Actually, to be honest, the title of this blog entry should rather read "Baking disasters that could have been completely avoided by thinking a little before substituting one leavening agent by a different leavening agent".

I was baking scones this weekend and used a powder that was not the usual baking powder but baking soda. What I did not know when I substituted the exact amount of baking soda for the amount of baking powder stated in the recipe: Baking powder is soda mixed together with a diphosphate that, upon contact with moisture and heat, will turn into an acidic substance that in its turn reacts with the soda. According to the order of ingredients on the packets, baking powder contains at least as much phosphate as soda, if not more. (Then, in addition, there is some starch in there serving as a stabiliser and separating agent, which according to the Intarwebz can be up to 30% of the total.)

So the result of my scone baking? Inedible scones (tasting weird and really bitter), a little chemistry lesson delivered by the internet, more knowledge about how kitchen chemistry works, a thorough understanding that:

baking soda != baking powder
and that
dosage of baking soda != dosage of baking powder.

Oh, and the total corroboration that our friends are really, really cool and wonderful. Because, when faced with the inedible scones, they took it very calmly, worked out together with me why this had happened, and then one just went to cuddle the cat while the other one helped me whip up a new batch of scones with less raisins (since there were not so many left) but with normal baking powder this time. Which turned out perfectly nice and very, very edible. (Plus that was the fastest scone-baking action ever - it took about 10 minutes until they were in the oven.)

And in the aftermath... I realised that I had used "baking soda" instead of "baking powder" in the recipes on this blog. Which has now been rectified - they all say "baking powder", as they should. So should you have tried one of the recipes (the lemon things or the nougat spritz things) and they turned out... weird (and possibly not very fluffy and/or less than yummy), the blame is totally on me and I am really sorry. I promise that both baked goods are really very, very edible if produced with baking powder.

You know how that date with all the festivity attached always creeps up on one, each year? It's weird how it manages that. Even though its creeping plans should be totally thwarted... but still.

We have a traditional boardgame outing every year in October, and that is also the traditional start-of-thinking-about-presents time. Yes, that is pretty early, but it's the perfect opportunity since a lot of our friends enjoy a boardgame or five (or the other stuff that can be gotten there). And you'd think that someone thinking of Yul or Xmas or Hanukah or whatever you call your festive season's peak in October should not be surprised by that date actually coming, right? Well, wrong.

October gently passes by, and November starts - it's getting colder outside and more grey, and the first advent approaches and with it the time to eat gingerbread and enjoy the pretty lights on pretty trees. Another reminder. And then, some time after that, the baking starts.

Then there's our traditional little excursion to a small and sort-of-artsy Christmas Market in one of the neighbouring towns, and of course the celebrations with friends and co-workers and ex-co-workers (or co-students). So theoretically, the steady approach of the date with the 2 in front and the 4 in back should not come as a surprise.

But with all these things that should keep one aware of time ticking by... each year I have the feeling that December especially just rushes by. Like a time-lapse, I am surprised by the first of the few days with the 2 in front suddenly approaching. Oh goodness, is it that late already?

And that's how I felt this morning, looking at the calendar. Oh goodness, is it the 20th tomorrow already? How does December get its super-sneaking superpowers?

Blogging is an education unto itself, including learning about what is different food-wise between different countries.

I grew up with the word "nougat" meaning exactly one thing: a sweet, nutty, chocolaty smooth confection that would melt in your mouth leaving only deliciousness and a desire for more. So the first time someone gave me a piece of "nougat" as in that white stuff with the nuts in it, I was thoroughly disappointed - and a little bit confused.

So then I learned that there is more than one nougat (though the white stuff with nuts, here, is normally referred to as "Türkischer Honig" - Turkish Honey.)
These days, one can just check the Internet for a definition. And the Internet tells me there's three kinds of nougat, and mine is not the most common, but the German kind.

What it does not tell me is whether it's possible to buy that on the other side of the Big Pond, or somewhere else outside of Europe. So just in case, here's a recipe on how to make it. Please note that though it's from a reliable German cooking database, I have not tried this... here, you can buy "baking nougat" in the baking goods section in every supermarket. (Especially around this time of year, of course.)

75 g hazelnuts (or almonds without the brown skin, if you prefer, but hazelnut is more typical)
75 g icing sugar (powdered sugar)
100 g dark chocolate coating or dark chocolate
50 g butter

Roast nuts at medium temperature until golden, let cool. (You can rub the hazelnuts in a cloth after roasting to remove the dark skin.) Grind very finely in a grinder, blender or similar contraption together with the powdered sugar - it should be ground very finely.
Chop the chocolate into pieces and melt (using a water bath so it does not overheat). Mix in the butter, then mix the nut paste and the chocolate paste together to make a thick, malleable nougat. 

(If too soft, you can add more chocolate; if too hard, more butter.)

