Ciaran’s Omnipurpose Blog

The Linzer Torte dates back to the mid to late 17th Century. It’s widely thought to be the oldest cake recipe in the world and originates from the city of Linz, whence its name. It’s also known as a Linz Tart or Linz cake. Of course, that’s all by the by. The really important criteria for me in assessing the merits of a cake are:

• Is it delicious?
• Is it delicious with coffee?

I’m pleased to announce that, after several dozen scientific experiments, this cake passes both tests with flying colours. The cake is nutty and moist thanks to the jam and not too sickly or creamy to clash with a damn fine cup of coffee. Observe the best in all its glory (as baked by my mum on the weekend):

Ingredients

• 150 g butter
• 250 g self-raising flour
• 150 g powdered sugar
• 100 g roasted hazelnuts
• 1 egg
• Spices (vanilla, lemon, cinnamon, powdered cloves – be generous with the
• 300 g raspberry or redcurrant jam

Method

• Knead the butter and sugar together.
• Knead in the flour sifted together with the baking powder, add nuts, egg and spices.
• Chill the dough for some time, then take it out of the refrigerator and divide it into quarters.
• Roll out three quarters of the dough to a thickness of about 1,5 cm (for a 22 cm baking pan), cover it with the  jam.
• Shape the remaining dough into strips and lay them on top of the jam as a grid and around the edge.
• Brush with egg, sprinkle sliced almonds around the edge.

After 3 and a half good years, I left EMC Consulting on Friday.

It’s been a good company to work for and I’ve been lucky to make some good friends there. My time there has taken me through a good dozen or so client projects, half a dozen pitches (some won, some lost), 42 Community Days, some very boozy work bashes at some incredibly swanky places in London, and interesting work in such exotic locations as Liverpool, Crawley and even Borehamwood!

The work itself has involved some great technologies and approaches. I got to know some incredibly talented developers and User Experience people here, as well as getting an education in Scrum. Not only that, the projects have involved contact with some quite senior and inspiring people within client organisations.

This was my first consulting job and a great way to get lots of experience very quickly. I was given lots of autonomy and in at the deep end so I learned quickly, but had lots of support so never felt overwhelmed

My colleague and friend Rachel made this for me with the LOLBuilder. Whilst I’m excited about my next job, I, too, am sad to part company with such a great bunch of people.

If you’re interested in a job in consulting, have a look at Michelle Flynn’s blog on the EMC Blogs site.

I cooked this on New Year’s Day for my Mum and Dad. It’s been a signature pudding of my Dad’s for quite some time, so it was nice to return the favour and it topped off a fantastic roast joint of beef rib with all the trimmings beautifully!

Ingredients

• 100-175g softened butter
• 10-12 slices thick sliced white bread
• A jar of thick cut marmalade
• Juice and rind of 2 large oranges
• Juice and rind of 1 lemon
• Vanilla Custard – make your own from your favourite recipe or get the best ready made stuff you can.

Method

• Preheat oven to 200C
• Grease a shallow baking dish with butter
• Cut the crusts off the bread
• Spread the slices with butter and marmalade and cut into triangles (this is the messy bit)
• Combine the juice and rinds of the oranges and lemon.
• Line the bottom and sides of the baking dish with the bread slices. Dip them in the juice/ rind as you do so. Arrange them butter side up.
• Fill the dish with the remaining bread triangles, keeping a few in reserve to decorate the top.
• Fill the dish with custard.
• Decorate the top with the remaining bread triangles.
• Bake for 30 mins or until crisp and golden on the outside. The centre should still be nice and creamy.

It’s such a loose term, when you think about it.

What does it mean, exactly?

Can atheists be spiritual, even without believing in the supernatural?

Can you appreciate beauty without always thinking you can explain it, even though the culturally-dominant religious explanation might be beautiful, even if it’s absurd?

This video is by the excellent A Hughman.

I saw this this evening and found it inspiring.

