Recipes

 Baking is something I enjoy, and it is also something that's important as obviously you need food to live. One of the reasons I like it is that I find it interesting how it combines fun and luxury with necessity.

 It's also easy to build on recipes by just adding extra indredients or combinations.
 For example, some (really simple) things I've added:

Raspberry and Chocolate cupcakes:


Classic fairy cakes: (Copied from BBC website)

 Ingredients:

       
• 110g/4oz caster sugar
• 110g/4oz butter or margarine, softened at room temperature
• 2 free-range eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 110g/4oz self-raising flour
• 1-2 tbsp milk

• Preparation method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line 2 x 12-hole fairy cake tins with paper cases.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale. Beat in the eggs, a little at a time, and stir in the vanilla extract.
3. Fold in the flour using a large metal spoon. Add a little milk until the mixture is a soft dropping consistency and spoon the mixture into the paper cases until they are half full.
4. Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until golden-brown on top and a skewer inserted into one of the cakes comes out clean. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.       

In basically I just added in raspberries and stirred in some melted chocolate at step 3. For icing I just made butter icing and separated it into two bowls. In one I stirred in cocoa powder and in the other I added a raspberry (just one or the consistensy is wrong) for colour. Then I piped them onto the cakes. It looks great if you use two different colours.

Caramel Macaroons

Classic macaroons (copied from BBC website)

Ingredients

• 125g/4½oz icing sugar
• 125g/4½oz ground almonds
• 90g/3½oz free-range egg whites
• 2 tbsp water
• 110g/4oz caster sugar
• food colouring (optional)
• desiccated coconut, for sprinkling (optional)
• 150ml/5fl oz double or whipped cream, whipped

Preparation method

1. Preheat the oven to 170/C/325F/Gas 3 and line a large baking tray with baking paper.
2. Put the icing sugar, ground almonds and 40g/1½oz egg whites together in a large bowl and mix to a paste.
3. Put the water and caster sugar in a small pan and heat gently to melt the sugar, then turn up the heat and boil until the mixture starts to go syrupy and thickens - I don’t use a thermometer but if you prefer to use one, it should read 115C/239F at this stage.
4. Whisk the remaining 50g/2oz egg whites in a small bowl until medium-stiff peaks form when the whisk is removed from the bowl, then pour in the sugar syrup, whisking until the mixture becomes stiff and shiny. For coloured macaroons, add a few drops of food colouring. Tip this meringue mixture into the almond paste mixture and stir gently until the becomes stiff and shiny again.
5. Spoon into the piping bag. Pipe a little mixture under each corner of the baking paper to stop it sliding around. With the bag held vertically, pipe 4cm/1½in flat circles onto the lined tray, about 2cm/¾in apart, twisting the bag after each one. The mixture should be quite loose to give a smooth finish. The piping will leave a small ‘tip’ on each circle so, when they’re all piped, give the tray 2–3 slams on a flat surface to flatten them. At this stage, sprinkle with desiccated coconut if you want.
6. Leave to stand for 30 minutes to form a skin then bake in the oven for 12–15 minutes with the door slightly ajar until firm. Remove from the oven, lift the paper off the baking tray and leave the macaroons to cool on the paper.

Add Caramel (Copied off the internet)

• 1 (397g) tin condensed milk
• 2 tablespoons golden syrup
• 60g caster sugar
• 120g butter

1. Pour the condensed milk, syrup, sugar and butter into a saucepan. Cook over a low heat, stirring all the time. This takes a while but has to be done carefully otherwise it will stick to the pan and burn. Watch it closely, and when it turns a deep caramel colour, pour it over the shortbread.
2. Allow it to cool for 30 minutes or so.

Caramel is a great topping to put in macaroons.

Family

 I'm quite lucky with family. A lot of people I know have parents who've split up, or other problems. I'm lucky enough to have parents who live together, a brother who's only slightly annoying, four grand parents and a whole load of cousins.
 Still, they can all be very annoying. The other I spent the whole of my art lesson making a stencil out of fimo for my project. I spent an hour cutting, measuring and re-doing it till it was perfect. Then I took it home incredibly carefully and laid it on the table with my art stuff, ready to bake.
 Guess what? My brother came along, mistook the fimo for blue-tack, and scrunched it up. Obviously I was furious.
 My mum's side of the family is enormous, German and quite crazy and can be more than a bit suffocating. They are noisy, prone to making loud speeches in public and singing "happy birthday" in the worst english accent ever. In fact, they are always speaking to us in bad english, to get practice or something. And they ask questions as assumptions.
 My dad's family is slightly smaller, as his parents were only children, rather than having five siblings each, as my mum's parents did, and my dad only has one sister, unlike my mum who had three brothers. My grandparents are lovely, and I have two young cousins, Izzy who is seven and Cassie who is three. I get on great with both of them, and love seeing them. They're both adorable, and just about the nicest cousins ever.

 I like some members of my family more than others, but really I'm quite lucky.

Writing/Television

Two hobbies I have are creative writing and watching TV. The second one of these probably seems obvious, but it's something I really enjoy, and it links in with my writing.

 At the moment most of the writing I do is fan fiction. Whenever I watch any TV I always find myself daydreaming and expanding on the storylines, or trying to predict what is going to happen next. So I actually get loads of ideas which I use for writing fan fiction.

 My favourite TV genre is drama and soaps, and I have a few different favourite shows. Some I watch regularly, some whenever there's anything good going on and some I just watch clips of my favourite characters on youtube. And I've made a few fan videos of my favourite stuff for youtube. 

