A is for April like April is to Lemons: Lemon Yogurt Cake

OK first things first- I am covered with sugar syrup, and by covered I mean imagine those girls at those lesbian mud wrestling contests, now dim down the sexiness and made the mud something sweet and edible and you have me at this very moment. It is DISGUSTING. My feet are sticking to the floor, my fingers are glued to each other- and I can feel it between my toes...

You may be wondering why I am covered in sugar syrup, and no its not some weird perverted sex kink, and to those who like being covered in sugar during sex, well hey thats your business.

ANYWAY I digress, I am covered in sugar syrup because I tried my hand at making Lemon Yogurt Cake for my first application into the Sweet Adventures Blog Hop and Lemon was the chosen ingredient for this fine month of April. I used so much sugar. So much. My teeth want to kill me as much as my tongue wants to kiss me (yea! try thinking that one through)

But anyway this is my (slightly stolen from Ina Garten) Lemon Yogurt Cake.


You need:

1 1/2 cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup plain full fat yogurt
2 1/3 cup sugar, plus more for coating the outside of the cake
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup lemon juice (preferably freshly squeezed, if not thats cool too)
1 lemon


The Harder Bit:

Preheat the oven to about 180C and prep a cake pan.

Sift together the flour, sugar and salt into a bowl.

In another bowl whisk together the yogurt, eggs, 1 cup of sugar and vanilla essence. Make sure that as soon as the sugar and eggs touch you mix them immediately, as one of the properties of sugar is that it can chemically cook the eggs :/

Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet, and using a spatula fold the vegetable oil into the batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick slid into the middle comes out cleanly. If your cake starts to get burnt at the top, but isn't finished yet you can always put some aluminium over the top, like so:

Meanwhile, slice up your lemon into teeni tiny slices, wrench out the seeds and fit them into a frying pan and cover them with 2 1/2 cups of water. Bring to the boil then leave to simmer for about 35-40 minutes, if you have to refresh the water to keep them all below the surface do so.

MEANWHILE, combine 1/3 cup of sugar with 1/3 cup of lemon juice and bring to the boil over the stove, leave to simmer until the sugar is dissolved and the liquid is clear. Set aside for later. 

45 minutes later: Take out your lemons and place them on some paper towel and pat them dry.

 Pour in the final cup of sugar into the lemon water stuff in the pan and bring to the boil, re-add your lemons. Let those two simmer together for the next 10-15 minutes. (let them get all hot and sticky together ;D) 

I digress: after the 15 minutes remove the lemons from their spa and place them on a wire rack over the sink. (Don't even think of putting them on paper towels to drip dry- they will STICK! and you will have to eat paper towel along with your candied lemons)

Your cake should be out of the oven by now, and if it isn't, my god, you better go check on it. Let it cool for about 10 minutes in the pan, then transfer it to a wire rack. 

While its still warm, pour over the lemon juice and sugar combination and let the syrup sink into the cake (make sure you have a container underneath the wire rack!!) , I've also found using a brush and brushing down the sides of the cake with the syrup helps with the absorption. Let it cool completely. 

Next move: cover the cake with sprinkled sugar, all over, on every single side, then cover it with your candied lemons.  

and you are done! one beautiful lemon yogurt cake on its one way trip into your stomach. 

SO fellas at the Blog Hop, I hope you enjoy (:

Oh! O Bal Tan!

Guess what fellas? no seriously guess, and no its not I've finally gotten a life, and no its not I've finally moved out of home- though it is something similar I suppose...

IM IN SYDNEY! (insert happy dance here) 

oh yea thats right, I've journeyed out from my baby city of Perth and ventured into the decidedly adult city of Sydney, triple the population and quarter the space- it feels like your in a moshpit just walking down the street. 

Sadly however this trip couldn't be chilling out for a week, i'm a student, there's no such thing as chilling out for a week straight, I've brought all my novels and history books and text books with me (no shit, one third of my suitcase was made from trees D:) BUT I have found some time to enjoy myself by 

1) omfg there's a cute little puppy sitting on my feet right now!! :3 

Don't you just wanna die!!