I think homeopathy’s nonsense. One very good reason is here. Dawkins also explains it well here. The key point about homeopathy is that it claims to cure like with like but at high dilution. The standard dilution is what is referred to as “30C”, and this means that:

since the least amount of a substance in a solution is one molecule, a 30C solution would have to have at least one molecule of the original substance dissolved in a minimum of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of water. This would require a container more than 30,000,000,000 times the size of the Earth.

I found this image on b3ta today and loved it so much I thought I’d host a copy of it here. Take a look.

What a beautiful day!

The snow’s been falling thick and fast all day, and it’s been beautiful outside. I’m lucky to live in a very picturesque part of the world with narrow lanes and fields and hills. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

This is just 5 meters from my house. 2 cars were abandoned on the road and the police were called. Now the road is closed. I’m not going anywhere tomorrow.

This is on the fields near my place. Lit up in the distance is St. Mary’s Church on the top of the Hill.

Just behind the school at twilight.

It occurred to me today that I probably don’t do enough of this, so it was good to find this video on Youtube to get me thinking about how I think:

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is coming! So the important thing to remember at this time of year is FOOD!

I love Lebkuchen. It’s a bit like gingerbread, only spicier and fruitier. Well, the variety I like the most is. It’s called Nürnberger Lebkuchen. There are lots of varieties, but I think this one is the best.

It really takes me back to my roots: my mum used to bake huge batches of this at Christmas. This Christmas, I’m going to do it. I’m probably going to start tonight. It’s a very laborious process, but the cookies last for ages and they’re delicious.

So here’s the recipe. You’ve still got time before Christmas to get the ingredients and bake them whilst snowed in:

This recipe is for a small batch. We usually multiply the ingredients up 3 or 4 times to get a good quantity for keeping in airtight tins. They’re full of honey, so they keep well.

Ingredients

• 175g Clear Honey
• 50g Sugar
• 2 Tablespoons oil
• 2 Tablespoons water
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 heaped Teaspoon cocoa
• 6 drops lemon essence
• 1 pinch ground cloves
• 1 level Teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 250g Wheat Flour
• 3 level Teaspoons Baking Powder
• 75g ground almonds
• 75g ground hazelnuts
• 50g candied lemon peel
• 75g dried apricot (diced)
• Whole hazelnuts and almonds (optional – for decoration)

For the icing:

• 125g Icing sugar
• 1 egg white
• Water

Method

• Mix the honey, sugar, oil and water in a bowl, gently warming over a pan if necessary. Allow to cool slightly.
• Into the mixture, fold in the egg yolk, cocoa, lemon essence, ground cloves and cinnamon. Don’t forget to reserve the egg whites!
• Sieve into the mixture the flour, bakikng powder and some water if necessary to make a good dough.
• Into the dough,mix in the ground almonds, hazelnuts, peel and apricots.
• Roll out the dough to a thickness of about half a centimeter.
• Cut out cookie shapes and (optionally) decorate the cookies.
• Bake the cookes at 175-200 degrees in a warm oven for 15-20 mins.
• Whilst the cookies are baking, mix the egg whites with the icing sugar and water until the icing is ready.
• Then paint the icing sugar over the cookies with a pastry brush.

I’m going to make these tonight. If I’m not too busy stuffing my face, I’ll put pictures up of the final product.

Enjoy! Let me know if you like the recipe!

It’s Winter Solstice today, which means that the days will now start getting longer until the Summer Solstice next year. Interestingly, the Wikipedia entry for Winter Solstice explains:

Since the event is seen as the reversal of the Sun’s ebbing presence in the sky, concepts of the birth or rebirth of sun gods have been common and, in cultures using winter solstitially based cyclic calendars, the year as reborn has been celebrated with regard to life-death-rebirth deities or new beginnings such as Hogmanay’s redding, a New Year cleaning tradition. In Greek mythology, the gods and goddesses met on the winter and summer solstice, and Hades was permitted on Mount Olympus. Also reversal is another usual theme as in Saturnalia’s slave and master reversals.

Does that sound familiar?

In any case, it was interesting to watch this “discussion” between Faux News’ Laura Ingraham and Annie Laurie Gaylor from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Who represents their position the best here?