donuts and muffins and blondies, oh my!

A semi-successes, and a success from a previous failure. Yes, it's time for more baking adventures!

The last time I tried to make snickerdoodles - said to be some of the easiest to make cookies ever - I failed big time. They didn't rise, they were flat and hard and horrible. I still don't know where I went wrong. :( And I've been resisting them since. But then I got a square baking pan (finally!) and read this very simple recipe and took a punt on another snickerdoodle related baking attempt...

Snickerdoodle Blondies
originally from Baking Bites

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup white chocolate chips (optional)

1 tbsp sugar + 1 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 180C. Line a 8×8-inch baking pan (I forgot to do this and it turned out okay).

Cream softened butter and sugar together until light. Add in salt, egg and vanilla extract and combine well. Stir in the flour, mix well, and stir in the choc chips evenly through the batter.

Pour (or push - it's quite a thick dough) into the pan and smooth out the top.

Mix together the extra sugar and cinnamon, then sprinkle this topping evenly over the dough.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the edges are lightly brown. Cool in the pan before slicing into bars.

I added the choc chips on a whim, and I should've compensated by dialing back the amount of sugar (which I have done in the quantities listed above).

But I guess these turned out okay as I took them to church for morning tea, and didn't even get to try a piece as it all went quite quickly!

**

And these I made this afternoon. It was ridiculously easy, just a straight combination of ingredients, but they don't really taste like donuts. :(

It made for a decent, quick afternoon snack at least.

Muffins That Taste Like Donuts
originally from tasty kitchen

1 3/4 cup plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 whole egg
3/4 cup milk

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon

Prepare a 12-cup muffin tray. Preheat oven to 180C.

Mix together dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon).

Combine oil, sugar, egg and milk. Pour into dry mix, and stir until just combined.

Pour batter into muffin holes until just below the rim.

Bake for 20-30 minutes until tops are just lightly brown.

Melt the butter in a bowl (I just microwaved it). Combine the sugar with cinnamon in a separate bowl. Dip the still hot muffin in the butter to coat its top, then into the sugar/cinnamon mix.

Let the muffins cool on a rack.

Band of Horses - 29 July 2010 - Enmore Theatre

This was a rather nostalgic show, for one main reason that had nothing really to do with Band of Horses at all: as I stood on the floor of the Enmore with my best friend, we realised it was almost exactly twelve years to the day we saw our first live concert together, at the Enmore. Ah, plus ça change, and all that.

It was also the third time I'd seen Band of Horses in three years, and while it could not reach the same transcedenscent heights as that glorious time two years ago at the Metro, I certainly still enjoyed last night a great deal, and came out with a big grin, the songs ringing in my ears. They really are wonderful musicians, individually and as a band, and they have a really lovely laid-back presence on stage that works well with their music and their audience. During Detlef Schrempf - which sounded utterly beautiful - someone put up their lighter to Ben Bridwell's glee, and soon, with his encouragement from the stage, everyone raised their lighters in their air. For the rest of the song there was a sea of flickering yellow glows in the dark, and it was just perfect (and perfectly old school; it's just so much prettier than a sea of mobile phone glows) in that moment.

I liked the visual component too: they beamed spliced together footage of live shows and backstage antics as a frenetic backdrop to the more upbeat songs, which were fun; while the slower songs, particularly the more country-sounding tunes from latest album Infinite Arms, were matched with quite peaceful, lovely views of empty American landscapes - snow-capped mountains, endless skies, star filled nights.

At times I thought the mix was a little uneven, I couldn't hear Ben Bridwell over the music sometimes, which made me sad because, man, that voice is golden. But it might not be the sound guy's fault, because we were also stuck next to an intensely irritating couple who talked loudly through 80% of the songs. Also, he was saying stuff like, "Play something I know, I paid good money for this!" and "We should've gone to the Strokes instead." I'm pretty sure everyone around us wished they'd gone to there instead too, then we wouldn't have to listen to them whining incessantly, and tempting us to punch his face in. :p

But apart from that annoying blip, the rest of the show was a delight. Highlight of the night for me was the back-to-back pairing of Ode to LRC, stomping good fun as always, and The Funeral, magnificient. I was a little sad that they didn't play Our Swords and they didn't play Monsters, but I couldn't really fault them when they closed with Am I A Good Man, which was so unexpected but so so appreciated. I'm glad they're still covering that, and I loved hearing the interplay of Ryan Monroe and Ben Bridwell's voices on that song live again. :D

I was keeping note of what they played, except after the seventh song I accidentally deleted it from my phone, d'oh. The set list below is from the review by jayhorn5 that I stumbled across.

