Over pretty much anything these days… except maybe gardening. There’s also more than a few conversations where I’ve tried to describe my weekend and when ‘baking’ and ‘pruning’ get more of a mention than ‘gig’ and ‘pub/club/bar’ and I get a really strange feeling that I sound OLD. But that’s alright. I’m enjoying it too much to care, and when the baking is for a garden full of guests at our GF BBQ’s, it’s always worthwhile.

SO this weekend I made brownies, the recipe of which I’d clipped out of last weekend’s FT magazine. They were surprisingly easy to make, and were delicious – gooey on the inside and nice and flaky/crispy on the outside. Lots of compliments for these ones, which I served with jersey cream and fresh blueberries, blackberries, strawberries and raspberries.

FT Brownies

Oven at 180c, 8x4in cake tin, buttered and lined

Slowly melt together 185g dark chocolate (Lindt 70%), 185g butter (Lurpak unsalted)

Mix in 200g sugar (100g brown, 100g white caster), plus 1tsp vanilla essence

Beat in 3 large eggs

Mix in 125g of plain flour

Mix in one small bag of nuts (about 3/4-1 cup, I used walnut)

Pour into tin and bake 20-25 minutes

Too easy!

I also made meringues a few tipsy hours later, but that’s a story for another day! Right now I’m going to get back to rainy hungover Sunday activities, like recipe searches (next up: Brown sugar apple cheesecake), eBay purchases, newspaper reading and bad TV. The Perfect Sunday.

So it’s been a while between posts, and it’s all because I’ve been working all hours finishing up this project at work. It’s all about infographic design for the BBC audience research team, and in the process I’ve come across lots of cool stuff – including this guy, Ben Gillin.

I love this graphic print of technology, but you should check out his website – dude made the cutest animated video to propose to his girlfriend!

Jeez, I never thought I’d be touting a Disney film on this blog, but hey, I’m an open-minded person.

SO, the lovely Cinematic Orchestra have worked with the London Metropolitan Orchestra (double your orchestral pleasure) to score the soundtrack of a Disney film about the life Flamingos in Tanzania. What else can I say? I watched the trailer, those birds are super cute and the music is wonderfully lush. I look forward to seeing it on the big screen.

My only complaint is that I got very excited to hear that they will perform the score live in London (initial reaction – yay!) but tickets are 32 quid… seems a bit steep. If you can afford it, then buy your tickets here. If you can’t, then you can always listen to the songs on Last.fm