2) Being with the sis and her new hubbie-to-be and 

And they call me immature... 

3) going out to eat.

It seems that Korean food is a new thing for my now, Ninniku Jip and now O Bal Tan across the freaking country- its obviously a sign, someone hook me up for a Korean language class! But anyway, in contrast to Ninniku Jip this was one of those grill-it-yourself places, except with legit charcoal, none of that pansy gas/hot plate shit- this was the real deal.  (also note: copper conducts really quickly) 

LEGIT CHARCOAL OMFG!!

However first things first, alcohol was to be provided (and not to be shot back, but to be sipped), this was soju (sojo?) something similar to sake, only Korean.

Then comes the food- we got the beef and pork combo, plus all the sides and sauces. 

Sides and Sauces->

<-Beef and pork 

The mushroom salad thing (as seen on the far right) was amazing! usually I'm the biggest fan of mushrooms, so this might not mean much but man, so tasty. And the tauge was itself very good. My sister was telling me that she had made it herself once with an online recipe, that it was real easy and the flavours simple to combine, told me I should give it a try some time, I think I'm gonna believe her... the only time she's lead me astray was when she told me your meant to eat the paper at the bottom of the Char Sew Pow... *glare* 

But seriously I think the main flavours of Korean cooking are as follows: Garlic... Chilli... that is all... maybe a bit of sesame seed oil.. THAT. IS. ALL (probably not)... but its so good!  

Then came the grilling bit- I believe this was the beef ribs, on the bone, like a cave man (they must have had massive calluses on their fingers cause meat off the bone off the grill was effing hoooot!)

Effing Hot!

But yes it was a wonderful experience, the food was not as good as i've had in other Korean BBQ restaurants (and they didn't have beef bulgogi (I mean whaaaat?)) which was disappointing and you did kinda have to hack at the beef until you got it to bite size pieces, and when it wasn't your turn with the scissors you kinda burnt the roof off your mouth trying to bite it into bite size pieces (maybe that was just me...) and price wise it wasn't to bad $35/head (and there were seven hungry eaters) BUT it was lovely I would definitely go back there again for the atmosphere, probably even just for the legit charcoal (and the missing fire blanket, no shit, the sleeve was empty :S)

taxi xoxo

Ninniwhat now?

Rejected by a full Sebastian's, wandering the streets of Victoria Park, cold and starving me and my fellow ravenous companion stumbled into the lovely restaurant of Ninnikujip (pronounced Ninny- Coo- Jip), where we went to more for the novelty of the name then anything else...

Ninnikujip is a Japanesse/ Koren restaurant, leaning more to the Korean side of things. It was a tasty restaurant, a bit more expensive then I thought the food called for, but the service was comfortable, in that wow-I-just-want-to-hug-these-people-they're-so-earnest kinda way, and the atmosphere was chic and slick, bright colours and music videos in the corner- and we can forget the kiddies playground- thats right a KIDDIES PLAYGROUND in the corner O.o!!

I got the Ishiyaki Bibimbap- Pork, which (if you don't know your Korean food) is rice, vegetables and sliced pork served up in a stone bowl, there is chilli paste, kimchi, tauge and miso soup on the side/ to mix into the rice as one gigantic delicious pile of protein, carbohydrates, glucose and fat. 

And my ravenous companion (pronounced Fa-th-ur) got the Ishiyaki Bibimbap- Beef, raw egg york included (and yes they really wrote it like that)

And the Father had a preservative free beer, Cape Bouvard... (I wish it were pronounced Cape Boulevard)... sadly I didn't try any, Dark Ales were always a bit too thick for me..  

However I did have the Calpis water (not pronounced cow-piss) it was... interesting... milky and water at the same time... with a taste i can't quite describe- though one of the adjectives would be 'sweet'.  

An interesting restaurant that I am excited to go back to, even just to try and sneak into the kiddy playground that I am far too tall to even worth putting in the effort to not get a concussion.

Taxi xoxo

Oh George!