The Great Salt Lake
Is There A Ghost
Weed Party
NW Apt.
Islands on the Coast
Blue Beard
Compliments
The General Specific
Older
Marry Song
Detlef Schrempf
Factory
Cigarettes, Wedding Bells
(new song)
Laredo
Wicked Gil
Ode to the LRC
The Funeral

No One's Gonna Love You
Am I A Good Man (Them Two cover)


No One's Gonna Love You (video from phlegmphatale", who braved sore arms once again)

baking adventures in June(ish)

It's been brownie-central here! :)

Black and White Brownie Bars
originally from Baking Bites

1 1/2 cups milk and/or dark chocolate, roughly chopped
1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp Kahlua
3/4 tsp salt
2 cups all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 180C, Grease and line a baking pan with aluminium foil.

Cream together butter and brown sugar. Beat in the egs one at a time, then add Kahlua (or vanilla essence), salt and flour, mixing until there are no streaks of flour, and it is just combined. Take 2 cups of this batter and put it in a separate bowl.

Melt 1 cup of white chocolate in the microwave (in 30s intervals) and stir until all chocolate is melted and smooth. Pour into one of the batter bowls and mix in well. Do this quickly since the chocolate will set again quite quickly and then it's really hard to mix it into the batter!! (says she who FAILED at this step)
Pour this white choc batter into the pan. Scatter the remaining 1/2 cup of both milk/dark and white chocolate evenly over the surface.

Now melt 1 cup of dark or milk chocolate and add that to the other batter bowl, mixing well. Drop small dollops of this chocolate batter on top of the chocolate chip layer, then use a spatula to gently spread the chocolate batter into an even layer.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached. Cool in pan, then lift the brownies out with the foil and slice into long, thin slices.

I deviated from the original recipe only because I discovered too late that I didn't have any semi-sweet chocolate, only blocks of milk chocolate; nor did I have any vanilla extract. So I made do. I still got told they were delicious. :)

Turtle brownies
originally from Technicolor Kitchen

Brownies:
55g unsalted butter
90g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
½ cup (70g) plain flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup (200g) caster sugar
2 large eggs
¼ cup (60ml) whole milk
1 tbsp Kahlua

Topping:
1 cup (200g) caster sugar
1/3 cup (80ml) heavy cream
1 teaspoon Kahlua
¼ teaspoon of salt

Preheat oven to 160°C. Grease and line a buttered 20cm baking pan with foil.

Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and set aside. Melt butter and chocolate together and mix until smooth. Let cool slightly. Whisk together sugar and eggs until pale and fluffy. Add the chocolate mixture, milk and vanilla to the egg mix, and combine. Add flour mixture and mix until well combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake until a skewer/toothpick inserted into the centre of brownies comes out with a few crumbs but is not wet (~30 minutes). Let cool on a wire rack.

While brownies are baking, boil 1/3 cup (80ml) water and the sugar in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir until sugar has dissolved. When mixture comes to a boil, stop stirring, and brush the sides of pan with a wet pastry brush to prevent crystals from forming. Continue to cook, swirling pan occasionally, until medium amber, 5 to 7 minutes.

Remove from heat, and immediately add cream in a slow pour (if you're too quick it clumps up!). Add vanilla (or Kahlua) and salt. Gently stir with a wooden spoon or heatproof spatula until caramel begins to cool and thickens slightly, about 1 minute.
Pour caramel over cool brownies. Refrigerate until cold, 30 minutes to 1 hour.

The caramel will still be quite runny. I had a hell of a time trying to cut these up. But they were so delicious; soft, almost fudgy batter plus sticky salted caramel - om nom nom!

Howl / Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

Howl (2010, d. Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman)



Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

I saw these two films on back-to-back nights, and it worked out to be a seredipitously well-matched pair. Both are films about art: what is art, and who gets to decide whether it is so? Who is the arbiter of this mysterious quality that makes art admirable: is it the artist, the cultured audience, or the man on the street?

Both purport to be based on real stories, ostensibly centring around a 'real life personage', an artist (arguably). In Howl, which is composed of overlapping layers of transcripts - a poetry reading of Howl, an interview with the poet, court proceedings - we are given a glimpse of Allen Ginsberg in the period just after the 1955 publishing of his seminal work. In Exit Through the Gift Shop, we are introduced to Thierry Guetta, a French-American man who becomes a LA art personality through his connections with well-known street artists, including Banksy.