And this should give you German style nougat, should you not be able to buy it. Another quick-and-dirty solution would be to substitute with Nutella, though I am also told that Nutella tastes different in countries that are not Germany - seems they have a slightly different recipe there.

I was making marzipan-filled dates yesterday and thought that I could blog the instructions today... and then I remembered that I did exactly that last year. (To be really precise, 363 days ago.)

So instead, you get another cookie recipe... one for really delicious nougat-filled spritz cookies.

You will need 225 g of butter, 100 g powdered sugar, 1 pack (= 8 g) of vanilla sugar, 2 egg yolks, a generous pinch of cinnamon, 230 g flour, 40 g cacao, 1 teaspoon (leveled off) of baking powder, and German or Viennese style nougat for the filling.

Beat the butter until soft and creamy, and beat in powdered sugar, vanilla sugar, egg yolks and cinnamon; blend together flour, cacao and baking soda and gradually mix in the mixture. Fill into a spritz biscuits contraption and spritz it onto a baking sheet (I use silicon baking mats instead of greasing the sheets).

Bake at about 175°C for 6-7 min (hot-air fan oven). Let the cookies cool, then stick two each together with warmed nougat.

Hide well until they may be eaten.

(Thanks to Phiala's comment, I now know that the German nougat might not be as common in other countries as here. If a German says "nougat", it almost always refers to that hazelnut-or-almond-and-chocolate confection, and a recipe will be in tomorrow's blog post.)

There is snow outside (the cat mistrusts the snow, but it's getting a little better). There is the smell of baking, and the promise of cookies galore to come. There is meeting with friends for an evening out, a christmas market, or a nice evening spent together at home, and planning get-togethers with family. There is fruit tea and gingerbread and advent calendar opening and sugar and spice and everything nice...

... in short, I am getting more and more festive-season-minded. This is not helped by the prospect that the Most Patient Husband will have to take some of his remaining days off from work during this year (which is not very long anymore), so he will be at home during the day with me in just a few more days.

And since I am happy to share some German Christmas weirdness with you - here is a link to a video (in English) about the giant Stollen at the Striezelmarkt in Dresden. (The speaker calls it a cake. Well. Technically, yes, it could be called a cake... but it's usually not. It is Stollen. That is not the same as cake. Not at all! And a well-made Stollen is really delicious, by the way.)

This year, I actually managed to look into my calendar in time, and did not forget to do so until after the blogiversary*. This year, however, the blogiversary day is tomorrow - and that's a Saturday.

Well, I do not have many hard and fast rules for this blog, but one of them is "I post Monday to Friday." Which, by inference, means that I do not post Saturday or Sunday. (Technically, since this is my blog and I am allowed to not post on weekdays if I announce it beforehand, it would be perfectly possible to post tomorrow. But... somehow, I don't want to. It's weekend, after all.)

So today is the day for some blog-related navel gazing. I started this blog on December 8, 2008, and it has been running all weekdays ever since. Well, except for when I'm on holidays. Or on a conference. Or need some time off. Or am on a medieval event. Or... well, you know what I mean.

On average, I did about 200 blog posts per year - in a wild mix of links from the Internets, hints to resources like databases, programmes and other websites, conference calls for papers, some unashamed plugging of my own stuff (though speaking as my vaguely entrepreneur-like self, I'm probably not doing enough of that by far), and telling about past and future events that I am taking part in.

The little blog has grown to have more than 160 followers, racked up 150 500 page views in its days, and has the healthy number of a bit more than 320 rss feed subscribers (on average, as Feedburner is quick to tell me).

But there is something much, much more important than these bare numbers. This little blog is, and means, so much more - and has done a lot for me. It gives my work day a bit of structure (which is not bad for a freelancer to have). It means I practise my English and get to roam the Internet a bit each day (I have to find something to blog!). It is immensely gratifying for me to hear that the blog is amusing, entertaining and - best of all - helping others. And it has opened some new avenues for me as well... for instance, I would never have gone to the Leeds blogger meet without it, and thus never met this weird Australian that is now my partner in a project.

So... happy blogiversary, little corner of the Internet! May you go on to prosper...


* I was late to catch on in both 2009 and 2010 and did a belated blogiversary post. In 2011, I completely forgot to do one.

I have managed to enter a few more of my books into my book database yesterday, and now I have the reordering problem - the bookshelf is, technically, full. If I am taking out individual books from here and there, then re-order them into the new order in some other bit of the shelf, said last other bit is not spacious enough because the gaps in the size of the books are somewhere else.

So what I would really love to have now is a magic extra shelf in some magic box or something that is bigger on the inside and can hold all the newly ordered books until my shelf is all cleared out and I can put them back in.

Bonus points for automatic shelving in order if I just toss in the book.

Apart from that, it's getting more and more wintery here, and the festive season is starting properly now - there will be the first pre-Xmas-dinner tonight. And cookie baking has started, with the first two batches already finished and the dough for the next one waiting in the fridge.