Friday Favourites - May 18, 2012

It's been quite the week for me. Yesterday I almost set the house on fire. Luckily, I didn't but my toaster oven  paid the price. RIP my friend. You were the most used appliance in my kitchen. Funtastic!

Here are my favourites this week:

This was shared on Google Plus by Daniel W Stout. I think every time I visit Google + there's a post about Einstein or a similar person.

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How common is your birthday?

Source Daily Viz

My December birthday isn't very common according to this chart. I know 5 others born on that day though so it seems "common" to me. 

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Ever wondered what you really talk about online? Intel's  What About Me? creates an infographic of your digital life. Here's a part of my infographic.

Apparently I talk about food a lot. Shocking!

Speaking of food, no recipes jumped out at me this week. I drooled a lot but there wasn't anything I wanted to make immediately.

Friday Favourite #2

Things I loved this week. And by things, I mean "thing". I only found one thing I really liked this week. It was a slow internet week. 

Chinese Artist Huang Guofu Paints Using Only His Mouth & Feet

Hot Fudge Pudding Cake

Remember that  Hot Fudge Pudding Cake I mentioned here? I just made it! I needed to. It was haunting me. Let's not talk about the fact that I haven't done P90X in days. Let's just focus on this cake.

If I made this again, I'd cook it for less time - mine got a bit dry. It doesn't look dry in the pic above because the bottom (which is now on top) was pretty moist. I'd use less coffee and add bourbon. I wanted to do that this time but I'd already added vanilla to the batter when I got the idea. I should have added bourbon to the coffee mixture but that hit me after I put it into the oven. 

It's still a great chocolate fix and really easy to prepare. In 5 minutes it can be in the oven.It's served here with Graeter's Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. I still need to write about being a Graeter's Fanbassador. Maybe I'll get that post done tomorrow.

Until then...

Friday Favourites

As I browse the internet each week, I come across several items that catch my eye. Some of them I save in a Springpad notebook, others I share on Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus (OK, I use G+ about 2 times per month but I still share things there) while others I just make a mental note of. I thought it'd be cool to share some of them here each week - Friday Favourites. (I just did a search and found that there are several bloggers doing Friday Favorites. If I can find a blogger that does a link up, I will join in.)

These are a few of my favourite things (this week).

Hot Fudge Pudding Cake

Someone on Twitter posted this and well, it doesn't take much for me to click on link that has the word fudge in it. The only reason I haven't made this yet is that I want to finish the Stout Cake with Key Lime Curd first. I have one more slice left. I only feel slightly guilty eating this while P90Xing.  This cake plus some Graeter's Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream? Sounds heavenly.

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Inspiration from my Beachbody coach in our Facebook group this morning.

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 Source: LunchboxAwesome

I saw this blog - LunchboxAwesome - featured on Boing Boing. Heather creates these beautiful bento boxes for her son each day.  I almost want a child just so that I can create amazing bento boxes too (kidding).

Cake Boss Marathon

I'm currently ODing on Cake Boss. I started at season 1 and I'm now on episode 3 of Season 3. I have lovingly nicknamed it the Real Housewives of Cake. Because oh my goodness they whine and complain a lot. There is always screaming and shouting at someone. Buddy's sisters are ridiculously annoying and Buddy has a nephew whom I'd like to pull aside and teach some manners (oh, and feed some vegetables).

The show can be very scripted. You can see when they have set up various scenes and it just doesn't feel natural at all. There are always playing practical jokes which is fine. I like the tradition of a pie in the face on someone's birthday but the dumping of water and flour gets old. There was one time when it was so obvious that the water/flour dump was a set up. There was no reason for him to position himself right where he would get dumped on. Anyway, they pull all these jokes, wasting ingredients, yet Buddy threw a tirade when someone burned a cake. Why? "It's a recession! You can't be burning cake in a recession!" Well, you probably should not waste flour and other ingredients on practical jokes either. Unless, that's in the budget. They made a large 24 inch cake just to test the flavour. Uhm? How about you make a small test cake?

My friend has been getting an earful of my Cake Boss rants. Why don't I just stop watching? I could, but then I'd need a replacement drug. Plus, I know you all have shows that you watch just to rant about. It's a little more than that for me though. I am really interested in cake decorating and ever so often, I pick up a tip from them. I wish I was writing these down because I think I have forgotten the main things that intrigued me.

One other thing, oh my word, they use a lot of cereal treats!! Do all major cake decorators do this? Sometimes there's more cereal treats than cake. I understand that you can't use cake in some cases but it seems like there's an overkill here. Maybe I'm just naive to the world of making 3D cakes. I rarely see them use dowels in their cake (that part may just not be shown) so I do wonder about the structural integrity of some of their stacked cakes. Maybe there's enough cereal treats to keep things from toppling. I wonder if they tell customers - don't cut here -it's all cereal - cut here for your photo op.
Upfate: Buddy just screamed at Mauro for wanting to send out a crooked stacked cake. The problem? Lack of dowels. I guess they do use dowels...sometimes.
I'm off to watch more Cake Boss.