The men draw us in, but the stories are really about their works and the arguments over the legitimacy of their work as art. Howl is challenged as an 'obscene' work in the US courts in 1957, though Ginsberg himself is not on trial but his publisher instead. The case hinges on the use of obscene words; the prosecution takes to asking if certain words - cock, balls, blown and so on - are 'necessary' to the poem, if it reduces the artistic merit by being so crude. The issue debated in the court case is really whether art only qualifies as worthwhile if it is morally uplifting. Howl is also derided as illegitimate for its free form jazz rhythms, for not having conventional form and thus, lacking function.

Howl the film approaches this all with a lovely sincerity. It believes in Howl the poem being art, as an true expression of emotion, both of Ginsberg's personal feelings, and that of the human condition. The film is part factual logic - the recreation of the court case with its facts and expert opinions and the final judgement - and part poetic expressiveness, through the double rereadings of the poem; Ginsberg (as ably portrayed by James Franco) performing Howl for the first time in a cramped room full of friends and fans, and a second recitation married with Eric Drooker's illustrations brought to life in simple but fluid animation. It is not a biopic about Ginsberg, choosing only to focus on a sliver of time, with short flashbacks to give historical background to relevant periods of Ginsberg's life. We are introduced to some central characters to Ginsberg's personal life and artistic growth: his institutionalised mother, good friends and fellow Beat poets Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, his partner Peter Orlovsky and the beleagered publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti, but we never hear them speak. The words that matter are Ginsberg's, and the words that matter most are the words of Howl the poem. I think it's a particularly fine film because of this narrow focus; it's very satsifying in its passion about the poem and in its defence of it as literature.

Meanwhile, Exit Through the Gift Shop begins just before the new millenium, as Guetta begins documenting the street art movement after filming his cousin in France, the mosaic artist 'Invader', for kicks. After he finally makes contact with the elusive and now infamous Banksy, who admits Guetta into the inner workings of his art process, Guetta is first challenged by Banksy to turn his years of footage into a street art documentary - which we are led to believe is an abject failure due to Guetta's lack of talent - and then to hold his own art show. Guetta is then painted as an art monster of sorts, with Banksy his remorseful Frankenstein, as Guetta becomes a 'star' with his derivative pop/street art mashups and proclivity for hype, an unfortunate triumph of style over substance.

But it's all very tongue-in-cheek, to the point of insincerity. Exit Through the Gift Shop, as a piece of art itself, adheres strictly to the documentary film form, but its tone is arch, the intention satire. Banksy, or a shadowy figure purporting to be Banksy, bemoans the instant, seemingly undeserved success of Guetta - or rather his alter ego Mr Brainwash - as one who hasn't paid his dues to the gruelling process of artistry, who has piggybacked on the art and talent and hard work of others, who's in it for the money and the fame. It seems that Banksy is positioning himself - and other street artists - in opposition, as the artists' establishment; and this, then, is the true driving force behind the film. Exit ... is not about Guetta, Exit... is about Banksy and his attempt to outsmart his critics.

All art is commercial to some extent, and in a remix culture, is there any true originality in art? 'Invader' takes the cultural familiarity of the Space Invader monsters and positions them in unexpected, mundane contexts; Shepard Fairey takes Andre the Giant's mug and plasters it across the world in endless repetition. How are these men any more artists than Guetta? How is Banksy, with his talent for provocative statements to attract media attention and commodification, any less a 'sell-out' than Mr Brainwash? The film is both irritatingly smug on this point as it is endlessly fascinating and interested in teasing out these ideas of artistic (and the artist's) superiority; slyly contesting the right of the establishment to be the arbiter of what is art, all while challenging our ability (as supposed man on the street) to understand and judge this issue.

As the film progresses, as we're led to believe that Guetta is more than a deluded by harmless man with a camera but rather a monster of Banksy's unintentional making. But I think the true monster is this movie, and Banksy is unabashedly proud of his deliberate creation because he gets to show how clever he is. He says, in the film, "art is a bit of a joke". His 'former spokesperson' muses on Guetta's meteoric rise on the same theme, saying, "The joke's on...I don't know who the joke's on. Maybe there is no joke." That's disingenuous. There is a joke, and it's not the art or whether we're laughing at Guetta or the rueful Banksy during the film. The movie is a critical success, and making good money for an indie film; and so, the joke is really on us, the audience, as Banksy laughs it up all the way to cultural and artist supreriority AND to the bank.

