A Series Of Unfortunate...?

I very recently finished reading 'A series of unfortunate events' by lemony snicket; and when I say 'reading' I mean listening to audio books. It turns out it's much more convenient. I like actually reading; but laying in the dark with my eyes closed listening while trying to sleep is more relaxing, and doesn't cause arm ache from holding a book for hours. Audio books can also be horrible depending on who's reading them, and luckily in this case, everything was much more entertaining as Tim Curry was reading them!

There are 13 books in the series, and there are 13 chapters to each book (14 on the last one). The chapters being read are on average 25 to to 30 minutes long (a few being up to an hour). So it's quite easy to comprehend how long it has taken me at the pace of several hours listening every night or so!

You may be thinking "what's he doing reading children's book series?". Don't worry, I can read adult books, I'm not a dummy; but for some entertainment, book series such as these are always a go-to. They may not be the best stories in the world, but they are simple, effective, and perfect for something you can enjoy but not concentrate fully on. Also they are usually written for the imagination of children, which is a nice thing to try and hold on to.

I got drawn to the series after I enjoyed the movie (of the same name) and shortly realised there was not going to be a sequel, so I turned to the books. I soon found out the movie is actually a mixture of the first few books (stylized  and adapted). For that reason the first few books were (sort of) spoiled, but at the same time I was very interested in the many differences between them all.

For those of you who don't know; the basis of the story is that a set of three children become orphans which sparks off a series of less-than-optimal situations for the children which are narrated by lemony snicket (a pen-name and also a character in the story who is documenting the story of the orphans). The basis of the story is the children trying to survive great threats and solve the questions related to their predicament (in which creates a trail of  more questions).

Without giving too many spoilers; Because of all of this there ends up being a sort of philosophical/ moral base to the story which is never particularly revealed, and there seems to be many further linked tales which are just left untouched or thrown by the wayside. Its a very unusual style, which I think adds to the theme of the books, but it does cause many questions to arise, which is why I'll probably spend some time on related wikis trying to deduce/ find out more about some of them.

It'll also mean I'll probably do a blog post or so about what I find, and a sort-of review, It might also inspire me to write something on some of the other (probably children) books I've read.

Cakes For All Occasions! Part TWO

Yes, its time for another tasty installation of Sean-Cakes; A little smaller this time.

After the problems with the previously noted mushroom cake, we decided the icing we were using may not be the best for what we were trying to do, so we trawled through the internet for different types of icing and their properties and had a go at one. If I remember rightly, the icing recipe we found was american, and because of that everything needed converting, and substituting if some things weren't available in the UK. In the end we had something that resembled icing, but  we found when using it that it had some undesirable properties; Like getting hard really quick, gaining a crust and not being quite as tasty as the others, but it was a lot easier to work with with the liquid-like colours that we had so much problems with before. Because of the consistency we decided to do a bit of sculpting. I assume the "Dragon-trainer Lulu" skin from league of legends was recently released, because we decided to have a go at making one of her dragons out of icing, as seen below.

I wasw really pleased with what we had made, it was miles above our mushroom, and yet it only needed toothpicks for the wings to hold them up, which is understandable. we got a pretty good likeness too I think, Possibly the cracking of the icing gave it a more "scaly" look.

Our next cake was made short after... I believe left-over icing and enthusiasm from cake success was probably why; It also ended up being a League of Legends themed cake; In particular, a Shark-themed cake.

 

One of the differences this time was that Ross had gotten proper Icing colours for his birthday, which meant they were much better suited than previously, making the icing much easier to work with. Of course We'd also learnt a lot of stuff along the way. Though quite fiddly, and hard to get the right shape in general, I'm really pleased with how it went, and it was fun too. Just as a note, the purple colour of the shark was actually supposed to be a black, But I assume we didn't use enough, but it worked out OK anyway!

This cake was just a small side-project for my brothers birthday, it wasn't anything particularly fancy, or complicated, but it was simple, tasty and effective, and pleasing tot he eye; and that's why I liked it.

This cake was actually our families Christmas cake last year which I got my hands on. I teamed up with my mother who has spent much more time in the kitchen than me, and we ended up with this design (it wasn't particularly planned), but we managed to give each of the snowmen a different personality, so that counts for something... right? 

The final piece (for now) was baked for Ross' Fathers birthday; We did get the idea from the internet, but made it our own as best as we could; it included marzipan, name badge and chocolate buttons. I think the simplicity of this design added to its effectiveness, and of course, it was very tasty. Trying to get the collar to stay upright and not crack was a problem-solving task in itself though!

And... i think that concludes The cake post, Not forever, but for now.

Hope you enjoyed, sorry for making you hungry!