A few months ago I walked past this restaurant, George's Meze, when on the hunt for some ice-cream . Sadly George didn't have any fattening cold cream, HOWEVER it was put on my list of restaurants to go to because, well, hey I love restaurants and I love greek food, and George is a greek restaurant! So when my sister came for Sydney for 10 days to our lovely little town and I forgot to go shopping, guess where we went for dinner (;

We got the Seafood Claypot pictured below:

It was a bit too fishy for me, but not too bad according to the seafood lovers at the table...

Someone else ordered the Moussaka, a bit plain- but very tasty in a simple way, definitely worth trying.

and finally I had the Snapper- Oh my lordy! it was great- fresh and tasty, the aioli on the side was a bit unnecessary, it added to a flavour that I thought was pretty good by itself.

And to finish off the night some good old greek coffee- I admit I probably chose it because it came in that awesome little coffee maker thing that I really need to learn the name of, more so then the taste as it is sweeter and thicker then I usually take it... but it also came with a small, potent hit of turkish delight that cleaned my palate after wards...

AND! if you're there on a thursday night, as we happened to be, expect two fellas to start being awesome with their stringed instruments, sadly I forgot to take pictures of that ):

Taxi xoxo

Moping around at Melville Markets

To prevent the bad experience I've just had with Melville Markets young padawans, come close and listen. BRING A FUCKING JACKET! it gets freezing! and its not even winter yet! I had to steal my own clothes that I was selling to try and insulate myself. That was a sad, sad day.

Checklist for a successful morning at Melville Markets

1. A warm jacket

.... Not check

2. One (or two) cup of environmentally minded joe

....Check!

3. One crazy friend to keep you awake and help you carry all your shit

....Check!

4. And finally you need all your shit.

Look! its so DARK!!!

...Check!

Phew! now that thats all done, you just have to sit back, not glare at your customers when they don't buy anything, and make up prices at the top of your head, and hello an extra $100 :D

Also remember, don't start randomly singing- people find that scary and will not come into your carpark space ;D Take it from experience. (I can't say the same for if you bring a uke tho... hmmm)

Melville Markets, corner of Stock rd and Canning hwy, at the Coles carpark. $15 for a bay and it starts at 5 am, but some people have been known to sleep there overnight...

Taxi xoxo

it was &apos;Almost Acoustic&apos;

HQ! Friday night! it was almost acoustic night- and not too fucking bad.

I arrived late so I only got to see West End Riot- seriously if you ever want to see a good show check them out... and I know HQers may hate me for saying this but I think they're the best show that I've seen there, good music ( not as hardcore as usual) but fuck they were funny- even had a special song about the bassist's favourite thing in the world- take a guess what that was :p

The Main Attraction was headlining, because sadly Young Alaska had to pull out ):
But seriously Main Attraction + acoustic FIT! surprisingly so, the leads voice was finally left out in the open to shine- her little 'barbie girl' solo was a particular favourite ;p

check em out

taxi xoxo

L+O+N+D+O+N- Borough Markets

I... am in London. It... is amazing. I... am amazed.

I realise that to some people, such as people that live in London, or around London, or can get to London easily, this is not as amazing. However to me, whom lives in the hot, red, southern Perth, where we have the population density of, like, 5% (maybe an exaggeration I have no idea) this is pretty awesome.

However the flight over, not so much, I do like flying ( really I do) however when its 10+ hours I get a bit sore (doesn't help being 6ft tall either)

But anyway, the other day, after getting a sufficient, maybe slightly longer then healthy sleep, me and my beloved sister went off to Borough Markets. Only one word can describe it "Awesome"

There were mushrooms everywhere, and in so many different varieties! And not only at the Markets, but also just in the local Sainbury's, in Australia we really only have button and field, maybe others if you look harder.

And there was a fish monger, where the fish was so fresh that its didn't smell fishy!

And there was this scary thing staring at us.

And awesome decorations, dead pufferfish...

And the butchers, I have an obsession with butchers... weird huh...

Dried Chillies just chilling out on a door.

and, what are gourd?

over all, if you go to London, go to Borough Markets, I mean, i found pickled garlic- never heard of that before- you can just eat it from the jar!