Exit Through the Gift Shop may be an entertaining and thought-provoking film, but for all that it's hard to like. I much preferred Howl, and its warm way of championing contentious art. Howl is a flawed but lovingly crafted small gem; Exit Through the Gift Shop is a flashy diamond that can't shake the fact it's a lump of coal at heart.

Cobra Starship - 16 Mar 2010 - UNSW Roundhouse

So Al and I may have way before doors opened coughbecausewewereattendingthemeetandgreetcough* but we weren't really prepared to jostle in the building crowd of kids with artfully messy hair and neon leggings who were already thronging around the door.**

We hung around the near deserted 18+ area upstairs for Owl City's set; the songs have pretty melodies but none of them were memorable except for one song that riffed on Pachebel's Canon. We moved downstairs before Cobra Starship took to the stage, and watched warily as the floor filled with small, underdressed teens dancing for their lives at all the songs on the PA before the show. I'd seen Cobra Starship three times before, as they languished in support acts for their more famous labelmates, but after the popularity of a certain summer hit featuring Leighton Meester, they'd obviously picked up a much younger, much more mainstream audience. And for the first time ever I felt truly truly old at a gig.

However, the show was still great fun. Gabe remains one of the most charismatic frontmen I've seen, with his propensity for rambly rants part of his charm. The band manages to hold their own too, with Alex taking on banter duties for most of the show while the rest of the band demonstrated a fond, long-suffering patience as Gabe invariably sang and danced all up in their space. Audience participation was, as with all Cobra shows, an essential, from the girl who went on stage to do a spirited version of Travis McCoy's rap in Snakes on a Plane to Gabe calling on the crowd to put their fangs up (though this time round, with fewer die-hard fans, the audience needed some prompting as to how). The band also orchestrated a Mexican wave from one side of the room to the other, rather patronisingly asking the young crowd if they knew what a wave was before giving us step-by-step instructions, leading Al to witheringly say in my ear, "I feel like I'm at a Wiggles show".

The sound was fuzzy as it always seems to be in the Roundhouse, but the band brought a lot of energy and joy to the night, and Ryland's guitar moves were hot (white hot! *g*). The set was heavy with songs from the latest album, Hot Mess, which the adoring, party-hearty crowd loved, though I was a bit said to see only muted response for some of their equally good older material. Also, considering they have three albums to draw on, their set was ridiculously short; they played for only 45 minutes before leaving the stage. The reason for that was clear though when they returned for an eagerly awaited encore. Gabe's vocal issues have been widely reported in the last year; his singing was fine through the main set but it was obvious by the encore that his voice was shot. He continued cracking jokes with his hoarse voice though and they pushed through two more songs, closing with massive hit Good Girls Gone Bad to the crowd's cheering delight.

The City is at War
Pete Wentz is the Only Reason We're Famous
Nice Guys Finish Last
Kiss My Sass
My Moves Are White (White Hot That Is)
Wet Hot American Summer
The Church of Hot Addiction
Send My Love to the Dancefloor I'll See You in Hell (Hey Mr DJ)
Smile for the Paparazzi
Snakes on a Plane
Hot Mess
Guilty Pleasure

The Scene is Dead; Long Live the Scene
Good Girls Go Bad


* So, my first meet and greet, heh. It involved a lot of waiting in lines with young, squealy, mostly female fans. Al and I had discussed a plan of attack before our turn; we were going to stick together so we wouldn't get stuck making awkward conversation with individual band members...but we were split up as we stepped up. I awkwardly talked to Alex Suarez, the bassist, about seeing the Pixies as he signed for me, followed by the rest of the band in quick succession with little more than a quick 'hi'. Lead singer Gabe Saporta told me he was happy to see a fan of their earlier stuff - I'd brought the CD booklet of their first album - and gave me a high five when I told him it was my favourite of their albums. Al was brave enough to ask them to do hands hearts with us for our one allotted photo.

You may have noticed...tall band is tall

** As we sat a little aways, this kid came up and asked if he could wait with us since he was on his lonesome for the gig. He was here for support act Owl City, but after he and Al started chatting about pop-punk bands they were into, he acquiesced to give Cobra a try. :) He was adorable, not least because he thought we were still in uni, lol. But we gave ourselves away after a while of chatting about bands we'd seen, when he remarked "Wow, you guys go to a lot of shows". Of course we had, in comparison; he was probably in kindegarten when I went to my first show (I wish I were joking, but...)

