Howl's Moving Castle

The cover of the book, not the movie.

I watched the Japanese animated film by Miyazaki Hayao some years back. Honestly, because it was in Japanese and the subs were rather too fast for me, I didn't get much of the plot. Till now, I can only remember scattered images.

A few months back I found out that the film was actually based on the book of the same name by Diana Wynne Jones (whose book Archer's Goon I read some years ago), and set out to get my hands on it from the local library. Muahaha! Just started reading a couple of days ago.

It's quite annoying really, because my mind keeps conjuring up images from the film, so much that I cannot enjoy the book from a fresh new perspective. Thankfully, the movie missed out quite a lot of details (or maybe it's just that I didn't catch them in the film since most of it went past in a blur), so I am able to reimagine the scene. A lot more things make sense now, but I am only about halfway through.

I have devoured Diana Wynne Jones' Chrestomanci series, Dalemark quartet and am now setting out to read her individual novels. I love that every story has some element of the supernatural in it. Don't understand why they're mostly classified under the Young Readers' (10-12 yrs) section though. I doubt I would have understood most of it if I were that age.

Anything Goes Muffins

Before I lose this recipe again. Makes 12-18 muffins.

Ingredients:
2 cups plain flour
2/3 cup white sugar
3 tsps baking powder
3/4 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup oil
Filling - as much as you want of choc chips, chopped walnut, shaved carrot, oatmeal/rolled oats

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degC. Line muffin pans with baking cups.
Combine all dry ingredients in a medium bowl (sift for lighter muffins) and mix thoroughly. In another, large bowl, combine all wet ingredients and add dry ingredients, stirring till all dry ingredients are just moistened. Remember that undermixed batter makes the yummiest muffins.
Fill baking cups with batter till 1/3 or 1/2 full and bake for 15-20 min.

Pinky and The Brain

People in my age group will remember this short cartoon. Unfortunately Kids Central doesn't show this anymore, so my kids don't get to, ahem, enjoy it. Somebody once sent me the lyrics and the .wav to the theme song, and I have never gotten it out of my system. I hope it will bring you some laughs (and don't ask me why I can remember all the words by heart!).

Pinky and the Brain
Pinky and the Brain
One is a genius
The other's insane
They're laboratory mice
Their genes have been spliced
They're Pinky, they're Pinky and the
Brain Brain Brain Brain
Brain Brain Brain Brain BRAIN

Before each night is done
Their plan will be unfurled
By the dawning of the sun
They'll take over the world
They're Pinky and the Brain
Yes Pinky and the Brain
Their twilight campaign
Is easy to explain
To prove their mousey worth
They'll overthrow the earth
They're Pinky, they're Pinky and the
Brain Brain Brain Brain
Brain Brain Brain Brain
NARF!

Steamed Milk Custard

Ingredients:
1 egg white
3/4 cup fresh milk
1 tsp ginger juice (optional)
sugar to taste (about 1-2 tsps)

Method:
Heat milk in a small saucepan just till it starts to bubble, do not let milk boil over.
Beat eggwhite well in a small heatproof bowl (eg. rice bowl, chawanmushi bowl, dessert bowl) and pour in milk, whisking continuously. Add sugar and ginger juice.
Immediately steam over high heat for 2 min and then low heat for 1 min. Serve hot or chilled.

Tip:
I usually do this with leftover eggwhites when I use yolks in other recipes, so I get 3-5 bowls of custard to eat over a few days. Yum! If you are going to chill your custard, remember to cover each bowl with cling wrap before putting it in the fridge, to protect the custard from absorbing smells in the fridge.

Chocolate Pound Cake

Makes 2 8X4 loaves or 24-30 cupcakes.

Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups butter, softened
1 (8oz.) block cream cheese, softened
2 cups white sugar
2 cups plain flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tsps baking powder (optional)
5 eggs
2 tsps vanilla flavour

Method:
Preheat oven to 160 degC, grease and flour loaf pans or line muffin pan with baking cups.
In a large bowl, cream butter, cream cheese and sugar at medium speed till light and fluffy, about 5 min. In a separate bowl, sift together plain flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Beat in flour mixture and eggs alternately, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
Pour into pans or muffin cups and bake for 1hr, till toothpick inserted into centre of cake comes out clean.

Food science:
The authentic pound cake has no leavening agent, eg. baking soda or baking powder in it. Natural leavening comes from whipping of the fats in the recipe, hence the creaming part must go on for some time, at least till the colour of the butter lightens quite a bit. This is why the baking powder is optional, as sometimes I find adding it doesn't help at all, at other times it does make the cake a little lighter. Nothing is expired so I haven't figured it out. There are recipes using milk and whipping cream instead of the cream cheese, but I haven't had such good results with milk, and I haven't tried whipping cream yet (all my whipping cream goes on New England Clam Chowder, yummy! but oh so fattening).

It is worth mentioning that HL who doesn't eat desserts and cakes in general said this was GOOD. Essentially because it's not too sweet and yet very rich and chocolatey. Also received rave reviews at a kids' party I went to today. But I've done this a couple of times in succession so the next cake will probably be something else eg. carrot cupcakes?