 For some reason I like really dramatic stuff best, even shows like EastEnders and Emmerdale.  I've also watched old stuff, such as Grange Hill, which I found by accident while searching for something else.  My family, friends and basically everyone I know think the stuff I watch is a load of rubbish, and all the storylines are trash, but I just watch what I like. And my argument is: it helps me be creative, and since my ambition is to be a script writer, watching TV benefits me more than homework! (Though my parents don't agree with that!)

SSPCA

Today I'm going to talk about the SSPCA (Scottish Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). It is not as well known as the RSPCA, but in fact the RSPCA only helps animals in England, and does nothing for Scotland. Sadly, a lot Scottish people don't know this and give money to the RSPCA instead of the SSPCA, so Scottish animals do not get as much care as they should.


The SSPCA help loads of types of wild animals, as well as rehoming pets. Here are some of the ways the SSPCA help wild animals, copied from the website.

Wildlife rescue

Every year the Scottish SPCA rescues and rehabilitates thousands of sick,injured and orphaned wild animals.

Most of these animals are cared for by our dedicated wildlife team at our National Wildlife Rescue Centre in Clackmannanshire.

In 2012, we cared for 3,812 wild animals, which included 2,577 birds. We help every kind of wild animal in Scotland and are the only national animal welfare charity which rescues birds on this scale.

This year we have rescued and returned to the wild garden birds, water birds, birds of prey, seals, red squirrels, badgers, hedgehogs, otters, pine martens, fox cubs and many, many more wild animals who desperately needed our help.

The number of wild animals arriving in our care has increased almost 70% in the past five years. Our National Wildlife Rescue Centre includes veterinary facilities, seal pools, aviaries, wild mammal enclosures, a stable block for deer casualties and can care for up to 1,000 oiled birds at a time.

Here is another article, copied from the website.

Fife otter cub recovering

An otter cub found orphaned and crying out for her mum in Fife is being hand-reared by the Scottish SPCA.

We were alerted after the four week old female cub was discovered in a wooded area of Cupar at the beginning of August.

The cub has been recovering at the our National Wildlife Rescue Centre and has been named Eden.

Animal Rescue Officer Robyn Gray said, "A couple heard Eden's cries from their home in the Ceres area and kept an eye on her to see if her mum would come back.

"When she was still there the following day they took her into their house and kept her safe until I arrived.

"Eden soon stopped crying after she had warmed up and was given some water to rehydrate. I can't thank the finders enough for going out of their way to help her."

National Wildlife Rescue Centre manager Colin Seddon said, "Eden is now around seven weeks old and is doing really well.

"It's possible her mother was killed or frightened off and she would have died had she not been rescued as she's far too young to fend for herself.

"Eden is now feeding from the bottle and we have every hope she'll be able to be released back into the wild in around a year's time."

Basically, in order to help animals in Scotland, it is important to donate to the SSPCA and not the RSPCA.

You can find out more about the SSPCA and what they do at www.scottishspca.org.

Books

 The first post I'm going to do is books. I love reading, and it's my main hobby, as I'm not that sporty or anything. I also like creative writing, and anything to do with that.
 I read so much that I don't really have a favourite book. I've just read heaps, and it's really hard to choose. So here's some of the books I've read recently, with the blurbs off the covers and how I found them.


Just Listen

Blurb:
I'm Annabel. I'm the girl who has it all. Model looks, confidence. A great social life. I'm one of the lucky ones. Aren't I?

My 'best friend' is spreading rumours about me. My family is slowly falling apart. It's turning into a long, lonely summer, full of secrets and silence.

But I've met this guy who won't let me hide away. He's one of those intense types, obsessed with music. He's determined to make me listen. And he's determined to make me smile. But can he help me forget what happened the night everything changed?

My opinion:

I read a lot of Sarah Dessen books over the summer, and at first I thought they were great. They were all really summery and light reads, and just what I wanted on holiday. However, I ended up reading so many of her books that I got too used to her style. And she's the type of author who uses the same structure in every book. Just Listen is my favourite Sarah Dessen book, though, as I really like the topics and characters, and the issues it deals with. Even after reading loads of books by the author I still liked this one and I think it's a great book.

                                                                                                                                         

Louder than Words                                                                                                                                 

 Blurb:                                                                                                                  Rafi hasn't spoken for eight years. It's up to her to tell her brother's story now that he can't speak either ...

 Rafi idolises her seventeen-year-old brother, who is popular, generous and a borderline genius. Ever protective, Silas always includes her when he's with his friends, so Rafi gets to hear all sorts of things that younger sisters wouldn't normally be a part of. Like the time Silas hacks a gaming site to help out his friend Josie, who has been trashed by her ex.

 With Josie, Rafi finds herself with a proper friend for the first time in her life. As they grow closer, she realises that she wants to find a way back into the world – she wants to learn to speak again. But Silas has found a new interest too – and it’s taking him away from everything that was once important to him. Can Rafi find the words to save her brother?

My Opinion:

I wasn't sure about this book when I first bought it. I'd read another book by the author which I didn't like that much, and when I heard about this book, it sounded like an issue book which wouldn't really work. I mean, a narrator who doesn't speak, and some crazy computer hacking brother. How do those things go together? Of course when I read the book I found of course the author had managed to bring these two characters together, and though the end of the book was incredibly predictable I liked this book more than I'd expected.