
150 gr grated cheese (any sort, it doesn't matter)
3 teaspoons of salt (or less, if you like it milder)
1/2 teaspoon of sugar (for the yeast)

For the decoration:
1 beaten egg (small)
50 gr grated cheese

How to make it:
1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C, cover baking tin with baking paper
(or simply paint the tin with fat - oil or margarine - if you don't have any baking paper at hand, it works just as well)
2. Sieve the flour and the salt onto the working surface, make a dent in the middle, crumble the yeast into the dent, mix it with the sugar and the sour cream. Attention: all ingredients must be room temperature, or else the buns won't rise in the oven!!!
3. Add the grated cheese and the margarine, which should be cut in small cubes. Knead the dough until smooth.
4. Roll out the dough - it should be as thick as your finger - cut out small buns (diameter: 2 centimetres), paint them with beaten egg and put a pinch of grated cheese on each.
5. Bake it in the oven until it is golden-yellow.

Photo as promised:

Rememberance of a wonderful person

I felt a bit religious-nostalgic tonight, so I went and searched for music from Taizé on YouTube. What I found was the funeral mess of Frére Roger, prior of Taizé, who was murdered 8 years ago. 8 years! Where has all the time gone, I wonder.

I wrote an eoulogy back then, but watching his farewell service tonight seemed appropriate for the day we are having. Or so I thought. It left me with mixed feelings, however.

Being able to participate, even if only through the electronic media 8 years later was a bit of comfort for me, personally. And the service was beautiful, of course; services of Taizé usually are. However, seeing all that high clergy in their fancy costumes and burining incense and making speeches and all that left me alienated. Somehow I'm sure it wouldn't have been what he'd wanted, himself. He was such a modest person. And the very core of Taizé used to be the simplicity - not this pomp.

It was interesting to see Frére Roger's sister, Genevieve participating, though. The two looked eerily similar. More than mere siblings are entitled to, somehow. Yes, I know I'm silly, but it was as if I'd seen Frére Roger, back some 20 years ago.

Yes, I know this is a random and somewhat uncoordinated post. I can't help it. I'm more than a little shaken. *sigh*