Pixies - 14 Mar 2010 - Hordern Pavilion

I remember when I missed out the last time the Pixies toured here in 2007, Al taunted (okay, gently teased) me that I might never get the chance to see them again. Hah! Luckily they returned (and will return again in July for Splendour), this time celebrating the 20th anniversary of Doolittle by playing it in its entirety. For once, I was easily among the 'youngsters'; the crowd was full of fervent fans from when the album was first released, and they showered the band with love and adoration throughout the show. The band, in turn, were visibly happy to be there, and Kim Deal's grin could, and did, light up the room (when I could see it...gah, tall people).

The show was so so good all through. They started with a four song run, all B-sides from Doolittle, building the anticipation so when the jangly guitar riff at the start of Debaser finally rang out, the room was just primed to explode in glee. Al turned to me and said, "They've still got it!" and then two seconds later, one of the guys in front of us turned to his friend and said exactly the same thing. They really did still have it - from Frank's wild growling vocal, Kim and Frank's voices in eerie harmony on Silver, those wonderful bass lines, the guitar hooks ringing out - everything sounded familiar and wonderful and not at all dated.

If I had to pick a highlight I'd pick, after a great deal of deliberation, the back-to-back amazingness of the first four songs off Doolittle, and of course Gigantic, which sounded so full and warm, and capped off a great night.

Dancing at the Manta Ray
Weird at My School
Bailey's Walk
Manta Ray

Debaser
Tame
Wave of Mutilation
I Bleed
Here Comes Your Man
Dead
Monkey Gone to Heaven
Mr. Grieves
Crackity Jones
La La Love You
No. 13 Baby
There Goes My Gun
Hey
Silver
Gouge Away

Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf version)
Into the White

Mind
Planet of Sound
Dig for Fire
Gigantic

Kevin Devine - 29 Mar 2010 – East Brunswick Club (Melb)

First we had to endure a boring few hours in East Brunswick (where everything closes after 4pm, grr) then we couldn’t tear ourselves away from the pitiful support act (Black is the Colour) out of some sense of horrimusement. The lead singer slash guitarist actually introduced a song by saying it was “about AIDS and whatever”. He and the bassist looked like they were going to have a fight either on stage or immediately after the show, and they were both monumentally bitter about the fact they were a support band, constantly telling the audience gloomily that they knew we were only here to see Kevin Devine. These guys should have been thanking their lucky stars they’d managed to get a slot as a support band. It was possibly the dullest half hour I'd ever been subjected to, and Al and I only got through it by making up stories about how the band was going to break up backstage.

The room was really tiny, and it wasn't packed by the time Kevin made it on stage, but it was a warmly receptive crowd nevertheless. I am really glad that he played his own shows on this tour – it was great to see him in both settings, whether it be backed by a hard rocking band to emphasise the strength and power of his songs, or playing acoustically in small rooms where the skill of his songwriting and voice really shines. I hadn’t thought songs like Brother's Blood and Carnival – so rich in instrumentation, loud and powerful on record – could be just as good when only performed solo with just a guitar, but Kevin Devine played his voice like an instrument to give his performance greater depth and emotion. Acoustic nowadays seems to be a synonym for ‘soft and somnolent’ but in this case it was anything but – the rage and range he managed to convey with the naked voice was amazing; I get all verklempt when I think about it still.


Brother's Blood (acoustic)

The setlist was good, weaving between songs from latest album Brother’s Blood to older material and a nod to his influences with a Neutral Milk Hotel cover. Older songs saw adjustments, additional verses, like the extended Burning City Smoking. The undercurrent of political anger that drives so much of his work was more present in this solo show than the crowd-friendly support sets he’d played; that said there were still plenty of light moments during the gig, with joyful renditions of crowd favourites such as Just Stay and No Time Flat.


Kevin wandered through the crowd before the gig, calmly greeting fans who were brave enough to walk up and say hi, and he promised to stay around after the gig to talk to more people. Al, after saying very emphatically that she did not need to meet him, scored herself an impromptu chat when, at the very moment she reached the merch desk to buy her copy of Brother's Blood, Kevin came and swapped places with the merch guy! :D


Billion Bees
Brooklyn Boy
Just Stay
I Could Be with Anyone
Hand of God
Carnival
No Time Flat
Yr Husband
Burning City Smoking
Holland, 1945 (NMH cover)
(?)
Wolf’s Mouth
Another Bag of Bones
Brother’s Blood
Me and My Friends