The Season Finale

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The Great British Baking Show is coming to an end this Sunday (Mar 1) in its Season Finale.  I feel like my best friend is leaving town for good.

For the past nine weeks, PBS has been hosting this show on Sunday evening.  The contestants are made up of a variety of homebakers who are passionate about and skilled in the art of baking.  The youngest member of the group this season was only 17 and still in school.  The oldest~~not sure but maybe in his mid-60s.  Each week the contestants are given 3 baking assignments.  Each week one contestant is eliminated.  Each week we sigh for the loss.

Each week I think I should get myself into the kitchen and do some baking.

Sunday night we're celebrating~~well....not exactly celebrating.  More like honoring the finale by having snacks that are little more out-of-the-ordinary than cheese and crackers.

So each one of us declared our intention for our contribution.

I said I would make petit fours.

I looked up the recipe...I laughed!

My friend to the rescue.  She has a mold for something that I can only describe as fancy cupcakes.  She purchased the mold from Williams & Sonoma several years ago and said they would make something called Ladycakes.  hmmmm

They aren't fancy/complicated petit fours, but they aren't plain/boring cupcakes either.  Done!!

So this morning I got going on the project.

I really wanted the cakes to be a little more fancy than just plain cake.  When I went to the store to buy the ingredients I had intentions of using some strawberry jam for the center, but instead I found...be still my heart...a jar of lilikoi jelly.  Done!!

I think I might have overfilled the molds just a wee bit.

I was pleasantly surprised by how they turned out.  You can see where the jelly seeped out a little.  It was a good learning experience so that next time I'll know better how to fill the batter then the jelly then the remainder of the batter.  It was only a near-disaster, not a total one.

Once they were cooled, I put another dollop of lilikoi jelly in the center.

I also tasted a wee bit of the cake~~on my goodness!  (I found a pound cake recipe online that will now be my go-to pound cake recipe)  There was enough batter to make the ladycakes and an actual pound cake, so next week we'll have strawberry short-cake & whipped cream.

I certainly wouldn't win any awards on the Great British Baking Show, but I think we'll all be happy with the results of my efforts.

Fireworks

This isn't my post for today. I just wanted to share these with you. Yesterday, when I had to trash the idea of going to the Lighthouse because of rain, I still had to go to Honolulu to run some last minute errands. As I arrived, the rain stopped and I thought I might be able to get some fireworks shots if the rain held off.

The weather did cooperate. Just as the fireworks began it started drizzling very lightly. Since the "show" only lasts about 5 minutes, it was okay. It still didn't rain for my entire ride home, but it poured all night.

The image below is a cropped portion of the above image. I shot wider views last night because I wanted to see how the scene would look if I included some of the buildings surrounding the fireworks site. Which do you like better? the horizontal or vertical?

The image below is also a crop of an horizontal image. I shot all of them horizontal just to insure I'd get the entire firework burst.

Posted 9:45 am on Sat, April 11, 2009.

check back later to see my post for today.

By the way, I probably won't be posting Sunday's post until very late tomorrow (Sunday) or maybe not until Monday morning. So let me wish you all a happy and Blessed Easter. God is risen!

In the Great Outdoors

My church meets in an elementary cafeteria normally. Last week, pastor announced that we would be meeting in a park this week, due to the fact that the school had an event scheduled in the cafeteria this Sunday, so we were preempted.

So today we gathered in this park. Not a lot of trees, but fortunately it wasn't extremely hot, so it was tolerable. There were a few times, however, when we thought we'd swept away by the wind. But all in all, it was a pretty neat experience, if not a lot of work to get set up.

Last night I went to a Scottish Music concert. This lady, Coreyanne, plays the bagpipes with a military group. Before the actual concert began, three local groups performed: the bagpipers, a Scottish dance group, and an Irish band. It was just too wonderful!!!

Then this morning, Coreyanne played the flute for the hymns. She not only has this musical talent that she uses to bless people, but she has 4 children, 2 dogs, 1 military husband (who by the way was away this weekend), she bakes her own bread (after she grinds the wheat flour--even if it is with an electric grinder), she's involved with Right to Life, she homeschools her oldest child and tonight at Bible Study she was organizing people to provide meals for one of the other families that has just had their third baby. Whew!

Pastor had an article printed in yesterday's newspaper, and apparently he and this guy were having a chuckle over something concerning the article. The article paid off, we had a guest family that came because of reading what Doug had to say. God at work.

John lives right at the far end of the park, and he was busy showing one of the newer members where his house is.

Posted at (that underline sure gets around) 9:30 on Sunday, Feb 22, 2009